Poor policy process makes a mockery of commitment to education

LAST Wednesday the House of Representatives guillotined the Australian Education Bill, the government's response to the Gonski review, which it says is vital for improving school education.

It was just a day after the Minister for School Education had introduced 70 pages of amendments, yet the government, with the support of independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor and the Greens, agreed by a majority of just one to accept all the amendments and close down debate. The bill has been sent to the Education and Employment Committee for further comments, but the deadline is today, just one week after the bill's introduction. The committee's request for submissions on the legislation is an empty gesture to proper process.

So three years after the Gonski review was appointed we are finally seeing some - but, incredibly, not all - of the details of changes that are supposed to be the most important reform of school funding in 40 years. Given the immense significance of this legislation, rushing the bill through parliament makes a mockery of processes that are designed to scrutinise government policy, to contribute to better informed policymaking and legislative process.

But the whole Gonski review process and the government's handling of the development of policy have been flawed.

As a public inquiry, the Gonski review failed to identify the key issues, debunk funding myths, clarify facts and respond effectively to submissions and commissioned research. Its recommendations have made the complex funding model more complex. It has intruded into states' education roles and provoked a federal-state stoush. It ignited old public v private school debates. Most important, it ignored the evidence of what works to raise educational achievement, which several state governments analysed to come up with policy proposals with more potential to improve school outcomes.

Worse even than the flawed review process has been the government's response: unconscionable delays in responding to the recommendations, a plague of tokenistic prime ministerial visits to schools, secretive negotiations for a supposedly more transparent set of funding arrangements, and continuing lack of detail and confusion about the funding model.

Gonski has become more symbol than substance. Further, the May federal budget indicated that despite the cuts to universities and other programs to supposedly raise additional money for schools, increases from the commonwealth will not start for five or six years and are significantly less than originally announced.

Added to these offences is the new style of commonwealth-state "negotiation", characterised more by threats and abuse than co-operation and informed debate.

At the April meeting of the Council of Australian Governments, the states and territories were given an ultimatum to join up - or else - by June 30. The non-Labor states Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, which so far have not joined up, have been belittled by Julia Gillard as anti-education, accused of putting politics "ahead of kids" and of lowering education standards. The federal government reportedly even suggested it would "punish recalcitrant states that refuse to sign up" with "lower funding".

Yet it is the commonwealth that is putting politics first, especially given that Queensland and Victoria had already developed sound, evidence-based plans for school improvement that may be jeopardised if they are forced into accepting the commonwealth's deal.

The states should be given credit for their commitment to serious educational reform that is more likely to benefit students.

Compounding these mistakes has been the Gillard government's appalling misuse of taxpayer-funded advertisements. The budget includes $21 million to promote the changes. As a result we are bombarded with simplistic slogans such as "better schools mean better opportunities for my children" that could apply to any education discussion, and references to issues such as "ongoing teaching training" or "a national curriculum", with the implication these are integral to the Gonski proposals. These advertisements obfuscate the issues and try to buy votes with cliched slogans and meaningless generalisations.

So this is how the government does education policy these days - a flawed public inquiry, ignoring the evidence about what constitutes quality education, abusing those key stakeholders who may be in disagreement or have a better path forward, rushed legislation, truncated debate in parliament and misuse of taxpayer-funded advertisements. The commonwealth government used to do policy better than this.

Scott Prasser is co-author of Beyond Gonski: Reviewing the Evidence on Quality Schooling.