School Funds Confusion
Herald Sun Saturday, July 05, 2003
Re "Schools for rich score government cash bonus" (June 30): Education reporters seem hellbent on confusing the public about school funding.
Yes, Wesley will get $7.8 million, "the most of any school", but a state-run school of Wesley's size gets more than $20 million.
Your figures merely reflect that Wesley is the biggest of the private schools. The figures that relate to the "envy" questions are that each Wesley student gets only about a third of normal funding of a school place and that even the poorest student in Australia can only get 70 per cent funding if they attend a non-state school.
Students from the highest-income families get only 13.5 per cent funding. The overall funding level for Wesley students merely reveals that many Wesley families are not as well-heeled as the envy-mongers would like us to believe.
Philip O'Carroll