Unfair funding disadvantages public schools
By Dr David Zyngier
The current debate about government funding to private schools is misdirected. The issue is (or should be) not at what level should private schools be funded, but whether they are entitled to any funding at all. Australia is almost alone in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as a nation that has transferred responsibility for education from the public to the private sector.
In the USA private schools receive no funding from governments. In Canada, New Zealand and much of Europe, Catholic schools are part of the public education system. The success of public schools in Western democracies may well be part of the reason that, at least in Australia, they are faced with so many difficulties.
Public schools, designed to create a stable, educated and prosperous economy and society have been portrayed as the height of democracy. Can we remain a functioning democracy without a strong public education system, and with a system that does little to address inequality, instead reproducing existing social arrangements, adding to privilege where it already exists and denying it where it does not?
In Australia, students’ social backgrounds are more strongly related to achievement than in countries such as Canada, Finland and Korea. Not only is this inequity socially unjust – in a globally competitive world it is also stupid and potentially disastrous.
Yet the OECD results indicate that the top performing countries (Finland, Ireland and Canada) have inclusive and comprehensive education systems where public, private and faith-based schools are complementary and do not compete with one another.
The major economic reforms of recent governments in Australia have pushed for a reduction in government responsibility for school education. The result has seen an increase in economic and social divisions between schools in Australia. This has created a deregulated and heavily subsidised market of private schools, designed to effectively shift enrolments away from the public sector.
Many schools have started to lose their middle-class families. This leads to social and cultural deficits, making it more and more difficult for these schools to cater for all students. The result is that schools in poorer areas have become increasingly used by poorer or more disadvantaged people, stripped of numbers and resources and repositories of failure.
If it was competition that drove school reform then the winners were schools serving wealthy suburbs. Reforms have led to low socioeconomic status (SES) schools being drained of the most capable students and higher concentrations of students from the most disadvantaged communities.
The funding of private schools through the public purse only serves to further advantage society’s elites and provide an important bridge into the most prestigious and lucrative tracks in higher education.
Choice has become a justification and a weapon to be hurled at public schools, rather than a sensible goal around which public policy is designed. The term “parental choice" has become almost devoid of meaning.
In fact, the term choice is a ‘con’ – choice is only an option for those that can afford the high fees to access private schooling. At the same time all taxpayers in Australia generously subsidise the most privileged in society.
The drift away from public schools has been termed white flight. The flight of social capital may have devastating negative effects on education outcomes, destroying social cohesion. In some disadvantaged communities we can witness the daily exodus of busloads of students who bypass the local public school for a more prestigious and distant private college.
As a result, some schools accumulate young people who are heirs to a generous legacy of cultural capital. Others accumulate the children of the poor and poorly educated. These schools are increasingly used by poorer or more disadvantaged people, teaching the students that no-one else wants to teach.
Families with economic power use education to advantage their children. Families without such power must rely on governments.
The Gonski Review is a once in a generation opportunity to address these issues. Otherwise the real risk is that Australia will continue to have an entrenched and discriminatory system that works very well for some families, but which continues to fail many others and that will ultimately affect young people’s lives and their future opportunities.
Dr David Zyngier is a Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at Monash University.
An extended version of this article is on The Conversation website.