Authentic Educational Leadership in Schools

By Dr. Ross H. Millikan

This text seeks to re-establish the place and the importance of a valuesbased,
philosophically-underpinned, national educational provision, through
which reason and integrity, intellect and morality, caring and sharing, are more
highly valued as educational outcomes than are narrow academic achievements
only, leading to ways and means for accruing power and material possessions.
The text will be confronting to some in that it challenges the following:
governments to re-conceive the purposes of education and of schooling; schools
and their societies to more carefully evaluate their educational structures and
processes; teachers to re-consider the breadth and assessment of curricular;
and society in general to demand from politicians, suffi cient and appropriate
economic and intellectual support to and for every school.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Sep 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453565490

Dr. Ross H. Millikan

Dr. Millikan was born in Victoria, was educated in both government and private schools. He fi rst attended University in his late twenties when he completed B.Mus.Ed. and B.Ed. degrees from the University of Melbourne. He began his teaching career, and was Director of Music in a government Special Secondary Music School prior to going to Edmonton, Canada, where he earned both M.Ed and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Alberta. Dr. Millikan has been a secondary teacher; Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Sub-Dean in the Education Faculty at the University of Melbourne; Acting Regional Director for the International Baccalaureate Organisations Asia- Pacifi c Regional Offi ce in Singapore; a National and International Educational Consultant; a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management; and he has been a conference presenter at various national and international educational conferences. He has written many both refereed and non-refereed journal articles, and co-authored Creating and Excellent School, published by Routledge in 1987, and a University of Melbourne in-house publication entitled: A Step by Step Approach to Thesis Writing. His areas of specialization are: School Governance, Strategic Planning, School Evaluation, Educational Change, Educational Leadership, Assessment, and Teaching Pedagogies.

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Copyright © 2010 by Dr. Ross H. Millikan.

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Contents

Authentic Educational Leadership In Schools

Abstract

The Structure of the Text

Part 1: PREAMBLE

Part 2: AUTHENTIC EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN SCHOOLS

Part 3: PHILOSOPHIC UNDERPINNINGS and PRAGMATIC APPLICATIONS

Part 4: PROVOCATIONS pertaining to the Philosophic underpinnings and Pragmatic applications, within the current contexts of schools

Part 5: CONSTRAINTS AND IMPEDIMENTS to optimising holistic learning and teaching

Part 6: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES TO IMPROVE CURRENT PRACTICE . . . leading to greater optimisation of holistic educational outcomes

Glossary of Terms and Definitions

PART 1

Preamble

The Role of the School and its Teachers

The Need for a Thorough Appraisal of Nation-wide Educational Provision

Learning-Teaching Environments

Schools and Schooling

Educational Providers

The Intention of the Text

Higher Ideals and Practices

This Text is Intentionally Provocative

The Current Reality

PART 2

Authentic Educational Leadership in Schools

AITSL

Authentic Educational Leadership

Fundamental Elements of Educational Leadership

Responsibilities of the Chairperson, and School Board/Council

A Code of Conduct: Members of the School Board / Council

The Appointment of the Principal

The Principal as Leader

Responsibilities of the Principal of the School

Subordinate Leadership Positions

The Principal’s Annual Performance-Appraisal Checklist

An Educator’s Code of Ethical Practice

Transformational Leadership

Sharing Leadership Opportunities More Widely and Wisely within Schools

PART 3

Philosophic and Pragmatic Underpinnings of Schools

The Uniqueness of all Schools

Empathy

Values

Trans-Rational Values; (the philosophic, the subjective, the spiritual, the enlightened, and the religious—these values are above rational evaluation).

Rational Values; (the objective, the pragmatic, the empirical, the social, and the consequential—these values are subject to purposeful, rational, empirical evaluation)

Sub-rational Values (the instinctive, the emotive, the emotional, and the preferential—these values reflect clear personal gratification)

A Practical Example of the Synthesis of Values Classifications:

Application to Schools

Application to Schools

Operational Tensions

Emphases on Economic Costs at the Expense of Educational Benefits

‘Economic-Rationalist’ versus ‘Philosophic-Altruistic’ Mind-sets about Education

The Contrasting Perspectives

The Need for a Changed Perspective

Titles and Labels

Learning Societies

Social Issues Affecting Educational Provision

Community Observations, Perceptions, and Misperceptions

Prospects for Change

Life-long Learning

Exponential Increases in Total World Knowledge

Applying Total-World-Knowledge-Developments to Schools

Schools’ Philosophic Underpinnings and Pragmatic Applications

‘Philosophic Underpinnings and Pragmatic Applications’

In Summary

What is the Purpose of Education and Schooling?

The Function of Schools and Schooling

PART 4

Provocations Pertaining to the Current Context of Schools

An Initial Provocation

Every interaction depends on the individuality and the subtle interplay of:

The Processes of Schooling

Conceptual Presuppositions

Some Generalised Organisational Characteristics of Present-day Schools and Schooling

Issues for On-going Consideration by both School Administrators and Teachers include the following

Life-Style Education and Schooling

School as the Major Social Influence

The need for Ethical, Moral, and Spiritual Guidance

Personnel Issues

Reconsidering Fundamental Issues

The Provocations

Philosophic Underpinnings

Provocation No. 1: Vision as a Provocation

Provocation No. 2 : Mission as a Provocation

Provocation No. 3 : Objectives as Provocations

Provocation No. 4: Policies as Provocations

Provocation No. 5: Strategic Master-Planning as a Provocation

Provocation No. 6: Conceptual Presuppositions as Provocations

Pragmatic Applications

Provocation No. 7: Funding / Financing as Provocations

Provocation No. 8: Personnel as a Provocation

Provocation No. 9: Strategies as Provocations

Provocation No. 10: Organisational Structures as Provocations

Provocation No. 11: Operational Processes as Provocations

Provocation No. 12: Curricular, Co-curricular, and Extra-Curricular Programmes as Provocations

Provocation No. 13: Learning and Teaching Pedagogies as Provocations

Provocation No. 14: Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) as Provocations

Provocation No. 15: Assessments and Accountabilities as Provocations

Provocation No. 16: Support Structures and Support Personnel As Provocations

Provocation No. 17: Facilities, Resources and Environments as Provocations

Provocation No. 18: School-Community Relationships as Provocations

Provocation No. 19: Holistic Educational Outcomes as Provocations

Encompassing Questions arising from these Provocations:

PART 5

Constraints Affecting Educational Provision

The Concept of Constraints

Constraints and Impediments (both externally and internally derived)

Educational Constraints Appraisal

The Need for a Thorough Review of Operations and Expectations

Adequacy of Current Educational Processes and Outcomes

Some of the More Obvious Impediments / Constraints

The Shortfall

Organisational Constraints affecting Innovation and Change

Three Major Operational Constraints

Government Policy Constraints

Societal Expectations as Constraints

Economic Costs of Operation as Constraints

The Detail

Constraints Overview and the Major Stake-Holders (Predominantly External)

Constraints Overview (Predominantly Internal Constraints)

Change

PART 6

Some Recommended Operational Responses for Improving Educational Provision, and for Optimising Learning and Teaching through Authentic Educational Leadership

Recommended Operational Responses

The Need for a National Total System of Educational Provision

A Total National System of Educational Provision

Implementation

Seven National Classifications for Educators

Retirement Pensions for Educators

Additional Relevant Qualifications

Recommended Professional Development Modules

National Teacher-Training Programmes

Teacher Training

The National New Educator Survey 2008

The Challenge for Educators

The Busyness of Schools

Operational Time-Frames: The Current School-Day, School-Week, School-Year

Re-thinking the Structures

Lock-step Progression

Some Suggested Alternative Operational Structures

Other Learning Centres

Potential Applications

A Suggested Alternative National School-Day, School-Week, School-Year Structure

Duration of Learning-Teaching Periods

More Effective Utilisation of Personnel Skills and Attributes

Issues of Staffing

Teacher & Employee Performance-Appraisals

The Curriculum

The Fabric of ‘the Holistic Curriculum’

• School-Community interactions (variable, manipulable)

Curriculum mapping

Hargreaves’ Nine Gateways to Personalising Learning

Improving Student’s Learning Outcomes

Learning-Teaching Pedagogies

Whole-School Curricular and Co-curricular Projects

Teacher to Teacher Dialogue

Selected Pedagogic Approaches

New Technologies

Accountabilities

Acquiescence to ‘Political’ Pressures

Greater Operational Autonomy

Efficiency versus Effectiveness

Role and Resource Displacement—Philosophic and Actual

Student Maturation and Development, and Teaching Pedagogies

Developing Creativity in our Students

Specialist Teachers and Teacher’s Aides

Requirements for Additional Specialist Teachers

A National Scandal

Being Optimistic and Realistic

Suggestions for Change

Extant Educational Processes

Communications

‘Student-Voice’ ( Hargreaves)

Class-sizes

Grouping of Students

Time-tables

Student-Correction Opportunities and Responsibilities

Learning-Teaching Facilities and Environments

The Resource Centre: The School (and Community) Library

Collaboration and Networking

Networking with other schools, and other staff

Establishing Coalitions with Neighbouring Schools

Learning Walks

Partnering ‘Poorer’ and Disadvantaged Schools

A Partnering Service Proposal

Outsourcing certain non-teaching administrative activities

School-Based Research

School-Community Learning and Research Initiatives

Integrating ICT into the School

The Under-funding of Educational Provision is a very Short-Sighted Policy

Integrity of Purpose and Performance

Professional Codes of Practice

An Educator’s Code of Ethical Practice

OECD Scenarios

The Schools of the Future

Concluding Comments

Bibliography

Appendices

Appendix 1

Schools’ Administration and Management Annual Review Foci

Dedicated to all of those educators, wherever they may be,

who continue to enact their professional responsibilities

with personal and collective professional integrity and commitment,

as they seek continually to improve schools

and the learning and teaching pedagogies of all teachers and students,

in the face of whatever frustrations, constraints,

or impediments they may confront,

in their drive to optimise the holistic educational outcomes

of and for all teachers and students,

whatever their respective capabilities or potentialities.

Authentic Educational Leadership

In Schools

achievable in combination with:

• Establishing and Co-ordinating a Higher Base-standard of National Educational Provision;

• Establishing and Empowering Authentic Educational Leadership in Every School;

• Clearly Enunciating Philosophies and Practices in both School-systems and in Individual Schools;

• Significantly Increasing the Resourcing of Schools and Schooling;

• Significantly Increasing the Range and Quality of Staffing in all Schools;

• More Genuinely Personalising the Individual Learning and Teaching Needs of all Students and Teachers;

• Enriching Significantly Curricular Breadth and Depth, and Learning and Teaching Pedagogies and Opportunities, for all Students and Teachers;

• Ensuring Validity and Reliability in Comprehensive Assessment Procedures for Students, Teachers, and Schools;

• Establishing Higher National Standards in all facets of Teacher-training, Teacher-Registration, Teacher Professional-Development, Teacher Status and Career-paths, and Teacher Remuneration;

• Maximising Individual Schools’ Autonomy and Flexibility in Operational Structures, and Learning and Teaching Procedures;

• Allowing all Schools, their Administrators, and their Teachers, to Better Fulfil their Professional Mandates;

• Establishing Genuine Equity of Access and Opportunity for all Students to Optimise their Learning Outcomes in Appropriate Learning Environments;

• Minimising the Huge Range of Constraints and Impediments currently Adversely Affecting both Schools and Schooling;

• Increasing Constructive Interaction and Co-operation between Individual Schools and their Communities;

• Encouraging and Engaging Schools (and their communities) in Local, National, and International Educational Networks and Partnerships;

• Engaging All Schools in Supporting Less-Fortunate Schools in Other Places.

Abstract

Educational provision is a complex mix of philosophic (what ought to be done, and what can be done) and pragmatic (what can be done, and what is actually done) issues, any and all of which can be either or both complimentary or contradictory, dependent upon the powers and the relationships between the interacting participants, and/or supports, and the implementations and outcomes affecting decision-making processes at all stages in such provision.

There is much history underlying current conceptions of the nature and operation of schools, and there are entrenched structural and funding impediments affecting school’s personnel engaging in the changes which the great majority of professional educators see as necessary for appropriately preparing students for on-going constructive contributions to the society of the 21st century. Such educational preparation for tomorrow’s citizens entails the optimisation of learning and teaching pedagogies to seek to ensure high-quality holistic educational outcomes.

Underlying optimised educational outcomes is the critically important role of authentic educational leadership—that is, leadership which is informed about, is committed to, and is tailored to address, the unique qualities and characteristics of the particular school and its organisation, and the unique nature of the school in its particular community context.

Schools are person-developing, highly interactive, human-service organisations.

In most respects, the effectiveness of educational processes and outcomes, as ‘measured / indicated’ by educational assessments is at best approximate only, and at worst, is highly inaccurate, significantly misleading, and thoroughly incomplete.

Education in and through schools / schooling is first and foremost a process; outcomes are significant but are in fact subsidiary. In every instance, the processes of learning are more important than is the product, especially that measured as the academic result from Year 12 examinations.

In most situations, schooling could and should be significantly better than it currently is, both for teachers and students as the primary participants in the enterprise.

Authentic educational leadership, appropriately supported, has the potential to create the environments which will come closest to optimising learning and teaching opportunities and outcomes for every student and for every teacher. Teaching is a highly specialist professional vocation, and demands a commitment and an ethic which is significantly greater that that required for most other professions, because accurate appraisal of ultimate quality in both processes and outcomes remains highly elusive and highly subjective, but particularly so, because the ‘clientele’ are minors—children and young people.

Assessment measures of outcomes in the form of educated students are at best an indication only of each individual student’s ability and potential, but certainly not of concrete school or teacher performance. Education is a process and a relationship between interacting variables—students, teachers, environments, resources, facilities, opportunities, effort, intellect, encouragement, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Effective education exudes and demands a great deal of trust and respect between the interacting parties.

However, every organisation stands or falls, (through permitting or restraining the individual growth and quality-of-experience of its members), based on the strength, quality, effectiveness, and sensitivity of its leadership.

Unlike virtually all other organisations, schools demand exceptionally high skills and ethical-moral standards in inter-personal relationships with a range of ‘stake-holders’:

• the clientele—students (of whatever age);

• the employees—teachers, and other school-based support staff;

• investors—students and parents in particular, as well as the school’s immediate community-constituency (both monetary and non-monetary investments);

• the wide range of other interacting educators, from other schools through to other types of educational institutions;

• the national and international community of all those who may / or will be, directly or indirectly affected by the ‘product of schooling’—hopefully sensitive, honest, intelligent, concerned, and respectful future world-citizens.

Schools and their staff carry a significant accountability for, and opportunity to engage in, ‘duty-of-care’ and ‘in loco parentis’ responsibilities, and are role-models in all of their interactions (particularly with their students)—the intended as well as the unintended; the planned as well as the unplanned; the formal as well as the informal.

Leadership is enacted at every level and in every aspect and circumstance of school operation, from the Principal and decision-making administrative personnel of the school, through to class-room teachers and to students, as each are granted and / or assume leadership and decisional responsibilities of all sorts.

Effective educational leadership must be authentic and sensitive to underlying philosophic values and processes—those which are innate to human interactions, and those which are espoused and specified, appropriate to the particular school.

The philosophical and pragmatic underpinnings, the structures and operational processes, and the academic and holistic outcomes from schooling, all demand levels of integrity of leadership appropriate to the nature and scope of the leadership being enacted.

The focus of attention, and intention, must always be for the welfare of the students.

The actual and potential impact of educational leadership is conceptually greater than is that enacted by, and within, almost any other area of contemporary society, because the clientele (students) are highly vulnerable to obvious and subtle manipulation by their adult mentors, leaders, guardians, and role-models—their parents, their teachers—and others in society at large.

Teachers must not under-estimate their actual and potential influence on the intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual development of their students.

School’s students are the future generations of world citizens, and their knowledge and values will very literally determine the future quality and nature of life on this planet.

Every individual is important.

As professional educators: How great is our offence, if by anything done or left undone, we place a stumbling-block in the way of one of these little ones?

(Former Methodist Church of Australia Baptismal Service).

Authentic Educational Leadership involves enabling others to enact their strengths and abilities for their own and others’ intellectual and inter-personal development, whether these others are students, colleagues, subordinates within schools, or indeed others with whom the leaders will interact in both formal and informal settings.

Authentic Educational Leadership also entails providing intellectual and practical guidance and support to others who both seek and need this leadership from those having leadership responsibilities. All educators have these responsibilities to greater or lesser degrees in virtually all interactive situations. However, impediments of various kinds can constrain our ability to enact this inter-personal leadership.

Further, it is argued that these and other constraints and impediments of various kinds (from philosophic to operational, from economic to political, and from structural to transactional), impinge on the funding, organisation, and operation of schools in various ways, the impact of any or all of which prevent the optimisation of both the teaching of teachers, and the learning of students.

This text considers various of the ways in which individual schools and their personnel can come closer to optimising the effectiveness of educational processes and outcomes, through directing their activities more specifically to the learning and teaching needs of their students, through optimising the quality of their learning and teaching pedagogies, minimising many of the (currently accepted) constraints and impediments, and through engaging in greater operational flexibility in most if not all aspects of an individual school’s educational activities.

There is an urgent need for governments (and other funding agencies) to increase, quite dramatically, the current thoroughly-insufficient levels of funding and supports of various kinds, which are adversely constraining virtually all aspects of formal educational to minimal rather than optimal standards of provision.

Additionally, there is an urgent need for the governance and administrative personnel of individual schools to be able to determine and respond to the educational needs of their particular teachers and students within their unique settings, and to receive the levels of resourcing necessary to permit the optimisation of their respective learning and teaching personnel against much higher national standards.

The status and quality of teachers, and the importance of a highly-educated populace, are both of critical importance for the future of all nations world-wide, in all facets of their national and global actions and interactions. There is an urgent need for governments in particular, but societies in general, to recognise and respond appropriately to, the importance of education for both current and future societies in the increasingly interactive and inter-dependent global community of the twenty-first century.

A range of suggestions about ways in which individual schools might alter their operations to achieve improved outcomes is suggested in the final section of this text, along with a scenario pertaining to the potential nature of schools in the immediate future.

The Structure of the Text

Part 1: PREAMBLE

The Preamble sets the scene, which details various aspects of the nature and purpose of education, and the complex operational environments of schools. It enunciates the intention of the text, and calls for higher ideals and practices.

However, it also raises a series of highly provocative questions about the nature and purpose of education per se, of schooling per se, and the responsibilities of schools, school leaders, and teachers in particular.

The text is intentionally provocative, and the provocations are designed to encourage (if not shame), School’s Governors, Administrators, and Teachers to very carefully, but also very thoroughly, evaluate the quality of the school’s programmes and processes, and to evaluate the extent to which various actions can, and should be taken, to raise the standard of each of these in the interests of more optimised learning and teaching outcomes.

Part 2: AUTHENTIC EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN SCHOOLS

Part 2 addresses more specifically aspects of the issue of Authentic Educational Leadership in Schools, whilst isolating both the need and the responsibility to share leadership roles within schools (as learning institutions), with specific reference to the key responsibilities and roles of the Board, and the Principal, but also of all others having leadership roles in schools, which increasingly is all personnel in schools.

Part 3: PHILOSOPHIC UNDERPINNINGS and PRAGMATIC APPLICATIONS

Part 3 addresses the operational foundations of school practice and separates the Philosophic from the Pragmatic as follows:

Philosophic Underpinnings of:

Vision;

Mission;

Objectives;

Policies; and

Conceptual Presuppositions;

and Pragmatic Applications of:

Funding (all sources);

Staffing (all personnel);

Operational Strategies;

Organisational Structures;

Operational Practices and Procedures;

Curricular, Co-curricular, and Extra-curricular Programmes and Opportunities;

Learning-Teaching Pedagogies and Methodologies;

Information Communications and Design Technologies;

Assessments and Accountabilities (personnel and institutional);

Support (non-teaching) Personnel, and Support Structures;

Facilities, Resources, and Learning-Teaching Environments;

School-Community Relationships (Local, National, and International); and

Holistic Educational Outcomes (Intended and Achievable).

Part 4: PROVOCATIONS pertaining to the Philosophic underpinnings and Pragmatic applications, within the current contexts of schools

PART 4 presents the contextual setting of schools per se, which is followed by a brief consideration of two ‘Values’ models which present perspectives on both individual and collective values bases, and the consequential decision-making processes of both professional educators (administrative, teaching, and support personnel), and of schools as organisations.

This is followed by a series of ‘Provocations’, struck in relation to each of the above Philosophic and Pragmatic Underpinnings, which pertain to the ways in which (in the current nature of educational provision in schools) each constitute potential and / or actual constraints or impediments to achieving optimally-effective learning and teaching processes, resulting in a short-fall of potential outcomes for both students and teachers, and related consequential inefficient and ineffective levels of operation in individual schools.

It is argued that, whilst many of these impedimenta are ‘systemic’ (in the sense of being predominantly government and education-department imposed and controlled, and applying to all schools), many others are ‘institutional’ (school-based), and can be confronted and minimised through actions to be taken by individual school’s personnel—be these Board Governors, Principals, Teachers or support staff.

A major constraint of virtually all classifications of the impedimenta adversely affecting schooling are the intellectual and psychological ‘mind-sets’ that operate in all communities, which (notionally) assume that: the current operational practices of schools are appropriate; are the only way that schools are meant to operate; or that the inertia preventing change to schools’ operations is too great to challenge or to overcome.

Certainly some political encouragement, if not specific direction, to de-institutionalise various of the extant operational structures by which schools are required to operate, would greatly assist the many genuine ‘educational professionals’ to challenge the ‘mind-sets’ of institutionalised ‘educational bureaucracy’ in both central and regional offices, to be able to re-organise and re-structure individual schools to better meet the individual students’ and teachers’ learning and teaching styles and needs respectively, ahead of maintaining the administrative and organisational sameness of virtually all schools across any nation.

These provocations are intended to encourage educational decision-makers (at every level of educational provision, both across the nation and in every school) to re-examine the purposes of education and the roles of schools and schooling; their current practices and levels of support; and to seek to ascertain more effective ways and means of meeting and individualising the learning needs and opportunities of students, and the teaching needs and opportunities of teachers.

This need not mean significantly dismantling existing structures and practices, but it should mean reflecting on current practices, and permitting sufficient change to that which is deemed or discovered to be inefficient, ineffective, and less than optimally productive or conducive to optimising learning and teaching processes and outcomes.

This ought not be such a big challenge. In the end, it is a matter of will.

Part 5: CONSTRAINTS AND IMPEDIMENTS

to optimising holistic learning and teaching

PART 5, whilst accepting that various of these ‘constraints and impediments’ are in fact necessary structural arrangements for the provision of basically efficient, effective, and safe operation of schools (under existing perspectives about appropriate processes and outcomes), various ‘negative’ aspects of these actually frustrate more than facilitate both more effective learning and teaching, and higher-quality holistic (rather than merely predominantly academic) educational outcomes.

These negative constraints and impediments are a combination of many of the following:

• Government and other political, ideological, and systemic decisional, funding, and structural, imposed constraints;

• Government / Ministry-imposed constraints on more flexible and / or broad-based curricular and programme offerings, operational structures and processes, funding levels (which directly affect staffing levels), operational and structural requirements, and student—and programme-assessment requirements, all of which, to a greater or lesser extent, potentially impede optimal learning and teaching;

• Insufficient teaching personnel, both in number and in specialist expertise, resulting from too-small staffing budgets, and further exacerbated by too-large class-groupings of students, all resulting in non-personalised and frequently less-than-effective learning and teaching processes and outcomes;

• School-based operational time-frames and time-tables which constitute structural and operational controls, and result in potential learning and teaching ‘down-time’;

• Parental and community perceptions, expectations, and accommodation of schools’ existing practices and outcomes, and ignorance about potential alternatives;

• Both professional and attitudinal short-comings in teacher-training, teacher performance, teacher performance-appraisals, and teacher status, recognition, and rewards;

• An absence of consistent motivation and application by both students and teachers, at various stages of formal schooling (resulting predominantly from inappropriate and inflexible institutional practices and controls);

• A dearth of high-quality facilities, resources, and learning environments, within which learning and teaching is to be undertaken; and

• Restricted access to, and/or utilisation of, community human and physical capital and resources, to expand and enrich both learning-teaching environments and opportunities, both within and beyond a school’s boundaries.

Underlying, or over-laying, all of the above are a wide range of access and operational inequities preventing all students and all teachers from optimising their particular potential and talent for the benefit of themselves, their schools, the nation, and potentially the inter-acting world community.

Educational provision and related outcomes are grossly under-valued national assets in virtually all countries of the world, in large part because the potential of students and their teachers is both under-valued and too tightly constrained by outmoded attitudes, structures, opportunities, and financial / fiscal supports and controls.

Part 6: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGES TO IMPROVE CURRENT PRACTICE . . .

leading to greater optimisation of holistic educational outcomes

PART 6 presents a limited number of recommendations pertaining to various learning-teaching decisions and actions, many of which can and should be undertaken by individual schools to minimise or remove various of these impedimenta, and are accompanied by various suggested alternative operational procedures most of which could be undertaken by practitioners and / or stake-holders, both within school-systems and in individual schools, whilst remaining associated with the operational arrangements of the various States, Territories, Provinces, Counties, as well as with National Governments.

These include the need for:

• Constitutional and Governmental legislative changes to current educational provision and schools’ practices, to permit greater facility, flexibility, and school-based operational controls;

• Conceptual and operational changes to the roles, status, remuneration, career-paths, and expectations, held for schooling per se, and for educators as a profession;

• A reconceptualising of the purposes and the nature of schools, and of their potential contributions to the future of the nation, and the world;

• Organisational re-structuring of a range of systemic and individual school’s structures and practices;

• Greater constructive community recognition of, and engagement with, schools, their teachers, and their students.

• Greater networking between schools, locally, nationally, and internationally, to share knowledge, experiences and achievements, and to enrich educational opportunities for all students and their teachers.

The text ends with a scenario of ‘the future school’ (wherever it may be located) in (say) 2025) incorporating the many changes which will likely be introduced over the coming 10 to 15 years, as school administrators assume, or are granted, greater autonomy over most aspects of schooling, as a result of community pressures on, and the realisation by, Governments, both State and Federal, for the removal of many of the inconsistencies and constraints which currently beset educational provision.

Optimising learning and teaching in schools is within the reach of every student and teacher, but there are many individual and systemic changes which need urgently to be confronted.

A significant first-step for all educational decision-makers is to engage in authentic educational leadership, in recognising that holistic educational outcomes must be the aim of every school for its students.

Readership Focus

This text is directed at all of those who carry leadership responsibilities for the provision of education and schooling, but particularly to those, in all nations of the world, who have Educational Leadership and Decision-Making powers and responsibilities, in each and all of the following sectors:

• National, State, Provincial, County, and Territorial Governments (and all of those having philosophic and fiscal responsibility for the provision of education through schooling);

• Government Education Ministers and their Departments (and all those having operational responsibilities for the effective provision of education);

• Sub-systems / Regions, Groupings of Schools : Government, Catholic, (other diocesan / denominational groupings), Professional Associations, etc.), and Independent and Non-government schools;

• Curriculum authorities (all those determining what, when, and how, ‘curricular’ content is to be accessible to students);

• Tertiary Teacher-Training Institutions, (and those determining, maintaining and up-grading teaching-pedagogy standards);

• Professional Development departments, agencies, and providers (for the constant determination and up-grading of teaching standards, and teaching personnel);

• Schools’ Boards of Governors, Schools’ Councils, Corporate School Owners (and all those having legal, financial, and operational oversight of practices and outcomes);

• Individual Schools’ Principals and Administrators, (both government and non-government, of whatever designation or accountability);

• Stake-holders in Educational Provision and Educational Outcomes (parents, students and all other genuinely-interested parties).

• Teacher-training Institutions and University Education Faculties, for use with trainee-teachers;

• Schools throughout the world as a thought-provoking text for all school-based personnel, about the purposes and processes of education and schooling.

It is also directed to the wider educational readership of teachers and parents, and all of those who have regular or on-going engagement with schools, and concern about the quality of educational provision and outcomes.

Communities which are better informed about the nature and processes of schools, and about some of the ‘hidden’ agendas of those who make decisions about the nature and processes of schooling, and the ways in which some of these impact upon the learning of students and the teaching of teachers, will progressively result in changes to improve current educational provision and practice.

Those associated with the non-government sector (Independent Schools) as Council Members or as School Academic and Business Administrators, along with corporate-owned and operated schools, or in those schools affiliated with, and / or controlled by, religious organisations, tend to have greater autonomy and degrees-of-freedom for the enactment of change to educational policies, structures and procedures, than do those in nationally-funded, systemically-controlled and operated government-schools and government-school systems.

However, in all schools, there are levels of leadership and decision-making powers and responsibilities which are thoroughly localised, the implementation of which can influence and affect positively (or negatively), the quality of learning and teaching in individual classrooms, and for individual students and teachers within these individual schools.

Those with control over a school’s funding levels (be these Educational Ministers of a Government, bureaucrats within Education Departments, or the Chairpersons of individual Independent Schools) obviously can have greatest impact on the quality of learning and teaching in particular individual schools, through the provision or with-holding of sufficient funding, which directly affects access to key operational resources (staffing; learning-teaching resources; facilities and equipment; curricula and co-/ extra-curricula programmes; learning-teaching environments; community-relations; and learning-teaching ephemera).

The greatest temptation for these (non-school-based, non-practitioner / non-teacher-trained) decision-makers is the presumption that current funding levels are adequate and sufficient, which either ignores or misunderstands the extent to which schools and teachers are forced to compromise optimal learning-teaching methods and opportunities, and to accommodate to inadequate and insufficient resourcing levels, to meet, or to ‘live within’, imposed budgets.

However, Principals and senior administrators in individual schools, of whatever affiliation, can determine changes to certain ‘in-house’ policies and various operational structures and procedures, which can similarly affect that particular school’s learning and teaching ambience and outcomes, but in somewhat less significant ways than is possible at a more systemic / structural level.

However, certain ‘in-house’ changes in a particular school may result in benefits for individual students in potentially highly significant ways.

In relatively wealthy and generally highly-educated nations (such as Australia, those in Europe, Great Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Scandinavia, and in many other developed nations), the lost and wasted potential of failing to optimise learning and teaching for all students, and by all teachers in all schools, is little short of a national scandal in each of those countries.

The fall-out from under-achieved learning and teaching potential affects negatively, virtually every facet of a nation’s economy, both immediately and into the future.

There is a very real sense in which both students and teachers have been used and abused by governments (and their educational bureaucracies) through their (the latter’s) failure to adequately analyse, and respond to, the complex set of factors which influence the provision of effective (or ineffective) educational processes and outcomes.

The lack of sufficient intellectual and economic support by governments for virtually all facets of the educational enterprise over at least the 50 to 80 year period (from (say) the end of WW2 to the information era of the 21st century), is an historic low-point in the overall governance and on-going development of most nations world-wide.

This period was, and continues to be, one of enormous world-wide intellectual expansion, but this actual and potential growth has not been incorporated sufficiently into the political psyche, or the GNP / GDP calculations of most nations with respect to national, social benefits.

Governments over this same period have given intellectual and economic priority to (so-called) free-trade arrangements and international warfare (security and defence through international alliances and agreements), and of course their own political longevity through attention to short-term populist political agenda items, ahead of the educational development of their citizenry, or the development of local and national infrastructure (because of the constitutional separation of responsibilities), using local and national expertise. (Students do not have a vote in National or State elections, and the on-going under-funding of education is generally not a ‘political’ issue.)

[In Australia, the Rudd Labor government (2007) began a process of national data-collection about schools and literacy-numeracy standards at years 3,5,7 and 9, with a view to making the performance outcomes of schools (notionally) more transparent to parents. The realisation of this intention, and its potential benefits, are yet to be achieved.]

All national citizens in all countries have a right and a responsibility to question their governments about the dispersal of National Government monies to ‘theatres of war’, ahead of ‘centres of education’.

Many citizens are wont to question whether there has been, or continues to be, a predetermined policy by some Government Ministers (in whatever country) to set national educational standards in both teaching and learning at minimal rather than optimal levels, to notionally prevent the populace from becoming too well-informed about government spending and its operational policies, which pre-determine the nature of the particular society, at both national and international as well as, at local levels.

Any nation’s greatest manipulable and renewable asset is its people, particularly its students and their teachers, yet most nation’s educational systems continue to be constrained by short-term political and operational agendas:

• maintaining existing structures and arrangements;

• retaining established mind-sets;

• supporting personal and corporate greed;

• minimising expenditure on education from one budgetary period to the next;

• the production of immediate short-term ‘returns’ ahead of investment in the future;

Apart from academic examination results, actual holistic ‘outcomes’ in and from education have always been deemed too difficult to gauge because subjective assessments have been, and continue to be, incapable of ‘concrete’ substantiation. (However, the determination of empirical, objective outcomes from education are also highly subjective at source, and are only treated as ‘objective’ on the basis of numeric strength). Therefore the relationship between economic investment and educational outcomes from schooling remain highly intangible in fact.

The rhetoric of governments (certainly in relation to education) generally bear minimal relationship to the actual practice of governments. Actual annual expenditure on education is rarely transparently interpretable in relation to claimed expenditure. Immediate political agendas in relation to government expenditure tend always to take precedence over the promised or real long-term educational needs of communities.

Are the ideological agendas of the major political parties (in every nation) purposefully philosophically contrary to the major educational-developmental needs of the national population, or is it simply that all parties are more concerned with retaining the decision-making power that comes with government-office, through keeping the national citizenry largely ill-informed about the real reasons for, and priorities of, their Government’s national decision-making?

Why do so many governments have these mis-named freedom-of-information statutes, the purpose of which appears to be more concerned with concealment of detailed information from the general public, about various matters which they may deem or perceive to be ‘too sensitive’ or prejudicial to the government of the day?

Wrongful decisions, judgements, and rulings, made by whomever (politicians, judges, bureaucrats, school principals), ought to be challenged (especially where there is an intention to mislead), and justifications for such actions ought to be provided by the perpetrators to those who will be adversely affected by such wrong decisions. However, to achieve this degree of openness, the general public needs to be much better informed about decision-making policies, priorities, and processes of governments, and the issues about which such decisions are taken.

The leaders concerned need to exercise much greater levels of personal and professional integrity and authenticity in the fulfilling of their roles and responsibilities.

The nation may not always agree with the reasons given, but it has a right to be given honest and comprehensive explanations. It would seem that an ignorant public may be deemed to be a government safeguard. The same applies to many of the corporate leaders in all areas of society. How many of these have corporate policies which permit the with-holding of pertinent unpalatable information from the stock-exchange, their share-holders, their clients, their constituencies, and the general public? What is the moral and ethical responsibility of these leaders for the example they set, both directly and indirectly, to the children and young people of the nation, who are in the process of forming their values-bases.

All educators acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes, and, hopefully, we all learn from our mistakes. All experiences are learning opportunities, and the positive outcomes of such learning need to be given priority over the action of the mistake.

This is a major reason why schools need to have, and to practice, positive responses to mistake-making, including purposefully wrong behaviours by their students (or their teachers), so that the perpetrators in each case can engage with responsible others to discuss the likely causes and impacts of such activity, and the actual or potential outcomes which may follow. Our national and international decision-makers need to do the same.

Educators encourage students to be honest in their dealings with others. We encourage students to acknowledge their mistakes and to analyse the circumstances which may have caused such mistake-making. Constructive teachers try to ensure that the outcomes from making mistakes are positive learning experiences rather than punishments.

Maybe it is time some of our politicians, business, corporate, and even religious leaders re-attended school to learn about the need to be honest, to admit to mistakes, to learn from mistakes, to investigate the impact of both accidental and purposeful wrongful decisions, and to have the courage to acknowledge these, to rectify these, and to set a good example to our vulnerable young people, as well as to the rest of society.

Right-thinking and honest behaviour needs to flow from the most senior positions and personnel in any society.

Societies’ civic and corporate leaders are role models to young people just as much as are their parents and their teachers.

The national curriculum of any nation’s schools ought to include compulsory studies of sufficient detail about the country’s national heritage, current government processes and priorities, current government structures and decision-making processes, and business / corporate structures and practices.

In our increasingly globalised societies, this exposure needs also to include pertinent international information in all of these areas.

The media ought similarly be held accountable for the all-too-frequent partial and distorted interpretations of news-reporting, which so often appears to with-hold from, or confuse, the public about the likely reasons and outcomes of such government and corporate decision-making.

What sorts of examples do our civic-leaders and our media present to society’s young people about honesty, justice, integrity, authenticity, and responsibility?

The requirement to provide explanations and reasons for patently wrong-headed or thoroughly selective decision-making affecting the effectiveness of schooling, would hopefully cause such administrators and decision-makers (at both the national and state levels of government) to reflect a little more carefully and thoughtfully about the potential impact of their decisions on the lives of individual students and their teachers on the one hand, and on the welfare of the nation as a whole on the other.

It is suggested that, too often, such decision-making pertaining to educational provision has a priority of economic and political expediency rather than of educational efficiency and effectiveness, and similarly tends to be about short-term expediency rather than longer-term benefits.

Propaganda, distortion, deceit, and / or patent dishonesty by some politicians (government or opposition), business and civic leaders, and /or their operatives, must be exposed for what it is.

The manipulation of the lives of children (and adults) to counter ill-conceived and /or ill-formed educational budgets, and / or to conceal inadequate educational decision-making, must become relics of the past, not the underpinnings of the future.

The social and economic effects / costs of the under-resourcing of education in every country will impact on generations of citizens in those nations for many decades hence, just as the international financial crash of the 2008-2009 period will adversely affect international trade and commerce for many years to come—the fundamental reasons for which appear to be well known. And whilst governments and the banks dither, the implicated decision-makers are ‘ducking-for-cover’, through the engagement of clever lawyers, and through inadequate judicial systems, these ‘leaders’ are avoiding accountability.

It is high-time this situation of under-valued educational provision was confronted and rectified. We need to begin a new process of openness and honesty through the teachers and students in our schools, by expanding and ensuring the direct relevance and breadth of the curricular content which our schools transmit, both directly and indirectly, and we must remove as many as possible of the impediments which currently frustrate learning and teaching optimisation.

A more open and comprehensive system of education will certainly cost more of the national budget, but no nation can any longer afford the consequences of an ill-informed or under-educated citizenry.

Open, honest, and transparent communication is a pre-requisite for the improvement of educational provision throughout the world. This text seeks to confront some of the issues to seeking to ensure greater optimisation of learning and teaching in schools in the interests of the achievement of significantly improved holistic educational outcomes.

Acknowledgements

The support of the following in the preparation of this treatise is gratefully acknowledged:

• My wife, Jan, for her patience and fore-bearance of me, as I have struggled with the content of this book on and off over about eight years.

• Mr. Jeffrey O. Thomas, former Chairman and life-member, Board of Governors, Carey Baptist Grammar School, Melbourne

• The late Emeritus Professor Hedley Beare AM, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne.

• Dr. Andrew Bunting, Director: ‘Architectus’, Melbourne.

• Mr. John Glasson, Melbourne. Formerly, Deputy Principal, Carey Baptist Grammar School.)

• Mr. Laurie Ince, Melbourne. (Formerly Diploma Manager, The International Baccalaureate Organisation, Asia-Pacific Regional Office, Singapore.)

• Mrs. Christina Mowle, Educational Editor, Melbourne.

Glossary of Terms and Definitions

• Schooling and Education

The concepts of Schooling and Education are not the same, either in theory or in practice, and the terms ought not be perceived of, or used, as being synonymous.

‘Education’ constitutes our daily personal intellectual (holistic) growth from birth to death, comprising all of the new information of whatever kind, and drawn from whatever source, to support this life-long personal and inter-personal developmental process, whereas ‘Schooling’ is the formal (and notionally compulsory) instructional component, normally undertaken in specific social cum institutional instructional settings called ‘schools’, comprising the stages of early childhood, infant, and adolescent learning, normally from age 3 or 4 through to the age of 18 years, and which process is a more formal and externally pre-determined part of the more general concept of ‘education’.

The Schooling of children and adolescents is normally a formal, constitutional, fiscal, and moral responsibility of Governments for their respective constituencies. However, many countries (including Australia) permit registered ‘private’ bodies to undertake this schooling responsibility in lieu of ‘public’ or government-conducted schooling, generally falling under the nomenclature of ‘non-government’ schooling.

However, also in many countries, it is also admissible for students to participate in registered ‘home schooling’ rather than ‘institutionalised schooling’, which is an option frequently undertaken by families who live in remote areas, or who, for special reasons, have difficulty attending, or acceptable reasons for not attending, community day-schools.

Additionally, many ‘private schools’ offer boarding facilities to accommodate those students unable to readily access community day-schools.

As already indicated, the students of schools are (normally) children ranging in age from 3, 4, 5 or 6 years of age (depending on whether Kindergarten is incorporated, or classified as ‘pre-schooling’) through to 17 or 18 years of age, in schools organised and operated by governments, or other benevolent and not-for-profit bodies (Religious or Independent), or commercial organisations operating schools (for a fee), generally for the children of their employees, and occasionally (blatantly) for profit.

Continuing and Tertiary education / instruction / tuition (for adult or post-school-age students), the operation of which is comparable to and tends to follow the pattern of formal schooling, is frequently distinctly similar in character, operation, and outcome, but tends to be more focussed, less rigidly controlled, tends to be voluntary rather than compulsory, and tends to be fee-charging. These post-school institutions tend to be described as University or College rather than ‘school’, indicating Tertiary-level rather than Primary or Secondary-level instruction (although in North America, the term ‘school’ tends to persist for all levels of formal, institutional, educational instruction, regardless of age).

‘Schooling’ (whether Government, or ‘private’) operates according to a range of largely pre-determined criteria, structures, and curricular, appropriate to the ages of the students concerned as they move through the 10 to 15 years of this instructional programme.

Whilst acknowledging certain approved exceptions, schooling in most western nations is compulsory for all children from 5 or 6 years of age through to 15 or 16 years of age, though starting and finishing ages vary from country to country. Secondary schools normally offer one or two additional years of instruction beyond the compulsory-attendance age, which again varies from country to country and from region to region within those nations. In ‘Developing’ and (so-called) ‘third-world’ countries / nations, formal education is frequently spasmodically offered and / or controlled.

‘Schooling’ is generally accepted as referring to formal Primary and Secondary compulsory instruction for children and young people up to the age of 17 or 18, funded (predominantly) by governments and transmitted in organisations called ‘Schools’.

There are numerous quality-based criteria and controls to ensure the attainment by students of pre-determined standards and quotients of knowledge at each of the years of formal schooling.

‘Education’ is generally more routinely conceived-of either as purposeful and formal self-directed intellectual development, or as spontaneous learning reflecting ‘a life-long journey’ of actions and reactions to both internal and external, and formal and informal stimuli, each adding to the corpus of extant information aggregated by individuals, and generally referred-to as knowledge and / or wisdom.

• Schools

As indicated above, in most ‘western’ nations the term ‘School’ refers to those registered educational centres / institutions which provide formal educational instruction in either the two predominating operational subdivisions of Primary and Secondary Schools, or in three such subdivisions generally entitled Junior, Middle, and Senior Schools, over an equivalent period of from 10 to 15 years, depending upon commencement and completion ages.

Schools must normally be registered with State or National governments, following having met the established provision of certain pre-determined standards in programmes, staffing, time-blocks, and facilities.

Kindergartens and Day-care Centres are not normally classified as schools, but as Pre-school, Child-care Centres, or Kindergartens, which in many countries operate predominantly independently of State / National government Education Departments, although many private / independent schools incorporate three and four-year-old Kindergarten as part of their educational provision, and for which they charge tuition fees.

In many countries, Pre-school and Kindergarten come under the aegis and control of a ‘Department of Maternal and Child Health’ or equivalent, although some Government ‘Ministries of Education’ incorporate pre-school and kindergarten into their formal ministerial responsibilities. Again, in each case certain standards of ‘care’ must be met, in order to be registered to operate.

In Australia, Kindergarten is currently not incorporated into Educational portfolios, and the Federal government currently funds one year of four-year-old Kindergarten in public centres, but three-year-old kindergarten is generally an additional charge to parents at ‘private’ rates.

• School Councils and School Boards

The title ‘School Council’ or ‘School Board’ is the terminology normally applying to a school’s Board of Governors,—the body of community members elected or appointed to have legal, financial, and moral oversight over, and responsibility for, the operations of and activities within the particular school.

The terminology: ‘School Council’ is that applying to most government schools. The equivalent terminology of ‘School Board’ or ‘Board of Governors’, whilst having fundamentally the same responsibilities, generally applies in Non-government, Independent, Religious and Private Schools, all of which must similarly be registered with and authorised to operate through ‘Corporate Affairs’, or an equivalent appropriate government agency.

In Australia, School Councils (as Boards of Governors) are legally accountable to both State and Federal Governments through their Ministries of Education, and through these to various other government agencies, with respect to ensuring that the school both meets and maintains various pre-determined and prescribed statutory minimum standards pertaining to the structures, operations, and outcomes of schools—typically: student welfare, staff-employment, curricular provision, occupational health and safety, facilities, industrial relations, and so on.

Schools’ Councils / Boards are also obviously accountable to their students, parents, and employees for the provision and maintenance of established minimal standards, each having recourse through legal or government channels (or Unions in the case of employees) where a breach of trust, mal-practice, misrepresentation, or negligence by the school (or its personnel) can be established.

Senior school employees, such as the Principal, the Business Manager, or nominated teaching personnel of the school, will generally be invited to attend Board / Council meetings, but are normally not formal voting members on the School Council because (as employees, either directly or indirectly) of the potential of ‘conflict-of-interest’ issues, but are required to provide the Council with accurate and relevant information about any facet of the operation of the school, as and when required.

• The Principal

The title ‘Principal’ (equivalent to other titles such as ‘Headmaster’, ‘Headmistress’, ‘Director’, and ‘Head’) generally refers to the most senior academic and administrative Head of the school. In some ‘proprietary (commercially owned and operated) schools, the owner and often non-educational administrator may also be given the title of ‘Director’, or ‘CEO’ (Chief Executive Officer) reflecting the breadth of responsibility beyond being the most senior academic educator (where this is the case).

There is no necessary consistency in the use of these terms. Where the most senior academic / administrator is titled ‘Principal’, the senior academic personnel of other operational subdivisions within the same school, including other campuses, are generally referred to as ‘Heads’. On occasions, the reverse is the case, where the most senior academic / administrator is the ‘Head’, and the subordinate leaders of other sections of the school are ‘Principals’.

The Principal / Head is also the most senior employee of the Council / Board, and similarly carries legal and professional responsibility for the operation and welfare of the school and its personnel.

• Government Schools

Government Schools are those which, under the Australian Constitution (1901), are operated by the governments of the various States and Territories, and are officially entirely funded by governments.

Under the Australian Constitution, schools are the operational responsibility of the States and / or Territories, though there are moves afoot by the current Federal Government (elected in 2007) to establish a national curriculum, national teacher-training, national teacher-registration, and national assessments for students, which would transfer effective ultimate control of most elements of educational provision away from States and Territories to the Federal Government. Such Constitutional change would be on the grounds of seeking equity in access, provision, and outcomes.

Currently both arms of government (Federal and State / Territory) directly fund the cost of schools’ operation, though not in equal proportions (see later).

However, because of deemed limited funding for the effective operation of schools (whether government or non-government) increasingly individual schools are making arrangements with local (community) businesses, parent-bodies and the like, to financially support or fund particular ‘special projects’. Many government schools seek (and gain) voluntary ‘contributions’ from parents for the provision of ephemera appropriate to particular subjects, which are generally referred to as ‘subject charges’ or ‘subject fees’, even though, under the 1872 Australian Education Act, government schools are (notionally) ‘free, secular, and compulsory’. Many government schools also engage a School Chaplain.

Governments retain quite significant controls over the operation of all schools, but particularly government schools, and especially in matters pertaining to staff appointments, ‘core’ curriculum, class-sizes, staffing levels, staff salaries, facilities, and resources provision.

• Non-government Schools

Non-government Schools are also described as ‘private’ or ‘independent’, and whilst the great majority are operated by an appointed / elected ‘School Board’, and are registered with ‘Corporate Affairs, Australia’ to ensure proper fiscal and corporate conduct and accountability of the school as a business utilising allocated government operational grants, many ‘private’ schools have affiliations with religious bodies (Catholic, Anglican, Uniting church etc.,) through their foundation, and also through required representation on the School’s Board of Governors. These are frequently referred-to as ‘church schools’.

Whilst all Australian schools (including those in the ‘private’ sector) receive funding from both Federal and State Governments, non-government schools (which receive a lesser total amount of funding from Governments) charge tuition fees over and above their total (Federal and State) government grants.

Government (predominantly Federal) funding to Non-government schools is currently determined in accordance with a 12-point scale appropriate the School’s notional SES (Socio-Economic-Status) classification, as calculated from the ‘post-codes’ of the enrolled student-body. Such Government per capita grants vary from approximately 15% to 70% of the cost of educating a child in a Government school (based on AGSRC—‘Average Government School Recurrent Costs’). The School’s funding classification determines the levels of funding from both Federal and State Governments, and for most represents approximately 2/3rds and 1/3rd respectively of the total of annual per capita government grants.

Because of their capability to raise additional operating monies, Non-government schools have significantly greater control and flexibility over curricular and co-curricular offerings, staffing-levels, class-sizes, resources, and facilities.

They consequently tend to offer an enriched range of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences; can pay staff ‘above award rates’; they tend to choose and engage more specialist teaching personnel; they claim to achieve somewhat higher standards in learning and teaching processes and outcomes; and they tend to operate with better and more appropriate / extensive facilities and resources.

Apart from Catholic schools, (the majority of which are governed and controlled by the Catholic Church within their respective States and Territories), and some other diocesan schools, (such as Lutheran and Anglican—which affiliate into loose, pseudo mini-systems), most non-government schools are ‘Independent’ in the sense that they are incorporated single operational entities, governed by a School Board.

Most private / independent schools are ‘not-for-profit’ (as distinct from ‘non-profit’, the latter implying being not profitable) by both policy and operational design; and most do not have share-holders (in the corporate sense—because, by policy, there will be no dividends payable). They budget to cover operational costs.

Their intended / desired operational outcomes are highly educated and self-sufficient graduands.

Their immediate lines of accountability (for both operational performance and educational outcomes) are to both State and Federal Governments (both as the determiners and regulators of prescribed minimum operational standards, and as major funding agents), which seek to ensure the proper utilisation of operating grants, and the safe, effective, and efficient operation of the school, but also importantly to their respective student / parent constituencies, (those who provide the fee-paying students).

• School Funding

Australian Governments (Federal and State combined) spend approximately $30 Billion on Primary and Secondary education each year (for a gross national population of approximately 22 million), which is modest by international standards both as a proportion of GNP, and as a per capita cost.

However, the mechanism for determining the break-down of the way such expenditure is calculated, dispersed, and reported upon is both complex and obscure (possibly intentionally so) (Dowling, 2007).

Professor Max Angus, (2007b), states that it is impossible to know actual funding for any individual school because of the different processes used both within sectors and between States / Territories. The School sector and the type of government are the two axes along which arguments about school funding generally occur. (As indicated earlier, under the Australian Constitution, education is a States / Territories responsibility.)

Most funding for government schools comes from State Governments (approximately 77%), with the remainder (23%) coming from the Commonwealth. However, the Commonwealth provides approximately 73% of the total funding for non-government schools (the other 27% coming from State governments), but these proportions fluctuate over time, appropriate to the ‘policy complexion’ of the particular government(s) in power, and which has tended to decrease under Labour and to increase under Liberal / Coalition governments.

Dowling, (2007), states that there is no current comparability in school funding patterns between the Commonwealth and the States. The two concepts which underlie funding policies are AGSRC (Average Government Schools Recurrent Costs) established in 1993, and SES (Socio-Economic-Status) established in 2001, with the latter applying to non-government schools only. In Australia, between 25% and 33% of all students attend non-government schools (the variation between is from State to State.)

There exist many anomalies and difficulties associated with the SES, and at the time of implementation, to ensure that no school was financially disadvantaged under this change of policy, certain schools were classified as ‘funding guaranteed’ or ‘funding maintained’. This has resulted in some anomalies within this system of non-government school funding, with some schools being notionally ‘over-funded’ on a per-capita basis.

The notion of ASC (Average School Costs) is also highly problematic, with both insufficient and inadequate data available for such determinations. The accountability systems do not actually measure a school’s resources, and they generally ignore a school’s capacity of fund-raising (in the case of ‘private’ schools, through tuition fees and bequests from alumni). The SES criterion is a gross instrument and is not applied consistently. (Dowling, 2007).

The relationship between student performance and a school’s resources also remains highly elusive, just as the whole question of schools’ funding remains confounded in political rhetoric and jurisdictional ambiguity. Dowling states (2007: 3): Commentators acknowledge that school funding has always, to a greater or lesser extent, been a political exercise.

Australia’s $30 billion system of funding schools is contorted by level of government (National or State), type of sector (Government or non-Government), location (State or Territory, urban or rural, regional centre or outback, upper middle-class or lower middle-class), accounting approach (cash or accrual), and time-period (financial (July to June), or calendar year). The various sources of income that flow into schools do not operate in unison, do not operate co-operatively, do not report consistently, and are rarely timely to the current operating period.

Various commentators have described Australia’s current system of educational funding as: containing significant deficiencies; exceedingly complicated; inequitable and inefficient; irrational and asymmetric; and unhelpfully complex and exceedingly opaque (Dowling, 2007 p.9). There is, overall, an agreed need for change, but also a great inertia to change, and a certain comfort with the status quo.

Obfuscation seems to be a factor of operation at both levels of government.

• The Curriculum

As will be described in greater detail elsewhere in this text, ‘the Curriculum’ is generally and predominantly conceived-of as the academic learning-teaching programmes of the school, whilst the concept of ‘an holistic curriculum’ is more comprehensively conceived-of as the amalgam of all of the learning experiences accruing to students, whilst at school (indeed, during their whole lives).

The majority of the school’s Curricular experiences are formal, intentional, planned, and structured, however, there are many significant other (holistic) learning experiences at school which are incidental, unplanned, spontaneous, unintentional and unstructured, many of which can be significantly influential in affecting both the formal and informal learning which, in total, constitutes the student’s holistic educational development whilst attending school as a student.

‘The Curriculum’ which, as indicated, is generally considered to refer only to the academic learning-teaching programme of the school, can be rich, comprehensive, and extensive; or alternatively it may