Current negotiations between the Commonwealth and state governments risk cementing long-standing underfunding of public schools according to the accepted Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). Commonwealth offers to fund public schools in most jurisdictions to 22.5% of SRS benchmarks would leave public schools short of required resources to meet that standard. This will likely exacerbate recent declines in Australian school achievement and completion.

International and Australian research has confirmed the substantial economic and fiscal benefits of well-funded and accessible public schools.

This report argues that the failure to fully fund public schools is clearly a case of false economy. The relatively small amounts of money ‘saved’ in the near term, are more than offset by long-run underperformance according to numerous indicators: school attainment and completion, productivity, GDP, and fiscal balances. The Commonwealth government is leaving money on the table, with its failure to fully meet SRS funding requirements.