Much of the argument and debate around the Gonski funding review, which is due for release next Monday, relates to equity and disadvantage and whether non-government schools should be financially penalised.
While funding is crucial, for both government and non-government schools, equally as important are the conditions attached to funding and the extent to which governments regulate schools. When it comes to education the consensus is that Julia Gillard, as education minister and now as Prime Minister, has reigned over a highly, centralised, micromanaged and bureaucratic model of educational delivery.
Despite the fact that the federal government neither manages any schools nor employs any staff, all roads lead to Canberra. Whether a national curriculum, national testing and accountability, national teacher certification and registration or the Building the Education Revolution fiasco, schools are being forced to implement the government’s agenda.
Worse still is the fact that federal funding to schools, both government and non-government, is tied to schools conforming to government dictates and, as a result, schools no longer have the flexibility and autonomy to best reflect the needs and aspirations of their local communities.
There is an alternative to a command and control approach. The ten points enunciated by the shadow minister for education is his recent speech provide a compelling alternative to the Rudd/Gillard education revolution. Unlike the ALP, the Australian Education Union and cultural-left academics, the opposition’s policy respects and values parental choice in education.
In the context of the Gonski review of funding, the belief is that parents should not be financially penalised because of school choice and that all students, regardless of school attended, deserve a high quality, equitable and fair education.
In contrast to the Gillard government’s one size-fits-all model of educational delivery, epitomised by the BER where government schools had to accept off the shelf designs, the Pyne alternative argues that diversity is the key to an effective education system.
Mirroring the approach in England, where the conservative government is freeing schools from provider capture and the shackles imposed by head office, Pyne argues “as many decisions as possible should be made locally by parents, communities, principals, teachers, schools and school systems”.
While arguing that schools should be given greater flexibility and autonomy, Pyne agrees that there should be a degree of accountability, represented by a system of checks and balances that, unlike the ALP’s inflexible and intrusive model of educational delivery, respects “diversity and choice”.
Research by Ludger Woessmann from the OECD, the example of charter schools in disadvantaged communities in the US and research by Australia’s Gary Marks, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, all conclude that choice, diversity and autonomy in education lead to stronger outcomes.
It’s no secret the Australian Catholic schools are high quality/high equity when it comes to overcoming disadvantage (achieving results comparable to Finland, considered one of the world’s leading education systems) and that a significant explanation for the success of such schools is subsidiarity – defined as allowing decision making to occur at the level closest to those most affected.
While those seeking to undermine the autonomy and financial viability of non-government schools argue that the current socioeconomic status (SES) system of funding exacerbates disadvantage and ensures that such schools are over funded, as acknowledged by Christopher Pyne, the opposite is the case.
The SES model is based on need and, in the words of the shadow education minister, “ensures schools serving the neediest communities receive the maximum funding while schools serving the wealthiest communities receive the minimum”. Wealthier non-government schools are only eligible to receive 13.7% of what governments provide to state school students in terms of recurrent funding.
It’s also true, an average, that while state school students receive approximately $13,544 in state and federal funding non-government school students only receive $6850. Across Australia some 34% of students attend Catholic and independent schools –saving governments billions of dollars each and every year.
Prime Minister Gillard argues that no non-government school will lose funding as a result of the Gonski review and, only last weekend, released details about giving state schools the power to hire and fire staff. On being interviewed Gillard argued that her intention is to “empower local principals and local school communities” on the basis that her government does not intend “to impose one model from above”.
Unfortunately, such promises fly in the face of Gillard’s record as education minister and Prime Minister and run counter to her government’s record of micromanagement and centralised control.
Given the federal oppositions long term commitment to parental choice in education and freeing schools from over regulation and outside interference, it’s also the case that Prime Minister Gillard is simply playing catch up politics.
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