PROJECT SUMMARY

Australia has one of the most segregated school systems in the OECD. Its hybrid public private framework is unlike anywhere else in the world, and it is not fit for purpose.

Ten years after the Gonksi Review into school funding we have still not implemented the recommendation that all students are supported with the resources they need to succeed.

However, there are new perspectives emerging in debates about schools, in part due to mounting concerns about student achievement. Recent concerns, (including from the Federal Government’s Review paper), refer to the increasing segregation of school enrolments; and unequal access to quality resources by level of student advantage.

Inequity and enrolment segregation are seen as contributing to a disproportionate impact of student peers on overall student outcomes. These are systemic issues and point to the need for solutions beyond the individual school level. They are becoming increasingly prominent.

To turn Australia’s educational performance around and close the unacceptable gaps between students from different backgrounds, we need to effect three changes.

First, we need to fund all schools based on educational need.

Second, we need to ensure children from disadvantaged backgrounds be given a chance to thrive in more socio-economically mixed schools.

Third, we need to create a system where schools compete, not on their ability to attract additional resources and the right students, but on their capacity to help each child achieve a full year of learning, every year, and to realise their full potential.

A solution to these three essential changes is to establish a common framework of responsibilities and obligations to ensure that all schools have public obligations in return for public funding from Commonwealth and state governments.

Australia can learn from high performing comparable countries including New Zealand, Canada, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands. These countries show that it is possible to provide choice and diversity of schools to parents and students while limiting segregation and maximising equity and effectiveness.

In these countries:

• it is common for faith-based and other non-government schools to be fully publicly funded and free;
• public funding must be accompanied by public obligations to maximise equity;
• public monies do not provide some children with privileges which are not available to others; and
• the public does not fund schools that are only available to the few.

To drive the conversation and stimulate policy change Leading Educators Around the Planet (LEAP) is developing a ten-day study tour from 6 – 15 October to several Canadian provinces (Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia) to learn more and experience how other countries and jurisdictions have managed the challenge of choice, equity and effectiveness.

It is being developed in association with Australian Learning Lecture, and will be linked to other participating organisations, in part through online and face-to-face meetings with key educators.    

Tour participants will explore how other countries and jurisdictions are managing efforts to achieve a greater mix of students in each school, improvement, or at the very least no decline, in student outcomes, a sustainable balance between schooling equity and parental choice, and a widely supported framework of schools and school funding policy. Participants will include leaders from schools, principals’ associations, and policy leaders.