School funding and achievement: following the money trail

Recurrent expenditure on school education in Australia is over $44 billion each year, around$36 billion of this provided by governments. These are considerable sums, more often than not expressed as a cost rather than an investment – especially when it doesn’t always seem to deliver noticeable improvements in student results. But a closer look at where the money goes and what it delivers reveals many surprises. Schools are expensive places, some far more than others. But in recent years the biggest funding increases have gone to the most advantaged schools - and there is scant evidence of any difference in student results. Some schools are better than others – but regardless of sector, schools which enrol similar students turn out much the same results. This prompts us to take a close look at how much schools are spending to get these same results. We find that if all schools spent the same as the most efficient providers up to $3.3 billion each year could potentially be released and diverted to our most needy students. Gonski would be back in play, Australia’s worrying achievement gaps would diminish. This study shows the figures, the possibilities and some the inevitable arguments

Private school, public cost

Recent trends in school recurrent funding strongly suggest that over 40 per cent of students in Catholic schools next year will average as much, if not more, public funding than their peers in similar government schools. Two years further on an additional 40 per cent will most likely join them. Half the students in Independent schools are on track to get as much, if not more, than government school students by the end of the decade. This finding emerges as one of the most significant to date from the authors’ analysis of My School data. They have previously shown that changes in school funding in recent years – increasingly favouring students who are already advantaged – has done little for student achievement and nothing for equity. Earlier this year they pointed to a $3 billion over-investment in better-off students, without any measurable gain in their achievement. Now they find that state and federal governments, within four years, will be funding the vast majority of private school students at levels higher than students in similar government schools. Concerns about funding equity should now be joined by concerns about effectiveness and efficiency in how we provide and fund schools. This report shows how funding has changed and how familiar claims about the relative cost of schools have become obsolete and misleading. It addresses questions that arise about our schools: what is public, what is private, what should be the difference between them, what obligations do and should fully-funded schools have to the public which pays to run them? Such questions have to be answered if schooling is to provide access and equity combined with effectiveness and efficiency

Massive spinning particles and the geometry of null curves

We study the simplest geometrical particle model associated with null paths in four-dimensional Minkowski space-time. The action is given by the pseudo-arclength of the particle worldline. We show that the reduced classical phase space of this system coincides with that of a massive spinning particle of spin $s=\alpha^2/M$, where $M$ is the particle mass, and $\alpha$ is the coupling constant in front of the action. Consistency of the associated quantum theory requires the spin $s$ to be an integer or half integer number, thus implying a quantization condition on the physical mass $M$ of the particle. Then, standard quantization techniques show that the corresponding Hilbert spaces are solution spaces of the standard relativistic massive wave equations. Therefore this geometrical particle model provides us with an unified description of Dirac fermions ($s=1/2$) and massive higher spin fields.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX (elsart macros

Structure formation in the Lemaitre-Tolman model

Structure formation within the Lemaitre-Tolman model is investigated in a general manner. We seek models such that the initial density perturbation within a homogeneous background has a smaller mass than the structure into which it will develop, and the perturbation then accretes more mass during evolution. This is a generalisation of the approach taken by Bonnor in 1956. It is proved that any two spherically symmetric density profiles specified on any two constant time slices can be joined by a Lemaitre-Tolman evolution, and exact implicit formulae for the arbitrary functions that determine the resulting L-T model are obtained. Examples of the process are investigated numerically.Comment: LaTeX 2e plus 14 .eps & .ps figure files. 33 pages including figures. Minor revisions of text and data make it more precise and consistent. Currently scheduled for Phys Rev D vol 64, December 15 issu

The gravitational wave rocket

Einstein's equations admit solutions corresponding to photon rockets. In these a massive particle recoils because of the anisotropic emission of photons. In this paper we ask whether rocket motion can be powered only by the emission of gravitational waves. We use the double series approximation method and show that this is possible. A loss of mass and gain in momentum arise in the second approximation because of the emission of quadrupole and octupole waves.Comment: 10 pages LaTe

Closed timelike curves in general relativity

Many solutions of Einstein's field equations contain closed timelike curves (CTC). Some of these solutions refer to ordinary materials in situations which might occur in the laboratory, or in astrophysics. It is argued that, in default of a reasonable interpretation of CTC, general relativity does not give a satisfactory account of all phenomena within its terms of reference.Comment: 3 pages, PACS: 042

The physical meaning of the "boost-rotation symmetric" solutions within the general interpretation of Einstein's theory of gravitation

The answer to the question, what physical meaning should be attributed to the so-called boost-rotation symmetric exact solutions to the field equations of general relativity, is provided within the general interpretation scheme for the ``theories of relativity'', based on group theoretical arguments, and set forth by Erich Kretschmann already in the year 1917.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure; text to appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio