Shadow Minister,

Thank you for the link. I have now looked through it.

I am not sure what you mean by saying that “there are no instances where pupils of the same SES background performed worse”. Figure 13 (page 38) shows a number of private schools with lower ENTER scores after adjustment for SES than a number of government schools. Figure 14 (page 39) shows the same thing.

The study relies on Victorian data from 2000. The significance of this is that the government schools had just gone through the most disruptive period in their history, with the Coalition government that ran Victoria from 1992 having removed 6,787 full-time equivalent teachers, having closed close to 400 schools, having changed methods of governance and operation. In short, those students had spent seven years in chaos, and the Labor government elected in 1999 had hardly started to rebuild the system. I wonder what the study would show if it were repeated now, before the new Coalition government starts to damage things again.

Secondly, the study does confirm the effects of socio-economic background, along the lines of the OCED. It says, “Almost 90 per cent of the variance linked to school is removed once achievement, SES, sector, rural location and school size are included.” (page 60). This does leave 10 per cent for the school itself.

Thirdly, the study mentions the impact of resources but does not go into detail. One of the reasons that some private schools outperform government schools is the immense resources they have, with fees now exceeding $20,000, about double that the government schools have.

Finally, the study does not provide in any part that I read support for your initial assertion that government schools “are more interested in the best results for their members than in teaching the children”.

NSW is different from Victoria, as we can see.