Labor plan is modest progress on education

FOR the first time Australia is moving to a national curriculums framework for its schools across all states and systems in a cautious step towards improved education standards, better testing and reporting.

The action plan endorsed by the Labor premiers and released yesterday by Victorian Premier John Brumby testifies to new forces driving schools policy mirrored in the outlook of the Howard Government, the Rudd Opposition and the ALP states.

Consider the political conundrum: John Howard and his Education Minister Julie Bishop, having beaten the drum furiously for national curriculum consistency and better standards, now find that ALP state governments want to seize this mantle.

In a sense they have no choice. In this year's budget Bishop declared that the 2009-12 federal funding agreement with the states will be conditional on them meeting core national curriculums standards, external assessments, performance-based pay for teachers and improved reporting on school performance.

There are two intersecting trends at work. First, the Coalition and Labor are fighting to take command of a more rigorous agenda for schools based on higher standards, an approach that has manifest popular support. Second, Canberra and the states are heading in the same broad direction despite the rivalry and buck-passing between them.

This issue will become a moment of truth for the Labor Party, heightened by any Rudd election victory.

The test is whether Labor can disengage from the cultural fixations of the teacher unions and outdated educational theorists and shift the focus in schools policy towards national standards, a disciplined curriculum and performance outcomes.

The ALP premiers and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith say that moment has arrived.

The reality, however, is that schools policy remains contentious within the Labor Party and among its stakeholders, where much of the cultural war is still prosecuted. The message from Labor premiers in yesterday's blueprint, titled The Future of Schooling in Australia, is that its recommendations have "substantial significance for all governments in Australia, the education community and the broader public". Brumby and Smith, on Kevin Rudd's behalf, presented a united Labor front in Melbourne yesterday to outmuscle Howard on schools policy in the election and, if Rudd wins, to have a ready-made operating basis for reform in this area.

They said schools policy would become a template of Labor's brand of co-operative federalism, though Brumby branded it "a new era of collaborative nation-building". Brumby's message was a perfect fit for Rudd's education revolution.

This signals a new and tougher policy where school outcomes are seen as a driver of national economic results. So Brumby said education must be "the No1 national priority".

While Australian schools have high achievement rates, they "are not high enough" compared with countries such as South Korea, Japan and Canada, let alone Finland.

In an age of globalisation "we are in competition with the world".

The report, written by a steering committee chaired by Peter Dawkins, secretary of the Victorian Education Department, embodies four main themes.

First, it proposes a national curriculum that is not one curriculum for all schools but defined "core content and achievement standards" expected for all students established on a nationally consistent basis. Research shows that in maths and science the core curriculum across all states is similar already, a useful start.

But the evolving system should avoid being too prescriptive: there should be flexibility for different systems and schools to meet the standards. The philosophy is national consistency and local autonomy.

Second, the standards reveal a hardening in favour of academic disciplines. The curriculum requires a "solid foundation in skills and knowledge" and advanced learning, based on "deep knowledge and skills" along with problem-solving ability. The key learning areas are English, maths, science and languages.

Significantly, the report admits that studies of society and environment have been defective and says "what should be studied under this label are the disciplines of history, geography and economics". Brumby was specific on this endorsement. It is a serious admission of the failure of past educational theory and, in particular, of some ALP states.

Under the heading of 21st-century learning, the report emphasises three areas: technology (including information and communication technology and design), civics and citizenship, and business. It says such disciplines relate to the "skills and knowledge" for an information-rich world.

Third, the report says, assessment "should provide information on the performance of individual students, individual schools and school systems". Taken at face value, this is a far-reaching and vital step.

But there are many qualifications: the judgment of teachers remains paramount and external assessment is supplementary. Some reports will be based on school assessments and others on national tests. The overall aim is to assist student progress, a timely warning given resistance to such assessments. Schools will be required to report to parents in a clear way that relates their child's efforts to national standards. The report says schools must be assessed not just on raw results but on a "value-added" basis taking account of socioeconomic differences and how schools have taken students beyond their socioeconomic benchmark.

Fourth, the report offers the sensible warning that a better curriculum cannot substitute for a policy emphasis on quality teaching. It is the teachers who are charged with delivering the curriculum in a culture of higher performance. The point, of course, is that the teachers are essential to any better outcome strategy.

The ideas in this document are being driven by Victorian Labor. The strategy is to obtain the support of other stakeholders, notably the Catholic and independent school sectors, as a prelude to seeking the backing of the federal Government for this national framework. On August 15, National Catholic Education Commission chairman Tom Doyle told Dawkins by letter that the Catholic sector was "in broad agreement" with his report.

Independent Schools Council director Bill Daniels said in a letter of August 29 that it was disappointing the federal Government had not been involved. But the sector wants to be a participant in any ongoing process.

Bishop is cautiously optimistic but sceptical about the initiative. Such scepticism is sure to be reinforced by the election campaign.

The message from Bishop's counterpart, Smith, is that a Rudd government would embrace this approach.

"I see this report as the basis for co-operation on schools policy between a federal Labor government and the states," Smith says.

Yes. But remember that one lesson from this entire episode is that the national government is pushing the states on schools policy.

That won't change under Labor, despite sweet words.