Calls to link funding to results
The Federal Government has announced it is considering plans to reconfigure the methodology of school funding to a model based on how much it costs to educate students to a certain level.
The announcement follows an Allen Consulting Group report which considers the feasibility of a schooling resource standard – the baseline amount of money per student needed to achieve good educational results including loadings for disadvantaged students. The report found a schooling resource standard was feasible.
The Allen report calls for the Federal Government to use the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) to work out which schools are consistently achieving higher than average student results to use as a baseline for funding.
Financial data from those schools would be used to estimate the baseline cost of how much it costs to educate their students to a standardised level.