Opinion
It’s a rusted-on nostrum of the powerful teachers’ unions that the only reason public schools are failing so miserably is money. Yet, year on year, taxpayers have shoveled more and more billions into public schools — and, year on year, academic results have remained in free-fall.
No wonder teachers’ unions are so fiercely opposed to performance-based pay. On too many of their members’ performance, they’d be lucky to merit some pocket money and a Happy Meal.
Even when woke rag The Age tries to make the case for throwing more money at public schools, they end up shooting their own argument down.
Victoria’s top state schools are keeping pace with their private competitors, despite receiving less than half the income per student.
Ergo, money is not the metric which makes the critical difference.
Analysis by The Age using the top 20 average year 9 NAPLAN results for public and private schools shows the best-performing independent school received an average of $30,109 per student in 2022, compared to an average of $16,480 earned by state schools. State schools are predominantly funded by the state government while independent schools earn income through fees.
The total net recurrent income in 2022 for the top-performing private schools is more than $850 million, compared to less than half that – $413 million – for the public schools.
Which, if the money=better outcomes argument were valid, would mean that top private schools ought to be beating the pants off even the best public schools.
Victoria’s four selective state high schools all achieved better averages in year 9 NAPLAN testing than their private school peers, pulling scores from 704.4 to 684.8, despite receiving a maximum of $16,982 per student.
By comparison, the best private school was Presbyterian Ladies College, which achieved a NAPLAN year 9 average of 671.2 after receiving $38,050 per student in 2022.
So, rich people are pissing away their hard-earned on exhorbitant fees and old school ties? Well, cry me a river.
Economist Trevor Cobbald, from funding equity advocate Save Our Schools, said it was outstanding that public schools with less than half the income of many private schools had achieved comparable or better NAPLAN results.
“It has to be asked just what private schools are doing with their highly privileged income,” he said.
I don’t care — because most of it isn’t coming out of my taxes.
I’m more concerned with why, despite more and more of my taxes going into public schools, so few of them are performing as well as the toffy-nosed private schools.
Economist Adam Rorris […] said public school systems spent more money where it was academically needed. Schools serving poorer communities typically received more funding per student than others, simply because they needed it to get results.
The Age
And yet, they’re mostly not getting results — and it’s getting worse every year.
Taxpayers are entitled to ask why.
But teachers’ unions will do anything to avoid that conversation.