Parents' capacity to pay at core of national standard

THE myriad inefficient and complicated systems for school funding that differ from state to state would be replaced by a single payment.

Findings funding recommendations

THE myriad inefficient and complicated systems for school funding that differ from state to state would be replaced by a single payment under the key recommendation of the Gonski review.

The report recommends schools be funded based on a schooling resource standard, which would be calculated the same way for every student, no matter where they live or the type of school they attend.

The resource payment would comprise a base amount per primary and secondary student, calculated on the cost required to educate children from affluent families to reach an agreed level.

The base payment would be supplemented by additional loadings for disadvantaged students who require more resources to reach the same level. The report outlines five loadings: a school's size and location, the proportion of students from low socio-economic background, indigenous students, those with limited English, and students with a disability.

The loading would increase for schools with concentrations of disadvantaged students. All students would qualify for the schooling resource standard, which would be funded by a combination of government and private income such as school fees.

In public schools, governments would provide the total resource payment for each student. In non-government schools, the level of government funding would depend on the expected level of private contributions, assessed on the capacity of families to pay.

The report recommends assuming non-government schools receive at least 10 per cent of their resourcing standard through private contributions, with the amount of public funding rising as anticipated private income falls.

The minimum amount of government funding a private school would get would be 20-25 per cent of the base payment without loadings, which the wealthiest high-fee private schools would receive.

About 5 per cent of non-government schools that do not charge fees, have no capacity to do so and fund students with high needs should be fully funded by government. These include special schools teaching students with disabilities, indigenous schools and schools in remote areas where there is no public school.

The capacity of parents to pay would be assessed according to the private school funding model introduced by the Howard government, which uses census data linked to a student's postcode to determine socio-economic status.

The report calls for a more precise measure of social background than the large census districts, such as mesh blocks that are the smallest unit of the census or a direct measure of a parent's socio-economic status.

To calculate the level of the resource standard, which would be adjusted every four years when education agreements are renewed, the review recommends using a reference group of high-performing schools.

The report defines those schools as having 80 per cent of students meeting the minimum standard in the national literacy and numeracy tests. Over time, a more comprehensive measure that recognises other skills could be developed.

Initial modelling by the review identified 16 per cent of government and non-government schools that fall into this category, with about half being public schools, 30 per cent Catholic schools and 19 per cent independent schools.

The report provides only indicative funding levels, and says some of the information required is not available or collected, and that more work is needed to set the resourcing standard.

Based on information using 2009 financial data, the report calculates an indicative base funding level of about $8000 per primary student and about $10,500 per secondary student.

The school loadings would be scaled according to need, with levels for indigenous students ranging from 40 per cent for each student in schools where 5-25 per cent of students are indigenous to 100 per cent of the loading for students in schools with more than 75 per cent indigenous students.

For low-level socio-economic students, the loading payments would range from 10 per cent for students in schools with fewer than 10 per cent of their students in the lowest band to 50 per cent for students in schools with more than 75 per cent of students in the lowest band.