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The Forum > Article Comments > Gonski - same old story, but don't tell the voters > Comments

Gonski - same old story, but don't tell the voters : Comments

By Scott Prasser, published 9/7/2013

The evidence clearly shows that just throwing more money at schooling makes no difference to student outcomes.

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Of course the label, “Gonski”, has stuck. It’s short. The official name has always been the National Plan for School Improvement.

The evidence cannot show that “just throwing more money at schooling makes no difference to student outcomes” because money has never been “thrown” at schooling. This is just a glib statement thrown at the gullible year after year, except when private schools charge fees of $30,000 a year. That money is apparently not being “thrown” anywhere and will make a difference to students.

Those who think spending makes no difference could have a look at
http://www.saveourschools.com.au/funding/more-evidence-that-money-matters-in-education
and
http://www.saveourschools.com.au/funding/gonski-is-on-the-right-path-money-does-matter.

Those still conned by the oft-repeated claim that class sizes do not matter should consult the Tennessee STAR study. They should also reflect on the decency of treating teachers well by not overloading them and by providing conditions attractive enough to attract able people to teaching.

People with half a brain might also wonder at the distinction often drawn between spending money and quality teachers as if the latter were free.

I still await the day that a blog article or a newspaper article publishes the truth about the current funding system and the Gonskii report; namely, that many private schools were so badly disadvantaged by the SES model that they still get compensation to lift their resources to the level that applied under Labor’s ERI model, that this compensation is not “overfunding”, that the Gonksi SES model is the same as the Howard government’s SES model and therefore penalises the same schools for the same reason.

Those who know that day will never come ought to read http://community.tes.co.uk/tes_opinion/f/31/t/576719.aspx?PageIndex=1.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 9:13:25 AM
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“The argument that the existing school funding model is too complicated and lacks transparency” can easily “be sustained” irrespective of “the complexity and secrecy of the new arrangements”.

Private schools are currently funded according to the average government school recurrent costs formula, which is illogical because it includes the extra costs of students with special needs even if they are not enrolled in the school being funded.

The funding is then distributed according to the socio-economic status model, which is absurd because it ignores school fees and pays schools on the basis of the wealth of the other people who live in the street where their students come from. It is like being charged a fee for a hospital stay based on how well off your neighbors are. It is so bad for private schools that almost half of them are still not funded under it, but under the 1990s Labor government’s education resources index model.

The whole system is also politically untenable because it leaves the federal government open to the propaganda attack that it provides more support to private schools than to public schools.

The Gonski model fixes the AGSRC problem by separating the funding of the mainstream student from the extra funding for students with additional needs. It fixes the political problem by having the states and the feds contribute the same percentage to each sector – public and private. It fails to solve the SES problem. In fact, it endorses the Howard government’s SES model, which it calls “capacity to pay”. This will lead in the long term to a more socially segregated education system and to means-tested fees in government schools.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 9:15:31 AM
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The Gonski report itself recommended “a flexible arrangement with states and systems for allocating the formula-based funding entitlement to schools”:
‘Recommendation 23
Given the primary responsibility of government and non-government system authorities for the funding and operation of their schools, public funding for systems should be assessed and calculated at system level provided that systems:
• are transparent about the basis on which they allocate any public and private funding to member schools and the purpose for which it is spent
• report publicly when the allocation of total resources to schools deviates significantly from the principles in the schooling resource standard
• continue to report income and expenditure from each source for individual member schools on the My School website.’
(Final report) (p xv)

The “wasted opportunity” has been the failure of everyone concerned (except me) to actually make a submission to the review detailing a new funding system in the first place. The review was called a “Review of Funding for Schooling”, not a “Review of Everything Anyone Wants To Say About Education”.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 9:16:01 AM
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There are clearly some very basic and emotive issues involved in this debate. At one extreme sits the view that funding critically impacts on student performance. Many people will have developed that view simply because they have personally observed year after year that 'rich' private schools seem to do better in published test results, especially in the final school year. Hence they naturally conclude that money must be important. At the other extreme sit the determinists, who see a fixed connection between intrinsic learning capability and the various factors that go into determining parental socioeconomic status as the main reasons for different scholastic performance. For those folk, throwing money at education is akin to throwing money at making children taller; it will affect only those who are seriously undernourished but no-one else. The truth, as usual, will lie somewhere in between. All I am trying to say is that the protagonists should remember those extremes and consider them responsibly. After all education is a very expensive business. One could easily double the funding of poorer schools (I am estimating that per capita the richest schools have around double the funding of the poorest) without having much effect, except perhaps on the worst performing students. Of course that itself may be a primary political objective. That’s a matter for the voters, but they do need to be properly informed.
Posted by Tombee, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 9:43:50 AM
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Here is the opening statement from the Save Our Schools article referred to be Chris C. It is a six-page article that makes Prasser's statement look totally ridiculous:

"A new review of research studies on the relationship between expenditure on schools and education outcomes has challenged the common view that more expenditure does not lead to better school performance. The review published by the UK Office for Standards in Education shows that numerous international studies conducted since the early 2000s show a positive impact of increased expenditure in schools, especially for disadvantaged students. The study adds to the weight of evidence supporting the new Gonski school funding model.
Posted by mike-servethepeople, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 11:25:43 AM
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Tombee,

You are right. Not all money is wisely spent, but I am sick to death of the mantras about “throwing money”. I taught for 33 years, 32 of them in disadvantaged schools. The money spent in my first school under the Disadvantaged Schools Program made a difference to the education of those students. It’s just too easy for all these ridiculous claims about increased spending to be made. It’s become a “make up your own figure”/”make up your own period of time”/ decide for yourself whether it is total or per student” claim, filling the newsprint, the web and the airwaves. Some examples are at http://inside.org.au/the-grattan-line/.

Mike,

The same old people keep getting published saying the same old stuff. The Australian is notorious for pushing the line that money makes no difference and publishing the phony claims of increased expenditure. On the other hand, The Age has not once in the sixteen months since the Gonski report was released published an article explaining how the current funding system works or that the Gonksi SES model is the same as the Howard SES model, but it has published several pretending that the compensation some schools receive for the inadequacies of the SES model is “overfunding”.
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 10 July 2013 9:22:54 AM
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