PISA – more than just league tables?

Image source: Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development 

In announcing the Government’s response to the Gonski Review, Prime Minister Gillard stated that the aim of the new National Plan for School Improvement ‘is to ensure that by 2025 Australia is ranked as a top 5 country in the world for the performance of our students in Reading, Science, Mathematics’.

Much of the discussion about the Australian school system has focussed on the relative (and absolute) decline of Australia in the results from the triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) over the period 2000 to 2009 despite an increase in real expenditure on school education of 44 per cent over the period. In considering how the school system can be improved, commentators have often looked to the current ‘top 5’ in the PISA rankings—Finland and the four East Asian jurisdictions included in the 2009 survey (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Korea and Singapore).

However, closer analysis of the PISA data suggests that using the PISA assessment league tables may not be the best measure of the quality of school systems.

‘Better schools’ – the Government responds to Gonski

Image source: Australian Government

The Australian Government through its National Plan for School Improvement, under the banner of Better Schools, has accepted the core recurrent funding recommendations of the Review of Funding for Schooling (the Gonski Review).

The National Plan outlines a new funding model that will have a Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) for all school students supported by various loadings for disadvantage. This funding model will take place alongside an improvement framework for schools and teaching, with an overarching goal of ensuring that by 2025 Australia is ranked amongst the top five countries in the world for student performance in reading, science and mathematics. In total, the Government expects the National Plan when fully implemented (by 2020) will see an additional $6.5 billion spent on schools each year, in line with the estimates ($5 billion in 2009 prices) in the Gonski Report.

More funding for all schools—an update on Gonski

Image source: Victorian Government

The Government’s previous commitment that no school would lose a dollar in funding per student has been extended. The Prime Minister and the Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, have announced that all schools will receive increased funding under the Government’s new plans for school funding. Peter Garrett has also confirmed that funding will be increased in real terms.

This newly announced commitment follows the release on the News Limited website of a list of 3254 schools (about one-third of all schools) that would lose funding. State governments and non-government education authorities used data provided by the Australian Government for their modelling to calculate funding for individual schools under the Gonski proposals. According to the list, the significant majority of schools (72 per cent) that would lose funding are government schools, and the list includes schools in rural areas and special schools. The 2010 funding data referred to in the list is total government recurrent funding (federal and state and territory) as published on the My School website.

'Brave new world'? The Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling

Image source: Australian Government

The report of the Review of Funding for Schooling (the Gonski Review) is a blueprint for a major overhaul of federal and state funding for school education. It has proposed a fundamental realignment of the historic funding roles of the Australian and state and territory governments that would see both levels of government provide more balanced funding to government and non-government schools. Significantly, the Gonski Review believes that its proposals will meet the Australian Government’s commitment that ‘no school would lose a dollar per student’.

Through its initial response, the Australian Government has set itself an ambitious agenda for change, with the Prime Minister aiming to introduce legislation for a new school funding system before the end of the year.