A critique of the needs-based funding model in public schools: principals and their experiences of funding

Australia's approach to school funding has long been underwritten by 'the concept of need', both as an empirical measure and theoretical concept, evident in major government reviews of funding, instrumentalised in central agreements, and it continues to be a core component of Australia's funding policy architecture. Taking this as its central focus, this paper critiques Australia's 'needs-based' school funding model, drawing on survey data and interviews with principals from public schools in Australia, to examine principals' day-to-day experiences of 'needs-based funding', arguing that systemic under-funding marginalises public schools and their leaders. Amidst a national teacher shortage and the high cost of emergency relief teachers, the principals did not describe public school funding as needs-based, responsive to context, or flexible. In contrast, the majority of interviewed principals experienced funding as punitive, extractive and disempowering. Principals reported challenges in funding student wellbeing programs and school infrastructure. However, I suggest that the interviewed principals simultaneously engaged in forms of resistance to crisis narratives of public schools that tend to buttress systemic under-funding, emphasising that the budgetary challenges they experienced increased their school's aptitude and resilience.