David Seymour and more misinformation on school funding

David Seymour and more misinformation on school funding

David Seymour’s press release today about the collapse of North Shore based private school, Corelli, has two whoppers in it.

First, he incorrectly implies that if a student moves from a private school into a state school then the taxpayer would be $5,000 a year poorer for each student.

This is nonsense. The average amount of government funding per student in the state school sector is derived by dividing a whole raft of aggregated costs by the very large number of students enrolled. But that does not mean that each additional student – at the margin – would cost the taxpayer that amount of money.

Many of the costs incurred in running our schools do not immediately change as the number of students changes. So, it might be possible to absorb more students into the existing school network and hardly change the costs involved. Some costs may go up but by no means all of them will.

The second point in Seymour’s reckless release is that he conveniently overlooks the fact that Corelli has a large number of International students on its roll.

The preliminary March roll data suggests Corelli had as many as 19 international students out of its total roll of 37.

So, if they were all “forced” into attending a state school, the taxpayer would actually benefit, as the international students pay fees that are often over $20,000 a year!

With misinformation as grossly misleading as this, it’s no wonder the public doesn’t trust politicians.

ENDS

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