Are independent schools really just for rich kids?

Caro states that in 2025-6, the commonwealth contribution to schools – now $33bn – "is carved up unequally between private and public sectors with private schools receiving 62 per cent of the total".

This implies that the commonwealth is the only funder of schools, but actually, public schools receive the most government funding because, under our Constitution, schools funding is a state responsibility.

In 2023-4 public schools (with 64 per cent of students) received from all governments $68bn – that's 75 per cent of total school recurrent funding.

Non-government schools with 36 per cent of the students received $22.8bn or 25 per cent of total funding.

Further, of the $62bn spent by states and territories, over 92 per cent went to public schools. In per capita terms: public schools receive from all governments $26,140 per student, while non-government schools receive $15, 262 per student.

Also ignored is the vast transfer of commonwealth untied and tied grants to the states. Recent federal budget papers show 59.2 per cent of state education spending "was supported by Australian Government payments".

Further, Australian school spending on schools has been growing for decades and according to the OECD, Australia is not a low spending nation. There is no mention of the studies that show many countries spend less than Australia – and they perform better.

Inadequately explained is how federal funding to non-government schools is essentially means-tested. The author argues that this "needs based funding scheme for fee charging schools is the education equivalent of a hunger relief program for the well fed".

She seems not to understand how this process reduces federal funding for schools with wealthy parents.

Also explained inadequately – in less than two pages – is the complex 80:20 per cent split in federal and state funding of the Gonski originated School Resources Standard (SRS) developed following amendments to the Australian Education Act (AEA) in 2017. Readers wanting to understand this complex arrangement, the nature of federal-state financial relations, and the reforms sought – and briefly achieved – will have to look elsewhere.

Caro revisits the debunked claim by Labor that the Abbott government cut "$30 bn cuts" to school funding. This claim has long been disproved, including by the ABC's Fact Check website: there were no such cuts. Not explained is that actual post 2017 federal funding arrangements were embodied in the aforementioned amendments to the AEA, which involved large increases in federal funding with greater per student growth for public schools compared to the non-government sector.

The monograph concludes with eight recommendations to "get the schools that such a rich country deserves". These include plans to "reduce class sizes" to between 10 to 15 students and giving teachers "lots of relief from face to face teaching" which to me seems counter-intuitive. Providing meals, testing eyesight, improving "technological aids", ensuring classrooms are clean and providing vaccinations, are hardly breakthroughs.