Federal education minister Simon Birmingham has admitted that some wealthy private schools are over-funded and could lose money once funding reforms are implemented. Vision courtesy ABC.
Asked whether funding should be redistributed from wealthy to low-income schools, Ms Plibersek said: "People find it a compelling thing to talk about but I think it misses the point entirely.
There is no compelling case to cut funding to "over-funded" private schools and redistribute the money to disadvantaged schools, Labor education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek says.
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Plibersek it was "absolutely the right decision" for the Gillard
Federal education minister Simon Birmingham has admitted that some wealthy private schools are over-funded and could lose money once funding reforms are implemented. Vision courtesy ABC.
Asked whether funding should be redistributed from wealthy to low-income schools, Ms Plibersek said: "People find it a compelling thing to talk about but I think it misses the point entirely. government to promise that no school would be worse off under the Gonski funding reforms - a commitment that a Gonski review panelist, Ken Boston, says blew out the cost of the reforms and entrenched inequalities between schools.
The Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, has said he has "deliberately" not made the same promise, leaving room to cut funding for some schools in a new funding deal from 2018 onwards.
The Grattan Institute released a report this week calling for the federal government to freeze funding to schools classed as over-funded and redistribute the money to schools which are below their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) - the funding benchmark at the heart of the Gonski model.
"You're talking about a very small number of schools.
"If it fixed the problem of there not being enough money on the table from the federal government it would be a different matter but it is a drop in the bucket of the extra money required."
Labor went to the July election promising an extra $4.5 billion for school funding over two years.
The Grattan Institute found that $215 million in excess funding flows to a small number of private schools each year - spending it described as "wasteful and inefficient". It recommended reducing the generous indexation rates for school funding locked into legislation by the Gillard government.
Ms Plibersek, who took over as Labor's education spokeswoman after the July election, said: "I think it was 100 per cent the right decision for us to say no school will lose a dollar.
"If we get sucked into school against school, system against system, state against state, we will still be fighting about this in 10 years' time.
"We are committed that all schools get appropriate funding and that means the poorest schools have the biggest increases in the fastest time."
A Fairfax Media analysis published earlier this year found some elite private schools are receiving up to $7 million a year in excess government funding. Schools such as Loreto Kirribilli, an elite all-girls school in Sydney, received 283 per cent of its funding requirement in 2014 while Melbourne Grammar received 144 per cent.
Ms Plibersek said Senator Birmingham's comments about inequities between states and school sectors were "diversion tactics" to distract from the fact he is not funding years five and six of Gonski.
"I'm not going to let him get away with that," she said.
Ms Plibersek said Labor supported measures to improve teacher training but this would only be effective with extra funding targeted at the neediest schools.
Earlier this year, Mr Boston, a former head of the NSW Education Department and a member of the Gonski Review panel, wrote: "The solution to Australia's education problem is not pouring more public money into education, but redistributing the existing funding strategically, to address the things that matter in the schools that need it.
"Far too much is spent in wealthy independent schools, where recurrent funding can be used to service loans on capital works, not necessarily to provide a better education, but to provide facilities to make the school more attractive than its other high-fee competitors."
Plibersek is right. It is only a small group of schools and out of the entire education budget it is a fraction of the funding they allocate annually but itt is significant to very poor schools and it is a 'very bad look' . It is dispiriting for those of us in state education to see it happening but also hear a Labor education spokesperson saying what she says. It shouldn't be and it shouldn't happen. We are entering a time where IPA driven conservative government is looking to of all places, the US for inspiration. We can't afford to weaken state education in this country and Lanor should know that!
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