Is Labor’s Education Policy a 'revolution'?

The announcement by the new federal Labor government that it proposes an “education revolution” has received wide attention. Various measures scheduled for implementation are proposed as necessary to lift the standard of education. These include the provision of a computer for every school student in years 9-12; a program involving high quality early childhood education and care, with an increase in the child care tax rebate to 50 per cent and universal health and education centres for all under five; an increase in school retention rates from 75 to 90 per cent by 2020, with a four-year minimum funding guarantee to the States and the establishment of new trade training centres at secondary schools; the establishment of a national curriculum; and a phasing out of full-fee paying undergraduate places accompanied by an increase in Commonwealth supported places at universities.

There is ample evidence of the need for major policy changes that would lift the standard of education. This includes the latest National Report on Schooling showing 20 per cent of year 7 students do not meet national numeracy benchmarks and a further 11 per cent without basic reading skills.

Another recent survey by academics suggests a decline in standards over the past 25-30 years. Unsurprisingly there is a not unconnected continued drift out of government schools despite those schools having higher teacher-student ratios than their non-government sector counterparts. More money and smaller class sizes are not necessarily the answer.

One rationale for action to lift education standards is the contribution it would make to helping improve productivity and employment, a worthy objective which Education Minister Julia Gillard has emphasised. However, the connection between improved education and productivity and employment growth is a long term one and productivity-improving policies would need also to include much greater competition in labour markets - in respect of which Labor is going backwards - and much reduced business regulation.

The more important justification for improved education standards lies in building a society in which the majority understands the basis of our culture and history and the importance of acceptable standards of behaviour, including the acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s actions. This latter requires more than just literacy and numeracy. In short, improved education has both material and cultural objectives.

The question is whether Labor’s proposals really constitute a “revolution” that will improve standards in an efficient and desirable way. On the surface the proposals sound attractive - who, for example, except those questioning spending priorities could object to secondary students having computers. But closer examination suggests they constitute a mixed bag involving many rather ill-thought out ideas. Take the early childhood initiative, for example.

With the support of Gillard, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has put this “initiative” forward after, he says, reading parts of a book by James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate economist who argues that the development of a child’s learning capability in the first few years can set the course for life. Drawing on this (rather obvious) conclusion, Rudd floated the idea of government intervention - not as a policy of the government but as a “vision” - apparently without exposing it to any serious analysis in the public service or the Ministry. And while early development is important, that does not in itself justify universal government child education centres.

Indeed, it appears that Rudd has misunderstood Heckman’s position. Although a proponent of early education, Heckman has indicated it should be targeted solely at disadvantaged kids. He is quoted as explaining, “You go where the marginal returns are the highest and they’re highest with disadvantaged children”.

Visions of government education of the young smack of the old socialist ideology that served the double purpose of getting women into the workforce and reducing parental influence at an early age. But the idea that early learning capability is more likely to come from government-run child care centres than from parental care and encouragement is widely disputed. As Alan Mitchell (chief economist at the Australian Financial Review) recently noted, researchers at the federal Department of Family and Community Services warned three years ago that “long term benefits … of early interventions in early childhood continue to be asserted in broad public debates, despite limited empirical support”.

True, successes are reported in some overseas experimental interventionist programs but these relate to children of disadvantaged parents likely to have a bad home environment rather than to children generally. Moreover, the gains in the experimental programs come mainly from reductions in crime, which hardly solved the participants’ problems. And even gains from Head Start, which is not an experimental program and has been operating in the US for many years, appear to fade out - perhaps because of poor subsequent school performance.

In short, consideration of the important role parents generally play in bringing up their children seems largely to have been overlooked in framing the Rudd vision. It is one thing to encourage mothers to return to work by providing subsidised child care centres - although those attending such centres can develop behavioural problems - but is quite another to turn them into education centres.

Another concern with Rudd’s floating vision is that he admitted having done no analysis of its cost or whether it should be given a priority in determining the allocation of budgetary resources.

Based on an assessment apparently obtained from the Department of Finance, a recent article in The Australian reported that the Rudd initiative could cost up to $11 billion over the next four years on top of the $11 billion already estimated to be expended under the existing child care program. The Prime Minister’s failure to consider the budgetary implications before floating the idea bodes ill for both responsible government and for the development of education policies.

Some of the other proposals give the impression of being advanced because they seem “good ideas” and attractive politically.

The national curriculum proposal, previously tried with no success but now revived, has appeal in regard to basics such as literacy and numeracy. But attempting to have a common agenda beyond that would risk the establishment of inappropriate curricula for the teaching of subjects such as history and English and the external testing of the same. The education establishment in academia and the States, including teachers unions, would undoubtedly push so-called “modernist” views. Indeed, although the appointments by the Rudd Government to its new National Curriculum Board do not include union representatives, they appear to largely comprise education establishment types unlikely to favour changes most conducive to higher standards when their report is presented in early 2011.

Again, the idea of increasing from 75 per cent to 90 per cent the proportion of students who stay until year 12 sounds sensible on the surface. But it does not address the question of whether such additional students are likely to have the capacity to benefit. Recent research by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) finds that low ability students are better off in terms of employment and earnings if they leave after year 10 and get a job or an apprenticeship.

Just as it would be absurd to think of 90 per cent of the population getting university degrees (less than 40 per cent do), so is it wrong to have a policy based on the idea that 90 per cent are cut out for year 12 schoolwork. As with most other revolution proposals, the impression is that the solution (sic) to lifting standards is simply to increase expenditure and/or add to the numbers experiencing some form of education.

There is an additional-spending-numbers thrust to the proposal to phase out full fee paying university students and increase Commonwealth supported places. Before the election Rudd was reported in The Australian as claiming that children from working class families are being prevented from going to universities by the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). This runs counter to evidence indicating that the proportion of students from low socio-economic-status have actually increased as tuition costs rose; similarly, census data indicates the number of children of blue-collar parents has increased since 1996. The fact that repayments of student loans are contingent on subsequent earnings means the government takes the risk of education being unsuccessful.

The case for using taxpayers to fund this proposal has already been criticised by university vice-chancellors, with one describing it as “expensive actions of no direct benefit to the universities”.

The assertion by the Prime Minister that because of the declining financial contribution by the federal government “our universities are in an unfolding state of crisis” fails to take account of a wide recognition that, with the benefits of individual investments in university education flowing primarily to those individuals and with the financial assistance provided for such investment under the HECS arrangements, the role of government should be reduced over time.

For the moment the supposed “crisis” is being handled by the government by establishing a review that will report at the end of the year.

Overall, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Rudd government proposals far from constitute a “revolution” and reflect a highly questionable resort to taxpayer funding. A genuine revolution would start at the school level by pressing the states to ensure individual government schools have similar powers to act as non-government schools in regard to the hiring, firing and payment of better performing staff, and that they have substantial independence from head office direction. Victoria has already moved in this direction.

Even better would be the introduction of school vouchers allowing parents the choice of which school to send their children. At the same time, university students and their education would benefit from an increase in privately run universities.

The basic need is to establish an environment in which a market for education is allowed to operate by giving parents (and older students) greater choice. In his important book, Education Matters, Dr Mark Harrison spells out in some detail the reasons for this and answers criticisms of the competitive approach. His research indicates that an education system that is established and operates under competitive conditions, rather than from head office, is more likely than a quasi-monopoly state system to have greater involvement of parents and a strengthened role of families. Parental involvement is key and a market system encourages that. But it also encourages good teaching, raises productivity and benefits consumers, especially for the poor who have the fewest alternatives and the greatest need for more choice.