Gonski 2.0 another expensive missed opportunity

Education ministers from around the country have been summoned to a special meeting of Education Council today, for a briefing on the Gonski 2.0 report released on Monday.

The Gonski 2.0 report was commissioned by the federal government last year to give advice on how to increase the odds that the additional billions allocated to schools over the next 10 years will actually lead to better quality education (unlike the previous 10 years).

The committee’s task — clearly stated in the terms of reference — was to examine the evidence on teaching and learning strategies that lead to improved student outcomes, as well as the governance structures and arrangements that would facilitate them.

We have been highly critical of the report primarily on this basis: it did not meet its brief. While many of the proposals have merit, they are will probably take 5-10 years to implement and we have no idea whether they will have the desired impact. It contains too many cliches, motherhood statements, and unsubstantiated claims to be considered a ‘blueprint’ or even a guideline.

As can be expected from any official report on education these days, the conceit that we have an outdated ‘industrial’ model of schooling was front and centre. This apocryphal factory school must be replaced with one where every child’s individual progress must be continuously assessed, and teachers must ‘tailor’ their teaching to the learning needs of every child.

Sounds great in theory, doesn’t it? But the report offers no example of this ever having been done before and no real evidence base for the claim that it will actually improve student achievement. And the report doesn’t address the mind-boggling teacher workload the proposal implies. Individual learning plans would be a big enough job for a primary teacher with one class, let alone a secondary teacher who sees more than 100 students every week.

This continuous assessment would seek to ensure that another recommendation of the report is met: Every child makes at least one year of learning progress for each year of school. Again, it sounds like a plausible goal but no evidence is offered to support the concept of a year’s learning growth.

As Victorian school principal Peter Hutton wrote in The Guardian: “How do you measure this one year’s progress? Who defines that? Can you reliably measure creativity? Try measuring teamwork. Can you really measure accuracy within a month or two, even a year or two? ’Mrs Nguyen, Michael has only made 10 months progress in creativity this year. He was only able to come up with 52 uses for a paperclip, the benchmark for a year’s growth was 60.’ ”

Gonski 2.0 is yet another expensive missed opportunity. It is an archetype of education policy making — big on visionary theory and noble intent, and low on expertise, evidence and practical feasibility.