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The Forum > Article Comments > Gillard's new funding model: going, going, Gonski! > Comments

Gillard's new funding model: going, going, Gonski! : Comments

By Kevin Donnelly, published 28/5/2013

Simply providing more resources gives, according to the available evidence, little assurance that student performance will improve significantly.

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The article says, “While some critics argue the current socioeconomic status model lacks transparency and consistency the Prime Minister's Gonski inspired model is even more confusing….”

The PM’s model is the same as the current SES model, the flawed scheme that hands out money based on how well off the students’ neighbours are, that gives more money to high-fee schools that take well-off students from poor areas than it does to low-fee schools that take poor students from middle class areas, that requires almost half the private schools in the country to receive compensation to be as well off as they were under Labor’s education resources index model. It is extraordinary that the national and Victorian MSM has proved itself utterly incapable of reporting this fact to the public in the 15 months since the report was released, even though this fact leapt off the page at me the day the report was released and I wrote to The Age that very day pointing it out.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 28 May 2013 3:12:59 PM
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The article says, ‘Research both here and overseas consistently proves that increased funding, by itself, does little to raise standards….’

Kevin Donnelly made an earlier statement, claiming that it was a “fact that state governments are under-resourcing schools…” (“Gloves off for the rumble in the blackboard jungle”, 30-31/12/06). He made this claim at a time when the state Labor government was increasing spending substantially on its way to giving Victoria the best staffed primary schools in the state’s history. The difference was that the Coalition was in power federally, so state Labor governments were to be blamed for not spending enough on education.

Long-term claims of increased education spending, often phrased as “throwing money at education”, turn out to be nonsense when closely examined. Economist Andrew Leigh has estimated an increase of 333 per cent in real expenditure per student between 1964 and 2003 using the consumer price index (http://people.anu.edu.au/andrew.leigh/pdf/SchoolProductivity.pdf), but education spending has to grow in real terms for education achievement just stand still because teaching has to be a reasonably attractive job for able people to become and remain teachers.

Those who say this increase is unjustified should do the exercise in reverse. We can do that by cutting teacher salaries by 77 per cent (i.e., to around $19,700 for the new top level in Victoria) or by increasing the maximum class size by 333 per cent (i.e., to 108 students in a secondary school), or by increasing teaching loads by 333 per cent (i.e., to 97 hours a week in a primary school), or by some combination.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 28 May 2013 3:14:44 PM
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The article says, “For all the hype surrounding debates about school funding, it's also clear that the ALP government's much touted funding model represents 'Gonski light'. The review asked for an additional $39 billion over 6 years while the commonwealth government's offer is only $9.4 billion….”

The Gonksi review did not “ask” for any amount. It made an estimate, initially of $5 billion a year, including state and federal spending. What matters is the amount per year from both state and federal sources when the scheme is fully operational, not the federal amount only over the years the scheme is phased in.

The article says, “School autonomy is another area where the Gillard government fails to remain true to the Gonski….

“Under Gillard, as education minister and now Prime Minister, schools have suffered under a command and control model of education where all roads lead to Canberra. Expect that to get a lot worse if the government implements its National Plan for School Improvement.”

The federal government plan actually requires more school autonomy, though there is plenty of evidence that this path does not improve education standards.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 28 May 2013 3:15:06 PM
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Of course Julia & co have not put the time into working out the details of implementing the Gonski report, they have no intension of implementing the fool thing.

All she wanted to use it for was to wedge Abbott. She was looking for a stick to beat him with, not do anything for education. This is the same plan as using the disability insurance scheme, for the same purpose. If only these people were half as smart as smart as they are cunning, what a job they could do.

Chris one way to get some savings in education would to put teachers to work the same hours as every one else. If they did a 38 hour week, 48 weeks a year they could do a lot of work that pen pushers are now employed to do.

There is no reason today, that a leave scheme, devised when 18 year old girl teachers had a 3 or 4 day trip to & from isolated country schools to get home occasionally. With modern transport this is no longer necessary, & a little more productivity should be expected.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 28 May 2013 9:34:50 PM
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Hasbeen,

Teachers average more than 50 hours a week already. If you make their excessive workloads even greater, fewer able people will become or remain teachers.

There are very few “pen pushers” in education. When I last checked, a few years back, Victoria employed some 40,000 teachers, some 10,000 student support officers (library aides, lab assistants, integration aides, etc) and some 2,000 people in the regions and the central department.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 4 June 2013 9:34:26 AM
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