News From the Broulee P&C Gonski Sub-Committee

Without Gonski funding, Australia will decline in educational

performance.
Since David Gonski and his team delivered their report in 2011, Australia has gone downhill
in delivering equity in education. There are growing resource and performance gaps
between rich and poor schools, with disadvantaged students suffering most.

Data mined from the My School website tells of the consequences for all schools if we fail to act on
what Gonski found and recommended. Ex Principals Chris Bonner and Bernie Shepherd have
analysed the data and found that in the three years since the release of the Gonski Report in 2011,
the performance gap between rich and poor schools has worsened. My School data shows that
Australias socio-educational gradient has progressively steepened from 32 per cent in 2010 to 37
per cent in 2013. This means that a student's family background and social situation limit how
successful s/he will be at school. A steeper slope indicates a greater impact of social (home) factors
- as distinct from school factors - on student achievement.
This means that public schools are not receiving the funding they need to help every child reach
their potential. The whole purpose of free public education is to give all children the opportunity to
achieve their potential.
As David Gonski said, 'Differences in educational outcomes must not be the result of
differences in wealth, income, power or possessions.''

The Coalition government assures

us that Australia cannot afford to
spend much-needed funds on the
last two most important years of
Gonski funding to 2019, which
would improve the outcomes for
those students in most need.
However, according to Bonner and
Shepherd, many well-resourced
non-government schools are
receiving extra and wasteful
government funding at the expense
of more poorly resourced public
schools.
Putting more public funds into well-resourced schools has not improved on its students' academic
outcomes. However, an under-resourced school with students who need extra support to succeed
will be a worthwhile investment and see huge improvements in academic and social outcomes with
extra funding.
The report found that many schools still seem to be funded by governments without relevance to the
educational challenges the schools face. 'There are sixty-two non-government schools in the fifty
sample electorates receiving government funding in excess of what needy government schools in
the same electorate receiveIf scaled up to all Australian electorates, around 25 per cent of
government schools with secondary enrolments face greater educational challenges, but receive less
government funding, than a non-government school in the same electorate. This is more than an
anomaly it is an absurdity.'

As Bernie Shepherd points out, 'When funding does not support schools, it is our most vulnerable
students who pay the price. Funding schools to intervene early also makes economic sense: waiting
until students leave school early or experience skill-related unemployment after graduating is one of
the most expensive ways to tackle educational disadvantage.'
http://insidestory.org.au/school-equity-from-bad-to-worse

Jesse Rowan (Chairperson), Nerida Bourke and Tania Dorney