Liberal doses of in/equality: Advance Australia where?

The relationship between social background and achievement has preoccupied educational researchers since the mid-20th century with major studies in the area reaching prominence in the late 60s.

Despite five decades of research and innovation since, recent studies using OECD data have shown that the relationship is quite possibly stronger now than in the early post-war period (Achievement and equity: Where is Australia at? McGaw, 2005). While distribution of outcomes is not as inequitable here as the US and UK, OECD data from consecutive TIMMS (The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)  and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) studies show there is a definite gap and in some cases it is widening.

Some political commentators have argued that the post-war settlement was responsible for a decline in standards and a culture of mediocrity. Conservative governments since the late 70s have thus dismantled many of the egalitarian frameworks put in place in response to the problem of social, economic and educational inequality.

In education, neo-liberal market policies under the banner of “parent choice” and “competition” have taken their place and the result has been growing social inequality and disadvantage. The subsequent abandonment of social policy to the agnosticism of the market has ratcheted that inequality to new heights, while disguising illiberal value judgments and unequal distributional effects.

International comparative data shows that market systems unmediated by social policy, epitomised by systems in the countries towards the right of the political scale, fail to provide equality of access much beyond formal or simple terms.

Alternatively, social democratic nations such as the Nordic countries, which employ a policy mix towards the centre-left of the social investment scale, appear to realise excellence in educational achievement and a more equitable distribution of results.

A recent review of curriculum and equity using OECD data (Curriculum and Equity: A review of the international research, Luke, Graham, Sanderson, Voncina & Weir, 2006), found that nations with neutralist governance models sitting towards the right of the political spectrum populate the high-quality/low-equity quarter of McGaw’s equity/quality quadrant. Those employing social democratic policy mixes, like that exemplified by the Nordic Model, tend to occupy the high-quality/high-equity corner.

In addition, research literature reporting on the relationship between the introduction of market policy and the trend towards inequitable distribution in educational achievement is beginning to emerge from Korea, Japan and Norway - joining long-standing literature in this area from Chile and New Zealand.

There is now considerable evidence from such paradigm cases that neo-liberal governance and the failure of markets has contributed to decreasing social mobility and equality. Moreover, international comparative research shows that the popular notion of US “exceptionalism” (high intergenerational social mobility) is no longer true because this measure is now lower there than in the UK and Nordic countries.

Indeed in the traditionally libertarian United States, sons born to fathers in the lowest and highest quartiles are particularly likely to remain there. Elsewhere, there is evidence of growing social inequality and declining mobility. These include but are not restricted to:

• skills shortages resulting from labour market deregulation policies and a subsequent lack of employer reinvestment into labour;
• a redistribution of poverty adding children and parents in single-parent families and elderly women to ranks of the new poor;
• the persistence of structural inequalities together with market failures; and
• increasing disparity in educational experience and the cumulative dichotomy between the advantaged and disadvantaged, fuelled by outsourced “user-pays” services rearticulated as the offer of individual “choice”.

Starting Australia’s fast gallop down the reform road, the Hawke-Keating Labor Government introduced economic rationalist policies in the 1980s. Upon grasping the reins in the early 90s, the Howard-Costello Coalition Government has emulated the harsh neoliberal reforms of the US, UK and NZ - effectively dragging Australia to centre-right on the political scale.

In so doing, Australia has succeeded in delivering similar employment and productivity outcomes with less income inequality. This is principally due to John Howard’s Family Tax Benefit transfer system - however first, such policies tend to obscure increasing income inequality trends and second, passive redistribution encourages welfare dependency through effective marginal tax rate disincentives.

This is something that the recent Coalition government’s WorkChoices legislation is intended to prevent but it has also edged Australia further towards the far right of the spectrum - closer to the US system, which is epitomised by extremes in both wealth and poverty. These extremes are mirrored in the starkly inequitable distribution of educational achievement by North American 15-year-olds in the TIMMS and PISA assessments.

Mounting research evidence is showing that market-based systems informed by a neo-liberal rationality, which leave education systems uninsulated by active social investment and a healthy social fabric, place inordinate strain on teachers, schools, parents and communities. Moreover, inadequate safety nets due to social policy failures leave gaping holes leading to social closure and lives spent in the constant shadow of stress, insecurity, low self-esteem, increased risk of depression, suicide, substance abuse, low intergenerational mobility, welfare-dependency and general despair.

None of this is conducive to producing active citizens in a healthy democracy.

In order to underpin an inclusive democracy for the future of this country, a comprehensive education system must be well-supported both within and out. It should be of high quality and that quality should be fairly distributed.

Education should be public, universal, compulsory and free but public schools must be of equal quality for (somewhat ironically) evidence from the Nordic countries shows that “parent choice” is rendered irrelevant when the best schools in the nation are equalled by their local comprehensive. In those same countries however, the excellence in that school is matched and supported by strong communities and welfare networks built through strategic social investment.

While Australian schools and teachers have so far been plugging the gap between increasing expectations and decreasing resources, they cannot do it forever. Teacher attrition is one indicator to which governments should be paying closer attention.

Ultimately, Australian public schools can do little to address the yawning divide in educational achievement unless our governments realise that high quality and high equity in education are inconsistent with a political rationality that sees education simply as a (costly) economic lever. State and federal systems alike must therefore turn to more responsible governance structures that are supportive of education as a public good and a fundamental democratic right.