Opinion & Commentary
Schooled in freedom of choice
After years in the policy wilderness, support has been growing for school choice. Politicians on both sides, including federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, Wilson Tuckey, Warren Mundine and Craig Emerson to name just a few, have endorsed the idea of choice.
Former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Allan Fels, OECD education director Barry McGaw and other respected bureaucrats and academics have spoken out in favour of school choice in recent years.
Not everyone agrees on the exact policy instruments, but school choice has two fundamental principles. First, parents should be able to choose the school they believe is best for their child. Second, schools should be free to respond to the needs of their students and the community.
The aim is that all schools should be schools of choice. All around the world, research evidence is steadily accumulating on the benefits of school choice.
''Voucher'' schemes, shorthand for funding policies where the money follows the child, are the most common reform in Western countries, but private schools are also proving to be an important part of the educational landscape in developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Anyone familiar with this research would have been astonished to read that school choice advocates are ''unable to point to any persuasive evidence on the supposed educational benefits of these schemes'', as asserted in a report issued by the Australia Institute yesterday. The opposite is true.
It is difficult not to be persuaded. Most statistical evidence comes from the US, where prolific education researcher Jay P.Greene of the University of Arkansas recently published a book entitled Education Myths, in which he details the research on school choice.
Of the dozens of studies conducted over the last decade, which overwhelming show positive effects of school choice, eight are ''gold-standard'' randomised trials of school voucher schemes. All eight showed positive effects for students who were able to use a voucher entitlement to choose a school, seven of which were statistically significant.
Importantly, not only is there evidence that choice helps those who have it, there are overall benefits. Again in the United States, Harvard University economist Caroline Minter Hoxby has repeatedly demonstrated that the competition created by choice leads to a general rise in school achievement across entire school districts.
Studies of the Florida ''scholarship'' program show that schools at risk of losing students (and therefore funding) to other schools made remarkable academic gains. And there is no reason to believe that choice would inevitably lead to segregation by ability, socioeconomic status or race.
The strongest supporters of school choice in the US are low income and minority families. When these families are given the ability to exercise the choices available to wealthy families, such as through a voucher scheme, it leads to less segregation.
The present funding arrangements in Australia are more likely to entrench segregation on cultural and class lines. A fully taxpayer-funded education is available only in the public school system, so children whose parents are unable to pay fees have limited choice of schools.
In some states, students are ''zoned'' to attend a particular school making it difficult to choose even among public schools. Since people tend to cluster according to socioeconomic status and ethnicity, the effect is that the school experience of many children is defined by their postcode.
School choice is not just about increasing enrolments in non- government schools, it is about widening educational opportunities for all children. Public schools should not be a default option, but able to compete effectively using the resources and incentives a voucher system offers.
Problems arise mainly when people fail to see that voucher schemes can be tailored precisely to avoid the pitfalls created by the existing funding regime. Weighted student funding would provide students who have the greatest need with higher levels of funding. A basic student entitlement could be supplemented for students with learning problems, with physical or intellectual disabilities, or with disadvantaged home lives. Recognition of the extra cost of educating these students would make it easier for schools to enrol them and support them appropriately.
No school choice scheme will be perfect, and no one has ever said it would be cheap. The question is, is it necessary? Last year non-government schools gained 20,000 students, while government schools lost 4000 students. In a few decades, non-government schools will be the majority.
Without significant reforms that extend choice to all, the public system will eventually be for the poor minority. The tide has already turned. We need funding policies that ensure it lifts all boats.
Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
