What Parents are Really Paying for at Private Schools

It isn’t spoken about openly, but elitism and the ability to select a peer group for their children attract parents to private schools.

And the barriers to access are also being set increasingly higher, private school fees routinely exceed the $20,000 mark and $30,000 per year is becoming common.

Curtin Uni researcher Dr Brad Gobby from the university’s School of Education is asking whether children being bought an advantage in life is driving a socio-economic wedge between those who can pay skyrocketing fees and those who can’t and if private schooling actually provides a better education.

At first glance it looks like private schools are turning out high achieving students in greater number than the public system, but the advantage falls away when you look at the composition of the student cohort.

Gobby says, “A publicly subsidised private school system like Australia’s drives the segregation of students. Parents with the resources use their financial ability to seek an educational advantage for their children. This means that Australia has one of the most highly segregated school systems in the world, so there is a high concentration of students from privileged socio-economic backgrounds in private schools, while public schools enrol the vast majority of higher needs students like those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, students who have disabilities and Indigenous students. This segregation between rich and poor leads to greater inequality between the rich and the poor in terms of academic outcomes.

“Our sources of data here are Australia’s NAPLAN test results, and OECD data of PISA results which compare 68 education systems around the world. Both demonstrate that the type or sector of school is not associated with improved academic outcomes when socio-economic background of students and schools is accounted for. In other words, if private schools look like they perform better it’s because they enrol already socially and educationally advantaged students who would likely do well regardless of the school they attend.”

It's a given that most parents will send their children to a public school but there seems to be a nagging suspicion that the public system is second best.

“Public schools are the school of choice for the majority of parents in Australia and most parents value the quality of that education. The academic outcomes of public schools are comparable to private schools when the socio-economic backgrounds of their students are accounted for. In fact, they do better than many private schools and do so in circumstances that are often challenging. We need to challenge the myth that private is better,” he says.

Research in Australia shows that parents choose private schooling for school values, reasons of faith, location, access to resources like pools and sports, and perceived quality pastoral care.

“But, what is less talked about is how paying for a private school pays for the privilege to exclude certain children from your child’s school, to have some control over who their child’s peers will be. What this means is that Australia has one of the most highly segregated school systems in the world, so there is a high concentration of students from privileged socio-economic backgrounds in private schools, while public schools enrol the vast majority of higher needs students like those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, students who have disabilities and Indigenous students. So, many parents think about this and how a school and its name might open doors to certain networks of people, certain professions, and the like,” he says.

Taxpayers are funding private schools as well as public and Gobby asks whether that situation is either valuable or fair.

“On average, Catholic schools receive around 75% of their funding from state and federal governments and independent schools around 45%. That’s a lot of money, especially for those elite schools that are very wealthy. It can be argued that this government subsidy to so-called private education is driving greater segregation of the education system between rich and poor, and greater inequality between the rich and the poor in educational outcomes.

“Less segregated school systems do better. If we want to improve the academic outcomes of students across Australia’s education system as a whole, then governments should fund schools in a way that reduces this segregation and the inequalities this drives.”