‘No blank cheques’: Clare ties extra school funding to help for disadvantaged students

Education Minister Jason Clare is demanding states account for every federal dollar spent on students with disabilities as well as those from Indigenous or disadvantaged backgrounds in exchange for almost $6 billion more in public school funding.

But NSW and Victoria say more data collection won’t solve problems in schools, claiming that onerous reporting conditions tied to the proposed 2.5 per cent funding increase will only add to pressures on teachers.

Education Minister Jason Clare is demanding states reveal how they are spending federal money on disadvantaged students.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Clare said the government’s push for greater transparency “isn’t about adding workload to our already overworked teachers, it is about making sure that parents and teachers can see that the money we invest goes to the schools that need it”.

“I have put billions of dollars for public schools on the table, but I reiterate that there are no blank cheques here,” Clare said.

While the Commonwealth has struck funding agreements with Western Australia and the Northern Territory, it is at an impasse with the remaining states. They want the federal government to increase its share of public school funding from 20 to 25 per cent.

Clare has offered to lift the federal share to 22.5 per cent, worth $5.74 billion over the next five years and $16.12 billion across the decade. The states want another $12 billion over 10 years.

NSW Education Minister Prue Car has joined her Victorian counterpart Ben Carroll in pushing back against reporting requirements tied to the money.Credit: Rhett Wyman

The current offer includes requirements for state and territory governments to show how the funding affects the learning outcomes of students, how they apply needs-based funding to certain cohorts of disadvantaged students, and progress towards specific targets.

Clare has repeatedly said he wants additional funding tied to reforms that help struggling pupils catch up with their classmates, finish school and be able to go to TAFE or university.

An expert report commissioned by the state and federal governments and released in December to inform negotiations on the National School Reform Agreement to lift student outcomes across the nation’s schools says states should be required to publish accurate information on their school funding models.

It noted there were calls for greater transparency around how states weighted the funding needs for schools with students with disabilities, Indigenous pupils and those from poorer backgrounds while acknowledging states needed flexibility to adapt to local needs.

”Greater transparency requires making the methodology that each system uses to allocate funds under their needs-based funding models public in a clear, consistent and easily understandable way,” the report said.

But NSW and Victoria say the reporting requirements would divert educational resources to administrative tasks such as financial tracking at a time when teachers are sorely needed.

Victorian Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll said the federal government knew the nation faced a teacher shortage “but is still proposing putting more administrative burden on our hardworking teachers in return for just half the funding our public schools deserve”.

“We’ve invested to give teachers more time on assessments and reporting so when they’re in the classroom they can focus on their students, but adding more administrative work in the name of government data collection won’t deliver better outcomes in a single school,” he said.

Echoing her Victorian counterpart, NSW Deputy Premier and Education Minister Prue Car said the state was already boosting financial accountability, accusing her predecessors of presiding over an “explosion” in teaching executives and a shortage of teachers.

“Accountability is important, but so is action,” she said.

“Both the Commonwealth and NSW want to lift educational outcomes for our students but taking teachers away from the classroom to collect more data is not going to fix the problems we’re facing in education.”

Associate professor Glenn Savage, an expert in education policy at the University of Melbourne, said funding transparency was a longstanding issue, given federal money was difficult to track once it entered state coffers.

“As a result of that redistribution, it’s very difficult to track exactly how the federal money has flowed through to individual schools,” Savage said.

He said while the Commonwealth understandably wanted greater transparency, it also had the potential to strip states of their ability to make decisions about tackling equity issues in their schools.

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