Reforming Indigenous school education: The charter school alternative

The charter school alternative for Indigenous communities

So, what is to be done to augment the Pearson model for those Indigenous students in rural and remote areas who are not the beneficiaries of boarding school scholarships? A potential solution lies in the establishment of a class of non-systemic government schools called “charter schools”, to liberalise and diversify the supply of schools and to make the government school sector more responsive to parents and students.

Charter schools are publicly financed, yet are self-governed under the terms of a performance contract. They enable parents, teachers, companies or any other qualified group to establish schools on their own accord, and to be freed from the regulatory and administrative constraints, including in the areas of curriculum, teaching methods, the selection and dismissal of staff, financial resource management and asset management, that constrain the operations of conventional government schools.

In exchange, the schools are held accountable to government for student performance and outcomes. These schools provide for a much greater sense of ownership and decision-making at local community level, allow committed school leaders and teaching staff to tailor services for the benefit of the enrolled student population, as well as facilitate greater competition between alternative school providers.

Internationally the evidence suggests that the charter school model is highly effective in delivering improvements in school educational services and promoting choice among alternative schooling providers. A recent study by American economist Caroline M Hoxby compares student achievement in US charter schools against the achievement of students in the nearby regular public schools. Charter school students were found to be more proficient in reading and mathematics compared to their public school counterparts, and this advantage is greater in those US States where charter schools are well established.

The literature also illustrates that many charter schools in the US tend to enrol relatively greater proportions of students from minority groups and low-income families, compared to other schools. Indeed, a number of American studies have shown that charter schools have been successful in delivering significant improvements in academic test scores for African-American students and other groups. This delivers some potential lessons for government school reform options to improve Australian Indigenous student outcomes.

The States as the bulwark against Indigenous charter school reform

Increasing the effective level of school choice in rural and remote communities, through the establishment of charter schools, would deliver significant benefits to Indigenous people through greater involvement of students and families in determining of their own high-quality education services.

The main obstacle to the formation of Australian charter schools is the continuing intransigence of State and Territory Labor Governments in pursuing much needed microeconomic reform in the school education sector. In essence, the government school system effectively operates as a monopoly, particularly in rural and remote locations, and hence works to maximise the benefits to providers, and allied self-interest groups such as teacher unions, rather than consumers. This has led to a lack of flexibility and experimentation afforded to individual schools, largely tokenistic parental participation in school operations, and an antagonistic approach towards the growing willingness of non-government and for-profit entities to participate in the delivery of school education services.

In addition, the States have shown an ideological disposition against introducing student-centred schools funding, in the form of a voucher scheme, which would enable charter schools to compete for parental custom and, through it, student enrolments on an equal footing with government and non-government schools. In the absence of a fundamental change in policy approach in these areas, the possibility of charter schools regrettably remains a distant prospect, with the only losers from this game of “reform brinkmanship” being young Indigenous people and communities seeking greater participation in the market-based economy and modern society through quality school education.