Clock is Ticking for Funding Misinformation
Clock is Ticking for Funding Misinformation
If the Prime Minister is successful in publishing identical and comparable financial data of each government and non-government school on the My School website later this year, then the Australian Education Union (AEU) will no longer be able to wage its campaign of misinformation regarding schools funding.
AEU Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos falsely claimed that "the private schools that get the most funding are the richest in the nation" (Public School Students Let Down, AEU Media Release 4 August 2010).
"There is no substance behind Mr Gavrielatos' claim- not one non-government student receives more total recurrent government funding than a student attending a public school in Australia," said Mr Daniels, Executive Director of ISCA.
According to Productivity Commission data, total support for a student in a government school is on average $12,639 each year - compared to the average total government funding for a non-government school student which is $6,607 per year. The reality is that government funding for a student in an independent school can be as low as $2,540.
The SES model is a needs-based model in which relative need is determined according to a measure of the socio-economic status of a school's community. The higher a school's SES score, the less public funding its students receive. Students attending schools with a lower socio-economic profile are eligible for more public funding.
In practice this means that a secondary student attending an independent school with a high SES score of 130 is eligible for the minimum grant of $1,459, while a student at a school with a low SES score of 85 or less is eligible for the maximum grant of $7,453.
The AEU intentionally misleads debate by only focusing on Federal Government funding to school students. However it fails to acknowledge that students in government schools receive the most public funding and the main source of this funding is the state or territory government that owns the school they attend.
According to Productivity Commission data in 2007-08 total government funding for government schools amounted to $28.8 billion. This represents 79 per cent of all government recurrent funding for 66 per cent of enrolments.
"If properly implemented, the publication of school financial data on the My School website later this year will show the AEU's funding misinformation campaign to be baseless," said Mr Daniels.
"Every member of the public will be able to see for themselves that the AEU's repeated claims are divisive and erroneous," concluded Mr Daniels.
