Here's a quick glance at the main findings of the Gonski report into school funding. The 286-page report makes 41 recommendations off 26 key findings.
IT SAYS:
*Student performance has declined over the past decade
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*There is a large performance gap between highest and lowest performing student
*Every school must be appropriately resourced to support every child
*Current funding arrangements are complex and lack coordination between federal, state and territory governments
*School capital, infrastructure funding is also uncoordinated
MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS:
*Significantly increased funding is needed - about $5 billion
*Most of the increase should flow to government schools because they have more disadvantaged students
*A new schooling resource standard to determine funding for all school sectors
*School Planning Authorities to coordinate new school building and expansions
*A new independent National School Resourcing Body to oversee schooling resource standard
How Schooling Resource Standard for funding would work:
*Set separate per student dollar amounts for primary and secondary students
*Indicative estimate of $8000 per primary student
*Indicative estimate of $10,500 per secondary student
*Loadings for extra cost of meeting certain education needs, including those of indigenous students, those with a disability or from poor or other disadvantaged backgrounds
*Public schools to be fully publicly funded to the standard
*Private school public funding to be based on "anticipated" level of a school's private contribution
*For non-government schools, there would be a minimum public contribution per student of 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the standard
*Standard to be agreed by all governments and sectors ahead of 2014
*Reviewed every four years and indexed in between
