Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 have been presented as delivering Labor’s promised education revolution. Together with computers in schools, trades training centres and the educational tax refund, they represent significant improvements to parts of our nation’s education systems. These are welcome measures but they are hardly a revolution. The Schools Assistance Bill sets out the priorities of the government through the national partnership payments as improving the quality of teaching, raising outcomes in disadvantaged school communities and delivering a new era of transparency to guide parents, teachers and policymakers in making the best decisions.

But in line with the commitments given before the 2007 election, the existing distribution of funds between private and public schools will remain in place until 2012. In her second reading speech, the Minister for Education said:

If this country is to succeed in the 21st century we need a schooling system which delivers excellence and equity for every child in Australia.

She went on to say:

This is only possible if the community is confident that governments are applying the same principles of excellence and equity to all Australian schools, regardless of their location or the sector of which they are a part.

But we will have to wait four more years before we make a start on addressing the issue of equity in all Australian schools.

Over the 12 years of the Howard government, we saw the share of Commonwealth school funding going to public schools drop from 43 per cent to 35 per cent. Real Commonwealth grants to public schools grew by 68 per cent, while grants to private schools grew by 137 per cent. There is nothing in this legislation which would redress that imbalance and, indeed, there is no guarantee that the funding gap will not widen over the next four years for which the Howard government’s program is to be locked in. We will still have SES funding and indexation. In fact, we can expect to see annual grants to private schools increase by a further three per cent while grants to public schools fall by two per cent over that four-year period, something that the minister describes as applying ‘the same principles of quality and accountability, excellence and equity that have shaped our national reform agenda’.

It seems to me that the national reform agenda has been put on hold for four years, and the real education revolution is a long, long way off—that is, unless we take those parts of the bill which provide for the five activities that are essential to achieving transparency in Australian schooling. These are national testing, national outcome reporting, the provision and publication of individual school information, and reporting to parents. These activities are to be central to the national education agreement to be negotiated with the states and finalised later this year. The suggestion is that poorer performing schools, which it is assumed are in socially and economically disadvantaged communities, will receive additional resources to improve their performance—that is, to achieve greater equity and outcomes for students in those areas. But the Prime Minister added his own suggestion: that if some schools are not performing this encourages parents to, as he colourfully put it ‘walk with their feet; that’s exactly what the system is designed to do’.

We need to ask if that is the real agenda. Is it to conduct testing and national outcome reporting in order to identify areas of need and allocate additional resources to those areas? I would think that would be a sensible agenda and would mark a return to needs based funding. Or is it to promote a competitive education system where parents in a position to make choices about their children’s schooling may select from a smorgasbord of educational offerings? I have to ask: where is the equity and social inclusion in that proposal? And where does that line up with the reported comments of the minister that ‘we are on about the performance and quality of every school’.

It is not hard to see why there is some confusion about the so-called education revolution. On the one hand we have with this legislation measures which set in concrete for four years a private school funding formula which is no different from the Howard model and will provide an even greater proportion of Commonwealth funding to private schools. Until we see the dollar commitment for assistance to disadvantaged schools, we can only guess at how effective this assistance can be.

At its first caucus meeting after winning government last year, Labor members were urged to visit schools in their electorate. As a member who keeps close contact with many, many schools in my electorate, I felt this special visit was hardly necessary. But, as I visit schools today, particularly staffrooms, I hear some grave concerns from teachers in disadvantaged schools. While it might be popular to speak of teacher unions fighting yesterday’s battles, unlike so many commentators, these teachers see the problems facing students and schools every working day of their life. When we hear of improving teacher quality, it is rarely about providing a proper level of resources. And when we hear objections from teachers to national testing and outcome reporting, we should bear in mind that those objections come from firsthand experience of the unfair nature of our education system. I am sure that, if we had a truly fair and equitable education system, there would be no objection to national testing and outcome reporting. But the system is not fair and, until it is, it will not be fair to the dedicated teachers working in our disadvantaged schools to attempt to report on outcomes for each school.

Let me give just one way in which the results from testing can be distorted in disadvantaged schools. In New South Wales, students in primary schools can be classified as ‘intellectually moderate’ or ‘IM’. A number of schools—and these are generally larger primary schools—have special programs and classes for IM students, and IM students are generally exempted from testing unless a parent requests their child be included. In smaller schools, however, students who could be classified as IM may remain in mainstream classes and, as such, they are required to be tested unless a parent requests that they be exempt.

In some disadvantaged schools, these numbers can be as high as one in five students. You can appreciate how the results for a school can be distorted if the lowest performing fifth of students is not included in test results. While it has been suggested that any comparison between schools will use socioeconomic factors to attempt to compare like with like, there are differences between schools drawing from similar populations. I am very concerned that we will finish up with a system of classification by postcode. A great many factors, including the one I have just mentioned, can influence the outcomes, which have nothing to do with the standard of teaching in the school.

While I am on the subject of teaching standards, there are a few things I would like to add to the debate, which to date appears completely one-sided. It has been said that we should judge teachers the same way that we judge lion tamers. If they come out of the cage alive they have been successful. The same could be said for school principals and others in school leadership roles. As you would be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird, the harshest critics of teachers and principals are students and other teachers.

What is surprising is that so many teachers survive for thirty or more years in a system which takes a high toll on those not up to the demands of the profession. So, before any government embarks on an education revolution, it would be wise to consult the collective wisdom of classroom teachers and school principals rather than dismissing so-called left-wing teacher unions, as members opposite and many media commentators do so often. We would do better to respect their experience and their great dedication.

We may speak of an education revolution, but we are a long way from bringing true equity, excellence and social inclusion into our education system. Unless the measures to be announced following the negotiations with the states for a national education agreement bring a massive allocation of resources to disadvantaged schools, our education system will become more unequal and the great hopes for education driving a successful Australian nation into the 21st century will be proved definitely to be more of a slogan than a reality.

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