The Albanese Government is entitled to proclaim that the agreements they have now reached with every state and territory will put all public schools on a path to full and fair funding.

And Education Minister Jason Clare is also entitled to state that The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (2025-2034) marks “an historic day for Australia’s education system”. This agreement will lift the Commonwealth’s share of recurrent funding for public schools from 20% to 25% of the Schooling Resource Standard over the next 10 years, an estimated additional $16.5 billion.

Both are to be commended for their wisdom, however, in avoiding the furphy published by The Sydney Morning Herald that “a landmark school funding deal to finally end the war over public versus private is here”.

This is not a case of “mission accomplished”.

Labor has taken an important, overdue and necessary step on the long and winding path towards full and fairer schools funding. Inequity and inequality within and between the private and the public sectors are now so deeply entrenched that our country’s school system will continue heading in the wrong direction without a far greater commitment to reform.

Key problems are the asymmetrical and dysfunctional division of responsibilities for schooling between the Commonwealth and states; a funding system with a reliance on proxy measures for assessing “need”; and a deviant form of public-private partnership for private schooling.

Think about a family after a divorce… one parent on a high income has custody of one of the children. The other parent has custody of the second child and is on a lower income (possibly a Centrelink Parenting Payment, topped up by a child maintenance payment from the wealthier parent).

That scenario has a parallel in Australia’s schools funding arrangements.

The Commonwealth has progressively assumed responsibility for looking after the private schools: 80% of their public funding entitlement comes from its budget. Public schools are largely reliant for their upkeep on the less well-heeled funding partners – the states and territories.

Under current arrangements, all public and non-government schools are either operating at — or transitioning to — their public funding entitlement against the SRS, consistent with provisions in the Australian Education Act.

But when it comes to funding private schools, Australia has invented a unique form of public-private........

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