No surprises on funding commentary

It hasn't and it never will because the entire school funding proposals have been so politicised that the real issues of educational improvement – or as The Australian Financial Review headline announces 'Schools need more than money' - has failed to ignite broader electoral debate.

The August 15 article 'Lies, damned lies and statistics' - www.eduEducators.com.au - provides a more expansive outline on the federal government's less than generous contribution to improved school funding over the next three years

2. If the coalition is elected long term funding for schools will be jeopardised.

This electorally-biased question is raised by Australian Education Union advertisements proclaiming the coalition will dump ALP school funding through Gonski-backed proposals over the last two years of the ALP's six year funding package.

In seeking to minimise any electoral differences with the ALP the coalition agreed to 'a unity ticket' that would guarantee schools receive additional school funding for four years not the six years promoted by the ALP. Failing to complete the last two years of bulk funding will, according to the AEU, jeopardise the entire school funding program if the coalition is elected.

What the AEU has ignored is that the federal government's forward estimates for national accounts extends for a four year period only meaning the coalition has every right to project its school funding allocations within that more condensed timeframe.

Progressing expenditures into the 2018/19 and 2019/20 accounting periods – when around two thirds of the ALP's additional school funding is to be apportioned – carries significant risks during times of economic uncertainty, a reality known to the ALP which itself would probably re-examine unless improved national accounts and supposed surpluses can be achieved by 2016/17 as forecast.

3. That generous school funding will flow from a re-elected Labor government.

The Australian Financial Review perpetuates the concept that the new funding model will provide a 'minimum standard of funding provided per student' – over $12,000 a year for secondary students (actually $12,193 per student) and over $9,000 for a primary student (actually $9,271) as part of the Gonski-proposed School Resource Standard (SRS).

Read in isolation this sounds very generous to an uninformed reader of the Financial Review. The actual existing funding reality is that the states/territories already receive per capita funding in accord with known costs of educating a child in a government school – the AGSRC measurement – which for 2012 allocations amounts to:

Primary students $10,057, slightly higher than the current government-offered SRS allocation

Secondary students $12,445, slightly below the current government-offered SRS allocation.