The Guardian 15 November, 2006
How Howard’s national agenda
is affecting education
Pat Byrne
Federal President
Australian Education Union (AEU)
Since its election in 1996, the Howard Government has focussed on changing Australia’s goals and values. From the very first days when, through his refusal to comment or criticise, he provided tacit endorsement of Pauline Hanson’s views, John Howard has set about unpicking the achievements of both the Whitlam and Hawke/Keating Governments.
He has done this with a clear bias towards the private sector over the public sector and individualism over egalitarianism. This bias has applied in all areas of Coalition policy and is best summed up by way of the use of choice as the touchstone:
"….. choice is the golden thread that tries to connect all of our policies — from the private health insurance rebate , to funding schools, to workplace relations and to give families choice about the work and family arrangements they desire."(Howard, 2005)
Of course in practice the reality is far from the rhetoric — the industrial relations choice is between an AWA and no job; the health insurance rebate and funding schools is about pushing people away from public systems and of course, the welfare-to-work legislation is quite the opposite of allowing people to actually choose the work and family arrangements that they desire.
In education, the proportion of the federal schools’ funding budget has declined from 42 percent of the total in 1996 to 35 percent now; this will be 32 percent by 2010. This amounts to approximately $1.7 billion dollars being withdrawn from the public sector at the same time as we see more and more money being diverted to private schools, many of which are already extremely wealthy.
The result of this has been entirely predictable — a steady flow of students away from public schools and an increase in growth in private school enrolments. The government’s rationale of choice in this context has been presented as providing opportunities for all Australians to choose private schools, made more accessible because generous government subsidies lessen the need for fee increases, thus enabling ordinary Australians to enrol in what were previously the preserve of the rich.
The scandalous redirection of funding has not been enough — indeed, some commentators have observed that given the extent of the Federal Government’s iniquitous funding policy, the miracle is that the public system has managed to retain the numbers of students it has; it has been accompanied by an unrelenting attack on the quality of what is being done in Australian public schools, by both teachers and students, in an attempt to portray Australian education as being in crisis.
What began under Kemp, and worsened under Nelson, is now being continued by Bishop who as a matter of course threatens the withdrawal of school funding if her wishes are not met.
Nelson instigated so many inquiries we lost count; but in case we didn’t get the message, we have Kevin Donnelly in the Australian every fortnight to tell us — our schools are failing because state governments, university academics, teachers, education departments, curriculum writers, and the AEU — especially the AEU — are wrong. The only institution which understands the issues is the Federal Government, advised of course by Donnelly himself.
Of course, having created the crisis, sustaining the myth necessitates the imposition of very public solutions by the Federal Government; thus we now have: A to E reporting which for some reason is called plain English reporting in the press; a potential Australian Certificate of Education; an examination of certain subjects within state and territory departments to ascertain their rigour; a requirement for a whole raft of data regarding teachers and students to be published annually; two hours of mandated Phys Ed because we haven’t prevented childhood obesity; the provision of literacy vouchers to private providers to rectify teachers’ failings; and let’s not forget Simpson and his donkey.1
Facts not analysis
The curriculum has been under sustained attack — critical literacy is not on — kids should just be taught the mechanics, not the capacity to analyse; and in claiming victory in the culture wars on Australia Day this year, Howard extended that particular theme into the realm of history — facts not analysis.
The history summit represents an unprecedented interference in the work of states and has the potential to create major headaches for education departments in terms of content.
The Coalition push to reframe our values towards individualism is reflected in the focus on the quality of the individual teacher as the main factor in the quality of education debate. This takes priority in the thinking of politicians and education bureaucrats with the result that measures purporting to ensure high quality and high performing teachers are continually portrayed as the critical factor in improving student outcomes.
Arguments emphasising student background are dismissed as "complacency", despite research which shows a strong correlation between student outcomes and socio-economic background, particularly in Australia.
One of the solutions being mooted is performance pay in education. Julie Bishop, in calling for such a system, said it what "high time" teachers were held accountable for what they do.
Performance pay
While the usual suspects have emerged from the woodwork to denigrate teachers and their nasty unions, it has been heartening to see the response from most as a little more sophisticated. It seems that many people understand that it is neither possible nor desirable to treat students as assembly line products.
Bishop has, however, already floated the tying of education funding to states and territories accepting performance pay (that’s about four times this year that she’s threatened to withdraw funding for non-compliance with her wishes).
We also have members of the ALP publicly supporting the idea.
Apart from the professional concerns in relation to performance pay, it allows the Federal Government to shift the onus of responsibility on to individuals while steadily distancing itself from its own responsibility for adequate funding to properly implement system change. It’s, quite simply, the cheap option.
The focus on the quality of the individual teacher is reflected in the growing emphasis on standards and registration.
Up until now, most standards have been developed by subject associations for the purpose of guiding professional learning — owned by teachers for their own use.
Standards can be seen to provide "objective benchmarks" at various stages in a career, as well as a form of accountability. They can be tied to mechanisms such as compulsory professional learning, re-registration and higher pay, all of which, it is argued, will ensure that teacher quality improves.
This view is reflected in the requirement by registration authorities for compulsory renewal of certification based on evidence of professional learning after a specified number of years, along with mechanisms to de-register those perceived as incompetent or in breach of ethical standards.
This focus on professionalism has been reinforced by the establishment of Teaching Australia2, a private company owned by the federal Education Minister which has its key functions determined by the Federal Government rather than the profession itself,
professional standards development and ensuing accreditation of leaders and classroom teachers
professional learning for school leaders and classroom teachers, through quality assured (assessed and accredited) teacher preparation and professional learning courses linked to professional standards
research and communication and
promotion of the profession.
Again, this is a perfect illustration of the focus on the individual. It is assumed that improving the "status, quality and professionalism" of individual teachers will, of itself, enhance the profession. This is consistent with a government philosophy which sees education as more of a private good, a personal gain, than a public benefit; it reflects a model of professionalism which currently applies in professions such as medicine and law where the majority of practitioners are in private practice.
Individual contracts
It also reinforces the push towards individual contracts and performance pay arrangements, both of which are now required in universities and TAFE institutions and which are likely to be introduced to schools by way of funding conditions in the very near future.
Introducing an individualised, competitive bargaining regime will act as a major incentive for teachers and principals to embrace the work of Teaching Australia as it becomes more and more necessary to meet particular standards and requirements in order to maintain a high "employability" level, or to gain performance pay benefits.
However, while members of the profession certainly want its status, quality and professionalism increased, they do not want that to be driven by government priorities at the expense of what the profession itself sees as priorities. Having already determined the core functions of Teaching Australia (TA), the Federal Government must not now be seen to be pursuing its own policy objectives within those functions if Teaching Australia is to have legitimacy within the profession.
The track record to date is not good.
It is regularly the case that at meetings involving Teaching Australia it is called to account on the question of the promotion of the profession, particularly in the present environment, and found wanting. Without exception representatives of various stakeholder groups ask for public comment in support of the profession from Teaching Australia and point out that without it, its credibility among teachers will be zero.
The push towards leadership standards by Teaching Australia is also a major focus, though TA itself is not yet clear about the direction to take.
The question, too, arises of how TA leadership standards will fit with the work being done in states and territories. This is by no means clear, but without a more cooperative relationship between the states/territories and the Federal Government, there is no reason for optimism.
We know too that, increasingly, the tendency is for departments, while advocating a dynamic model of leadership, to adopt policies and practices which in reality ensure conformity and compliance. In Australia, as we know, the media is all too ready to publicly castigate school leaders who fall foul of increasingly conservative government directions in curriculum, behaviour, values, etc.
Again, the focus is on the individual principal and the individual school, ignoring the need for quality leadership on a system-wide basis.
Certainly, since the role of the chief bureaucrat changed from representing the profession to defending the Minister, principals have not been able to rely on anything by way of public support from their employers.
IR changes impact
I alluded briefly to the recently introduced extreme industrial relations changes. It is important to understand the implications of these for the education community.
Over the last few decades, teacher unionists, through their unions, have taken a conscious decision to involve themselves in negotiations about matters professional as well as industrial. This has resulted in considerable improvements in areas such as class size, teacher preparation time, curriculum development, changes to assessment and reporting, career paths, professional learning, just to name a few.
These successes have largely been gained because of the collective nature of our bargaining processes. Through informally benchmarking our progress in these areas, branches and associated bodies have ensured some consistency of progress in these matters around the country.
The introduction of individual contractual arrangements will severely limit any "whole of profession" benefits from being achieved. The leverage presently able to be applied to state government employers will not exist. Individual teachers or principals will not be able to achieve improvements to the way professional learning is delivered or changes to career paths, for example. These will now be truly the prerogative of the employer.
At the school level, individual contracts will take time and resources away from the real work of teaching, as well as increasing anxiety. School leaders will find that, regardless of their personal wishes, they will sooner or later be expected to conduct negotiations on behalf of the government. (Logistics will ensure that.)
Teachers will feel constantly constrained from expressing views contrary to that of the "other party" — the one with the power. Critical thinking and expression will have no place in our education system.
For both teachers and school leaders, collegiality will be undermined and resentment and suspicion will flourish.
What these changes will bring — if they are allowed to work as intended — is a full frontal assault on the collective aspects of teaching and on our capacity to influence the professional and industrial gains which actually serve the public interest by ensuring the future of the profession itself.
Market approach
In response to our concerns, we will continue to be told that the public interest will be served by market influences — that for schools and school systems to be competitive they will have to increase salaries and improve conditions and therefore there is nothing to worry about.
What we know is quite the contrary — there will be no gain in this for the children from poor, isolated or otherwise disadvantaged communities — where schools will close; there will be no gain for the vast majority of teachers; and there will certainly be no gain for any idea of the public or common good.
This makes the AEU campaigns around funding and IR critical.
The latest phase of the AEU public education campaign was launched in July and will take us to next year’s federal election. It goes under the banner of Public Education: Australia’s Future.
Funding
You may recall that earlier this year the ALP announced the principles of its new funding policy.
These are:
Funding all schools on the basis of real need
A national approach to schools’ funding
A comprehensive national resource standard for all schools
The maintenance of overall Commonwealth funding for all schools
A national priority for public education
In his speech to the National Press club in May, [Labor leader Kim] Beazley stated that need would be assessed against the resources available to a school, as well as the educational needs of its students, saying that the largest funding increases will go to the neediest schools whether they be government or non-government.
Since then he has clarified that position to the extent that we now have two contradictory commitments — to fund schools according to real need and to index private school funding at the AGSRC (Average Government Recurrent Cost) rate which is approximately twice that of the CPI.
Our focus must be to move the ALP to a position which breaks the nexus between the cost of educating students in the public sector and the funding of private schools. Until that happens, any increased funding to public education will continue to see benefits flowing to all private schools irrespective of the resources already available to them.
We are in the process of talking to all ALP federal parliamentarians about our polling results which show that voters are well aware of the need for additional funding of public schools — 90 percent of respondents say that any additional education funding should go to public schools — and that if the ALP were to run a strong positive campaign about the necessity for Australia to prioritise education spending on public provision it would be welcomed by a significant majority of the electorate.
The work of the Schools’ Resourcing Taskforce of MCEETYA is our starting point. This shows a funding deficit of almost $3 billion annually from both state and federal governments.
National lobbying
We have begun a national lobbying exercise which, in relation to the schools component of the campaign, will mean every federal parliamentarian being lobbied between July and December around a priority commitment for public education from all governments.
It is essential that we maintain ongoing political pressure on our elected representatives through letters and emails but also through personal contact.
MP’s will be asked to sign a statement of commitment and of course we will hold them publicly accountable for their responses.
As well, the Federal Executive [of the AEU] has endorsed the production of a television ad to be ready by the Annual Federal Conference in Canberra in January, 2007 and publicly released at the commencement of the school year.
The TAFE Futures Inquiry has just completed its visits to all states and territories. This is a national inquiry chaired by Associate Professor Peter Kell from Wollongong University which is looking at desirable futures for TAFE. We are aiming to launch this report in mid October to coincide with another round of lobbying of federal Parliamentarians by our TAFE members.
As well as the national funding campaign the AEU is looking at the effects of this rather tumultuous agenda on teachers and school leadership. For example, it’s not news to you that promotional positions are getting harder and harder to fill; that’s not just happening in Australia but in most Western democracies.
The AEU National Principals’ Committee is considering a response to this and you will be hearing from Jill Blackmore tomorrow about her research into the causes of the current situation and some possible steps forward on this front.
I think the theme of this conference is timely: there is no doubt that we are in need of good leadership; equally there is no doubt in my mind that under this government we will not get it. It’s up to us to change that and to ensure that we as teachers continue to provide the professional leadership that is needed.
1. Simpson was a soldier who took the wounded to safety on his donkey at Gallipoli.
2. The Teaching Australia website states: Teaching Australia is a company limited by guarantee, established under the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997. It is funded by the Australian Government and owned by the Minister for Education, Science and Training. The Institute operates under its own constitution, with decisions made by an independent board of directors. Needless to say, there is no direct representation from education unions.
This address was given by Pat Byrne at the
2006 Educational Administrators’ Conference in Brisbane.