Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater: the case for a reformed SES funding scheme.

Watson, Louise

Since its introduction in 2001, the Australian (Commonwealth) Government's socio-economic status (SES)-based funding scheme for private schools has been criticised as inequitable. The author argues that the inequities of the scheme are the result of government policy rather than the SES-based model itself. Compared with the former education resources index (ERI)-based funding scheme, the SES model is a more reliable and transparent method of ranking private schools according to their relative need for resources. This paper presents the case for a reformed SES-based funding scheme based on the retention of the SES index with two minor modifications. It also argues that four government policy decisions which have produced inequities in the scheme should be overturned if the scheme is to fulfil its promise of being a viable, transparent and equitable basis for distributing Commonwealth funding to private schools.

Introduction

In its 1999 budget, the Commonwealth Government announced the introduction of a new socio-economic status (SES) funding scheme for distributing general recurrent grants (GRG) to private schools. The SES-based funding scheme changed the basis on which the needs of schools were determined, moving from a model that had measured the financial resources of each school to a model that measured the socio-economic status of a school's student population. The policy change attracted criticism from many education stakeholders. Most critics condemned the introduction of the SES-based funding scheme because it was associated with an overall increase in private school funding and disproportionate funding increases to 'wealthy' private schools--the schools which had been determined as the least 'needy' under the old education resources index (ERI) funding model (Boston, 2001 ; Carr, 2001 ; Keenan, 2003; Kemp, 1999; Martin, 2002). At least one government school stakeholder argued that the SES-based funding model should be 'scrapped' (Australian Council of State School Organisations, 2001). Other commentators proposed new funding systems that would embrace both public and private schools (Latham, 2001; Reid, 2003). (1)

This paper will argue that it was government policy rather than the SES index that resulted in significant funding increases to wealthy private schools. Although the paper will identify two flaws in the SES index that warrant further investigation, it will argue that the SES-based approach has the potential to become an effective and transparent system of ranking private schools on the basis of need. To achieve this, a reformed SES model would need to overturn four key policy decisions made by the Federal Government that influence the size and distribution of Commonwealth recurrent grants to private schools.

Commonwealth funding for private schools

Since the late 1960s, Australian private schools have received government funding for current and capital purposes--first from State and Territory governments and then from the Commonwealth (Albinski, 1966; Ashenden, 1989; Hogan, 1984). In 1974, on the basis of the recommendations of the Karmel report (Interim Committee, 1973), the Commonwealth Government introduced a major scheme of current funding for private schools--the general recurrent grants (GRG) program (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1996).

The original funding model for allocating current resources to schools under the GRG program--based on an education resources index (ERI)--remained in place until 2001, when it was replaced by a new funding model--the SES-based funding scheme. The scheme has three distinct features:

* a socio-economic status (SES) index is used to rank private schools according to their relative need for resources;

* the total level of Commonwealth funding to all private schools has increased; and

* disproportionately high funding increases were received by wealthy schools ranked at the top end of the SES scale.

The decision to introduce a new model for ranking private schools was the product of a review process dating back to the mid-1990s.The review was initiated in response to sustained criticism of the ERI-based model that ranked schools on the basis of their real private income. (The problems associated with the ERI-based model are discussed in the next section.) The review process that produced the SES-based model determined that the approach was logistically possible and would produce correct rankings for private schools (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1998, p. 35). The SES-based model does not specify the funding levels that should be associated with each ranking on the SES scale.

Second, the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Dr David Kemp, promised that no school would be disadvantaged by the changeover to a new model and that most schools would receive significant increases in Commonwealth funding (Kemp, 1999, p. 5). For example, schools ranked as the most needy under the ERI-based scheme (i.e. Category 12) had previously received grants of 56 per cent of average government schools recurrent costs (AGSRC) per primary student and 62.4 per cent of AGSRC per secondary student. Under the SES-based scheme, schools ranked as the most needy (i.e. with an SES score of 85 or below) receive a grant of 70 per cent of AGSRC. The provision of real funding increases to three-quarters of the schools on the SES scale meant that Commonwealth government funding for private schools increased by 38 per cent between 1999-2000 and 2003-04 (Commonwealth Budget Papers 2000-01).

Third, although the SES index provided a basis for ranking schools according to their relative need for resources, the government decided the level of funding attached to each rank. The Federal Cabinet determined that the grants for schools in the top third of the SES scale (i.e. ranked 110 to 133) would be much more generous--compared with their previous funding level--than grants to schools in the bottom third of the scale (ranked 62 to 85). For example, schools with SES scores of 110 were granted 38.7 per cent of average government school recurrent costs (AGSRC), which declined to 13.7 per cent for schools with SES scores of 130 or above (Commonwealth of Australia, 2003).This meant that a school such as the Methodist Ladies College in New South Wales--ranked at 110--received 38.7 per cent of AGSRC under the SES-based scheme compared with less than 22 per cent of AGSRC (Category 3) under the ERI-based scheme. Brisbane Girls Grammar School--with its heritage buildings, swimming pool, science centre, auditorium, theatre, library and sports centre was also funded at Category 3 under the old scheme but, with its SES score of 119, received a Commonwealth grant of $2054 per student in 2003--an increase of 25 per cent. (2) In contrast, Nyangatjatjara College in the Northern Territory--formerly a Category 12 school--with an SES score of 63, received a funding increase of $568 per student in 2003 or 12 per cent. (3)

As most of the criticism directed at the SES-based funding scheme focused on the funding increases granted to private schools, it is important to distinguish between the government's policy regarding funding levels and the decision to introduce a new SES index for ranking schools. As a ranking mechanism, the SES index is superior to the ERI that it replaced.

Deficiencies of the education resources index

Although federal policy statements in recent times have emphasised issues such as maximising choice and removing disincentives for schools to raise private income (Kemp, 1999; Nelson, 2003), the principle of ranking schools according to their relative need for resources remains a central feature of the general recurrent grants scheme. The former Federal Minister, Dr David Kemp, stated when he introduced the new scheme, 'The ERI will be abolished as the basis for needs-based funding, and replaced with a measure of the socioeconomic status (SES) of school communities' (Kemp, 1999, p. 1).

In designing the general recurrent grants program, the Interim Committee (1973) measured the 'need' of private schools by requesting information on their total level of private income most of which comes from school fees. Information on the value of contributed services was also collected and the size of the school was taken into account. The school's total private income was then divided by the number of students to obtain a score which enabled each school to be ranked against other private schools. Since 1985, when the ERI was introduced, schools and school systems were ranked from 0 to 88 and above. In the case of school systems, like the Catholic school system, information in respect of the whole system was supplied and a system average was calculated. Based on their ERI score, all private schools and school systems were placed in one of twelve funding categories. Schools with an ERI rating of 88 or above (wealthy schools) were placed in Category 1 and received the lowest grant per student. Schools with an ERI rating of 0-10 were placed in Category 12 and received the highest level of government funding (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 2000, Appendix C, Table 4).

During the first 25 years of the general recurrent grants scheme, difficulties emerged in obtaining accurate financial data from private schools. The government obtained information from private schools about their private income through a financial questionnaire. But schools quickly became sophisticated in filling in the financial questionnaire to qualify for a higher funding category. They found loopholes in the wording of questions that would enable them to exclude certain types of income. It was also possible to omit assets and expenditure by linking a school's accounts to other bodies, such as a parish church or religious order. Some schools hired professional accountants to apply tax minimisation techniques to reduce the school's assessable income. Although the questionnaire attempted to find a common basis for gathering information from different school accounts, as schools became more proficient at manipulating their financial information, the questionnaire ceased to produce an accurate picture of a school's capacity to raise private resources.

The ERI-based model became increasingly complex as the government tried in vain to stem abuses of the system. In response to the perceived abuse of the financial questionnaire, the government sought more information on schools' private income. As a result of successive amendments to the financial questionnaire, the basis for calculating the ERI became so complex that it was difficult to understand exactly how assessments were obtained. In 1995, a review of the ERI undertaken by KPMG ran some simulations to assess the effect of changed circumstances on a school's ERI, by using the financial data from 12 different schools. The result was that the ERI was sensitive to the changes in some schools but not in others. The evaluators concluded, 'For these 12 schools, changes in the ERI were more likely to be caused by the structure of the ERI than a change in the school's circumstances' (KPMG, 1996, p. 70).

When closing off loopholes in the questionnaire failed to stop schools manipulating their financial data, the Federal Government tightened its assessment criteria to make it harder for schools to change to a more favourable funding category. In the mid-1980s, the Government introduced a 'maintenance of effort' provision that required schools seeking a higher funding category to demonstrate that they had increased their private income over the past three years. This created a Catch-22 situation where schools meeting the maintenance of effort criteria were effectively disqualified from demonstrating increased need. The effect of tightening the assessment criteria meant that private schools were increasingly locked into the funding category they were awarded in the late 1970s or, if they were a new school, into the category they received when they commenced. Schools that were naive or inexperienced in filling out the financial questionnaire for the first time were forced to live with their original funding category regardless of the legitimacy of their case for changed circumstances. Older schools also complained that the ERI measured their past income whereas new schools could be assessed on their projected income. Old schools were thus unable to lower their fees to compete with new, more highly subsidised schools which were entering the market. New schools, on the other hand, could deliberately set their fees low in order to obtain a favourable funding category, regardless of their clients' capacity to pay (Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1997; KPMG, 1996).

By the mid-1990s, the ERI-based scheme was widely perceived as open to abuse, unnecessarily complex and inflexible in responding to genuine changes in a school's need for resources (Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1997; KPMG, 1996). The ERI model had proved inadequate to measure the relative need of private schools because:

* schools providing financial information about their current or projected income were able to obtain a high funding category by setting their fees low;

* schools were able to disguise or minimise their level of private income in a way that did not reveal their full capacity to raise private resources; and

* government attempts to stop abuses of the scheme resulted in a highly complex and inflexible system that could not respond to genuine changes in a school's financial circumstances.

Strengths of the socio-economic status index

The experience of the ERI model revealed the difficulties inherent in measuring the actual resources of schools in terms of their total private income. The logical alternative was to explore proxy measures of a school's capacity to raise private income that could not be easily manipulated or abused. Recognising that the main source of a school's private income was its fees and other contributions from students' families, the new model sought to measure families' capacity to contribute. In measuring the capacity of individual families to pay fees and other contributions, the government needed an instrument that was simple to administer and not too instrusive. To avoid the problems of the ERI model, it was important that the new mechanism was reliable, transparent and could not be manipulated by schools (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1998).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects information for its national census from every household in Australia. The smallest unit of data collection is a collection district (CD) comprising an average of 200 households. From its census data, the ABS calculates an average SES for each collection district based on factors such as the income, education and employment characteristics of households within it. Through geo-coding, it is possible to identify the collection district of a student's home address and thereby give the address an SES ranking (which is the ranking for the collection district). Under the SES-based model, the SES of the collection district is the proxy measure used to assess the capacity of a student's family to raise private income. The SES scores of each home address are then aggregated and averaged to provide an SES score for the school. (4)

Obviously there are some people living within particular collection districts who do not share the income or employment characteristics of their neighbours but, according to the ABS, there is a high degree of homogeneity among the 200-odd households that comprise each collection district (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1998, p. 6). The geo-coding of home addresses is the most refined means of obtaining socio-economic data other than requesting detailed financial information from each student's family. It is therefore an efficient and effective mechanism for estimating the SES status of households.

The new SES index ranks schools on the basis of the average SES of their school population--derived from the characteristics of the collection district within which each student resides. The school supplies the government with the home addresses of its students (without their names) and is given an SES score which ranges from 62 (low SES) to 133 (high SES).

As the main source of private income for private schools is the school fees paid by parents, schools which cater to high-income families have a greater capacity to increase their private income than schools which cater primarily to low-income families. It was this capacity to raise private resources that the government was trying to assess through the ERI-funding model and through the new SES-based model. As an indication of how each model assessed the relative need of schools, two Queensland schools--St Peter's Lutheran College in Brisbane and Peace Lutheran College in Cairns, both of which were placed in funding Category 9 under the ERI formula--will be examined.

In 2003, St Peter's charged fees of $5300 per primary student and $7860 per secondary student whereas the fees at Peace Lutheran were $2240 (primary) and $3260 (secondary)--about half the rate charged by St Peter's. (5) Under the ERI-based scheme, both schools received the same per capita grant from the Commonwealth Government--$2478 per primary student and $3645 per secondary student. Under the SES-based model, St Peter's received an SES score of 120 while Peace Lutheran College received an SES score of 87. Peace Lutheran College is now entitled to a Commonwealth general recurrent grant of $3819 per primary student and $5042 per secondary student. When added to income from school fees, the total recurrent resources per student at Peace Lutheran in 2003 have increased to $6059 per primary student and $8307 per secondary student. St Peter's, in comparison, is now entitled to a grant per student of only $1483 (primary) and $1957 (secondary). When added to its fees income, total recurrent resources per student at St Peter's should be $6783 per primary student and $9827 per secondary student (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1999). (6)

Under the SES-based scheme, the resources gap between the two schools could reduce, whereas it was not reduced under the ERI-based scheme because both schools were ranked at Category 9. Regrettably this will not happen because the Commonwealth Government has promised that no school will receive less funding under the new scheme. St Peter's funding will therefore be maintained at the Category 9 level. This flaw in the government's policy framework is discussed in the final section of this paper.

In summary, the SES model is a proxy measure of a school's capacity to raise private income whereas the ERI attempted to measure the actual resources of schools. The ERI was based on financial data provided by schools whereas the SES model is based on income and employment data pertaining to students' families. In principle, the ERI model should provide an accurate measure of a school's private resources but, in practice, the ERI model proved open to manipulation and abuse, which weakened its integrity as a measurement tool. In comparison, the proxy measure of a school's capacity to raise private income employed in the SES-based model is reliable, transparent and incorruptible. These characteristics render the SES index a preferred policy tool for ranking private schools on the basis of relative need. Unfortunately the Federal Government's decision to maintain the funding category of any school disadvantaged by the transfer has undermined the integrity of the SES-based funding scheme.

Limitations of the SES index

Although the SES-based model is superior to the ERI-based model in terms of its transparency and resistance to manipulation, two limitations in the SES index should be acknowledged and resolved in a reformed SES funding scheme.

The first problem is that the SES index does not take into account sources of private school income other than those sourced from students' families. Some established schools receive income from endowments that are not taken into account in the SES-based model. Other types of school, such as the School of Total Education in Warwick, Queensland, receive a proportion of their current income from local businesses. (7) The ERI-based model attempted to include these additional sources of private income in its calculations. For example, the School of Total Education was formerly placed in funding Category 1 which entitled it to a Commonwealth grant of $668 per primary student and $1061 per secondary student (2003 level). Under the SES-based model, the school was ranked in the middle socio-economic range (93) which meant that, in 2003, its grant per student increased to $3395 per primary student and $4482 per secondary student (funding increases of over 408 and 322 per cent respectively). Although it would not be desirable to return to the ERI model of estimating a school's total private income, a reformed SES-based scheme should include a mechanism for adjusting the SES score of schools which have substantial private recurrent income from endowments or donations.

A second anomaly in the SES-ranking system is the apparent bias towards regional schools. Country regions throughout Australia have lower average SES scores than city regions because high-income households are more likely to be concentrated in smaller geographical areas in cities. Private schools in country regions and city schools with large numbers of boarders thus dominate the lower rankings in the SES scale, in spite of the fact that many of these schools charge relatively high tuition fees.

The most glaring example of the country region bias is Geelong Grammar School-Corio which, although considered one of the wealthiest private schools in Australia, received an SES score of 111 under the new funding scheme. Formerly a Category 1 school, Geelong Grammar's funding increased from $668 to $2122 per primary student (217 per cent) and from $1061 to $2801 per secondary student (90 per cent) in 2003. Yet the school's tuition fees (for day students in Years 7 and 8) are $13720 per year. In total, the operating resources per student at Geelong Grammar (from Commonwealth grants and tuition fees) amount to over $16000 per year.

Most private schools in Victoria charge lower fees than Geelong Grammar, yet 59 of the 200-odd Victorian private schools on the SES-scale are ranked higher than Geelong Grammar. For example, Korowa Anglican Girls School, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, which charges annual fees of approximately $12000 for Years 7 and 8 is ranked at 123, making it eligible for a grant of some $1000 less per student than Geelong Grammar-Corio. At 111, Geelong Grammar-Corio has the same ranking as the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School which charges tuition fees of around $5000 per year. As the Geelong Grammar Junior School-Glamorgan in Toorak is ranked at 124, the more favourable ranking for its Corio campus is probably due to: (a) a large number of boarders from country regions; and (b) the fact that the school's local population is drawn from Geelong. According to the geocoding system used by the Department of Education, Science and Training (2000), there is no collection district in Geelong with a higher SES ranking than 114.

In New South Wales, several country schools with annual tuition fees in the range of $7000-$9000 per year for Years 7 and 8--such as The Scots School, Albury, The Scots School, Bathurst, the New England Girls School and Presbyterian Ladies College, Armidale--are all ranked between 104 and 105. In contrast, Penrith Anglican College which charges $3800 for tuition in Years 7 and 8, is ranked 106, so it receives a lower grant per student than the high-fee country schools. These examples suggest that the average SES score of collection districts in country areas is a less reliable proxy of private school parents' capacity to raise private resources than in urban areas. Further research is required on the reasons for this and it may be necessary to re-weight the variables used in the SES index or add new variables to eliminate the apparent country school bias.

In summary, the two limitations of the SES-based model which should be investigated in a reformed SES funding scheme are:

* schools with significant streams of private recurrent income from sources other than school fees are not taken into account; and

* schools in regional areas and those with high proportions of country students appear to be advantaged compared with city schools.

Flaws in federal government policy

Although the SES model is a more efficient and transparent method of ranking schools than its predecessor, four major flaws--unrelated to the SES index itself--have marred its implementation. These flaws are the product of policy decisions made by the federal government.

First, the funding given to schools with high SES scores is disproportionately generous compared with schools at the lower end of the SES scale. Although all private schools received substantial funding increases under the scheme, the increase received by schools in the top third of the scale was proportionally higher than the increase received by schools in the bottom third. For example, a former Category 12 primary school that received an SES rank of 85 or below would receive a funding increase of 25 per cent in 2003 under the new scheme. In contrast, former Category 1 primary schools ranked at 129 received funding increases of 27 per cent under the new scheme. Even Category 1 primary schools ranked at 130 or above received funding increases of over 16 per cent (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1999).

The second flaw in government policy was to guarantee that no school would be disadvantaged by moving to the new funding scheme. As the point of transferring to an SES-based model was to improve the ranking system, the government has undermined its own policy objective by allowing all schools disadvantaged by the transfer to have their funding maintained (FM) at its previous level. This means that 272 out of 967 schools in the new scheme are not in the SES-based scheme at all, but are preserved at their former funding categories (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, 1999). The government could have provided a soft transition to the new scheme by maintaining schools at their old funding level in 2000 prices, until the effect of inflation made their grant equivalent to their new funding category. By maintaining the former funding categories of all schools disadvantaged by the new model in real terms, the government is overriding its policy objective of funding schools on the basis of need.

A third flaw in the Federal Government's schools funding policy was to link the level of Commonwealth private school funding to an index of average government school recurrent costs (AGSRC). Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Commonwealth schools funding was supplemented for cost increases through a Schools Prices Index (SPI) maintained by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This index reflected movements in the prices of resources used by Australian schools, predominantly the cost of teachers' salaries. In 1993, after consultation with private school stakeholders, the Federal government changed its index to AGSRC.

The AGSRC index differs from most price indices in that it does not measure a constant basket of goods or services, but changes in the total recurrent expenditure on government school systems. Thus if state governments increase their schools expenditure by employing 100 additional literacy teachers, for example, this would be captured as a cost movement in the AGSRC index. Reflecting increases in state government expenditure on state school systems, the AGSRC index has moved from 1.0 in 1995 to 1.37 in 2001--an increase of 37 per cent over six years--an average of 6.2 per cent per year (Burke, 2002). (8)

By using the AGSRC to adjust its grants to schools, the Federal Government has increased its schools funding by an average of 6.3 per cent per year at a time when average weekly earnings have increased by an average of only 3.3 per cent per year. More specifically, the estimated increase in teachers' ordinary time earnings between 1995 and 2001 was no more than 3.5 per cent per year over the period (Burke, 2002).As the AGSRC does not measure increases in the costs borne by private schools, it is not an appropriate index for compensating private schools for increases in their costs. By linking private schools funding to expenditure on government schools through the AGSRC, the government has ensured that Commonwealth funding to private schools will continue to increase under the guise of indexation or supplementation for cost increases. The Australian Bureau of Statistics compiles a range of price indices that would be more appropriate measures of changes in private school costs and one of these should replace the AGSRC in a reformed SES funding scheme. (9)

A final flaw in the government's policy process was its agreement to allow the Catholic education system to be exempt from the new SES-based funding scheme. The Catholic school system--which accounts for 64 per cent of all private school students--was not part of the new funding scheme, and was quarantined from it for at least five years. In the process of introducing the new SES-based funding scheme, the Federal Government struck a deal with the National Catholic Education Commission that set its grant per student at 56.25 per cent of average government school recurrent costs (Kemp, 1999). (10) In effect, the National Catholic Education Commission picked its own SES ranking of 96 without any reference to the data that determine the ranking of other private schools in the scheme. Although Catholic schools participated in the SES simulation project in 1998, the National Catholic Education Commission then decided that it was not in its best interest to comply with a transparent and unimpeachable system of ranking schools on the basis of need. By striking a separate deal with the government, the Catholic education system has not only escaped the strictures of the old ERI funding model, but is not bound by any of the conditions of the new scheme. (11)

Conclusion

As a reliable and transparent system of ranking private schools on the basis of need, the SES-based index is superior to the ERA-based funding system it replaced. Two limitations of the SES-based model that warrant further investigation are: the scheme's failure to take into account private income from sources other than tuition fees; and its apparent bias towards country schools. The four features of the SES-based funding scheme that have been criticised as inequitable are the product of government policy decisions and are not integral to the SES-based model. The features that have undermined the integrity of the SES-based funding scheme are:

* the disproportionately high funding increases awarded to high-SES schools in the top third of the scale;

* the maintenance of former funding levels for schools disadvantaged by the transfer to the new scheme;

* the indexation of grants to private schools according to movements in average government school recurrent costs; and

* the deal which enabled the Catholic school system to negotiate its own funding level outside of the guidelines of the SES-based funding scheme.

As these flaws are the product of Federal Government policy, rather than features inherent in the SES-based model, they should be overturned. A reformed SES funding scheme based on these changes may then provide a viable, transparent and equitable method of distributing Commonwealth funding to private schools.

Keywords

educational finance educational policy equal education policy analysis resource allocation socioeconomic influences

Notes

(1) Details of the distribution of SES-based funding to individual private schools are supplied by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) in two publications: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, No. 3, Monday, 28 April 2003, http://www.detya.gov.au/schools/gazettes/2003/Australia.pdf; and Funding for non-government schools 2001-2004. http://www.detya.gov.au/schools/ses/table.pdf

(2) Data on the features of individual private schools are obtained from the school's websites.

(3) The new scheme is being phased in over four years (2001 to 2004) so that schools receive 25 per cent of their new level each year until reaching the full amount in 2004. This means that the funding levels for 2003 used in this paper are 25 per cent below the full 2004 grant.

(4) A full description of the SES-based funding scheme and the SES scores for collection districts in every state and territory is found on the following website maintained by the Department of Education, Science and Training: http://schoolgrg.dest.gov.au/Help/SESInfo/FundingArrangements.asp

(5) Information on tuition fees obtained from school web-sites.

(6) State government grants are excluded from this calculation.

(7) Information on fees and business income obtained from the school's website

(8) In contrast, the Commonwealth Government uses a cost adjustment factor (CAF) to supplement its grants to universities to compensate for movements in institution' operating costs arising from the effects of inflation. Using 1995 as the base year, the higher education CAF index moved from 1.0 in 1995 to 1.11 in 2001--an increase of 11 per cent over six years (Nelson, 2002).

(9) Examples of suitable price indexes that could be used include: implicit deflator education gross value added; teachers, ordinary time earnings; and wage cost index education. The ABS could also be asked to construct a customised index of school costs, such as the Schools Prices Index.

(10) The ACT Catholic system was given a ranking of 100, which entities it to 51.2 per cent of AGSRC.

(11) On 29 February 2004, the Commonwealth Government announced that Catholic schools would join the SES funding scheme. The government will provide an additional $362 million from 2005 to 2008, to support the 40 per cent of Catholic schools that will have their funding maintained (Howard, 2004).

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Author

Associate Professor Louise Watson is the Director of the Lifelong Learning Network, University of Canberra, ACT 2601. E-mail: louise.watson@canberra.edu.au