PM Gillard's fabian fantasies undermine non-government schools

Those seeking evidence that the Gillard led ALP government is committed to imposing a cultural-left and Asia-centric view of education on every government and non-government school across Australia need to look no further than the Exposure Draft of the Australian Education Bill 2012.

The draft bill also reinforces the fears held by non-government schools that any new legislation, due before the end of the year, will undermine their autonomy and deny them the resources needed to ensure their students receive a properly funded education.

Since the Gonski funding review was announced in April 2010 I have argued that the Commonwealth government, even though school education is a state’s responsibility, would force schools to adopt its agenda by tying funding to implementation.

I have also argued, based on the Gonski report and the government’s responses to date, that the Gillard led government embraces a view of education based on equity of outcomes where the belief is that funding must be redirected from non-government to so-called disadvantaged government schools.

This is clearly the case.  While failing to provide any details or certainty about the funding model that will have to replace the existing socioeconomic status (SES) model, due to expire at the end of 2013, the draft exposes Prime Minister Gillard’s penchant for a cultural-left view of disadvantage and victimhood.

The statement that a “student’s quality of education should not be limited by where a student lives, the income of his or her family, the school he or she attends, or his or her personal circumstances” mirrors the Fabian delusion that governments can and must intervene to ensure that all students have an same chance of success.

The argument that “every school student will have the same opportunity to have the best possible education”, while appearing worthwhile, also mirrors a cultural-left, utopian vision of education.  One where there is a level playing field guaranteeing all students are treated equally.

Ignored is that some parents work harder than others to ensure their children get a good education, that not all students have the same ability or urge to succeed and that some schools, by their very nature, achieve stronger outcomes compared to others.

The definition of disadvantage adopted by the draft bill, one where the usual victim groups are listed, provides additional evidence of this Fabian ideology.  Listing characteristics like Aboriginality, low socioeconomic status and ethnic background ignores that fact that another disadvantaged group is Australia’s high achieving students whose results in international tests are going backwards.

Also ignored is that research suggests that a student’s socioeconomic background plays a minor role in explaining why some students do better than others.

The draft bill, by stating that in order to receive funding schools and states must implement the Commonwealth government’s national plan, outlined in sections 6, 7 and 8 of the bill, represents an attack on the autonomy of non-government schools and their ability to best reflect the needs and aspirations of their communities.

Schools, already struggling under bureaucratic and intrusive accountability and transparency measures, will face further demands to develop benchmarks for assessing school performance and to collect and make public data related to student outcomes.

The national plan, in addition to mouthing platitudes about improving school performance by driving “continuous school improvement”, mandates that schools must ensure that “students engage with Asia”.

This Asia-centric focus continues in section 7 where the statement is made that every “school student will have significant exposure to studies relating to Asia across the curriculum”.

Ignored is that while geographically a part of Asia, Australia is a liberal, Western democracy and that the political and legal institutions that guarantee our freedom and prosperity are based on the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and Western tradition.

One must also seriously wonder, given the bland and selective view of Asia promulgated by the government funded Asian Education Foundation, whether students will learn about the dark side of oppressive regimes in Asia such as China and Singapore.  Regimes where basic human rights are denied and oligarchies rule unchecked.

There is also much that is contradictory and impossible to achieve in the draft paper.  On one hand it states that school leaders “will have greater power to make decisions, to implement strategies to obtain the best outcomes for their schools and school students”.

At the same time, even though it doesn’t manage any schools or employ any teachers, the Commonwealth government is imposing a centralised, bureaucratic and intrusive regime on schools.

The statement that Australia, by 2025, will be ranked “as one of the top 5 performing countries based on the performance of Australian school students in reading, mathematics and science” is also unrealistic and simply a case of empty political rhetoric.

Primarily because the very things needed to ensure stronger performance, such as competition, diversity, autonomy and choice in education, are denied by a government determined to ensure that all roads lead to Canberra.