Julia Gillard 'rewriting' Gonski brief

THE PM's attempt to paint debate about schools standards as a "distraction" was a tactical play to rewrite the original Gonski review panel brief.

JULIA Gillard's attempt to paint the debate about standards in schools as a "distraction" from Labor's education funding reforms was a tactical play to rewrite the initial brief with which the Gonski review panel was charged.

Review panel member Kathryn Greiner told The Australian the "effective brief" at the time the panel was asked to examine equity in school funding was how extra funding could actually make a difference, on the back of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money that had failed to make a dent in educational disadvantage.

"At the time they were pouring bucketloads of money, cash, into the states under the national partnerships without any effect," Ms Greiner said. "So that was the effective brief that underpinned the whole of the work we were about to do: how do we use money to make it work for the system?"

As the Coalition attempted to reframe the education debate as one about standards in schools and achieving value for money, the Prime Minister attempted to separate her Gonski plan from the outcomes it originally was designed to achieve.

"The rubbish being spoken about in terms of the budget figures, the 'look over here' distraction about the standards debate; let's just put that to one side for the white noise and distraction that it is," she said when asked at a press conference on Monday whether funding necessarily lifted school standards. "It lifts school standards, and I can say that to you with absolute confidence."

The Australian National Audit Office didn't agree in its assessments last year, finding problems with how money was targeted during the national partnerships cash splash and "no statistically significant improvement" in literacy and numeracy rates.

"The standards debate needs to be linked, in my view, with funding and you cannot have one without the other because you have to design both to make sure they work," Ms Greiner said. "Standards will lift in schools when there is a concerted effort elsewhere, in teacher training and beyond."

Her comments came after another panel member, Bill Scales, told ABC's Lateline last month that funding issues should not be quarantined from the broader debate. "Well, I think it's important also to see funding as not the only issue here," he said. "I mean, many people will try to make out that there's only one issue that will solve Australia's declining educational standards and of course that's not right. There are many things that have to be done.

"For example, we do have to lift the qualifications and performance and experience of teachers. We have to change the governance within schools.

"We have to do a range of things like that . . . but in addition to that, you can't do any of these things without an appropriate level of resources."

Mr Scales reiterated the review's recommendation that the government convene another group to look at teacher quality and outcomes.

School education program director at the Grattan Institute Ben Jensen agreed, identifying school leadership and teacher training as the No 1 factor influencing education outcomes among students.

"It's not all about money and if you look through the report itself they say straight up that Australia has a pretty awful history of spending lots of money without the results in education," he said.

Mr Jensen said an appropriate question to ask a Prime Minister suddenly nervous about having the standards debate was why it has taken so long to even start looking at teacher quality.