Opinion & Commentary
Charting a new course through schools red tape
The state school system in Victoria has gone further towards empowering individual schools and enabling parental choice than any other state or territory in Australia. Victorian schools have local selection of teaching staff, enrolment zones have been abolished, and funding is pretty close to a student-based model.
So what happens when a lot of parents make the same choice, with the result that some schools have more kids than they can handle and others have empty classrooms? The answer depends on whether schools have the capacity and inclination to adapt to their circumstances.
State school systems are notoriously inflexible. This is an inherent characteristic of a system where a distant bureaucracy has authority over a large number of schools. There have to be rules, and the same rules have to apply to everyone. Funding is limited, and economic and political decisions are made that are not always in the best interests of individual school communities.
Despite Victoria’s progress towards decentralisation, major difficulties remain. In The Education Age last week, Caroline Milburn described the uneven distribution of students among schools and the dilemma this has created for schools and for the government (‘The great divide’, October 8, 2007).
Oversubscribed schools are unable to expand to accommodate increased enrolments because the government will not give them the capital funding necessary. Undersubscribed schools are unwilling to close or merge with other schools, because they have no incentive and no compulsion. A dark cloud hangs over these schools, making it hard to plan for the future.
For parental choice to work for all children, government policy has to enable schools to be dynamic and responsive. If schools cannot expand and contract, if successful schools cannot grow and branch out, if declining schools cannot close, and if new schools cannot open, that’s when the market fails. That’s when you have the same kids shuffling among the same schools, and some people will inevitably be dissatisfied.
While it is true that large schools have economies of scale, small schools also have a great deal to offer and can be a selling point, especially in the primary years. Many parents prefer smaller schools and would understandably resent being forced to make a different choice.
If funding to schools also included a capital component, schools would not have to ask the government to finance their expansion; their increased student enrolments would cover it. Likewise, if capital spending was a school responsibility, schools experiencing a decline in enrolment would be able to sell unneeded assets and use the money to offer better programs for existing students.
There would be no need for government to set targets on what size school is ‘viable’ and what sort of facilities and programs a school must offer outside the core curriculum and adequate and safe buildings and grounds. Schools are too often couched in terms of bricks and mortar, when a school is really made of teachers and students. Highly effective private schools are being run in converted houses and offices in Australia, and elsewhere around the world just about any space is used as a school.
It is sad when a school closes. If the school is not doing its job it is for the good. But sometimes it is because the school does not fit within the parameters set by the system. The only way to fix that is to change the system.
Changing the system involves giving schools the resources and the ability to respond to the ebbs and flows of demand. It involves opening the door to new players, such as charter schools. Charter schools are independently governed public schools. They are publicly funded and must follow agreed curriculum, regulations and accountability regimes, but are operated by non-government organisations such as non-profit groups, charities, or parent-teacher collectives. They can open new schools or take over existing schools.
Changing the system would make it unnecessary for government to intervene except on the basis of poor results. The financial ramifications of school size would be left to the school. Some small schools will be able to function effectively while other will be left with no choice but to cut their losses and close or seek new management.
Schools for their part would have to be willing to make decisions and be responsible for them, in both fair weather and foul. They would have to relinquish the safe haven of expecting governments to make the tough decisions and then getting upset when they don’t like the decision that has been made. Schools can’t have their cake and eat it too.
Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies
