Quality teaching will fashion far better outcomes

St Mary's School Year 1

EDUCATION Minister Christopher Pyne is correct to argue the Rudd government's Gonski-inspired school funding model and related National Education Reform Agreement are flawed and incapable of strengthening schools and raising standards.

Worse than the fact the Rudd government's promise of additional funding was on the never-never is the reality that Labor's command and control model of education contradicts key recommendations of the Gonski report.

The main flaw in the Labor government's response to the Gonski report and the NSW, Victorian and South Australian premiers' demands for more money is the mistaken assumption that spending additional billions will lead to better outcomes.

Ignored is that investing in education will have little, if any, positive impact if nothing is done to address the shortcomings in state and territory education systems.

As noted in a paper by Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan, Long-Run Trends in School Productivity: Evidence for Australia, despite a substantial increase in real expenditure per student since the mid-1960s there has been negligible improvement in standards as measured by literacy and numeracy tests.

A McKinsey report, How the World's Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, reaches a similar conclusion when it states, in relation to OECD countries across the period 1970 to 1994 when investment doubled, "despite this increase in expenditure, student outcomes in a large number of systems either stagnated or regressed".

It is also worth noting much of the Rudd-Gillard government's education agenda mirrors what Tony Blair did in Britain where, notwithstanding the increased expenditure, "progress on improving educational outcomes and lowering educational inequality has been limited", according to a 2012 OECD paper.

What is the best way to raise standards? While responses to the Gonski report have focused on the funding model, involving a schooling resource standard and loadings for disadvantage, it is important to acknowledge the report does address the issue of how to improve performance.

After noting increased investment is a necessary condition for improved outcomes but not a sufficient one, the report lists factors such as: effective teaching and school leadership; school autonomy over allocating resources; fostering innovative pedagogy; engaging with parents and communities; and quality assurance.

There is much to recommend in what Gonski suggests, and the report is not alone in arguing that factors such as school autonomy, parental engagement, quality teaching, effective school leadership and an innovative curriculum plus a degree of accountability are essential if standards are to improve.

A second McKinsey report on analysing the characteristics of leading education systems also nominates teacher quality: "The available evidence suggests that the main driver of the variation in student learning at school is the quality of the teachers."

Related to teacher effectiveness is the need to ensure those entering the profession are academically capable with "a high overall level of literacy and numeracy, strong interpersonal and communication skills, a willingness to learn and the motivation to teach".

Stronger performing education systems also ensure teachers are well compensated and have the time and resources to improve classroom instruction by reflecting on classroom practice, mentoring one another and drawing on evidence-based research.

In addition to teacher quality and effective leadership, the second McKinsey report also concludes that successful education systems "have curriculum standards which set clear and high expectations for what students should achieve".

Holding schools accountable by monitoring performance, whether by externally set and assessed examinations, standardised tests, internal and external school reviews or teacher evaluation, is also identified as a significant characteristic of successful education systems.

The Gonski report's argument that government schools, in particular, "require greater autonomy and flexibility in decision-making than is currently the case" is also supported by research here and overseas.

On analysing the data from four sets of international tests, Ludger Woessmann, in a 2006 paper, concludes: "The general pattern of results on school autonomy from the international tests is that students perform better in schools that have autonomy in process and personnel decisions."

In a paper published in 2011 by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research a similar case is made for the value of school autonomy in high-income, developed countries such as Australia.

Based on an analysis of the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment across the period 2000 to 2009, the paper concludes: "Our central finding is that autonomy reforms improve student achievement in developed countries" and that "increased autonomy over academic content, personnel and budgets exerts positive effects on student achievement".

Within Australia, although it is too early to evaluate in terms of test results, the evaluation of the West Australian Independent Public Schools initiative concludes that empowering government schools at the local level, what in the Catholic system is know as subsidiarity, is beneficial.

The report by the University of Melbourne's graduate school of education concludes: "The IPS initiative, while still in its early phase and not without challenges, has set the scene for school improvement, been embraced by most principals and had a significant impact across a range of areas within schools and the broader system."

The fact Catholic and independent schools, with a greater degree of autonomy compared with government schools, achieve such strong academic results, even after adjusting for their students' socioeconomic background, also illustrates the benefits of freeing schools from centralised, bureaucratic control.

Instead of acting on the Gonski report's suggestions about how to raise standards, the Rudd government's model of policy development, enshrined in the National Plan for School Improvement of the National Education Reform Agreement, is more of the same command and control, inflexible, top-down approach guaranteed to fail.

While nodding in the direction of autonomy, Labor's strategy to lift performance includes imposing a national curriculum, national teacher registration and certification, national standards for school leadership, national standardised testing, now extended to emotional and behavioural characteristics, and a raft of intrusive accountability requirements.

The new regime applies to every school in Australia, Catholic, independent and government and is being imposed as a condition of funding. Those parents seeking diversity and choice in education by choosing non-government schools because of their autonomy will now find such schools must comply to the dictates of Canberra.

Much like the old, socialist command and control models of the Soviet Union, the National Education Reform Agreement is full of jargon and ambitious rhetoric: all schools will meet equity targets by 2025 in areas of disadvantage, progress will be charted against key targets and output-driven indicators.

Australian students will perform among the top five nations in international tests by 2025 and all schools and teachers will be evaluated by a plethora of distant bureaucracies, including the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, Education Services Australia and the proposed Australian School Performance entity.

Forget Charles Dickens' Circumlocution Office, whose "finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office."

In addition to duplicating what states and territories already do, the National Plan for School Improvement gives the responsibility of achieving targets to the professional groups and organisations responsible for the past 20 to 30 years of education stagnation and underperformance.

In relation to improving teacher training, for example, the intention is to undertake the planned review in consultation with "universities, teacher employers, state and regulatory authorities and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership".

Responsibility for developing the national curriculum has been given to the same subject associations, professional and curriculum bodies that champion progressive, new-age fads such as inquiry-based, child-centred learning and a constructivist epistemology.

As a result, much of the national curriculum embodies aspects of Australia's much discredited outcomes-based education that led to teachers in Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland complaining about the curriculum being dumbed down, cumbersome, overly prescriptive and impossible to implement.

It shouldn't surprise that even though Victoria and Tasmania endorsed the Rudd government's Gonski-inspired school funding model and related National Education Reform Agreement, the two premiers expressed concerns about the commonwealth's takeover of what, according to the Constitution, is a state responsibility. It also shouldn't surprise that during the recent federal election campaign the Coalition promised, if elected, to amend the legislation to "remove any parts that allow the federal government to dictate what states and territories must do to their schools" and to ensure that "non-government schools maintain their independence and autonomy".

In its attempt to strengthen schools and raise standards it's also the case that the Rudd government's model ignores two of the most pressing challenges faced by teachers, and the reason so many schools underperform: disruptive classrooms because of badly behaved students, and the fact so many inexperienced teachers are on short-term contracts.

What's to be done? Contrary to the argument that governments and distant bureaucracies can dictate outcomes, schools, teachers and parents should be given greater control over education. The system should be one that embraces diversity, choice and autonomy within a flexible and responsive accountability regime.

Based on the experience of charter schools in the US and free schools in Britain, New Zealand this year has legislated to introduce its version of charter schools.

Such schools will have the freedom to implement a curriculum that best suits their needs and to employ teachers who may not be formally trained and accredited.

As argued by Eric Hanushek in the US, another way to raise standards is to pressure schools to be more accountable by giving parents the ability to choose where their children go to school by introducing school vouchers or tax credits.

When calculating the quantum of funding schools would receive under the Gonski-inspired Schooling Resource Standard, the Rudd government quoted a per student amount of $9271 for primary school children and $12,193 for secondary school students.

Instead of such money being given to state and territory governments, it should go directly to parents as a voucher that would then follow the student to whatever school was chosen - government, Catholic or independent.

As is occurring in Britain, where Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, is dismantling much of the Blair government's education agenda (one that the Rudd-Gillard governments copied), there should also be less external regulation and control.

As noted in 2010's schools white paper: "Around the world, the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt" and "the primary responsibility for improvements rests with schools, and the wider system should be designed so that our best schools and leaders can take on greater responsibility".

Australia's Catholic schools, many that serve disadvantaged communities and have a similar socioeconomic profile to government schools, provide a clear example of the benefits of decision-making occurring as close as possible to those most affected.

Based on analysis of the 2009 PISA test results, it is clear that Catholic schools are far more effective at getting disadvantaged students to perform better than otherwise may be expected, making such schools high quality and high equity.

In addition to reducing bureaucracy and compliance costs, giving schools greater autonomy, overhauling teacher training and better rewarding effective teachers, simplifying the national curriculum and implementing accountability measures that don't overwhelm schools and teachers, teaching practice needs to be evidence-based.

Instead of the curriculum and classroom interaction adopting progressive fads and whatever the educrats decide is the latest fashion, teaching and learning must be based on sound principles and what is shown to work.

The past 20 to 30 years of waste and mismanagement in education prove increased investment is not the answer.

Restricting arguments about Gonski to funding will simply condemn future generations of students to continued underperformance and failure.

What is needed is a multifaceted approach to school improvement and lifting standards, recognising there are no simple and easy solutions and that autonomy, diversity and choice in education are preferable to a one-size-fits-all, statist and inflexible approach.

Kevin Donnelly is director of the Melbourne-based Education Standards Institute.