Comment

Jane Caro
The segregation crisis in schools funding

In the Albanese government’s first term, Education Minister Jason Clare observed that Australia has one of the most segregated education systems in the OECD. What is deeply shocking – though not surprising to anyone who has been following this issue for as long as I have – is that our children are mostly segregated according to social class. No schooling system anywhere in the world is completely equal, but Australia is alone in using education funding to turbocharge the divide between rich and poor. In this respect, we’re just beginning to get some competition from America’s red states.

Australia has used the money of all taxpayers to further advantage some of their children, and further disadvantage others. In other words, this country has used that money to create the very thing public education was originally designed to break down: a class system.

Clare, himself a product of the public school system, seems to understand the basic inequity now described as “baked in” to our education system. The Labor Party usually enjoys the support of teachers’ unions whose members turn out at every election to urge voters to back Labor. The support of unions is one reason why Labor has not, as yet, had to resort to seeking out religious cults to staff its booths.

Teachers turn out because they hope Labor’s heart is in the right place when it comes to equity in schooling. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sent his son to public schools from kindergarten to Year 12. Jason Clare’s father was a public-school teacher. Tanya Plibersek sent her children to public schools, and I recently spied Chris Bowen quietly attending the New South Wales Proudly Public Awards to see his child receive one. Following their principles with their own children is admirable and, sadly, unusual among our politicians.

At least Labor has put a little bit more money into public schools. Unlike the Liberal Party, which routinely throws money at already overfunded private ones whenever it’s in power. Former prime minister Scott Morrison, for example, gave an estimated $10 billion to private schools during his tenure, and nothing much to public ones. Worse, he did this under the guise of need – as transitional funding in line with the landmark 2011 Gonski review.

Clare and Albanese managed to hammer out funding deals with every state in their first term. Deals that will – eventually – bring public schools up to their agreed Schooling Resource Standard. The SRS is simply the amount each school needs to adequately educate its students. Unfortunately, despite every public school, except a handful in the ACT, being underfunded according to its SRS, full funding will not be realised until 2034.

This means no kindergartener in a public school today will receive the funding they are entitled to until they are in Year 9. Given that Morrison thought nothing of blithely tossing a cool $10 billion to the non-government schools, why must the funding to public schools – the schools with a chronic need – be dribbled out so slowly? And why have public schools been required to jump through various performance-based hoops – such as attendance and school completion rates – before they are deemed to deserve the money?

Do you know what private schools must do before they can get their public funding – even Plymouth Brethren Christian Church schools? Teach the curriculum and obey the law (except when it comes to compulsory voting, it seems). That’s the sum total that is asked in return for their increasingly generous public funding.

Many private schools now receive as much in public subsidies as the public school down the road enrolling a similar cohort of children. To which, of course, they can also add parents’ fees. No wonder even the so-called “low fee” private schools are mostly resourced above their agreed SRS – some way, way above it.

One secondary public-school principal put it this way: “To reduce inequity, schools really need plentiful, qualified staff, generous funding above Schooling Resource Standard and a level playing field with non-governments around funding, policy and delivery.”

The inequity is more profound than simply money. The “level playing field” quoted above is about much more than dollars and cents. What Australia has done over the past quarter century is create two parallel, publicly funded education systems: one with all the rights and one with all the responsibilities. Private schools can be public when it comes to the handing out of public money but private when it comes to everything else. They can charge any fees they choose. They can open schools wherever they like and refuse to open, or choose to close them, whenever they like. They can hire and fire whomever they like, because they have a statutory exemption to the Anti-Discrimination Act, and fight hard not only to hang on to it but to extend it via religious freedom bills. They can refuse to enrol and choose to expel whomever they like – or more pertinently, don’t like. They can also, if they want to, teach creationism and actively discourage girls from going to university – with the help of taxpayers.

Surely the very least we can ask in return for public money – as enrolments increase in private schools and the middle classes are hollowed out from public ones – is some reciprocal obligations for the compulsory education of all children? The principal I quoted makes the following suggestions:

“All schools with government funding should be tied to the same policy, accountability and benchmarks.

“Change the funding agreements to all schools in receipt of public money, to include compliance, implementation and accountability for enrolment, behaviour and inclusion policies equally.

“Equal funding to all schools based on enrolment and complexity loadings – as per the public-school loadings. Ensure all schools with public funds are above Schooling Resource Standard.

“Implement the rule that no school in receipt of public money can charge fees.”

In practice, this would mean that all schools in receipt of public money must accept in-area enrolments and deal with behaviour issues internally rather than simply expelling troublesome or low-performing students and expecting the public system to pick them up.

Every time a private school makes the headlines due to the appalling behaviour of some students – and it happens remarkably regularly – my heart sinks. I know some poor public school, already struggling with limited resources and high concentrations of the kids the private schools don’t want, will have to take them on. Frankly, given how much money they’ve got and the way they congratulate themselves on their superiority and values, there is no excuse for private schools not to deal with their own difficult kids.

Doing any of the above will take some political courage, and I am worried the current government shows few signs of tackling the glaring and basic inequality between Australia’s public and private schools. Clare is eking out full funding, but his current big initiative, while it may have some sensible features, seems to be ignoring the equity elephant in the classroom.

He is amalgamating four major educational bodies that manage curriculum, teaching and learning, education research and educational technology. They will become one big organisation – the Teaching and Learning Commission. He claims this will help with equity. I hope so, but, as yet, I am not sure how.

In the meantime, in the face of falling enrolments in NSW, the Department of Education is turning to already overstretched, underfunded schools to solve its problems. Public school leaders are told they must increase their market share. How, exactly, when they have been asked to compete in an anything-but-free market for the past 25 years with both hands tied behind their back?

Moreover, most private schools, thanks to their overfunding, can afford professional marketing departments with a promotional budget. Guess who must do the marketing in public schools? Principals mostly. As for a promotional budget, I do hope they’re not expected to take it from the money allocated to their already underfunded schools.

I do not need to be convinced that public schools, despite all the hurdles in their way, continue to punch way above their weight. I went to public schools, sent my children to them and proudly watch my grandchildren thrive in one today. However, that governments have created completely unfair and skewed market conditions – telling principals and teachers it’s their job to fix it – is gobsmacking.

Surely, asking educators to do the next-to-impossible, on top of the already impossible tasks they face every day, is a sure way to chase even more of them out of the system.

This problem was not caused by public schools. It was caused by ideologically driven governments, snobbery, greedy churches, anxious parents and a pusillanimous bureaucracy. There are solutions. They could be implemented. Other countries have managed it perfectly well. All we need is a leader with some guts.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 27, 2025 as "The elephant in the classroom".

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