Education saviour is pulling too many levers

IN a desperate attempt to refloat a sinking ALP ship and to divert attention from a moribund, bitterly divided government, Julia Gillard is trying to focus on what she believes is her main strength: the ALP's education revolution, now rebadged as her national crusade.

Just weeks before the April 19 Council of Australian Governments meeting of state and federal leaders, when the details of the new Gonski-inspired funding model will have to be agreed to, the Prime Minister is arguing that education is a paramount election issue and that the states must bend to her rule.

The first problem Gillard faces, like the ALP brand, is that an increasingly sceptical and disillusioned public is no longer listening and, if it is, has long since concluded that the Prime Minister no longer acts for the good of the nation.

Recent events related to the on-again, off-again leadership challenge and Gillard's willingness to jettison conviction for political expediency reveal a persona consumed by the need for power and self-interest.

There is also the fact Gillard's record as education minister, under Kevin Rudd's leadership, is one of failure, waste and mismanagement. It's ironic that, as Prime Minister, Gillard touts herself as Australia's educational saviour when she and her government have achieved so little.

Under her control, billions have been wasted on the Building the Education Revolution program that forced off-the-shelf, centrally mandated infrastructure on schools with little, if any, educational benefit.

The much-heralded computers in schools program, notwithstanding the cost, has delivered thousands and thousands of now out-of-date computers that schools can ill-afford to maintain or update.

The fetish for limiting education to what can be measured and forcing a centralised and inflexible accountability regime on schools, government and non-government, are stifling innovation and change by imposing a command and control regime on classrooms across the nation.

The Gillard-inspired national curriculum, instead of embracing rigorous, academic standards, is awash with progressive fads such as child-centred, inquiry-based learning, all taught through a politically correct prism involving indigenous, Asian and environmental perspectives.

Best epitomised by the PM's boast to have Australian students perform among the top five countries in international tests by 2025, Gillard's record of education is more about rhetoric and spin than substance and acting according to the best interests of schools, teachers and students.

Even worse, instead of recognising and acting as a result of such failures, Gillard's response, like that of the captain of the Titanic, is to continue on course oblivious to the consequences. Even though the commonwealth government neither manages any schools nor employs any teachers, Gillard is making it a condition of funding that every school across Australia must implement Canberra's National Plan for School Improvement.

If accepted by the states, the result will be that schools will be forced to design annual plans and carry out reviews, teachers will be made to individually monitor every student, and what can be quantified and measured will be made public, thus, making it possible to rank schools in terms of outcomes.

While a certain amount of accountability and oversight is a good thing, ignored is the fact the commonwealth's plans duplicate what states and territories are already doing, that schools are drowning in bureaucratic overload and that teachers are reduced to bean counters.

Add the National Plan for School Improvement to commonwealth-inspired initiatives such as the national curriculum, national testing, national teacher registration and certification, and national standards for teacher training, and it's clear that the states are losing control of education.

Much like the old centralised plans of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe under socialism, the assumption is that supposedly omniscient governments can centrally mandate and control public policy by pulling the levers, managing the inputs and setting performance outcomes.

There is an alternative. Research here and overseas proves that the most effective way to strengthen schools, raise standards and assist teachers is to embrace diversity, autonomy and choice in education. The solution lies in less government interference and micro-management, not more.

What in the Catholic school system is known as subsidiarity is a situation where decisions are made as closely as possible by those most affected.

The fact autonomy in education works helps to explain why Catholic and independent schools, on the whole, outperform government schools. Autonomy in education allows schools to better meet the needs and aspirations of their communities, to have the flexibility to innovate and to give teachers the freedom and space to get on with what they most enjoy doing - being in the classroom and teaching.

On one point Gillard is correct; education is and will be a significant issue in what is an election year. It's also true that the Australian public is faced with a clear alternative between two opposing views. On one hand Fabian Gillard stands for increased government regulation and control and a one size fits all, lowest common denominator approach based on the socialist ideal of equality of outcomes.

On the other hand is Tony Abbott's view of education, one based on diversity and choice where schools are empowered to manage their own affairs free from over regulation and constraint.

Kevin Donnelly is director of Education Standards Institute.