Adam Smith, Australian Council for Educational Research
Today, as part of an Australian Education Union (AEU) campaign, academics, business and political leaders have signed a letter urging state and federal governments to move on the Gonski reforms to school…
There has been much controversy this week over a study released by the Whitlam Institute claiming that NAPLAN testing is being treated as a high-stakes program that is causing unnecessary stress among…
John Hattie: Welcome to The Conversation. My name is John Hattie from the University of Melbourne and I have here today, Pasi Sahlberg from the Department of Education in Finland. It’s certainly exciting…
For more than a week, I’ve seen numerous articles about an internal fight between the Board and Principal of Melbourne’s Methodist Ladies’ College, a private girls’ school. Principal Rosa Storelli has…
Our Liberal-run states are locked into a self-made and self-fulfilling prophesy of budgetary crisis. It seems that running a deficit budget which is at the heart of liberal Keynesian economic theory is…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has thrown down the gauntlet to the states and territories as she prepares to negotiate for increased school funding as part of the government’s long-awaited response to the…
It’s been six long months since the Gonski panel made its recommendations on schools funding, but in the next few weeks the federal government will finally respond and release the details of its school…
Howʼs this for a radical thought to start the week - a robust contest of ideas around how we educate Australian students to an internationally competitive standard. Too quixotic? Perhaps, but it would…
Imagine a field of wheat which has been watered unequally. Some parts will grow to their potential, but some won’t. In the end, it’s bad for the whole field’s productivity. Economist James Galbraith’s…
In a political echo of the unseemly bi-partisan “race to the bottom” over asylum seekers, we now have a “race to the top” with the prime minister and opposition leader vying to offer the most support to…
Australia doesn’t just need “a Gonski response”, it needs a plan for continuing improvement in our schools, says Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In a speech to the Independent Schools National Forum, Ms…
The last time school funding occupied so much public and political attention was during the Whitlam years. Policy makers with long memories will recall that the gestation period for the Karmel report was…
On being asked the question, “what do you think of disability support in Australia?”, I would have to quote Gandhi’s fabled response when he was asked what he thought of Western civilisation: “I think…
Last month’s review into school funding by esteemed businessman David Gonski was released with much fanfare. But as the dust settles, it is increasingly clear that the report is, overall, a disappointment…
The Gonski Review sought to create a new funding system for Australian schooling, because what we currently have is a mess. It was to be transparent, fair, financially sustainable and effective in promoting…
School funding has been a tortured issue for government, and especially federal Labor governments, for most of the past half century. Since the seminal Karmel Report of 1973, the funding levels and relativities…
Independent and Catholic schools have tentatively embraced a proposal to overhaul Australia’s system of school funding, but have called on the Federal Government to act quickly and to protect schools from…
A two-year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue…
Every school student in Australia would be allocated enough needs-based funding to be educated to a national standard, under a landmark proposal to pump an additional $5 billion of government money into…
A much-anticipated review of Australian school funding, spearheaded by businessman David Gonski, was handed to the Gillard government today. We asked Australian education experts to respond to the report’s…