When the Stanhope Government first released their Towards 2020 plan they used misleading statistics to paint small schools in as bad a light as possible. Their per-pupil costs included costs like depreciation. When fixed costs such as depreciation are calculated the cost per pupil for smaller schools will always look worse than larger ones.
Later we found out that their projected savings were only calculated on some salary savings and schools based management (SBM) costs. I’ll have something to say about the SBM later, but if we take them at their word and just rank primary schools by salary and schools based management costs we get the following list (* = closing school):
Rank School Cost per student ($) 1 Amaroo School 4902 2 Aranda Primary 5686 3 Majura Primary 5845 4 Gordon Primary 5862 5 Theodore Primary 5891 6 Chapman Primary 5986 7 Red Hill Primary 6045 8 Charles Conder Primary 6053 9 Miles Franklin Primary 6112 10 North Ainslie Primary + IEC 6191 11 Torrens Primary 6211 12 Fraser Primary 6234 13 Forrest Primary 6253 14 Kaleen Primary 6347 15 Lyneham Primary 6352 16 Arawang Primary 6412 17 Wanniassa Hills Primary 6415 18 Ainslie Primary 6446 19 Calwell Primary 6471 20 Weetangera Primary 6487 21 Hughes Primary + IEC 6501 22 Bonython Primary 6531 23 Palmerston Primary 6658 24 Monash Primary 6669 25 Isabella Plains Primary 6685 * 26 Garran Primary 6762 27 Ngunnawal Primary 6766 28 Curtin Primary 6769 29 Florey Primary 6857 30 Macgregor Primary 6872 31 Telopea Park School 6884 32 Farrer Primary 6941 33 Gilmore Primary 7028 * 34 Hawker Primary 7149 35 Wanniassa School 7205 36 Campbell Primary 7333 37 Richardson Primary 7336 38 Cooperative School 7396 39 Higgins Primary 7409 * 40 Fadden Primary 7532 41 Giralang Primary 7589 * 42 Mt Rogers Community School 7682 * 43 Charnwood Primary 7782 44 Cook Primary 7826 * 45 Evatt Primary 7850 46 Southern Cross Primary 7854 47 Chisholm Primary 7872 48 Gold Creek School 7877 49 Flynn Primary 7911 * 50 Macquarie Primary 7950 51 Mt Neighbour Primary 8027 * 52 Urambi Primary 8311 53 Hall Primary 8379 * 54 Latham Primary 8515 55 Village Creek Primary + IEC 8589 * 56 Maribyrnong Primary 8791 57 Duffy Primary 9010 58 Gowrie Primary 9333 59 Holt Primary 9519 * 60 Mawson Primary 9747 61 Taylor Primary 9830 62 Yarralumla Primary 9836 63 Weston Primary 10210 * 64 Lyons Primary 10447 65 Turner Primary 11250 66 Narrabundah Primary 12393 67 Melrose Primary 13186 * 68 Rivett Primary 13602 * 69 Tharwa Primary 15720 *
This is a much more useful list, and surprising in some ways. It still does not take into account children with special needs (the Government have not released any data that would allow one to do that). What is interesting is how inexpensive Turner is, even with all the special needs kids that they have.
Also worth noting is that all but the two cheapest and ten most expensive schools are within one standard deviation ($1986) of the mean ($7744). Of the ten most expensive (60-69) only four are listed to close.
Why are they closing Isabella Plains (ranked 25) and Gilmore (ranked 33)?
Gold Creek, a big new school operating at 91% capacity, costs $7877 per student (ranked 48). There are six schools to be closed which are cheaper.
