Quality curriculum, not more funding, is the key to a better education system

BY all rights education should be at the heart of political debate in Australia. Unfortunately, there appears to be a reluctance to discuss what is really going on in the classroom.

Public debate rarely focuses on the intellectual quality of the school curriculum or standards.

Invariably, discussions about education serve as a vehicle to discuss issues extraneous to it.

It is frequently debated as an add-on to deliberations on economic and social issues. The wider question of social disadvantage has been recast as a problem in which schooling is directly or indirectly complicit.

Numerous commentators have argued that social advantage and privilege have a significant impact on pupils' educational outcomes. Julia Gillard has criticised this state of affairs and stated it is "simply not acceptable".

She argues there isn't a level playing field in the system of education. No doubt she is right.

However, the absence of a level playing field is a statement that could be made of almost every dimension of social life.

The tendency to treat social inequality and education as interchangeable problems invariably leads to the conclusion that the solution to both is to increase spending on schooling.

The main objective of the call for educational reform is an increase in resources or their redistribution to help the disadvantaged.

Richard Teese from the University of Melbourne and Angelo Gavrielatos, federal president of the Australian Education Union, have embraced this education as a funding problem model.

The call for an expansion of funding to improve standards was also proposed by the expert panel headed by David Gonski.

There may be some sound financial reasons for reforming the present system of funding education, but they have little to do with enhancing the quality of education. Do not expect such reforms to lead to improved educational outcomes.

Those addicted to throwing money at the problem need to face up to the fact increased spending on education in Australia has coincided with a fall in student performance.

Increased funding can improve teachers' living standards and the quality of school buildings and equipment. Such improvements may be desirable, but they are unlikely to make much impact on educational standards.

Why? Because although money has a direct impact on increasing the quantity of material goods, it cannot directly enhance the quality of education, which is a mental good.

Public spending can enhance physical infrastructure and improve the material goods available to society. But mental goods - such as knowledge, appreciation of the arts, civic pride, intellectual curiosity - are unlikely to increase and decrease in response to financial stimuli or, for that matter, government policy.

Of course, it is totally unfair that we live in an unjust world in which children from privileged backgrounds have greater educational opportunities than those from poorer households.

Many well-off parents have considerable financial and intellectual capital. That is the main reason their children tend to achieve higher results than those who come from families with little intellectual capital.

This disparity in the availability of intellectual capital cannot be overcome through the efforts of teachers and schools but they can make an important difference if they take the question of quality and standards seriously.

We should remember liberal philosopher Bertrand Russell's warning about what happens when government tries to tinker with school funding to redistribute intellectual capital from those who have it to those who don't.

Russell wrote: "There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good."

He added: "Some of the unjust societies of the past gave to a minority opportunities which, if we are not careful, the new society that we seek to build may give to no one."

Russell's concern was that, since cultural capital cannot be readily redistributed, governments might respond to this fact by devaluing its status and content. How? By calling into question the value of cultural capital altogether. For example, high standards in intellectual and artistic pursuits could be denounced as irrelevant and elitist. His prediction proved accurate.

In recent decades many educationalists have adopted a hostile attitude towards what they describe as a traditional model of subject-based academic learning.

They believe children should be taught topics that are relevant to their lives and not bother with more abstract and conceptually focused subjects.

Invariably, such subject-based teaching is denounced as elitist and irrelevant. Since the 1990s, in Australia, the advocates of outcome-based education clearly convey a philistine antagonism against an intellectually challenging system of education.

Instead of engaging with the tough question of how the good things that are currently available only to a minority can be made available to all, many opponents of a traditional knowledge-based curriculum feel more comfortable arguing for a society in which such goods are given to no one.

Yet experience indicates that the one proven way of narrowing inequality is through providing everyone with an opportunity to benefit from an academic educational culture.

That requires not so much more money but a commitment to take education as something that is important in its own right.

It is time to refocus public discussion from the issue of funding to the content and quality of Australian schooling. The current focus on funding actually reflects a loss of faith in education.

It seems as if its advocates believe that money has the kind of magical properties that education lacks to enhance the performance of schools.

Yet if education is taken seriously as something that is important in its own right, many children will benefit enormously from their schooling and enjoy a social status that their parents could only dream of.

Those who take education seriously will want answers that can only be discovered through looking at the content of the school curriculum.