Between 2009-10 and 2019-20,per-student funding for private school students increased by $3338,adjusted for inflation,compared with $703 per student for public schools,according to calculations by Trevor Cobbold from Save Our Schools. Research by other organisations,such as the Grattan Institute,has reached the same conclusion.

Looking back,sectarian education politics were always going to stymie funding reform. Even before the report was handed down,Gillard - under pressure from the opposition and private school sectors - promised no school would lose a dollar. That was “wrongheaded”,says Carmen Lawrence,the former West Australian premier and federal MP who was also on the Gonski panel. “Entering into deals with the various education systems,and saying no schools would lose any funding over time,these were all constraints that made it well-nigh impossible to achieve the objectives we set.”

The Catholic and independent sectors fight hard for their own interests,particularly when it comes to funding,and can galvanise the voting power of their parents in a way government schools cannot. “The politics of education can be so divisive in our country,and have been for so long,” says Dr Savage. “Education debates can win elections but they can also be the nail in the coffin for governments.”

Ken Boston,a former director-general of the NSW Education Department,was on the Gonski panel. He wishes it had done some things differently. One was the recommendation of an annual government funding increase of 15 per cent. “We debated at great length whether to include a figure,” he says. “We decided to and I think that was a tactical error. It gave governments,both state and federal,a way to avoid the political challenges of restructuring the existing funding arrangement.”

Lawrence says another major error was delay. The panel had representatives from all states and sectors,had lively debates but agreed on the path forward. The reforms also had support from everyone from the Business Council toThe Australian Financial Review. But the government delayed its response. “The delay came for political reasons,and that momentum was lost,” she says. “With big changes you need to put your foot on the accelerator. The more you wait - which is code for people to put forward their special-interest pleading - you are likely to lose a lot of the potential.”

One idea strongly supported by the review is that the extra money for disadvantaged schools should have been spent directly on those schools. That was quickly abandoned. The money instead went to the school systems - state and Catholic - to hand out as they saw fit. “[Those systems saw the proposal] as a constraint upon their capacity to move taxpayer funds across schools,” Boston says. “It would no longer be possible ... for non-government systems to provide competitive low-fee schools at the middle and upper ends of the socio-economic scale,at the expense of schools at the lower end of the scale. We didn’t sandbag ourselves sufficiently against push back we’d get from the state and church systems.”

The same sector politics cruelled an attempt by Coalition prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to take money off over-funded private schools in 2017;a rebellion by Catholic schools ahead of important byelections was one of the factors that ended his prime ministership. His successor,Scott Morrison,gave the sectors what they wanted and the political problem went away.

Many in the sector also say the original Gonski reforms failed to consider how the billions of dollars in extra funding should be spent to ensure Gillard’s plans for improving Australia’s educational outcomes were achieved.

In NSW,the NSW Department of Education gave public school principals their so-called Gonski money - extra funding for disadvantaged students - as a lump sum to use as they thought best,with little requirement to explain how they spent it,let alone any need to demonstrate how those spending decisions improved their students’ learning. The non-government sector has even less accountability. Neither the NSW nor Commonwealth governments had much idea where their billions of dollars in extra funding were going.

Savage says the initial Gonski funding push should have been accompanied by a discussion about how the money should be used. That did not begin until several years later,with another report led by David Gonski,commissioned by the Coalition and published in 2018,on how to achieve educational excellence in schools. “[That second report] didn’t have much of an impact,and didn’t really do what it was supposed to do,” Savage says. “It didn’t really provide a strong sense of what those proven strategies are that money should be best targeted towards. It veered off into side areas that didn’t really have an evidence base when it comes to spending.

“No education policy or plan or grand vision means anything if those visions are not translated into the chalk face,on the ground.”

Dr Glenn Savage,an expert on education reform at the University of WA

“It did open up a bigger debate around whether the primary issue is how much schools get,is it what schools do with the money,or is it both? Most schools would say that money does matter,but it only matters up to a certain point,and beyond that it’s about targeting things with an evidence base.”

Questions about how the money should be spent are still being answered. Governments are hoping the recent establishment of the Australian Education Research Organisation,or AERO - which investigates the evidence behind educational strategies and how they should be used in the classroom - will help find answers.

Grand plans

The Gonski reforms were just one part of the Rudd-Gillard government’s ambitious plans for education. Others included a national curriculum,national teaching standards,and national literacy and numeracy tests,known as NAPLAN. Since that so-called national architecture was introduced,student results have ranged from marginally better to significantly worse. Savage says the next era of education reform should be more focused on classrooms than federal visions.

“I think it’s dead in the water,that stuff,” Savage says. “The era of the revolution and the era of the education gurus telling us what to do in schools needs to be over,if it’s not already. People are starting to realise that no education policy or plan or grand vision means anything if those visions are not translated into the chalk face,on the ground.”

Lawrence says the Gonski reforms did have a positive impact on Australian education. “The principal of trying to improve the inequalities in Australia’s education system was enshrined in legislation – that became an important touchstone against which we could measure achievement,” she says. “The idea of a School Resourcing Standard[the cost of educating a child],which we recommended;the detail has been mishandled,but the principle had merit.”

More reform is needed,she says,but the momentum is not there. “What we need is far-sighted vision,” she says. “We did try to deal with this question of how the[different school] systems evolved. It’s incoherent and it’s not fair. The federal government should get out of schooling. Ideally you’d have a single source,which would be a state government,and if they failed to deliver,it’s on them - it’s very clear.”

The first step tomore effective education reform,says Boston,is to correct the impression that the Gonski reforms have bipartisan support and will be implemented by the end of the decade. “There’s not going to be some Gonski nirvana in 2029,” he says. “The public must be made aware that while much has been done in the name of Gonski,not much of Gonski has in fact been done. And some of what is being done at the present time falsely carries the Gonski brand.”

The cost to the country,Boston says,is the potential of children still languishing in disadvantaged schools. “The real issue here is not social justice,” he says. “It’s about concentrating on those schools that are underperforming and disadvantaged. That’s where we can build human capital. At the moment,it’s like leaving a valuable mineral in the ground.”

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