Stephen,

I don’t wish to canvas the arguments regarding support for non-government schools, except to say I have no problem with it. Indeed, the reason non-government schools get government funding is that people like me fought for it 40 and 50 years ago via the DLP. (You can find a lot more reasoning and facts in my posts at https://theconversation.com/australia-should-follow-chiles-lead-and-stop-funding-private-schools-33310.)

However, I do wish to make some points.

Catholic schools, while not like the elite private schools, are still skewed more to the upper half of the SES distribution than government ones. It needs to take more lower-SES students. That means capping its fees in return for government support.

The government system takes a disproportionate share of students with special needs. The non-government schools, including the Catholic ones, need to do more here. That means that loadings for disadvantage have to be paid in full to all school, not adjusted downwards as they are under the Gonski model according to the wealth of the neighbours of the students in the school.

The Catholic system to operates at a lower cost per student because it has a lower proportion of special needs students and its teachers have worse teaching conditions. The Gonski review was an opportunity to rectify this problem and produce a long-term settlement of teaching and learning conditions in all sectors throughout the nation. Unfortunately, neither the AEU nor the IEU was up to the task.

The solution to funding has been on the table for years now, and it’s not Gonski. It’s in my submissions to the Gonski review (“disappeared” from the web by the Abbott government) and to the Senate inquiry into school funding (No. 42 at http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/School_Funding/School_Funding/Submissions).

There ought to be a joint approach from the CEOs, the AEU, the IEU and the low-fee private schools, but no one seems to have the leadership to bring this about. I have tried to get both unions to see this, but unsuccessfully: the AEU is forever stuck behind the Maginot line ready

There has been a lot of nonsense written about the 25 per cent rule. It is arbitrary and illogical, but no more than the Gonski model’s method of cost determination. The reaction to it has been disproportionate, and all the state government has done is put an existing practice into legislation.

The Gonski model, which provides three quarters of the government funding of non-government schools has several flaws (its supposed use of so-called high-performing reference schools to determine costs, its continuation of the Coalition’s socio-economic funding model, which it renamed “capacity to contribute”, its ignoring cost differences between states when setting one national schooling resource standard, its inclusion of inefficiency-promoting size loadings, its variation in support for disadvantaged students according to not their needs but the income of the neighbours of the other students in the school), while the Victorian model, which provides only one quarter of the government funding of non-government schools, has just one flaw (the 25 per cent rule), but the Victorian model gets condemned and the Gonski model gets praised in article after article.

The Gonski model of the SRS and loadings – one of the two things the Gonski panel got right – is copied from the Student Resource Package model introduced to Victorian government schools by Labor in 2005. The Victorian Financial Assistance Model is more needs-based than the Gonski SES model and provides the path to a more socially integrated education system. The public education lobby, which failed to propose any model at all in the Gonski process, is right to criticise the 25 per cent rule, but it ought to embrace the rest of the Victorian model as superior to the Gonski plan, and federal Labor ought to take its lead from Victorian Labor.

I have said much more at:
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/state-labors-big-mistake-on-school-funding-20150315-142q07.html.

The last sentence of my first post, as posted said,
"I have tried to get both unions to see this, but unsuccessfully: the AEU is forever stuck behind the Maginot line ready to fight the last war that it has already lost, while the IEU is … who knows?"

They Take 25% of the money lets see 25% poor kids from local area invited to School.

Governments shouldn't fund private enterprise.

Every kid, be thy the child of city or remote, dole bludger or billionaire parents should get exactly the same, & not one cent more or less, funding than any other child.

Any other breakdown of funding is discriminatory.

If Catholic, parents want to provide their children with a Catholic education they should pay for it, not the taxpayers. The responsibility of the state is to provide secular education, not to subsidise religious institutions.

Lets not get this wrong it's nothing but middle/high class welfare that's all it is
In each of the areas that a Public school is located all money should be withdrawn from private schools. You wanna send your kid to some fancy school PAY FOR IT. Free school down the road, go school with the Poor Kids your's might learn something

Lets not get this wrong. Its horrible how private schools can show up the public schools with far less tax payer money.

If we just funded the student with a means tested allocation,(not the cash money) then allowed the parents to pick and chose the best schools, public or private, those attracting the student body/the funding, would prosper!

And if we restored regional autonomy and true Independence, schools, even so called public ones, could compete for student numbers and their own survival?

Which would likely force them to jettison the dross! Now that's what you call a public good!

Do we need to do more or anything else?
Rhrosty.

Competition is good and without it in Education we would, as the statesman Lee Kuan Yew suggested become the "white trash" of Asia (and agreed with by Hawke with his actions).

Sectarian hate by the Left is not a reason to further damage a great educational sector that is the Catholic.

Cobber the Hound,

You have made an assertion. You have provided no facts of reasoning to support it.

If you were consistent you would also oppose government funding of GPs via the Medicare rebate, government funding of pharmacists via the PBS, government funding of childcare centres via childcare rebates, government funding of road-building companies via contracts, etc.

Mac,

It is the responsibility of the state to ensure that al children have a decent education. It is open to the state to choose different means to that end. In Australia, as in many other developed countries, that includes funding of religious schools.

Aussieboy,

Not all non-government schools are fancy. In 2010-11, the average net recurrent income per student was $10,334 in a Catholic school, $11,523 in a government school and $14,456 in an independent school (http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/schoolfunding).

has been,

Some students cost more to educate than others because they have greater needs. Giving everyone the same is not just and would reduce the overall educational achievement of the nation.

Rhrosty,

Your system would socially segregate schools and lead to lower educational achievement. We will do better with the poor, the middle and the rich in the same school.

Victorian schools have had a large degree of autonomy since the late 1960s. The centralised education system is a myth. In any case, management autonomy does not improve student learning. Teaching autonomy does.

Runner,

Private schools do not show up government schools. Once you adjust for social class, the results are the same.

Chris, sorry but I disagree with your assertions and assumptions!

Giving parents the choice regardless of their means, would integrate schools rather than segregate them!

Particularly if we retained my info, to allow them to actually discriminate positively, and on published results!

And creating a climate where there were no other choice but to clean out the dross, must improve classroom results!

What this or any other debate could do without are complex rationalists simply muddying the waters to achieve a less than best result?

But rather one that seems to protect unionists, regardless of incompetence?

And given one can't be half pregnant, one can't have a system that is only half autonomic!

What we really need is an ability to deal state governments and their admin costs right out of the equation, which given the possible savings could free up as much as an additional 30% for use as coal face funding?

Which could in the first instance be used as funds that allow teachers to upgrade their science and maths skills?

I mean, the only reason so many kids leave school illiterate is entirely down to totally incompetent teachers!?

We need to send these people on, either back to school; to in fact, learn what they don't understand and therefore can't pass on!

Or failing that, just sack them as hopeless incompetents.

Simply put, it's all about our kids rather than recalcitrant teachers trying to protect a patch; or indeed, an essentially unearned pay packet!

When I was just a kid on a dairy farm, we used to use a separator to separate the cream from the skim milk.

You however seem to want to homogenize it rather than allow the cream to rise to the top?

Which is what we'd get if the funding was connected to the students and modified by published results and parents free to choose, rather than be constrained by their own economic circumstances; or little tinpot tyrants; but particularly those who always know why real reform is impossible!
Rhrosty.

Is this seriously the image Catholic schools and the Catholic Church want to portray in debate over education? As if they didn't have enough PR problems at the moment.

Indulging in sectarian accusations and crowing over their latest funding deal while waving two fingers at those advocating for the Gonski funding model, which helps those children who need it most.

And cop this, next we're going to Canberra to bully them into giving us even more cash. We don't care how much more money our schools (with their cash reserves, bequests and trusts) have got than public schools teaching the working and lower classes, we're going for more. Sod you and sod Gonski.

The author actually seems rattled by criticism of the latest Victorian funding deal, dodging the detail of the matter.

The content and tone are unbecoming of the chief spokesperson for Catholic Education. The church and even parents of children in Catholic schools want to ask themselves if the sneering, uncharitable Elder is face they want for their school sector.

For those catholic haters, & the rabid unionists here, my only contact with catholic or other private schools was on the sporting field. Due to a couple of teachers, our amateur sports coachers on the side, we were mostly victorious in those contacts.

I can't stand this communist tendencies becoming more rampant by the day in our society. To each according to their needs is always going to lead to discrimination, as one sector gains more access to the government funds.

Chris C, your "has been, Some students cost more to educate than others because they have greater needs. Giving everyone the same is not just and would reduce the overall educational achievement of the nation", is a perfect example of this.

If a group really only have the ability to push a broom, for god sake, teach them to push a better broom. Trying to make astrophysicists of them is counter productive.

Somebody has to push brooms, so let the natural order take control. If you are going to spend more money on any group, it should be those with the highest ability, not the lowest. This is how you advantage society, not throwing money at dead wood

WTF?

I taught in a private school at one time.
The school did attract the cream of students - rich and thick.

Rhrosty,

Your system would not give parents choice “regardless of means” as the rich would top up their payments and segregate themselves, while the poor could not. In fact, that is the current Howard/Gonski SES model except it uses the neighbourhood not the individual parents.

Parents already have choice and have had for decades. Parents in Victoria can choose any school, government, heavily subsidised private or lightly subsidised private, with room for their child.

There is hardly any state administrative cost in education. When I checked a few years ago, Victorian education employed about 40,000 teachers, 10,000 student service support officers (library aides, lab assistants, bursars, etc) and 2,000 regional and central staff. That means we have over 96 per cent of employment in schools.

I have never seen any evidence that the system protects unionists and no one who claims it does ever produces a single example.

has been,

It’s common sense not communistic to spend more on educating a child with a disability or one with a non-English-speaking background as the sate has an interest in the successful learning of every child.

Dan Murphy,

The Howard/Gonski SES model does not help those who need it most. The Victorian model is superior to the Howard/Gonski SES. I have explained why in my first two posts. You will find more at:
http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/victorian-school-funding-model-laughable-on-gonski-fairness-test-20150312-141ev1.html
and
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/state-labors-big-mistake-on-school-funding-20150315-142q07.html.