No need to reject competition as a driving force in schooling outcomes

The view of respected education commentator Dean Ashenden to outright reject the Harper review of competition as it might apply to schools (Australian schools: the view from Mars) is premature but not surprising given the belief that "the choice and diversity policies initiated in Australia in the 1970s have moved us steadily toward a school system with gated communities at one end of a spectrum and education ghettos at the other".

Australia does not have a school system of gated communities and education ghettos, nor is there any evidence that we are moving towards such a system.

Ignored is the fact that political support for choice in schooling over the past thirty years has opened up diverse schooling opportunities for hundreds of thousands of students and parents, particularly from lower socio-economic areas. Choice and diversity is alive and well in our schooling system and lays the foundations for a vibrant, innovative and "consumer-driven" schooling sector.

Applying some competitive forces to schooling surely cannot be such a bad thing and the need to address the conflicts inherent in Government's role as regulator, funder and the main provider of schooling certainly resonates with the non-government sectors which are subject to increasing Government intervention.

Ashenden correctly asserts that "economics has much more to offer than the schooling industry is generally willing to acknowledge". In this context, the presentation by the Queensland Director General of Education, Dr Jim Watterston, to the recent (September 25 2014) Queensland Education Accord Summit held in Brisbane was telling. Dr Watterson's first slide titled "Return on Investment" starkly outlined the fact that the dollar investment in schools has doubled in the past decade, yet our educational outcomes (measured by for example by PISA and NAPLAN results) have flatlined.

The challenge is how to improve Australian educational outcomes.

The Queensland Education Accord is a unique opportunity to do just that as it will map a 30-year vision for school education, building on the Government's Queensland Plan which sets the high level direction for the future. Given that education is one of the key foundations for the Queensland Plan, it is timely that consideration is given to what our schools might look like into the future and how improvements can be achieved for students.

The underlying principles to drive a vision for Queensland schooling into the future should include the:

· Need to build on school education performance;

· Desirability of increased choice to enhance competition, promote innovation, increase equity and importantly, to improve education quality;

· Need for a more deregulated, less centrally controlled education system;

· Importance of increasing community participation and ownership in the provision of education services; and

· Requirement for new mechanisms and processes for the improved delivery of education services.

A good education system is best concerned first and foremost with quality. Evidence strongly suggests that is the best means to achieve a wide variety of education and social goals.

To enhance the quality of Queensland schooling over the next thirty years, there should be strong support for:

· Promoting choice for parents/children and considering ways to enhance it;

· Increasing the responsiveness of schooling to parent and community needs;

· Decentralisation through reducing central education bureaucracy and increasing local school autonomy;

· Improving teacher quality; and

· Promoting competitive neutrality and ending current conflicts of interest in government provision.

Research has clearly identified a number of school and system characteristics associated with better outcomes. It shows successful systems prioritise teacher quality and therefore a key focus for the future will be attracting the right people into the teaching profession, training them to deliver the best education, and having the right incentives and environment to keep them teaching and developing.

But most importantly, the vision for the future should embrace a more deregulated schooling model as the strongest means to improve quality and student outcomes. A deregulated model means:

· Separating policy development and advice from direct service delivery so that the best suppliers are chosen to provide specified services at defined quality;

· Offering greater diversity in the range of education services;

· Ending the role of some service providers (government) as regulators;

· Placing all suppliers on a more level playing field in terms of funding and regulation; and

· Having transparency in relation to information concerning performance.

According to Gabriela Schütz and colleagues (School Accountability, Autonomy, Choice, and the Equity of Student Achievement: International Evidence from PISA, OECD Education, Working Paper No, 14, Paris: OECD 2007) there is evidence that "national features of accountability, autonomy, and choice are related to the equality of opportunity across countries".

In fact, the main empirical result of their research is that "rather than harming disadvantaged students, accountability, autonomy and choice appear to be tides that lift all boats. The additional choice created by public funding for private schools in particular is associated with a strong reduction in the dependence of student achievement on SES".

The options for reform are many, but at its heart an emphasis on quality has the potential to provide improved direction and policy coherence, promote efficiencies and make significant impacts on overall education performance in our classrooms.

The support for more competition in schooling as suggested by the Harper review might just provide the catalyst that is required.

The goals of the Queensland Plan are within reach if we embrace deregulation to a more "self-adjusting" model of policy development and service delivery and hence be more responsive to consumer demands.