I'm closing in on my first anniversary in Catholic education, and I've learned many things. Moving from a sector driven by profit (banking) to one driven by purpose has been an unexpected delight in the transition. Colleagues and professionals motivated to improve the lives of those around them.
Another lesson has been how public school advocates rely on the fallacy that government schools are full of children from poor families while any school that charges fees must be educating 'the rich' and should therefore receive no public funding.
Of course, government and low-fee Catholic schools in the same suburbs and regional areas serve families from similar socioeconomic communities. Both have quality schools with dedicated teachers doing their best to create Australia's next generation of citizens.
I've also learnt how very few people seem to understand the average cost of a school education in Australia is more than $13,000 per student per year. This is something many of these advocates need to recognise before expressing their disgust at last week's news that low-fee non-government schools will receive a modest increase in funding (about $600 per Catholic school student per year) under a new funding formula that more accurately estimates need. High-fee schools educating students from high-income families are set to lose government funding.
Government and non-government schools all receive some public funding because most families could not afford to pay more than $13,000 a year to educate each of their children from kindergarten to year 10 or 12.
Government schools are fully funded by taxpayers. It doesn't matter if their students are from rich or poor families — whether you live in Mosman or Mt Druitt, if you send your child to a government school, the total cost is funded by taxpayers. You don't have to pay a cent. That's not the case with non-government schools.
All non-government schools (except some highly disadvantaged schools) must rely on fees because they only receive a portion of their funding from government, based on a means-test of the school's parents. Non-government schools educating children from wealthier areas attract less government funding than those from lower-income areas.
"It's so much easier to describe it as 'a special deal for the Catholic sector' despite the fact that all low-fee schools will benefit including Lutheran, Anglican, Seventh Day Adventist and Muslim schools."
For some time, however, the Catholic education sector was concerned that assessing parents' capacity to pay fees using geography was flawed because it