Private schools don’t save taxpayers’ dollars

Education researchers from three Australian universities have crunched government numbers, and countered an oft-held belief in the process. A new analysis of My School website data challenges long-held beliefs about school funding in Australia, including that non-government schools represent a big saving to taxpayers and therefore warrant public subsidies. Education researchers from the University of Sydney, University of Wollongong and University of Canberra have collaborated with practitioners on new research which raises questions about the equity, efficiency and efficacy of Australia's unusual hybrid system of schools, where students are educated in government, Catholic and independent sectors. Their report, ' The School Money-Go-Round: Balancing the claims about school funding' , was released at national and international affairs and culture publication  Inside Story today. Chief among the myths dispelled in the report is the belief that the existence of non-government schools in Australia represents a saving to taxpayers. "The logic is that if privately educated children went to public schools, then taxpayers would spend a lot more than the subsidy private schools receive from state and federal governments," said report co-author Rachel Wilson , Associate Professor in Educational Assessment, research methods and evaluation at the University of Sydney's School of Education and Social Work. "Some have claimed that saving to be anything up to $8 billion in recurrent funding each year.