Another Gonski deadline ….

Yes, strongly, but conditionally. The principles involved are fundamental, and however disappointing the specifics may be when compared with what Gonski wanted, Gonski-lite is very much better than the alternative. The money involved is not huge; indeed, it seems likely to fall below the growth trend of recent years, around six per cent.

The key condition: further progress should only be made by doing what Gonski unfortunately failed to suggest: using 'new' money to loosen the iron grip held on 'old' money by industrial agreements centred on class sizes and other conditions of students' and teachers' work. That is essential if schools are to have more say on and responsibility for how they get results.

What are the morals of the story?

Two matter most. First, Australian schooling is badly in need of re-engineering. Current talk is all about good schools, but what we really need is a good school system.

Gonski had the right idea: all schools should be funded according to the difficulty of the educational job they do on our behalf. That idea needs substantial extension, however: all schools should enjoy a similar kind and degree of 'autonomy', and all should play by the same rules, including how much money per student they are allowed to spend. All families should pay (or not) on the same basis, irrespective of the kind of school their children attend.

Second, the machinery of reform itself needs reform. Again, Gonski had the right idea: national (which does not mean 'federal government') control of key decisions, made at arm's length from all governments and from the sector-based and industrial lobby groups which, in the present scheme of things, are forced defend their own interests, and in the doing thwart reforms that would see just about everyone better off.