Thank you David [Hetherington, Executive Director Per Capita].
Welcome to Canberra.
Speaking for the ACT Government, I’m very proud we are supporting Per Capita’s second annual Policy Exchange.
And I’m very glad the Exchange is taking place in Canberra – here in the nation’s “ideas capital”.
Speaking for myself, I’m very pleased to join you in the conversation.
I’ve followed Per Capita’s work closely since your launch nearly three years ago.
In fact David, your “Memo to a Progressive Prime Minister” has often sat on my desk: I hope you don’t mind if it is of some use to a mere progressive minister, as well as to Kevin.
So the Policy Exchange is a great opportunity for me to listen and learn.
Friends, in our democracy, governments respond to public opinion.
That is as it should be.
That is why I believe the work of think tanks is so important.
Because think tanks can do much to encourage innovation and policy reform by bringing new ideas directly to a public audience.
In fact if think tanks like Per Capita do the job right, then innovation and reform will ultimately become second nature to governments.
Speaking as a politician, I have a vision that ministers like me won’t bravely implement new ideas and hope the electorate will tolerate just one more.
Instead, we’ll cravenly give in to the public’s demand for new ideas because we’ll know the electorate won’t tolerate any less.
But that is a vision for tomorrow.
Today, I’d like to report in to you from the front line of reform: speaking as a decision-maker, and telling you a bit about my experience of “valuing the future” in education.
Canberra as a case study in change.
Friends,
Education is a powerful force for change.
Education changes our nation – creating a fairer society.
Education changes our economy – delivering a skilled workforce.
But education also changes lives – one child at a time.
This change comes in that ‘light bulb’ moment, when the puzzled frown on a child’s face transforms into a smile of knowledge and understanding.
... and Mum hears her child talk all the way home about what she learned at school today.
But education cannot be this great force for change if we do not force change in education.
And change can be hard.
In my three and half years as the Australian Capital Territory’s Education Minister, it’s fair to say, we haven’t mucked around.
When I became a Minister, enrolments in ACT public schools had fallen seven percentage points between 2000 and 2006 to less than sixty per cent of total student enrolments.
We had nearly 18,000 empty desks across our schools.
One third of the capacity of our system was unused.
Despite falling enrolments, education costs and expenditure had increased by over 30 per cent.
So the Territory Government announced a far reaching program of changes that ultimately, after over seven hundred community meetings, saw us close twenty three of our 182 public schools.
Absolutely the hardest thing I’ve had to do as a politician.
But absolutely the right thing to do.
Why?
Firstly, reforming where our school buildings were, has allowed us to invest in future infrastructure needs.
Since 2006, the ACT Government has invested around $375 million dollars in capital upgrades and infrastructure in public schools.
To give you a sense of the scale of this investment – our own Government’s investment in education infrastructure is actually three times larger than the Building the Education Revolution program in our city’s public schools.
Secondly, reforming how we used our teaching workforce has allowed us to invest in future teaching needs.
We are able to invest, by lowering average class sizes to 21 in primary and high schools and 19 in senior secondary colleges.
We are able to invest, by appointing a new literacy and numeracy expert to work with each government high school and its two or three feeder primary schools.
And we are able to invest, by strengthening Indigenous education, putting more resources into ESL, into students with a disability, into pastoral care, professional development and ICT.
Reform allowed us to invest, yes in bricks and mortar, but also in teacher quality.
And this year – in 2009, for the first time in more than a decade – public school enrolments in Canberra actually increased.
After more than three years, there is certainly still controversy about school closures in ACT politics.
But if some of our local politics still looks back to 2006, I can say my policy approach is still very much forward.
So I’d like to tell you about three new areas where we are moving forward:
- the development and expansion of our early childhood schools
- our push for $100 000 salaries for the best classroom teachers
- and some thoughts on our post-Bradley higher education and training vision.
Early Childhood SchoolsFour new early childhood schools opened in the ACT in 2009 in areas of relative socio-economic disadvantage.
These birth to eight-years schools are a one-stop-shop for families.
They include maternity health professionals, family support services, childcare and a school program covering preschool to year two classes.
These schools will implement the Commonwealth’s Early Years Learning Framework and fifteen hours per week of universal preschool access.
These schools have proved successful and popular.
They reduce the number of transition points a child faces in the early years.
They break down barriers for families between school and child care.
They take a community and family based approach and provide a range of early intervention programs, including Koori preschool classes.
We will be looking to expand our network of early childhood schools in our growing outer suburban regions, Gungahlin and Molonglo Valley.
Canberra’s system of secondary colleges – free-standing year eleven and twelve schools – was a leading innovation in Australian education in the 1970s.
I believe in thirty years we will look back on our early childhood schools as just as significant an innovation.
There’s been much talk in policy circles about the importance of early childhood education – and interesting debate about the returns on investment in early childhood schools.
Now researchers will have a program to examine in Canberra, not just in Chicago.
$100 000 salaries for the best classroom teachers
Teacher quality is the magic ingredient in education – so it’s another key area for reform.
We have recently completed an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement which will lead the way for $100 000 salaries for the best classroom teachers.
The idea is simple: not performance pay, but merit promotion.
Seniority – out. Merit – in.
With the development of new national teaching standards, the ACT will introduce new Accomplished and Leading Teacher classifications.
The current career structure for teachers is simply too flat.
There is too much promotion by exhaustion – too much advancement by increment – and not enough opportunity to excel.
In this city, fully half of all teachers sit at the top increment of their pay scale and cannot increase their real income without leaving the classroom.
Equally, young teachers see their colleagues in other professions – from medicine and business to public service and the law – start with comparable salaries, but overtake them within a few years.
And by mid-career, teachers simply cannot keep up.
Our approach will ensure that our professional assessment of teachers does not stand in the way of those who are showing the most promise – no matter how long they may have been in the profession.
Teachers who excel must have the opportunity to advance more quickly than the current career structure allows.
The best and brightest graduates must not be turned away or held back by having to complete a number of years’ service before they can advance.
This is another change that will not be easy.
The profession has to accept that this is about an opportunity, not a guarantee.
Merit promotion is competitive.
Not everyone will earn more.
But catching up with how other professions pay, means catching up with how other professions promote.
It’s the only way we will get top salaries for top teachers.
In early childhood and in teacher quality, our reform agenda is fairly settled – the questions are of delivery and detail.
But we still have much thinking to do in post-school education and training.
In fact it’s one of the areas where I’m keen to draw on the work of progressive thinkers like those in the Per Capita circle.
Following the Bradley review, I’ve begun giving some thought to the coming opportunities for the ANU, the University of Canberra, the Canberra Institute of Technology and our other higher education and training providers.
This is an area where there are exciting possibilities.
We’re blessed in Canberra to have Australia’s great research university in our back yard, and all the benefits that genuine excellence and scale can bring.
But we are also committed to life long learning for all.
In a good city, everyone learns.
And my starting point is that education and training should cater to the interests of every student – not follow the stovepipes of a system designed for the 1890s, or the 1980s.
That’s why we’ve been enthusiastic supporters of the Commonwealth’s ‘learn or earn’ policy, and why we’re also investigating ‘polytechnic’ models.
I’ve taken a keen interest in Tasmania’s reform experience, as well as beginning to consider other Australian and international models for dual-sector institutions.
Of course, this is an area where the Territory will work closely with the Commonwealth, and with the institutions, which rightly have a great degree of autonomy.
There’s much to do here, and much at stake, so we’ll take our time to get it right.
But I’m looking forward to 2010 as a year where I can begin to apply some of the same approaches to post-school education and training that we’ve pushed in schools reform, the early years and teacher quality.
The common threads?
Yes, change is a constant.
But what I think is characteristic of our approach in Canberra is a values-rich empiricism.
Yes, a highly empirical approach – bringing fresh eyes to the search for problems and solutions.
But always, our values – above all, fairness and community – as the guides by which we judge the benefits and costs of change.
So if Canberra is a case study, what are the lessons learned?
There’s no doubt, Australia is undergoing an ‘education revolution’ under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
I’m very proud of what’s already been achieved, and I’m excited by what’s planned.
The Commonwealth’s reform agenda, in early childhood education, in schools and in the tertiary and vocational education and training sector is ambitious.
It covers the field.
Imagine what the Commonwealth could do if it actually employed any teachers or operated any schools!
But joking aside, it’s a serious observation – that the education revolution will be delivered in schools, by teachers.
And that means it will be delivered by the Territories and the States.
So I’ve been thinking about the key contribution the Territories and States can make to the reform agenda.
In particular, to the really hard yards – the controversial transparency agenda – the plans to publish school results.
It seems to me that the Commonwealth, necessarily, takes an inductive approach to developing reform: beginning with ideas, and working down towards delivery on the ground.
What I can do, as a Territory Education Minister, is to complement this with a deductive approach: beginning with the evidence of things as they are in the places I know, and working up from there to develop the outlines of new approaches and concepts.
If that’s so, then in education, “things as they are” is actually “people as they are”.
Students, parents and teachers.
The human element.
When I visit schools, it is principals, teachers and trainers who tell me how things are working on the ground.
Many have been in the profession for thirty years or more.
In fact, being a Canberra boy myself, it’s not entirely unusual for me to run up against my own teachers.
They are not all always absolutely delighted to see me ...
... but they’re still making a difference in Canberra schools.
And many have seen reform agendas come and go.
If I’m honest, I have to say, that many, many teachers are deeply unconvinced that publishing school results is a good idea.
So, how do I convince them that we’re valuing the future?
That we’ll actually reap long term benefits from today’s reforms?
It’s an interesting practical challenge at the heart of the education revolution.
My approach?
As E. M. Forster put it: “only connect”.
I said before that when I was consulting the community about our plans to close some schools, I held more than seven hundred community meetings.
That isn’t an exaggeration.
In school halls, in my office, in community centres, in staff rooms, I talked and listened, over and over.
Not every meeting was a model of Socratic dialogue.
And not everyone was convinced.
But I listened, and I learned, and I explained, and I discussed.
Sometimes I changed a person’s mind … sometimes they changed my mind.
And I honestly believe that while there is debate at the margins, the essentials of our approach now have wide public support, and I honestly believe that this is because we went to such extraordinary lengths – not only to listen and consult – but to explain our motivations and build respect for our values and ideas.
This is also the key to successful delivery of the transparency agenda.
And we are not there yet.
It’s worth updating you on what is actually happening with the publication of school results.
What will parents actually see on the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) website next January?
For each school across Australia parents will see the mean fortheir school’s Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 literacy and numeracy results.
These will be compared with its “like-school” group.
They will also see:
• enrolment figures,
• attendance rates,
• number of staff, and
• information provided by the school which explains other context at each school
Most of which is already publicly available in the ACT and many states – but not as easily found.
Parents, schools and students will also be able to see a breakdown of funding sources.
This is an important development which was reaffirmed at the last Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) at the end of September.
Crucially, it will be possible to compare this information with other ‘like schools’.
Right now, Ministers and officials are working through some practical challenges – such as how to make sure that ‘like school’ comparisons are statistically reliable and contextually based to provide meaningful data to parents and schools.
A new Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) will be constructed.
This index will be based on fifteen ABS Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) variables, school remoteness and percentage of Indigenous enrolments from Census Collection District (CCD) values.
The fifteen weighted variables will be those which relate most strongly to educational outcomes.
The same weighting will be used for both primary and secondary schools and like SEIFAs, ICSEAs will be scaled to a mean of 1000 and standard deviation of 100 for all Australian schools.
Now, I want you to consider that last sentence for a moment.
I don’t want to trivialise the detailed work involved.
But you can see why connecting with parents isn’t happening yet.
Because when the discussion is all about:
“The same weighting will be used for both primary and secondary schools and like SEIFAs, ICSEAs will be scaled to a mean of 1000 and standard deviation for 100 for all Australian schools.”
Then we’re not at the kitchen table anymore.
I believe this is one reason there is so much focus on the “league table” debate.
The league table debate – for and against – is a distraction.
But it is a distraction that people can understand.
So my conclusion – based on my experience delivering reform in my own jurisdiction, and looking around the country as well – is this.
The reformist voices in this debate must get real.
Every day we spend talking to each other about whether or not SEIFAs should be scaled to the same mean as ICSEAs is a day we don’t spend talking to parents about what they want to know about their kids.
How do we do that?
Ultimately, this debate is about values.
Those of us who favour reform and transparency have to say why.
So I’d like to conclude by explaining why I favour publishing school results.
It goes like this...
The ‘education revolution’ is a powerful metaphor for the way education can change the life of our country: building skills, growing productivity, strengthening the economy.
But when I visit our schools, I don’t just visit factories full of future workers.
I visit places where children learn.
Children discovering the first Australians, and understanding Kokoda. Mapping their first curves, and reading Shakespeare.
So yes, good education makes a better economy for all of us.
But even more important, good education makes a better life for each of them.
Not just any education – good education.
If a good education makes a better life – a bad education is a life sentence.
And I’ll be frank.
A good education produces good results.
Results you can publish.
If you want to hide the results, you want to hide the education.
And that’s something I can’t tolerate, and won’t accept.
I won’t accept having poor kids left behind, I won’t accept having bright kids bored, I won’t accept any kid not able to be who they could be.
And above all, I will not accept the argument that publishing school results will inevitably disadvantage schools in poor areas.
Think about what that argument really says about schools in poor areas.
Think about what that argument really says about the life chances of kids in poor families.
If we accept that school results in poor areas are inevitably worse than school results in rich areas, then we have given up.
Given up on fairness and given up on community.
Given up on the whole argument for public education.
Given up on the whole rationale for progressive policy.
Given up on the fair go.
So – that’s the argument. Fight fire with fire – meet values with values – confront emotion with emotion. That is the only way for policy reform to be sustained in the public mind.
The lesson from Canberra’s school reforms?
The only way to win the debate about publishing school results is to get real.
This isn’t an either-or.
We have to get the means and standard deviations in the results correct.
And as a progressive person, it’s a great pleasure to get an opportunity to join in a sophisticated discussion of policy problems and solutions, and for that I’m very grateful.
At the same time, we have to get the public argument right to bring people with us in the Education Revolution.
And as a progressive politician, and a Minister for Education, it’s a great responsibility to create a discussion about these issues which connects with people.
I’m looking forward to seeing the product of your discussions today and tomorrow.
I think the conference’s theme Valuing the Future is exactly the right topic for discussion.
I’ll hope you’ll be discussing not just how to calculate the value of the future – but how to communicate it as well.
Thank you.
