Parents Voice in Government School Education

Public Education

This page covers the ‘big-picture’ systemic issues in the education system, including school funding. For more detailed coverage of the school funding issues, see our School Funding page.

Articles on this topic

Gonski Review

The Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools was established by the Federal Government in July 2017 to examine evidence and make recommendations on

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For Every Child campaign

This campaign is calling for full funding of all public schools. The campaign is led by the Australian Education Union and supported by groups representing parents, principals, youth and a range of other community and

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School autonomy and social justice

This paper by Trevor Cobbold challenges the ‘conventional wisdom’ (and political consensus) that increased autonomy and local decision-making is good for schools and education generally. Trevor draws on extensive research from the School Autonomy Reform

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Why parents choose public schools

This article from ABC Everyday focuses on three families in different states, and why they have chosen to send their kids to government schools. The reasons parents give are varied; a priority on children’s wellbeing,

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Get Gonski back on track

To mark the 10th anniversary of the Gonski Report, Trevor Cobbold of Save Our Schools gave a speech to the Schools Funding Conference in February 2022. This article is a revised version of the speech.

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Inequality and education outcomes

“When colleagues overseas ask what I think about Australia’s school system, I tell them that it does offer world-class education, but not for everyone.” That’s the opening sentence of a recent article in the Guardian

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PISA: a fair test of education quality?

The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is often used as an indicator of how well an education system is performing. For example, in March 2021 Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge used PISA results

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Inequity in education: research report

A research report published by the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education shows a strong link between socio-economic advantage and high student achievement. The paper, by Dr Jenny Chesters and Prof. Anne Daly, is

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Gonski Review

The Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools was established by the Federal Government in July 2017 to examine evidence and make recommendations on how school funding should be used to improve school performance

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