Hopefully, a final word on 'Gonski'

Secondly, having established where the funding has gone on a school-by-school basis, what has the additional funding been used for? Has it been used to increase support for students with special needs, for teacher professional development or probably more likely to support a further reduction in class sizes. If the latter is the case, it would be of some concern.

As recently reported by a leading national newspaper, the reduction in class sizes since the 1960s and 70s has driven federal and state funding on schools to increase by 25% to $50 billion. Increasing student numbers by two per class would free up $1.5 billion per annum, funding which perhaps could be better utilised on students with special needs.

Thirdly, having established what the additional funding has been used for, what programs have worked best in terms of improving student outcomes? We should be able to build a list of actions or initiatives that have the strongest influence on achieving better outcomes for students. There might be some surprises here. I suspect that the outcomes might shift the debate from investing in measures such as smaller class sizes to focusing on teacher quality, attracting the brightest and best to the teaching profession and supporting more autonomous school decision-making in collaboration with parents and the community.

The outcomes of this review should be used to inform the future allocation and use of the additional funding for schooling which has been promised by both major parties in the current election campaign. Let's hope the person appointed to lead such a review would be spared from having their name converted into a slogan or hashtag.