The Gonski Report – Yes Or No

Dr Kevin Donnelly was a secondary school teacher in Victoria for 18 years and is now one of Australia’s leading education authors and commentators and the Director of the Melbourne based Education Standards Institute. His most recent publication is Why Our Schools are Failing. On Tuesday 16 April 2013, Kevin Donnelly joined Jane Caro, novelist, journalist, columnist, lecturer, media commentator and most recently co-author of What makes a Good School? In a discussion on the Gonski Report into Australian schools and what it will mean for both government, schools and students.

 THE GONSKI REPORT – YES OR NO

KEVIN DONNELLY

 If you’ve read The Australian today or Quadrant over the last year or two, you’ll know that I’m a critic of the Gonski Report, and have been for some years. But before I go into the criticisms, what I’d like to do is give you a brief outline of Australia’s education system.

Forgive me if I’m telling you what you already know, but it is important to understand that we have a tripartite system of education in Australia. We have Catholic schools, Independent schools and government schools. And it’s very important to realise that for most of the last 30/40 years – apart from the few explosions of debate as we’re having at the moment – there’s been agreement generally amongst the public that it’s acceptable to have that choice. School choice is something, in Australia, which is taken for granted.

If you look at the enrolment figures, government schools enrol 66 per cent, Catholic schools about 20 per cent, and independent schools about 14 per cent of Australian school students. Compared to other OECD countries, we have one of the largest enrolments in non-government schools. I think this is a good thing. Over the last 10 years especially, enrolments have grown in non-government schools. And, over a ten-year period, enrolments have grown in Catholic and Independent schools by about 20 per cent. If you compare that figure of 20 per cent to government schools, new enrolment there has only amounted to 1.2 per cent. Obviously, parents are voting with their feet. And that’s a reasonable thing – that there is school choice.

One of the myths regarding the debate about school funding is that non-government schools are over-funded, compared to government schools. In fact, if you look at state and federal funding at the moment, based on recent figures, government school students receive on average about $14,400 per student while non-government schools only receive about $7,400 per student. So it’s wrong to say that non-government schools are overfunded or that they’re receiving more money from government than state or public schools.

Non-government school parents actually pay for a system they don’t use – government schools. They also pay school fees. On some of the latest figures, the saving to government is over $8 billion a year. If, next week, every student in a Catholic or Independent school suddenly had to be enrolled in a government school, government would have to find an additional $8 billion. That’s the cost that parents and schools are actually raising at the local level, to pay for that education.

I should also say that the current SES model is based on need, so schools like the Kings, for example, or Melbourne Grammar would only receive about 13.7 per cent in government funding of what a government school would receive per student.

Julia Gillard, in 2010 when education minister, set up the Gonski Review. This report recommends a new funding model called the School Resource Standard. But what is the Schools Resource Standard actually? I haven’t been able to find out. One of the complaints about the process over the last year and a half, when the Gonski Report was actually tabled in November, was that it has taken so long to get any details. In fact, Gonski has been sitting on the desk for over a year. COAG has to agree on what the model will be by Friday this week. And a lot of state premiers argue that they don’t know what the model is.

The recommendation from Gonski is for a School Resource Standard, plus additional funding for disadvantage. The latter is a good thing and, in fact, we have that already. We have a system based on need. Students with disability receive additional funding. And if they go from a government to a non-government school, I would hope the funding would follow the child. Julia Gillard talks about an additional $14.5 billion over six years, whereas Gonski actually recommended closer to $38 billion. The funding has been cut way back.

Now the impact of funding, I would argue, is not equitable. I know a lot of debate has occurred over the last year or two about that question, about equity and about justice, in terms of school funding. If we start from a base or premise that every child, regardless of school attended, deserves to be financially supported by government, if we say that any new model should be sector-blind, as it were, so that you shouldn’t be discriminated against if you go to a local Catholic school or an Independent school, then I would argue that Gonski has failed. In wealthy and privileged areas, such as Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, Gonski recommends that government schools receive the full funding in terms of that resource, while non-government schools do not.

So if you’re a parent sending your child to a government school, you get a free secular education. If you choose for whatever reason a non-government school, it’s going to be based on your capacity to pay. Jennifer Buckingham has argued:

A non-government school and a government school with the same socioeconomic profile would be entitled to different levels of funding. While both schools communities have the same anticipated capacity to pay, only non-government schools will have their funding reduced.

Now we can discuss that, and I’m sure there will be questions, but I’d like to believe that regardless of where you choose to send your child, you should be supported.

The Gonski Report also recommends that non-government schools must contribute at least 10 per cent of that Schooling Resource Standard from local funds. So if you have a school fete, if you have Old Boys and Old Girls, women and men, who’ve gone to the school and they contribute through philanthropic support, you have to contribute 10 per cent of that to the School Resource Standard. Government schools don’t have to and I would argue that that’s discrimination.

A few weeks back, Independent and Catholic school authorities around Australia said that they are being hard done by, as it were, they’re losing money.  It’s interesting that Chris Bonner and Jane Caro here tonight in an article, in the Sydney Morning Herald, wrote, “No doubt some private schools will become more expensive as their public funding reduces in real terms. Their fees will go up”. Now they would argue that’s probably a good thing. I would argue it’s not.

It’s not just about funding. Part of the Gonski Report looked at ways of managing schools, at raising standards. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in her speeches and her media release over the weekend, talks about the National School Improvement Plan. Every school in Australia, Catholic, Independent, Government, if you take funding, has to sign up to the National School Improvement Plan. This to me is another flaw because government and non-government schools will face greater external monitoring and accountability. This National School Improvement Plan adds science testing to NAPLAN, where we already have literacy and numeracy in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. But expect that to grow. I would argue that schools are already suffering under too much micro-management and too much accountability.

I’m a great believer, in what Catholics call subsidiarity. Australian schooling and schools will only get worse if Julia Gillard’s recommendations are accepted. Teachers will become bean counters and education will be reduced to what’s measurable or able to be quantified. As somebody who taught for 18 years and loved poetry, I’m not quite sure how you quantify poetry or music or art, for example.

There’s a new bureaucracy being established, when we already have too much bureaucracy in education at the state level. Education bureaucracies at the commonwealth level have grown over the last 20-30 years and this will get worse if Julia Gillard has her way in terms of the Gonski Report.

Education Minister Peter Garrett talks about the Gonski committee being independent. Two of the members of the Gonski Review, Ken Boston and Carmen Lawrence, are actually on the public record, in print, attacking non-government schools. They both argue that the focus, the priority, must be on government schools. They say it is wrong to finance non-government schools, that non-government schools lead to social fragmentation, and dislocation.  I would argue that’s obviously wrong. I’d also argue it’s wrong to have two such people on a committee which is supposedly objective and independent, when their view are already so well known.

Some of the research papers commissioned by the Gonski Review have an agenda which they wanted to push. The report is biased. It argues, for example, that SES or socioeconomic status is a key factor shaping outcomes for students. That’s wrong. One of the myths is that SES determines success or failure in school. It doesn’t.

Gary Marks from the ACER puts its influence at 9-16 per cent. So if you are trying to identify the characteristics of a strong education system, if you are trying to determine what influences how well children do, then SES is a factor between 9 to 16 per cent. A recent study affecting school completion also concluded that the SES measure by parent education and occupation “is less significant than previously indicated”. More important are cultural factors. Gary Mark talks about classroom environment, teacher quality, curriculum rigour, parental expectations. There are many reasons in addition to SES as to why some children do well.

Gonski focuses on disadvantage with a very “cultural left view”. It ignores the fact that the main reason we’re going backwards in the PISA national test, over the last 5-10 years, is because our high ability students, our better able students, are doing less well. One very quick way to raise standards in Australia would be to look at our high ability students and to make sure they’re properly supported. But we never hear about them. Australia loves sport, we love to win in cricket or rugby, but when it comes to education, it is a matter of mediocrity, a dumbing down approach.

I would argue that Gonski embraces a cultural left view, as I said. To quote from Gary Marks again, “Socioeconomic background only partially accounts for school sector differences.” Marks puts the impact of SES at 20-30 per cent. The argument from the Australian Education Union and other independent school critics is that non-government schools do well because they only enrol wealthy or privileged students. That’s not the case. The research shows that when you take SES into account, Catholic and Independent schools are still more able to achieve good results. International research identifies factors like diversity, competition autonomy and choice in education.

For the Gonski Report, Australia’s education system is characterised by inequity – I do not believe that is the case. OECD reports on Australia, released over the last couple of years, show that, out of eleven countries, we are at the top of the table in terms of offering what Mark Latham called, “the ladder of opportunity”. One OECD study concluded that Australia is one of the most socially mobile countries in the OECD, primarily because of health and education and Catholic schools in particular.

It’s ironic that Prime Minister Julia Gillard says that we will have our students performing in the top five nations by 2025. That is a bit like Bob Hawke arguing no child would live in poverty within a few years. But if Ms Gillard was serious, what she would be doing is making sure that non-government schools get more money and not less, and turning government schools into non-government schools by embracing policies like charter schools or free schools or vouchers. With real choice, diversity and competition, every child can do better.