Whose education revolution is it?

By Linda Graham. First Posted at On Line Opinion Monday, 19 November 2007

In our great "classless" society the public school system is fast becoming a repository for second-class citizens. Thanks to the Coalition's long-cherished 'principle' of "school choice", we now have a two-tier schooling system: one for those who can exercise choice and one for those who can't.

In his campaign launch speech on Monday, John Howard asked the Australian people to re-elect him so the Coalition can carry forward their principles on education.

On the eve of the 2007 election, there’s no better time for us all to put our 'principles' to one side and closely examine what is happening to education in Australia and what lies in store for this country’s future.

First of all, the Coalition does not have a distinctive approach to education. As in so many other areas of public policy, the Coalition's approach has been influenced more by neoliberal think-tank orthodoxy than the abundant research evidence already available from failed educational experiments overseas.

Take Howard's reference to "choice, high standards and greater national consistency". These values appear harmless enough and have proved attractive to parents. However research both here and overseas shows that real choice is only available to those who have the means to exercise it. Wealthier parents can afford the rising fees of elite private schools. Fear driven "aspirationalists" exercise what choice is left to them by driving their children across town to a "better" school.  Typically this is a cheaper independent faith school.

Of course this applies only to the parents on the margins of good suburbs. Parents who live in socially-advantaged areas don't have to worry because they’ve already exercised "catchment choice". Needless to say, there are many parents who cannot do this. Housing unaffordability has put paid to that.

Parents on the wrong side of the last housing boom are restricted by locality and wealth to public schools that have been down-trodden by decades of economic rationalism.

This is not to say that public schools are inferior to independents. On the contrary, it is precisely because public school achievements and failures are visibly accountable that these institutions bear the brunt of criticism for any poor educational performance in Australia. To borrow from racing terminology, the Coalition’s principles place public schools in the widest barrier with the heaviest weight.

Public schools educate 70 per cent of our nation’s children. These schools must accept any in-area child whether their family can afford to contribute to their child’s education or not.

They educate the majority of kids who are hard to teach - newly immigrant English language learners and refugees, children with a physical, learning or psychological disability and the growing number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In fact, public schools take the kids independent and private schools reject. And these kids do not just have behaviour problems, they might also have severe learning difficulties or disabilities. Kids whose parents think they have choice, but end up being told to enrol their child at the local public school which has "more appropriate resources".

Public schools strive to ensure that as many of their students get through to Year 12 as possible - and offer a diversified curriculum to do it. Ironically, in doing so, public schools provide more choice to their students. Offering a broader curriculum costs more, but public schools must do it with far less access to funding.

Like them or loathe them, education unions have been talking up these issues for a long time, but for some reason they don’t appear to have penetrated.  Perhaps it’s because the unions have been so demonised by the Coalition?

Against this divisive backdrop, an education revolution not yet properly articulated by either political party is absolutely necessary in Australia for several reasons.

Public education in Australia needs a massive investment injection. Our country needs to inoculate itself against the inevitable minerals export slowdown which will leave a gaping hole in our economy and growth prospects.

Without investing now in a universal education system that is responsible for the critical mass of future human capital needed to address potential skills and labour shortages, Australia is at risk of handing our intellectual property rights to others.

It's the 70 per cent of kids in public schools who will, in just 20 years, comprise a considerable chunk of Australia’s active labour force. Their education is fundamentally tied to the future prosperity and moral fortitude of this great but rather backward-looking country.

What kids learn from K-6 in the local public school formulates the foundational tools with which they can attack the increasing complexity of the middle and senior years’ academic curriculum.

If Australia wants knowledge producers, primary school is when we need to lay the foundations. It is at this juncture that governments need to invest in comprehensive and intensive classroom-based support for those having difficulty.

And it’s simplistic to argue that a borrowed policy of school competition, vouchers to subsidise tuition franchises, or a federally funded dual-system that generates massive cost duplications at taxpayer expense is the only solution.

Public schools around the nation already teach children "to read, to write, to spell and to add up". What needs to be said loud and clear is that in the last 11 years, the Coalition government has had little positive impact on their ability to do so.

In education, as in so many other areas of social policy, the Coalition has been waging a war designed to fundamentally restructure Australian society.

John Howard’s mantras, echoed by Education Minister Julie Bishop and her predecessor Brendon Nelson, regarding the scourge of sociologists in education faculties, the perils of postmodernism in English classrooms, the need for a new grand narrative to counteract the apologists black arm-band view of Australian history and the value of values have been peddled for years.  To the fundamental neglect of what happens in the day-to-day of Australian classrooms.

Julie Bishop’s vision for education at all levels has, rightfully, been quality, quality, quality. However, under the guise of choice, the Coalition has been undermining and under-cutting the public system by subsidising private for-profit organisations in the areas of child care, education and learning support - many of whom deliver anything but quality.

The "pro-choice" policy launched by the Coalition party will not drive better school performance. Instead it will further squeeze state governments who have the unenviable job of public service provision. And that is the primary aim.

This Coalition’s education policy is not about giving parents choice. It is two-pronged attack designed to lure as many away from the public system, leaving these institutions to wither on the vine and to claw back funding for what are suddenly poorly attended and underperforming schools.

So, on November 24, Australian voters will have a stark ‘choice’ to make. Wave goodbye to the prosperous futures of 70 per cent of our kids or give everyone a fair go by ensuring that all our kids can access and benefit from the best education system mums and dads shouldn’t have to buy.

Dr Linda Graham completed her doctoral study, Schooling Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders: educational systems of formation and the "disorderly" school child at Queensland University of Technology in 2007. Of particular interest was how schooling practices and discourses may be contributing to the increased diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). While at QUT, she contributed to an international review of curriculum and equity commissioned by the South Australian Department of Education & Community Services and chaired by Allan Luke. Linda is now Senior Research Associate in Child & Youth Studies in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney.

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