All the extra money thrown at education has produced little in the way of student outcomes. The basic system has become flawed and no amount of money will rectify it whether the student is a migrant or not. Time for a big broom. http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/06/28/anyone-for-a-gonski/

In the U.S when Black students in poor areas were allocated more funding, the best teachers and facilities there was no difference in educational outcomes over time:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
It's impossible to "close the gap" between the different sub-species of homo sapien, nature doesn't do equality of outcomes.

It seems impossible to get across to commentators that the so-called “needs-based funding model that came out of the review” by the Gonski panel was the Howard government’s SES funding model or that (recommendations 2, 3 and 21) or that the government accepted this recommendation and legislated for the Howard government’s SES model in Clause 54 of the Australian Education Act 2013.

The reason it is impossible to get this across is that newspapers like The Age have refused, with the exception of one letter to the editor from me, to point our that this is so in the last two and half years and that pro-Gonski websites like Save Our Schools -Canberra have refused to publish every one of the explanations of this fact that I have submitted to it.

Those who want a an account of what the Gonski report actually recommends what is wrong with its recommendations can find one in my submission, No. 42, at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/School_Funding/School_Funding/Submissions.

Those who do not want to be taken in by the nonsense claims of increased education spending can find a debunking at:
http://theconversation.com/abbotts-gonski-backflip-will-wreck-school-funding-accountability-16662.

So now Chris C is telling us the Howard model is perfect. In that case, why the hell did we have a hugely expensive enquiry run by a bunch of lefties? Was it to funnel some money to the lefty friends on the enquiry, or to try to find a reason to funnel more money to the teachers union?

We have been pouring far too much money into education for far too long.

Part of this was to try to hide the high unemployment back in the Hawke era, by keeping kids in school, despite the fact that it did nothing for them, & probably did harm, & to continue to employ useless arts graduates, keeping them out of those unemployment figures.

Hasbeen,

I am telling you the complete opposite: the Howard model is deeply flawed, for exactly the same reasons as the Gonski model.

We have never been “pouring” money into education. We have spent a modest amount that has basically kept up with economic growth and student numbers.

More utter rubbish from a well fed and over paid snout at the trough.