Subject: Whole school priorities

Tom Alegounarias suggests that teachers should be aware of moves towards deregulation masquerading as progressive public policy…

While the world needs an effective teaching profession more than ever before, the essential elements of teaching’s professional standing are being discarded in key jurisdictions around the world. It is worth reflecting on how quickly and effectively Australian policy for supporting the teaching profession has evolved, and the implications for continuing reform, in the global context.

In his significant November 2000 Report for the NSW government on the quality of teaching – Quality Matters[i], Dr Gregor Ramsey dubbed teaching the first profession, the profession of professions. He noted that teaching is the professional practice most necessary for building other professions. All others – doctors, dentists, actuaries, pass through our hands on their way to professional status.

teaching is the professional practice most necessary for building other professions. All others – doctors, dentists, actuaries, pass through our hands on their way to professional status.

Dr Ramsey did not and could not have meant that teaching pre-dates other professions, as the idea that teaching is and should in all circumstances be a profession was still being debated, even among teachers, well into the 1970s. By the time of Dr Ramsey’s report there was no question of the importance of professional status among teachers. The point of his report was to describe the elements of professional structures and cultures that would secure the professional status of teaching into the future.

That report was the first of a series of policy and legislative advances that have arguably provided Australia with the most coherent regulatory and policy frame for supporting teaching in the world.

Cutting a long story very short, Ramsey’s work led to the establishment of the NSW Institute of Teachers and a Professional Standards Framework which was ultimately adapted and adopted to become the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) Australian Professional Standards for Teachers[ii].

Of course, no important policy flower is ever cultivated in isolation, and this work was nurtured by professional bodies from around Australia, including important contributions by teacher unions, and boosted by federalist government activism, of both the cooperative and competitive sort.

Moreover, in places like Scotland a form of minimum standard for registration as a teacher had been in place since 1965[iii]. In the United States the work of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was implementing a formal recognition process for outstanding teachers[iv]. The Australian Council for Educational Research played a key part in bringing many ideas to Australia[v] and academic researchers were drawn to the space between theory and application that Professional Standards represent.

So the provenance of success is myriad, and I don’t intend to claim exceptional standing when I note that in 2000 I was the CEO of the NSW Institute of Teachers as this particular policy approach was set in legislation for the first time anywhere in Australia or the world. This policy which was transcribed into AITSL’s charter shortly after AITSL was established is generally still supported across the profession, including by the teacher unions that were subsequently excluded from AITSL’s governance arrangements – but only after the standards charter was adopted nationally.

policy approach was set in legislation for the first time anywhere in Australia or the world

As a result, I do claim some insight into the policy pressures, sectional perspectives and conceptual breakthroughs that originally resulted in the particular form of the policy. And the relevance here is what insight this might provide for dealing with the current reaction against professional standing for teachers in places like England and parts of the United States.

Unfolding the standards

I won’t describe here every element of the Australian Standards Framework and associated policies that make it both unique and significant, but a couple of dimensions are worth noting.

One is the availability of accreditation as an outstanding teacher – either at Highly Accomplished or Lead Teacher. This places outstanding teaching in a context of professional growth with all other teachers. Outstanding teachers and leaders evolve their practice on the basis of knowledge gained as students and in practice, not independently from collegial experience.

The Framework also includes requirements for Initial Teacher Education graduates. The capacity to be accredited or registered at Proficient Teacher level, and subsequently at Highly Accomplished or Lead is built on knowledge gained through a recognised university degree, complemented subsequently by prastice and further development.

The Standards were developed by practicing teachers. A range of representative bodies including teacher unions nominated individuals that dedicated months of time to developing drafts that were subsequently independently validated by teachers in different contexts. Teachers themselves exercise judgment as to who meets the standards, within a strict system of oversight, run largely by accredited teachers. Outstanding teachers, for example, are selected from among those that are regarded by their peers, including principals, as indeed being outstanding practitioners, and who are already active in providing leadership and support in their schools and classrooms.

The integration of graduate qualifications with effective and outstanding teaching in a single framework represents teachers’ expectations of themselves as a coherent profession.

The Standards are a reference point for determining professional standing. In exercising consistent judgment against these high standards teachers are issuing an assurance to the community that systems are in place for every student to be taught by a high quality teacher. The Standards describe this expectation. Judgments against the Standards enact it. This is the essence of a profession. It is independent from but related to employment practices. Employers, that is, schools or systems, can and should be able to exercise judgment in selecting individuals to employ as teachers.

This is the essence of a profession

The point of a profession is that this choice is exercised within the accreditation processes designed to protect the interests of the community and the status of the practitioners.

This is important and virtuous public policy, and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers make it happen.

Slipping standards

But it would be wrong to present the Australian situation as a heralding of inexorable progress, with variations emerging on recognisable principles in similar jurisdictions. In fact, in many places around the world, the policy dynamic for quality teaching is in the opposite direction.

In these places there is an emphasis on deregulating qualifications and aligning the right to be called a teacher directly and simply with employment status.

In 2010, England abolished its General Teaching Council. Now, if you Google Unqualified Teacher England, you will see endless pages of advertisements placed by schools. In the United States the Global Financial Crisis caused a reversal of previous gains in requiring minimum qualifications for teaching in many states.

In Sweden and Norway, there is what appears a reluctance to even describe what constitutes quality teaching, beyond broad ethical statements, for fear of undermining the individual’s autonomy, leaving the formal status of teacher to be a simple function of employment and tradition.

From a policy development perspective, these conflicting approaches from relatively similar socio-economic environments is not a surprise. The two approaches to regulating teaching reflect a deeper set of values being applied to a common challenge.

The challenge is to lift educational attainment. There is increasing awareness among governments of the importance of education to a jurisdiction’s relative competitiveness and prosperity.

In a global economy with easily shifting capital flows, the relative advantage of developed economies is in the quality of the ‘human capital’ which might attract services and creative industry investment. This makes the quality of education a primary social and economic policy lever. The single most direct policy lever for improving educational attainment is teaching.

We teachers may want to emphasise complex contextual factors that influence our effectiveness, but for decades now the story has been a simple one among legislators – lift teaching to lift educational outcomes to lift investment.

The broad approaches to achieving this objective represent archetypal public policy values. The deregulatory approach has been the most common frame for policy reform of the past 30 years.

Put crudely, it places trust in the judgments of individuals pursuing their perspective, with dispersed and localised accountabilities. Having been, over these decades, a focus of political contestation, it is perhaps better understood than the regulatory approach represented by formal standards.

The regulatory standards approach draws on principles of collective, or at least organised and shared, responsibility and faith in technical expertise. In the case of teaching it also relies on government recognising that expertise.

A true profession

The principles represented by a regulatory Standards approach go to what constitutes a profession in the first place. The history of professions draws on collective protection of standards on an ethical basis. The idea and history of professions is also closely tied with the establishment and growth of universities.

It is also arguable that professional status and formal professional standards draw intrinsically from principles of evidence and observation and order that are inherent in modernity and even enlightenment thinking. Faith in the role of professional judgment and expertise is the shared method in matters requiring expert judgment, whether that be law, engineering or accounting. And in each of these there are statements of practice that act as a common reference point for validating that judgment.

It is not possible to have a profession without common and agreed standards of practice. Not necessarily as prescriptions, but as bases for connecting judgments and therefore being in professional practice.

When the current teaching Standards approach was being developed in the early 2000s in NSW it represented a new perspective on teaching for legislators. As they considered what was then and for them a completely new way of thinking about teaching, some ‘first principle’ arguments came to the surface.

Those most opposed to Standards for teachers argued exactly that teaching was not a profession. It was either an ethical vocation or a form of paid public exposition. They also argued that creating a Standards and Accreditation framework would give teachers the sort of power over labour supply that only ‘real’ professions can be trusted to exercise. While those opposed were a minority, in bureaucratic and legislative circles there were regular murmurings intoning Dracula and blood-banks.

There were two arguments that the deregulators brought up as practical examples of why teaching should not be regarded as a profession.

The first was that the quality of initial teacher education did not warrant it, that individuals emerge from degrees without the uniformity of quality that a true profession would insist on. In professions the relationship between the practice and the theoretical base is tight and individual members of the profession are vigilant to ensure that quality is upheld.

The second argument was that teachers resist recognising and celebrating outstanding quality from among their members, which a true profession uses to drive both status and improvement. The solution from their perspective to addressing the challenge of quality teaching was: Part 1, Deregulate entry so that teaching qualifications as such are not required for appointment as a teacher; Part 2, Instigate a system of performance pay linked directly either to principal/employer judgment, or to outcomes data.

Maintaining high standards…

Deregulators highlighted the advantages of such an approach above the Professional Standards approach. Getting teachers to agree on a set of Standards that would also make sense to the broader public would be impossible they said; and a deregulated approach would be a lot cheaper to maintain.

I am hoping that at this stage of the article the reader will recognise the currency of those arguments in recent public debate.

Abolishing licensing or registration requirements for being a teacher and implementing crude performance pay systems are common reflexive responses to perceived crises in education internationally.

The arguments most often emanate from outside education[vi].

Education policy sways with the winds generated by the bigger debates on how to run a modern society and economy.

It’s the market versus the government, again.

The contest of ideas on how to promote teaching is not over, including in Australia, and arguments made against Professional Standards have not been defeated. While the Chicago School has disciples they will be vigilant on professional teaching Standards, waiting for data.

The areas of vulnerability first identified by de-regulators with regard to Professional Standards are still demanding attention. Accreditation of teachers at the higher levels of Highly Accomplished and Lead is advanced in NSW, where forms of financial recognition are either in place or about to be introduced across all school sectors. But some states are not committed, and internationally only the most secure (but effective) jurisdictions, like Singapore, have taken up the challenge. To hold off the performance pay push accreditation processes for Highly Accomplished and Lead must maintain the quality in professional judgment demonstrated so far. But it must also accelerate the rate of recognition of outstanding teachers. Being resistant or even lethargic in identifying and rewarding quality teaching is akin to issuing an invitation to deregulators to come on in and have a go.

The most active area of policy work since the establishment of the Standards has been Initial Teacher Education. The previous Federal Government’s introduction of unlimited funded undergraduate places has complicated efforts to ensure that all graduates meet the appropriate standards, in all disciplines. It is not in fact clear in what circumstances and in what ways Initial Teacher Education qualifications can be regarded as professional degrees, or generalist degrees. That is not a comment on the quality of those qualifications, but on the distance we still need to travel towards professional coherence with initial teacher education. An authentic webbing of the work of teacher educators and teachers has not yet been achieved and must be a priority.

An authentic webbing of the work of teacher educators and teachers has not yet been achieved and must be a priority

The policy reversals for the teaching Standards project in some important jurisdictions is best understood as a deregulatory public policy approach being applied to teaching, rather than an evolution of educational policy thinking.

The deregulation option was there when the Professional Standards Framework was first being formed in NSW, and it is still available to any policy maker who loses faith in the value of accrediting teachers against Standards.

What is at stake is the status of teaching as a profession.

[i] https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/teachrev/reports/reports.pdf

[ii] https://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers

[iii] http://www.gtcs.org.uk/about-gtcs/who-we-are/history-of-GTCS.aspx

[iv] http://www.nbpts.org/national-board-certification

[v] http://research.acer.edu.au/teaching_standards

[vi] https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2013/10/24/a-key-reason-why-american-students-do-poorly

Tom Alegounarias is the Chair of the NSW Education Standards Authority.

Pasi Sahlberg and Jonathan Hasak

First published in Washington Post, 9 May 2016

One thing that distinguishes schools in the U.S. from schools around the world is how data walls, which typically reflect standardized test results, decorate hallways and teacher lounges. Green, yellow, and red colors indicate levels of performance of students and classrooms. For serious reformers, this is the type of transparency that reveals more data about schools and is seen as part of the solution to how to conduct effective school improvement. These data sets, however, often don’t spark insight about teaching and learning in classrooms; they are based on analytics and statistics, not on emotions and relationships that drive learning in schools. They also report outputs and outcomes, not the impacts of learning on the lives and minds of learners.

These data sets, however, often don’t spark insight about teaching and learning in classrooms

After The  No Child Left Behind  Act became law in 2001, education legislation in the U.S. required all students in grades 3 to 8 each year and once in high school to be tested in reading and mathematics using external standardized tests. On top of that states had their own testing requirements to hold schools and teachers accountable. As a result, various teacher evaluation procedures emerged in response to data from these tests. Yet for all of these good intentions, there is now more data available than can reasonably be consumed and yet there has been no significant improvement in outcomes.

there is now more data available than can reasonably be consumed

If you are a leader of any modern education system, you probably care a lot about collecting, analyzing, storing, and communicating massive amounts of information about your schools, teachers, and students based on these data sets. This information is “Big Data,” a term that first appeared around 2000, which refers to data sets that are so large and complex that processing them by conventional data processing applications isn’t possible. Two decades ago the type of data education management systems processed were input factors of education system, such as student enrolments, teacher characteristics, or education expenditures handled by education department’s statistical officer. Today, however, Big Data covers a range of indicators about teaching and learning processes, and increasingly reports on student achievement trends over time.

Despite the outpouring of data, international organizations continue to build regional and global data banks. Whether it’s the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission, or the OECD today’s international reformers are collecting and handling more data about human development than before. Beyond government agencies, there are global education and consulting enterprises like Pearson and McKinsey that see business opportunities in Big Data markets.

Among the best known today is the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which measures reading, mathematical, and scientific literacy of 15-year-olds around the world. OECD now also administers an Education GPS, or a global positioning system, that aims to tell policymakers where their education systems place in a global grid and how to move to desired destinations. OECD has clearly become a world leader in the Big Data movement in education.

pundits and policymakers often forget that Big Data, at best, only reveals correlations between variables in education, not causality

Despite all this new information and benefits that come with it, there are clear handicaps in how Big Data has been used in education reforms. In fact, pundits and policymakers often forget that Big Data, at best, only reveals correlations between variables in education, not causality. As any introduction to statistics course will tell you, correlation does not imply causation. Data from PISA, for example, suggests that the “highest performing education systems are those that combine quality with equity.”   What we need to keep in mind is that this statement expresses that student achievement (quality) and equity (strength of the relationship between student achievement and family background) of these outcomes in education systems happens at the same time. It doesn’t mean, however, that one variable would cause the other. Correlation is a valuable part of evidence in education policymaking but it must be proved to be real and then all possible causative relationships must be carefully explored.

The problem is that education policymakers around the world are now reforming their education systems through correlations based on Big Data from their own national student assessments systems and international education data bases without adequately understanding the details that make a difference in schools. A doctoral thesis in the University of Cambridge, for example, recently concluded that most OECD countries that take part in the PISA survey have made changes in their education policies based primarily on PISA data in order to improve their performance in future PISA tests. But are changes based on Big Data really well suited for improving teaching and learning in schools and classrooms?

We believe that it is becoming evident that Big Data alone won’t be able to fix education systems. Decision-makers need to gain a better understanding of what good teaching is and how it leads to better learning in schools. This is where information about details, relationships and narratives in schools become important. These are what  Martin Lindstrom calls Small Data: small clues that uncover huge trends. In education, these small clues are often hidden in the invisible fabric of schools. Understanding this fabric must become a priority for improving education.

information about details, relationships and narratives in schools become important

To be sure, there is not one right way to gather Small Data in education. Perhaps the most important next step is to realize the limitations of current big data-driven policies and practices. Too strong reliance on externally collected data may be misleading in policy-making. This is an example of what small data look like in practice:

1. Reduced census-based national student assessments to the necessary minimum and transfer saved resources to enhance the quality of formative assessments in schools and teacher education on other alternative assessment methods. Evidence shows that formative and other school-based assessments are much more likely to improve quality of education than conventional standardized tests.
2. Strengthened collective autonomy of schools by giving teachers more independence from bureaucracy and investing in teamwork in schools. This would enhance social capital that is proved to be critical aspects of building trust within education and enhancing student learning.
3. Empower students by involving them in assessing and reflecting their own learning and then incorporating that information into collective human judgment about teaching and learning (supported by national big data). Because there are different ways students can be smart in schools, no one way of measuring student achievement will reveal success. Students’ voices about their own growth may be those tiny clues that can uncover important trends of improving learning.

Edwards Deming once said that, “without data you are another person with an opinion.” But Deming couldn’t have imagined the size and speed of data systems we have today. Automation that relies on continuously gathered data is now changing our daily lives. Drivers today don’t need to know how to use maps anymore when they can use smart navigators that find them the best routes; airline pilots spend more time flying on autopilot than by hand. Similar trends are happening in education systems with countless reformers trying to “disrupt” schools as they are.

Edwards Deming once said that, “without data you are another person with an opinion.” But Deming couldn’t have imagined the size and speed of data systems we have today

Big Data has certainly proved useful for global education reform by informing us about correlations that occurred in the past. But to improve teaching and learning, it behooves reformers to pay more attention to small data – to the diversity and beauty that exists in every classroom – and the causation they reveal in the present. If we don’t start leading through small data we might find out soon enough that we are being led by big data and spurious correlations.

Jonathan Hasak, based in Boston, is working to change public policies to better support youth who are disconnected from the labor market and disengaged from school. Follow him on twitter @JonathanHasak

Available online at Pasi Sahlberg Blog: : http://pasisahlberg.com/next-big-thing-education-small-data/

Alan Reid

A large achievement gap between rich and poor blights Australian education – and the gap appears to be widening. Australia is near the bottom of OECD countries in terms of equity in education.

A major cause of the gap is that successive governments have diminished the strength of public education and, in so doing, increased the social stratification of Australian schools.

This trend has major social and economic consequences for all of us. If these are to be addressed, governments need to properly fund public schools. However, adequate funding is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to strengthen public schools. Accompanying the decline in funding to public schools has been a trend to privatise them, which is diluting some of the important features of public education.

basing strategies on agreed understandings about the essence of being public

I will argue that both the decline in funding and the trend to privatise public schools need to be tackled simultaneously by basing strategies on agreed understandings about the essence of being public.

The neglect of public schooling

The policy neglect of public schools can be traced back to the introduction of systematic federal funding to private schools in the 1970s. If the public funding of private schools had been organised around a needs-based model as was originally intended by the Whitlam government, it could have ended very differently. But it wasn’t. Starting with the Fraser government, funding policies began to neglect the concept of need and foreground the principle of entitlement.

The entitlement principle resulted in increasing amounts of public money going to private schools, with a consequent expansion of that sector at the expense of public education. Increasingly public education has come to be seen as a safety net provision for those who cannot afford private education, rather than as a public good.

Over time, the total amount of funding from Commonwealth, State and Territory governments closed the gap between the per capita funding of students in the public and private sectors. The most recent MySchool data shows that when like schools are compared in these sectors many private schools are receiving amounts close to that of public schools.

Add in the income from fees, and the average per capita income that many private schools have to spend on teaching, resources and facilities exceeds that of public schools, sometimes by a considerable amount.

Increased funding has enabled private schools to enhance their market appeal through such means as improving facilities and creating smaller classes – which in turn attract aspirational parents. It has led to a steady drift of students from the public system almost entirely comprising those from higher socio-economic status backgrounds.

The consequences for Australian education

The public education system now carries over 80 per cent of all students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. Of course this pattern is uneven across the public system which is itself becoming increasingly fragmented with differences between schools in terms of resources and student backgrounds.

Such developments have a number of serious consequences for Australian education, including that they widen resource disparities between schools, reduce educational outcomes particularly for students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, and diminish the social and cultural mix of schools and thus the capacity of schools to promote social and intercultural understanding.

There is an urgent need to change the current inequitable approach to funding schools so that there is a fairer distribution of funds based on need. In particular, additional public money must be directed to the most disadvantaged schools, most (but not all) of which are in the public system.

Funding is not the only issue for public schools

But funding is not the only issue. Increased funding to private schools has occurred in a policy environment which promotes choice in an education market. In this environment public education has come to be seen by policy makers as a safety net provision for those who cannot afford private education, rather than as a public good.

What are the dimensions of public education that must be protected and enhanced?

This is compounded by the call for public schools to win back ‘custom’ by taking on the trappings of private schools. The problem is that those schools which do so inevitably have to jettison some of the characteristics that are so central to public education.

So, while a fairer funding model is needed to reverse the drift to private schools, it is not enough on its own. A new funding model may reduce disparities in resources between schools and sectors as a whole, but it will do nothing about the creeping privatisation of public education. A strategy is needed to address both these issues simultaneously.

The problem is that public discussion about education is being conducted in the absence of agreed understandings about what constitutes the essence of public education. Without such understandings education policy and practice can actually work to dilute those features of public education which make it such an important part of Australian democracy.

So, an important precursor to changing current policy directions is to refresh the foundation principles upon which our great system of public education has been built. By offering a common language for public discussion, an agreed framework for public education would achieve a number of outcomes.

Why an agreed framework is essential

First, it would emphasise the individual and public benefits which derive from public education. In so doing it would promote the idea that public education is the schooling system of first choice, rather than a safety net for those who can’t afford private education.

promote the idea that public education is the schooling system of first choice

Second, it would provide a powerful public justification for the importance of a well-resourced public education system for Australian society, and would demonstrate the damaging effects of policies which produce large resource disparities between schools.

Third, it would identify those characteristics of public education about which our society can be most proud, and which must not be lost. These could constitute public benchmarks against which to judge many aspects of policy and practice, including what is expected of private schools for receiving public money.

In short, the first step in addressing the drift away from public schools and the associated stratification of the Australian schooling system lies not in the current trend of making public schools more private, but rather in (re)emphasising their public characteristics. What are the dimensions of public education that must be protected and enhanced?

Three fundamental dimensions of a framework for Australian public education

In a recent paper for the Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGPPA), I argue that there are at least three fundamental dimensions of a framework for public education which must work together – to neglect one of them is to weaken the whole. They are:

Public education as a public good

This dimension relates to ‘ownership’. In this usage, public education is the same as a public utility: owned by the state, funded from taxes provided by the public, and managed by the state on the public’s behalf. The idea of public education as a public good is a powerful dimension that must be protected in contemporary Australia. From this perspective, public education should be understood not as a commodity to be used solely for the benefit of individuals, but as a community resource to which everyone has rights of access and which is non-exclusionary.

a community resource to which everyone has rights of access and which is non-exclusionary

The key principles of public schools as public goods are that they are free, compulsory and secular. Each of these principles are under threat today and must be protected and promoted, for without them the idea of universal public education can only be a mirage.

Public education for the common good

The lack of focus on the public purposes of public education has created the conditions within which the idea of public education as a safety net has been able to flourish. A rejuvenated understanding of public education therefore demands attention being paid to its role in advancing the common good. It is the second dimension of a framework for public education.

There are at least two key aspects to consider. The first is to create and maintain a system of education which itself models a commitment to the common good. This includes ensuring that education is available free to all on a comparatively equal playing field on a non-exclusionary basis, and has policy and practices which are consistent with, and promote, the common good IN education. The second aspect relates to the role of public education FOR the common good. This involves public schools developing the skills, dispositions and understandings of children and young people, such that they can engage – respectfully and thoughtfully – with others in deliberation about the common good in the broader society.

There are a number of implications for understanding public education – teaching and learning, culture, structure, organisation, funding and governance – through the lens of its common good purposes. In particular, it injects specific meaning into some important characteristics of public education such as quality, links with local community, collaboration, innovation, equity, diversity and cohesion, and democracy. These characteristics look very different in and through policy and practice when they are understood through a more ‘privatising’ lens.

Well-resourced public schools in every community

If dimensions 1 and 2 provide a philosophical framework for public education, they are meaningless unless public schools are adequately resourced. Thus, the third dimension of a three pronged understanding of public education is that governments have an obligation to provide and maintain well-resourced quality public schools, available to all, in every community in Australia.

The foundation premise of this dimension is that in a democratic society education should be available to all on equal terms so that each child can develop to her/ his full potential. Properly resourced public schools are the starting point for the achievement of this goal.

It therefore follows that our society should make every effort to ensure that the differences between schools in such basic areas as equipment, teacher quality, buildings, class-sizes and so on are reduced. And yet at the moment, the schools with the greatest challenges are given the least amount of resources to deal with them. In the main these are public schools.

The approach to funding schools in Australia has magnified rather than reduced resource differentials, and contributed to creating totally unacceptable educational outcomes. Australia has developed a funding model which is complex, arbitrary, inequitable and dysfunctional. It privileges choice for some, at the expense of quality and equity for all. But given the self-interest at play in the education debate, how is it possible to engineer an approach which turns this around?

The Gonski review provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity to return to the principle of needs-based funding. The fact that the government has effectively rejected the major intent of the review does not mean it was wasted. Future governments may reconsider, and if so would do well to adopt a version of the Gonski model which retains its strengths, and removes weaknesses such as the ‘no losers’ policy which was imposed on the review by the previous government.

Each of these three dimensions needs to be fleshed out through public discussion, resulting in a rich description of what is valued in public education which can then be used as the benchmark against which policies and practices are developed, enacted and evaluated.

Every community in Australia deserves a high quality public school

Public education is a precious community resource which is so essential to the life and well-being of our democratic society, and to the individuals and communities that live in it. The framework above demonstrates the folly of under-resourcing public education, and treating it as a safety net. It underlines the need for a different starting assumption for public policy: that every local community in Australia must contain well-resourced, socially-mixed, secular public schools which belong to a public system, provide a quality education, and are free and open to all.

every local community in Australia must contain well-resourced, socially-mixed, secular public schools which belong to a public system

It has never been as important as now for the whole community to support, nurture and strengthen our public schools and to celebrate the contribution they make to the common good.

Professor Alan Reid is a Research Professor in the School of Education at the University of South Australia.

This article is based on a major report he has written for the Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGPPA) on the past, present and future of public education. The report, which will be sent to every government primary school in Australia, can currently be accessed online at: https://app.box.com/s/8gb8s45n84g1ma7p8ubynudybf1ocowc

To contact Alan Reid email: alan.reid@unisa.edu.au

Chris Bonnor ventures some key reflections about what true quality is in relation to schooling, leadership and connecting with parents …

Both before and after writing What makes a good school ? both Jane Caro and I had many opportunities to talk to parents. Most recently I delivered, in conjunction with the Origin Foundation, a series of seminars on the topic. It meant trying to blend my professional perspective with the priorities of parents. At the very least I learned that if we do this as teachers and principals we might better bridge this gap.

In talking to parents about good schools I am constantly haunted by the findings of much of the research about school choice. Research that considers what parents do rather than what they say identify two main drivers of school choice: the social composition of school enrolments (who will my kid sit next to?) and the level of student achievement (who will my kid aspire to be like?).

So instead I ask what exactly do good schools look like – and what do they do that makes them “good”. It is hardly an original activity but the diversity of views which arise on such occasions often surprises audiences of parents and can spark some nuanced conversations.

Then I suggest some of the questions which parents might ask of teachers at the schools they visit:

• What really sparks learning in kids? How do you ensure that all your students are engaged in what the school offers and does?
• How do you know if they are really learning for the long term?
• How often do teachers spend time in each other’s classrooms and reflect on their teaching? Are your teachers learners as well?
• Tell me your policy on (insert topic). Does it work and how do you know?
• What policies and practices do you feel are quite useless? How can you change these?

It would have done me good in my years as a principal to be invaded by parents asking these sorts of questions. If parents across Australia keep asking just the first three of these questions they would have a collective power to influence school change.

I advise parents not to ask superficial questions about homework (answer: we give them lots), bullying (answer: not in my school), misbehaviour (here?), drugs (what?). I urge them to ignore the school glossies, My School, the media, the local rumour machine – and visit the school to discover how and what they feel.

Jane Caro stresses that, as sources of information about schools, parents have a number of agendas, including the need to post-rationalise their own school choices. This means that common narratives about schools are rich with reasons to avoid some, while preferring others – the others especially including those which charge fees.

I suggest that it is possible to avoid these conversations by going straight to the real experts, the students. But parents have to think carefully and ask questions which require more than a yes/no answer. These might include:

• What do you like about your school?
• What parts are most worthwhile?
• What would you change if you could? Why?
• What do you want to be (not just do) when you leave school?

It is inevitable that parents cannot be experts on schools and education – and we need to work harder to familiarise them with some of the complexities of today’s schools. In the absence of that they rely on the media, their own dated experience and that of their own parents – who often pay the fees apparently necessary for their grandchildren to go to a “good school”.

In the process it is very useful to gently raise various issues and bust a few myths about schools. Here are a few suggestions:

1. There is a ‘shopping list’ of things that occasionally keep parents awake at night: student safety/wellbeing, bullying, homework, social media, substance abuse, discipline. Obviously schools need to address all these things but it helps to raise two issues: firstly schools cannot win these battles alone and secondly, what should be the priorities of schools and how should these be ranked?

2. Schools today can look quite different and this alone can challenge preconceptions. I like to ask parents to pass judgment on a range of school and classroom practices – and then showing them what the research suggests are most useful. Among the relatively useless practices are many prized by politicians, media and older generations. It is a fun thing to do.

3. Parents also want to know about the relative worth of public and private schools or schools with various labels. My preferred activity is to show them the levels of student achievement in public, Catholic and Independent schools which enrol similar students. As I unfold this on a PowerPoint slide there is always a collective intake of breath as the columns indicating student achievement rise to, wait for it, almost exactly the same level for each school sector.

As my colleagues at the Origin Foundation stressed the conversations at such seminars are useful it is always essential for participants to have something to take away with them. I was asked to come up with a paragraph of reflections about good schools, so it read something like this:

A good school will never think it is good enough. It will set improvement goals, monitor progress and let everyone know. If it falls short or stumbles it will say so – and improve. The people in a good school talk about learning, not just about results. They will know the interests of all students and help them develop aspirations. They will be proud of the triers, not just the trophies. They will know and tell you how, and if, learning is really happening. They will have strong values but will teach kids how to think and not what to think. Good teachers are those who can explain what they do, why they do it and how they know it works. And if it doesn’t work they won’t keep doing it. Just like the students, they will also be learners who will share their learning with their peers. They will know what they and their school stand for – and will make sure other things rarely get in the way. A good school has a good principal, but one who develops leadership in others, especially in students. They will foster the other ‘Rs’ – relevance and relationships. Finally, the people in a good school will like kids and believe that both they and the kids can really make a difference – for themselves and others.

Chris Bonnor is a former secondary principal and previous head of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and co-author with Jane Caro of The Stupid Country and What makes a good school?