What do we need to make Victorian government schools more successful?

If the Australian Education Union (AEU) is to be believed, the answer is straightforward; more money. Increased resources will lead to more teachers, smaller classes and improved results. 

As highlighted by the union’s campaign for better salaries and conditions earlier this year, the assumption is that all the government has to do is to increase the education budget and the quality of student learning will automatically improve.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that research, both here and overseas, demonstrates that the best way to improve student learning is to focus on what happens, or does not happen, in the classroom.

Ken Rowe, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, argues that factors such as home background or socio-economic status are not the main determinants of educational success. More important is the quality and effectiveness of classroom interaction.

Studies associated with the Third International Maths and Science tests, carried out by the likes of Professor James Stigler at the University of California, also conclude that the key to improving student performance is to identify effective teaching/learning and to ensure that schools follow best practice.

What does such best practice look like? The consensus is that successful education systems:

• adopt a strong discipline-based approach to school subjects;
• enforce system accountability with explicit rewards and sanctions;
• define clear educational standards; and
• have greater time on task and more formal, whole-class teaching.

Internationally, more successful education systems also have regular high-stakes testing and students are provided with a varied curriculum and a range of school pathways; recognising that one size does not fit all and that students have different abilities, interests and post-school destinations.

How does the Victorian education system compare?  Based on research carried out when writing Why Our Schools Are Failing, the answer is that we have a long way to go before our system can be considered world’s best.

Victoria’s approach to curriculum is based on an outcomes-based approach.  In the words of Bruce Wilson, the head of Australia’s Curriculum Corporation, this approach is inherently flawed as it represents an “unsatisfactory political and intellectual compromise”.

It should also be noted that countries that outperform Australia in international maths and science tests forsake an outcomes-based approach to curriculum in favour of a syllabus or a standards approach.

When compared to other systems, it is also the case that our students have higher rates of absenteeism, there is greater noise and disruption in the classroom and Victorian teachers suffer from low morale and poor job satisfaction.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Victorian Government has the information to identify under-performing schools and teachers (based on state-wide literacy and numeracy tests and year12 results), such information is kept secret and failing schools are allowed to continue unchecked.

As stated by the head of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, after detailing the comprehensive range of information now available to schools and parents: “The information provided by the data service is confidential to the school and access to it is strictly controlled.”

The Australian Education Union also argues against parents being given any information that might allow them to rank schools, as some schools, because of students’ socio-economic background, will consistently under-perform. Overseas research based on comparing schools with a similar community profile is ignored.

In Victorian schools, the first time the majority of students face a high-stakes, competitive examination is during the final year of schooling.  Promotion from year to year is automatic on the basis that failing students is bad for their self-esteem.

Worse still, as discovered by many parents, our approach to assessing and reporting student achievement is generally vague and non-judgmental.  As noted in the study, Reporting On Student and School Achievement:

Parents consider there is a tendency, more common in primary schools, to avoid facing or telling hard truths…There is a lack of objective standards that parents can use to determine their children’s attainment and rate of progress.

This anti-competitive ethos is unlike systems overseas, such as the Netherlands and Singapore, where students are regularly tested and streamed according to interest and ability. Many American states have also legislated to ensure that students are only promoted after mastering the required standard of work.

The fact that Victoria’s education system fails to properly recognise and reward student ability is best demonstrated by this governments’ failure to promote selective high schools. NSW students in selective schools consistently outperform non-government schools in relation to Year 12 results.

Late last year, Minister Lynne Kosky launched a paper entitled Blueprint For Government Schools.  While acknowledging the system’s strengths, significant is that the Minister admitted all is not well.

Too many students leave school early with poor literacy and numeracy skills, educational disadvantage is concentrated in some geographic areas and, within the one school, there is often an unacceptable variation across classes in student performance.

Also significant, in order to raise standards, is that the blueprint advocates some of the measures listed above. 

The paper admits that the government system needs to better address diversity by providing multiple pathways, that how schools report to parents needs strengthening and that the curriculum needs to be simplified and focus on essential learning.

In addition, how well schools and principals perform is linked to student learning outcomes and, for the first time, there is a clear statement that the government will intervene if schools consistently under-perform.

On the level of rhetoric, much of what Minister Kosky puts forward should be applauded.  Whether the system can deliver improved educational outcomes, though, is another matter.  Take the issue of holding principals accountable for school performance.

On the surface a good idea, but if principals are not given the power to hire and fire staff and to properly reward those who achieve the best results, then their hands are tied.  Similarly, if the curriculum is reviewed, but still advocates such destructive fads as whole language and fuzzy maths then schools will be destined to failure.