Misleading By Omission
Saturday, January 01, 2000
Your editorial of 9/10/00 suggested a “class battle” arising out of the new school funding scheme. But the heat circulating on this issue is almost entirely due to unbalanced reporting.
Most media report federal funding of schools as if it’s all there was, ignoring the fact that the lion’s share of taxpayers’ money for schooling goes straight to state coffers for state schools.
Typically, your editorial made a big issue out of the differences in federal funding top-ups, without giving the public any indication of how much state schools actually get and how little private schools still get.
When you report that a large private school may be getting a total of $2.5m under the new scheme, report also that a state school of the same size is still getting $12m, utterly regardless of their families' means.
You mentioned the “modest” funding going to Catholic schools. But the truth is that the Catholic system receives around double the government money per child (70%) than the same people using the independent sector — regardless of family means.
Reporting one set of numbers without the other is misleading.
Philip O'Carroll