|
A New Vision for Public Schools in Australia
State
schools have made a major contribution to building the nation and must be
included among the most significant successes of government since their
establishment in the last decades of the 19th century. World
best practice can be found in many state schools in Students
from state schools are among the very best in the world judging by the
performance of 15 year-olds in tests of their capacity to apply knowledge
and skills in reading, mathematics and scientific literacy to real life
problems. In the findings of the 32-nation Program for International
Student Assessment (PISA) announced in 2001, Is
the State System in Decay? In
the light of these achievements one might ask how seriously one should
take a proposition that the state system is in decay. There is, however,
some disturbing evidence in four areas that warrants a more sober
assessment: 1.
The proportion of students attending state schools is
declining (MCEETYA, 2002a). The proportion in government primary schools
declined from 79.4 percent in 1981 to 72.8 percent in 2000 and the
proportion in government secondary schools fell from 72.9 percent in 1981
to 64.1 percent in 2000. The most recent report from the Australian Bureau
of Statistics (2003) reveal that, from 1991 to 2002, the number of
students attending government schools increased by 1.0 percent while the
number attending non-government schools grew by 20.8 percent. Projections
point to a continuation of the trend, especially at the secondary level,
so that by 2010, only 60.2 percent of secondary students will be in
government schools and overall there will be 66.7 percent of students in
government schools, compared to 77.0 percent in 1981. The trend is most
evident in Year 12, where enrolments in government schools fell from 65.9
percent in 1991 to 61.2 percent in 2000. The proportion is even lower in 2.
Deeper analysis of the results in 3.
The state of the buildings in which teachers and students
are required to work is nothing short of deplorable in many communities.
There are literally hundreds of schools in 4.
Increasingly, people seem unwilling to enter the profession
and, if they do, are unwilling to stay for very long. The Review of
Teaching and Teacher Education found that
‘too many high calibre teachers leave teaching in the first five
years of their teaching careers . . . . Possibly up to 25 per cent of new
teachers leave teaching during that early period’ (Committee for the
Review of Teaching and Teacher Education 2003, p. 24). ‘Teacher
meltdown’ is one of two ‘de-schooling’ scenarios in a set of six in
a recent project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD, 2001b). It may be that this ‘meltdown’ is under way
in some parts of state systems in The immediate counter to this evidence is that much of it is not exclusively in the province of state systems. Non-government schools share some of the disparity in student achievement and experience the same problems in attracting and keeping people in the profession. The increasing challenge and complexity in schooling must be weighed in the balance. Australia is one of the most multi-cultural of nations and the breakdown in traditional respect for authority, increasing fragmentation in family life and the prevalence of drugs have made the task harder in government schools than in non-government schools. In the final analysis, it may be argued that a dramatic increase in funding for state systems will alleviate if not solve the problem. In summary, in weighing the proposition, there is, on the one hand, powerful evidence of success, as highlighted at the outset. On the other hand, there is evidence of ‘decay’ in four forms: (1) the steady and apparently irreversible exodus of students from government schools; (2) the widening gap between high performing and low performing students and a failure to meet expectations in the national goals of schooling; (3) the literal crumbling of school buildings in many communities; and (4) the feared meltdown of the profession. However one weighs the evidence, there remains the worst-case scenario of the residualisation of the state system. The following should be taken seriously: It is 2010. The disparities among schools in terms of outcomes that were evident in 2003 have widened, especially but not exclusively at the secondary level. About 60 per cent of secondary students attend private schools, reflecting a steady increase from about 40 per cent at the turn of the century. Parents became increasingly dissatisfied with education offered by schools owned by government and other public authorities. They left the system, prepared to invest ever-larger proportions of personal resources to assure their children success in a knowledge society, with access to the individual care and attention and the increasingly rich range of technologies necessary to achieve these ends. Most government schools are now simply safety net schools. This need not be the
state of affairs at the end of the decade. A more positive scenario and an
uplifting vision for the future will be achieved with a new agreement on
what it means to be a public school and a willingness to be innovative in
building the support of the whole community for public education. At the
very least there should be a reallocation of priorities to provide
substantially increased funding to support schools that are in danger of
becoming no more than a safety net, as argued in persuasive fashion by
Richard Teese in his Inaugural Professorial Lecture at the The
Case for a New Agreement about Public Education In
A
review of developments around the world suggests that Observers
from Britain, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, New Zealand and
Singapore and most other nations would be puzzled about our view of public
education, for in these places, there are few distinctions in public
policy on the basis of who owns and operates the school. In The
Netherlands, for example, it is unconstitutional and therefore illegal to
do so. In Following
the lead of other nations will require non-government schools to cease
charging tuition fees in return for full public funding, with the same
regime of accountability as government schools. Non-government schools
that do not choose to be integrated in this fashion would not be funded
from the public purse and would be truly independent as in the nations
listed above. Adopting this course of action will not be easy. On
the positive side, the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment,
Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), through its Schools Resourcing
Taskforce, adopting ‘An Agreed Framework of Principles for Funding
Schools’ (MCEETYA, 2002b) to ensure that:
(MCEETYA,
2002b) The
last paragraph of the framework that develops the final principle in the
list above is noteworthy: Overall,
government funding policies must ensure that no student is left without
access to adequate resources to meet the expectations held for other
students. In government schools, public funding must ensure that the level
of resourcing is appropriate for meeting the national goals. For schooling
generally, funding policy must seek to ensure that whatever the
combination of public and private funding for a school, no student, in
whatever sector, is left without the opportunity to achieve their
potential in schooling through a lack of resources (MCEETYA, 2002b). The
Schools Resourcing Taskforce continues its work through a relatively
detailed analysis of the resources required to ensure that all students
can achieve the National Goals of Schooling. It
is proposed that values rather than ownership determine whether a school
should be considered a public school. These values should include:
These
values are consistent with the view of Jerome T. Murphy (1999), Dean of
the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who believes that: What
will determine whether we call them public schools is not so much the
vehicle that’s providing the education, but really whether they ascribe
to a certain set of public values. Values like equal educational
opportunity, values like non-discrimination, and so on. We’ll have
multiple delivery systems to achieve public values’. It
is proposed that a new agreement on what constitutes public education
should be based on a commitment to these values and that any school or
system of schools that makes this commitment should be considered to be a
public school or public system. At
the very least, new partnerships of government and non-government schools
should be encouraged and a private role in the support of government
schools should be initiated. This theme is developed in the third section
of the paper. Public
Private Partnerships Evidence
of a shift in thinking about the nature of public education has emerged in
recent years in the form of public private partnerships. A
public private partnership in school education is a legally binding
agreement between a public authority responsible for a school or school
system and a non-public entity that is intended to bring a benefit to each
party. The non-public entity may be an individual or organisation and may
be either profit or non-profit. For a non-profit entity, the benefit may
be the satisfaction of a mission that may include the achievement of a
benefit to the education partner. The non-private entity may be an
organisation of volunteers. Detailed
attention is now given to the possibilities of public private partnerships
in helping to stop if not reverse the decay that was described in the
first part of the paper. The starting point is a summary of five arguments
that have been advanced for the approach, with brief illustration and a
listing of objections that have surfaced in debates on the possibilities. Special
attention is given to developments in the Arguments
for public private partnerships Five
arguments for public private partnerships emerge from a study of recent
developments. These are briefly explained and illustrated, with more
detailed accounts of particular practices in the next section. These five
inter-related arguments may be described as the failure of a public
authority to meet expectations, securing higher levels of funding, a
‘third way’ in the delivery of services to the public, the building of
social capital, and the transformation of public sector services in a
knowledge society. Failure
of public authorities to meet expectations One
argument derives from the perceived failure of a public authority to
deliver education at a standard acceptable to citizens. Successive efforts
to improve the situation have proved unsuccessful and, often as a last
resort, government has turned to a non-public entity in an effort to
remedy the situation. These are the conditions that led to the
privatisation of educational services in support of schools in the London
borough of Islington, or the privatisation of the management of certain
schools in England that continue to be owned and funded by a public
authority. It is also the argument for the engagement of companies such as
Securing
higher levels of funding Another
argument is concerned with the availability of funds. Levels of funds in
the public purse may be insufficient to provide an educational service at
the desired level and one or more mechanisms may be employed to secure
support from a private entity. An example is the growing number of
arrangements under the Private Finance Initiative in the Delfin
Lendlease offered a similar line of argument in land developments in A
‘third way’ in delivering services to the public A
third line of argument calls for a shift in the concepts of public and
public good. In educational terms, the concept of public good may be
reflected in an unwavering commitment to achieve the highest level of
attainment for every student regardless of circumstance, but who owns the
school, or who delivers the service, or even who provides the resources
may be the subject of a more pragmatic outlook, depending on what it takes
to deliver this outcome. Such approaches are often framed by the concept
of a ‘third way’ in terms of absolute adherence to basic values but,
in respect to how to get there, to cite UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: 'We
should be infinitely adaptable and imaginative in the means of applying
those values. There are no ideological pre-conditions, [and there is] no
pre-determined veto on means. What counts is what works' (Blair cited by
Midgley, 1998, p. 44). Some ways in which the Blair Government has adopted
the approach have been listed above and are illustrated further in the
next section. Extending
the concept, Leadbeater even suggests a ‘fourth way’ to build a common
purpose in a knowledge society: Knowledge
is our most precious resource: we should organise society to maximise its
creation and use. Our aim should not be a third way, to balance the
demands of the market against those of the community. Our aim should be to
harness the power of both markets and community to the more fundamental
goal of creating and spreading knowledge. (Leadbeater, 1999, p. 27) Critics
of the ‘third way’ would contend that the concept is ill defined and,
in the final analysis, fails to deliver. This line has been followed by
critics of the approach in the The
building of social capital Invoking
the power of the community leads to the fourth line of argument that is,
in many respects, the most substantive and persuasive. It suggests that
partnership with a non-public entity draws on and enhances the social
capital of the school or school system. Interest
in the concept of social capital has waxed and waned. It has re-appeared
in recent times in The
term social capital itself turns out to have been independently
invented at least six times over the twentieth century, each time to call
attention to the ways in which our lives are made more productive by
social ties. The first known use of the concept was not by some cloistered
theoretician, but by a practical reformer in the Progressive Era – L. J.
Hanifan, state supervisor of rural schools in Hanifan
considered social capital to be ‘those intangible substances [that]
count for most in the daily lives of people: namely good will, fellowship,
sympathy and social intercourse among the individuals and families that
make up a social unit’. Hanifan
believed that ‘the community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation
of its parts’ (cited by Putnam, 2000, p. 19). A
recent argument along the same lines in the field of education was
advanced by Coleman (1988), with the study of Coleman and Hoffer
(1987) of public and private schools in the United States
concluding that differences in levels of student achievement – higher in
Jewish schools and parochial Catholic schools than in public schools –
are largely explained by differences in social capital, as reflected in
the strength of mutually supporting relationships among school, community,
home, church, and a range of non-profit entities including volunteer
organisations. Coleman and
Hoffer referred to the loss of social capital in recent decades and
proposed a range of policy initiatives to re-build and extend it. More
recently, In
one sense, the interest of a non-public profit entity would be considered
as a more limited form of capital, in the form of money, in expectation of
a benefit, in the form of profit. In the line of argument presented here,
however, such arrangements may be seen as part of a larger movement to
secure a wider and deeper base of support for schools. Expressed simply,
the provision of capital that delivers additional financial resources to
schools can be viewed as a contribution to social capital when there is a
commitment to ‘work together for common purposes’ in support of those
schools. Similarly in respect to arrangements where individuals in profit
or non-profit entities provide expertise in support of schools or school
systems on a pro bono basis. The form of capital provided here is
intellectual capital. The
creation of education action zones (EAZ) in The
social capital line is more evident in the involvement of non-public
non-profit entities in the support of schools. An example is the Community
Action Network (CAN) in Community
Action Network (CAN) and its partners are creating a model that will assist both in the transformation of education and community regeneration
through networking, collaboration and innovation. Our focus is on
improving education attainment through a new integrated approach to public
service delivery. Through our work in some of the most deprived areas in
the UK, CAN is able to deliver practical help and advice aimed at
establishing creative and sustainable partnerships across all sectors
(CAN, 2003, p. 1) CAN
employs the image of the ‘social entrepreneur’, citing Prime Minister
Blair’s view that ‘the combination of strong social purpose and
energetic, entrepreneurial drive can deliver genuine results. But if the Finally,
in presenting the case from a social capital perspective, there is a line
of argument that suggests that maintaining a view of public as synonymous
with government [‘owned, funded and operated by government’] has
served to deny or limit access to social capital, and that to continue to
do so will lead inevitably to the decline of the public school. Under this
‘residualisation’ scenario, the public school is merely a ‘safety
net’ for those who cannot afford to attend a private school where, in
addition to other forms of capital, social capital is perceived to be
relatively strong. Interest in public private partnerships appears to be
particularly strong in countries that are multi-cultural in character, and
where there are gross disparities in levels of achievement, fears of
‘residualisation’ are high, and social capital is perceived to be
weak. These countries include Australia, United Kingdom especially
England, and United States especially in large urban school systems. In
contrast, interest in such partnerships is not strong in countries that
may not be characterised along these lines, for example, in Finland,
Korea, Japan and Sweden. In these countries, social capital is already
considered to be strong. In Finland, for example, the impressive
performance of its 15-year old students in PISA has been explained by many
factors, but noteworthy is the strong level of support for schools
throughout the community. Transformation
of public sector services in a knowledge society The
final argument in support of public private partnerships lies in the
analysis of trends in the transformation of public sector services. The
Centre for Research and Innovation (CERI) of OECD provides such an
analysis: Education
is being transformed, albeit unevenly and at varying pace, from a
producer-led, planned system to one more guided by its multiple
stakeholders, as are many other public services. It is called upon
increasingly to be more responsive to the needs of the knowledge society
and partnerships offer one way in which the new demands can be met.
Required competencies change, more advanced, specialised skills are called
for, learning programmes ‘tailor-made’ to individuals or groups are in
demand. New opportunities and competition are tending to open up in the
conventionally public sector, a further driving force for public-private
partnerships, and cutbacks in expenditure are also pushing the public
sector to search for new (including private) partners. (Istance and
Kobayashi, 2003, p. 12) Innovation
in the governance of education is a noble pursuit, as is made clear in the
mission of UNESCO and the five functions that this organisation of 188
nations has chosen to carry out that mission. The mission of OECD includes
an intention to ‘stimulate experimentation, innovation and policy
dialogue’. Its functions include service as a ‘laboratory of ideas’
so that it ‘identifies emerging problems, seeks strategies to solve
them, creates space for dialogue, and tests innovative solutions’
(UNESCO, n.d.). It is evident that public education faces a range of
problems as efforts are made to promote education as a fundamental right
and to improve its quality. The creation and testing of innovative
arrangements, including public private partnerships, is consistent with
these intentions. Selected
illustrations of public private partnerships A
range of examples is offered here to illustrate the different approaches
to public private partnerships that have emerged in recent years. These
include private finance initiatives, city academies, private management of
public schools, specialist schools, community action networks, moral
persuasion, community design and the creation of education precincts, and
large-scale philanthropy. Illustrations are drawn from Australia, South
Africa and the United States, but particular attention is drawn to
developments in the United Kingdom, especially England, where there is a
clear commitment of government to reverse ‘decay’ and transform
schools. Private
Finance Initiatives (PFI) The
Conservative Government introduced Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) in
the United Kingdom in the early 1990s. Under PFI, construction and
refurbishment of schools are funded and implemented by private companies
after which the school is leased back to the public authority (local
education authority) usually for 25 years. These companies maintain the
schools and draw profits from the lease arrangements. Proponents of PFI
contend that it is a better approach than securing a substantial injection
of public funds over a short term, a course of action that will require
higher taxes. They also draw attention to the benefit that principals are
not required to manage the facilities under these arrangements, thus
allowing them to focus on educational leadership. PFI
have expanded dramatically under the Blair Government that shares the
concern of local education authorities about the rapid deterioration of
buildings that were designed many decades, even centuries ago for a
different era of schooling. According to Farrell (2003a) there are now 59
contracts covering 595 schools with a total capital value of £1.6bn, with
the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) allocating a further £1.6bn
for 36 contracts involving more than 600 schools. Another 19 projects
covering 260 schools are planned. The largest PFI is in Scotland where all
29 secondary schools in Glasgow are either new or have been radically
modernised. The
chief drawback to the PFI (Farrell, 2003b) is the signing of contracts for
25 years in situations where subsequent demographic changes mean that the
schools ought to be closed. It is argued that some non-PFI schools may be
closed to save education authorities from massive penalties if this
happens. There have also been instances where the design of facilities by
private providers has not met the requirements of good pedagogical
practice. The number of adverse cases appears small compared to the large
number of contracts and schools that have gained immediate benefit. They
are the unanticipated consequences of new policy in public private
partnerships. New arrangements should seek to minimise the risk to all
parties. City
Academies A
major project of the Blair Government is the establishment of City
Academies that involve the closure, re-opening, re-naming and physical
re-building of secondary schools in cities across England. The abandoned
schools are seen as having failed their communities despite the various
‘special measures’ that have been taken to achieve improvement. A
feature that warrants their inclusion as an example of public private
partnerships is the inclusion of one or more of the following elements: a
contribution from the non-public sector of funds in the re-building
program (normally a
requirement), significant philanthropic support, or the management of the
new school by a non-public entity, either profit or non-profit. At the
time of writing, 12 academies have been opened and 25 more are in the
planning stage. The intention is to establish 50 over the next four years,
all in communities marked by poor educational performance and many
replacing weak or failing schools. The
Blair Government invokes a social justice argument in proceeding down this
path. In remarks delivered at the opening of the Bexley Business Academy
in Thamesmead under the title ‘Radical Reform is the Route to Social
Justice’ (Blair, 2003a), he declared that ‘academies embody all we are
seeking to achieve as a government, tackling social exclusion and
transforming life prospects for the least advantaged in our society’. He
continued with the following words, reflecting his personal beliefs on the
matter of schooling and the planned transformation from the comprehensive
schools of the 1960s: My
passionate belief is that educational success is the route to social
justice - for each individual young person, and for our nation as a whole
- and that there is nothing more important for us as a nation than to
invest in new and better schools in areas which have failed in the past.
In
this you are an inspiration. This
academy - and the investment it represents in people and facilities -
could not be more focused on reducing social exclusion and extending
opportunity and aspiration within a community which needs them
desperately. To
those who fear radical change - and who claim we would be better off not
tampering with the comprehensive schools we inherited from the 1960s - I
say: come here to Thamesmead, visit the local community, hear about the
failed school of the past, compare it with the Bexley Business Academy
which is already becoming a beacon of hope and aspiration to the whole
community, and see what a change for the better has taken place. Blair
was on sound grounds in presenting this argument. In his landmark address
to the Labour Party Conference at Bournemouth (Blair, 2003b), he
highlighted his visit to Thamesmead, noting its location in ‘one of the
most deprived estates in the country’, with only three of 114 students
at its predecessor Thamesmead Community College achieving 5 good GCSE
passes in the final year before closure. It is now located in a £31
million building, being a sought after location for teachers, a 90 percent
attendance rate and the number of students achieving good GCSE passes
reaching 20 percent in its first year of operation. Blair recalled a
conversation at the official opening: ‘[the] new attitude was summed up
by one young student who told me she had been badgering her mum all week
to buy an alarm-clock, as she was scared of sleeping in case she missed a
single lesson. What better symbol of the opportunities we are giving our
children’? Of
the £31 million invested in new buildings at Bexley, £28 million was
provided by government and £3 million was donated by sponsors including
Microsoft and Charlton Athletic (football club). The school is managed by
a private firm known as the 3E’s (derived from the slogan of
‘education, education, education’ used by New Labour in a statement of
its three top priorities in the lead-up to its election in 1997). Its
principals are Chief Executive Valerie Bragg, former head of the
Kingshurst City Technology College in Birmingham (the first CTC in the
UK), and Stanley Goodchild, former Chief Executive of the Berkshire County
Council. It is a non-profit company and a wholly owned subsidiary of
Kingshurst. An
interesting development in the establishment of city academies is the
appointment of an Executive Principal at Greig City Academy in Haringey,
London. Formerly known as the Hornsby School (and described in the media
as having ‘a lamentable reputation at the bottom-of-the-league exam
results’), it closed at the end of the 2002-2003 school year and
re-opened as Greig Academy at the start of 2003-2004 with a new school
uniform, a new philosophy and £50
million investment in infrastructure. Executive Principal David Triggs was
appointed in May. He was Principal of Greensward School in Surrey.
Greensward and Greig each now have their own principals, reporting to
Triggs, who serves as Executive Principal to both schools. A feature of
the public private partnership is the role played by the non-profit
Community Action Network, described later in this section. Private
management of public schools The 3E’s is just one of a number of private companies now managing schools in England. The oldest and largest appears to be CfBT, founded in 1965 as the Centre for British Teachers. Based in Reading, it employs over 1300 full-time member of staff and currently operated in 20 countries. Its turnover in 2001 was £70 million. It is a non-profit entity, registered as a charity, and donating over £1 million annually to education projects and research endeavours around the world. It manages the School Improvement Service of the local education authority in Lincolnshire. Its international clients include the Ministries of Education in Brunei and Oman (see www.cfbt.org.uk) Another
large firm is Cambridge Education Associates (CEA) founded in the late
1980s by a small group of successful school principals and education
officers from Cambridgeshire, a pioneering authority in the local
financial management of schools that became a key component of the 1988
Education Reform Act and subsequently expanded by successive Conservative
and Labour Governments. Since it is now embraced across the political
spectrum the terms ‘local financial managements’ and ‘local
management’ are no longer used, since they refer simply to the way all
schools are managed in England. CEA continues to expand its operations,
employing large numbers of experienced and successful leaders and managers
in schools and school systems. CEA won the contract to provide educational
services in the London borough of Islington. Initial
concern about public private partnerships that involve the management of
schools has largely dissipated once it was realised that the key personnel
were highly successful if not eminent educators in their own right.
Concern was particularly high when it was announced that a school in
Guildford was to be the first under private management in England.
This is the school now known as the Kings College of the Arts and
Technology, managed by the 3E’s. There
have been three efforts over the last decade to establish a successful
school on the site in Guildford. The original Park Barn School was
re-named Kings Manor under a new principal in 1993. It was closed on 31
August 2000 and re-opened on 1 September 2000 under its new name of the
Kings College of the Arts and Technology. There was, however, 18 months of
preparation by 3E’s with current head David Crossley formally appointed
after six months, taking up the post and then making new staff
appointments and establishing the senior team five months before
re-opening. Enrolments have grown from about 280 to about 750 in three
years and the ceiling of about 1100 will be reached soon. Local primary
schools would previously not recommend the school but it is now the
destination of choice for those completing Key Stage 2 (upper primary).
Indeed, enrolments at these schools have grown with the success of Kings.
Kings’ principal David Crossley offers a detailed account of his
experience (Crossley 2002; 2003) and has visited Victoria to share his
insights for schools in the Northern Metropolitan Region of the Department
of Education & Training. The
US-based for-profit entity Edison is about to commence operations in
England but its track record is not good. With an initial public offering
in 1999, it is one of several such companies in the United States that
have endeavoured to win contracts for the management of public schools in
difficult circumstances. Indeed, with 57,000 students by 2001 it held a 43
percent market share among such companies. A report for JP Morgan (Odening,
2001) prepared in March of that year predicted shares valued on the stock
market at US$45 in the short term. In reality, their worth plummeted to
less than US$1 within 12 months. Even with a blending of education and
business expertise its impact was seen as marginal in the face of
unrelenting opposition from unions and others who believed that other
avenues of reform were available within the public system. The range of
public private partnerships in England, and their apparent success and
growing acceptance in circumstances where virtually all other measures
have been tried but have failed, suggest that Edison will find it
difficult to succeed in its new international venture. Specialist
schools One
of the most notable developments in England is the establishment of
specialist schools. Commencing in the Thatcher years with just 15 city
technology colleges, there are now more than 1500 out of a total of 3200
secondary schools that have developed a specialist approach. Success has
led to it becoming a major item in the Blair Government’s agenda for a
second term. Facilitating the development is the Specialist Schools Trust
and its network of over 2200 affiliated schools (see
www.specialistschoolstrust.org.uk).
Ten
specialisms are encouraged: arts, technology, languages, sports, business
and enterprise, engineering, mathematics and computing, science,
humanities and music. Schools are still required to address the national
curriculum in each key learning area. The important feature is the
development of specialisation or areas of excellence in one or more of the
nominated areas. These secondary schools, now clearly constituting a
critical mass in England, may be found in every setting, with as many in
low as in high socio-economic areas. In committing his government to
extending the approach, Prime Minister Blair drew attention to the finding
that the number of students gaining high grades is higher in specialist
schools than their non-specialist counterparts, ‘a figure that holds for
schools in poor areas as much as it does for those in wealthy ones’
(cited in Specialist Schools Trust, 2002, p. 1; research reported in
Jesson and Taylor, 2002). A
feature of the specialist schools program is the expectation and the
outcome that schools will have the support of a range of community
organisations in funding and support services. In this respect, the
network of schools constitutes a set of public private partnerships on a
large scale. An example may be found in a school that has developed a
specialism in business and enterprise. Swanlea School in East London is
one of 18 business and enterprise colleges: It
has established links with a range of businesses, enterprises and other
local schools; Young Enterprise; the Lea River Trust; a local heritage
centre; a City Learning Centre near the school; various organisations
connected with the local borough, Tower Hamlets, including its Education
Business Partnership; the East London Small Business Association; and
Cranfield University School of Management. (Specialist Schools Trust,
2003, p. 8) A
large network of specialist schools is known as Vision 2020 and this has
become the ‘innovation arm’ of the Specialist Schools Trust. The 2200
affiliated schools are formed into regions, with each region having an
innovation budget. There is a strong culture of sharing good practice in
these networks, with the Birmingham network a model of good practice in
this regard. A striking initiative is the establishment of a program of
leadership development for ‘leaders of tomorrow’ – those in the
first five years of teaching appointment. Features include the leadership
of the program by successful principals, a network of mentor support,
seminars with leading educationists, and work-related projects. There
is no doubting the Prime Minister’s commitment to specialist schools. He
included reference to them in his speech at the Labour Party Conference in
Bournemouth (Blair, 2003b). In terms of rate of growth and impact, a case
can be made that the specialist schools movement in England is one of the
most significant developments in secondary education in any nation. About
35 schools in Victoria have affiliated with the Specialist Schools Trust
that employs Dr Wendy Cahill, Senior Fellow in the Faculty of Education at
the University of Melbourne, as its regional coordinator. A network of
affiliated schools in a number of countries is being assembled. Since the
concept of ‘specialist
school’ has currency in Community
action networks Reference
has been made to the Community Action Network in England and its adoption
of the concept of ‘social entrepreneur’. Established about twenty
years ago it has, in partnership with Rural Net, built the largest network
of voluntary organisations in the country, with over 750 members
connecting the social, business and public sectors. It works in some of
the most deprived areas in the country. Examples include its work with
CISCO in ‘wiring up’ more than 5000 homes in Tower Hamlets to the
educational and community facilities at the Bromley by Bow Centre. The network has developed a CAN Academy Model for application at the local, regional and national levels. The aims of the model include to:
(Adapted
from CAN, 2003, pp. 6 – 7) Nine
CAN Academies were in the planning stages in mid-2003 with one at the
Greig City Academy in Haringey under the leadership of Executive Principal
David Triggs described earlier. The network has the strong and active
support of the Innovations Unit of the Department for Education and Skills
and the Policy Unit of 10 Downing Street. Moral
persuasion A
unique approach to public private partnerships is evident in the work of
Nelson Mandela in the Republic of South Africa. By the sheer power of
public persuasion with moral purpose he has succeeded in raising funds
from private sources to establish a large number of new schools to serve
the interests of the poor. Funds for 127 schools were raised during the
time he was President. In the week of his 85th birthday, he
launched the Mindset Network, which is a $50 million public private
partnership aimed at providing television channels for learning in schools
using a satellite network. The
first educational channel provides mathematics, science and English
support to 300 schools around the nation. It
is interesting to learn some of the strategies that Mandela uses to raise
funds for schools. For
example, TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gave him the $16 million he asked
for to start a school. On
another occasion, when he had a little time to spare, he phoned a number
of banks and in 15 minutes obtained money to send 20 learners to
university. In his
characteristic style he described how he intended to continue this work in
the future. He said that when he went to ‘the next world’, the first
thing he would do would be to seek out the billionaires ‘and I am going
to say to them, “raise money” ’ because ‘I know the poor are
everywhere and these children need to go to school’.
Nelson
Mandela is clearly pre-eminent in his support of schools and for his
efforts in establishing public private partnerships by moral persuasion.
Tony Blair is also noteworthy with his public presentations and regular
appearances at schools where such partnerships have been a feature of the
reform effort. Community
design and the creation of education precincts An
interesting model in the Australian setting is the development of The
Brookside Learning Centre in Caroline Springs, on the western boundary of
Melbourne in Victoria. Delfin Lendlease was the developer of this new
residential community that included an education precinct in the design.
Three schools from the government and non-government sectors are located
on site, including Brookside School (government primary), Mowbray College
(independent), and Christ the Priest Catholic Primary, with co-location of
a kindergarten, municipal health and community services, and a private
childcare facility. Gabrielle Leigh, principal of the Brookside School
(soon to be extended to become the Caroline Springs College), describes
the approach as a ‘Multiple Ownership Design Model’ (Leigh, 2002). The
development at Caroline Springs is just one of several initiatives by
Delfin Lendlease that has been keen to involve a range of stakeholders in
shaping its designs. An example was a recent one-day event in Sydney to
consider the requirements for public private partnerships in education in
the early years of the 21st century as it considered the
possibilities for a new development in New South Wales. A range of school
and system personnel from different states were involved, including these
with direct experience in earlier developments, along with experts from
the tertiary sector and others from public and private sectors that offer
services to the community. Projects already completed by Delfin Lendlease
include Golden Grove and Mawson Lakes in South Australia and Varsity Lakes
in Queensland. Large-scale
philanthropy Philanthropy
on a large scale in support of public schools is rare in Australia. An
early example is the gift by confectioner Macpherson Robertson that led to
the construction in the 1930s of the government school for girls in
Melbourne now known as Mac. Robertson Girls High. Along with Melbourne
Boys High, it is the most selective of government schools in Victoria,
achieving high academic results. More recently in the same state, and
responding to quite different needs in dramatically different settings, is
the contribution of Richard Pratt through the Pratt Foundation. In close
partnership with local government schools in southeast Melbourne, support
has focused on the needs of primary age children who have ceased to attend
school. Individualised programs have proved successful in securing their
engagement in most instances. Also in Victoria, under the leadership of
Ellen Koshland, the Education Foundation has emerged from Small Change to
fund a range of projects in government schools. The
number of philanthropic endeavours in the United States is too numerous to
mention, and the context for such engagement is so different to that in
Australia that detailed attention is beyond the scope of the paper. It is
sufficient to note that most are focused on schools in disadvantaged
settings, with design and implementation by educational experts working in
close partnership with schools a feature of engagement. The trust or
foundation invariably works to a specific statement of mission, with the
donor at arms length providing that mission is reflected in the programs
that are funded. Large philanthropies include the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Annenberg Challenge. The
Annenberg Challenge is focused on the needs of disadvantaged schools in
urban settings, with impressive gains in educational outcomes in most
settings. Developments
in England warrant closer attention because a culture of engagement has
emerged over the last ten years, gathering momentum in the first and
second terms of the Blair Government. Prime Minister Blair cited the
following examples in his address at the opening of the Bexley Business
Academy (Blair 2003). Each is a specialist school in London and he
highlighted the leadership of the principal, the support of sponsors, and
the increase in the percentage of five good passes in the GCSE (the
standard measure of school achievement in England over many decades).
·
Sir
John Cass Language College in Tower Hamlets has transformed its results
from just 8% in 1995 to 80% this year.
It was the most improved school in the country last year.
It is one of the few secondary schools in Europe that teaches
Mandarin Chinese. Again, its
success is due to the outstanding leadership of its headteacher, Haydon
Evans and the marvelous support of its sponsors HSBC and the Sir John Cass
Foundation.
It
is fair to conclude that the weight of evidence in this section of the
paper supports the proposition that public private partnerships can add
value to public education as defined in a broader agreement on the
concept. The
Way Forward Resolution
of matters related to the ‘public-private divide’ will not be easy. A
continuation of the status quo is likely to lead to a further drift from
the state system that may well become no more than a ‘safety net’
sector before the end of the decade, especially at the senior secondary
level. Widespread dissemination of information about approaches in other
countries may help ensure that the public and key stakeholders become
aware that there are different ways to resolve the issue. The resource
implications are significant, for it will mean that government will need
to lift the level of support for all schools in a public sector defined by
values rather than ownership. Increased support from non-public sources is
needed. The benefits of public private partnerships are now emerging and
it is likely that these will become a powerful driving force for change,
helping to reverse the evidence of decay. The
new vision for public schools in Australia is of:
Adler,
P.S. and Kwon, S-W (2000) ‘Social capital: The good, the bad and the
ugly’ in Lesser, E.L. (Ed.) Knowledge and Social Capital: Foundations
and Applications. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann. Chapter 5. Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2003) Schools. (Document
4221.0). Canberra: ABS. Blair,
T. (2003a) ‘Radical Reform is the Route to Social Justice’. Remarks by
the Prime Minister at the Official Opening of the Blair,
T. (2003b) ‘I want us to go faster and further’. Address by the Prime
Minister to the Annual Conference of the Labour Party’. Bournemouth, 30
September. CAN
(Community Action Network) (2003) ‘The Coleman,
J.S. (1988) ‘Social capital in the creation of human capital’. American
Journal of Sociology. 94: S95 – S120. Coleman,
J.S. and Hoffer, J. (1987) Public and Private High Schools: The Impact
of Communities. New York: Basic Books. Committee
for the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education (2003) Australia’s
Teachers: Australia’s Future: Agenda for Action. Kwong Lee Dow
(Chair). Australian Government: Department of Education, Science and
Training. Crossley,
D. (2002) ‘The Challenge of Integrating Individual and Organisation:
From Factory School to a Modern Teaching and Learning Environment’.
Paper contributed to a web-based symposium of the Technology Colleges
Trust (now Specialist Schools Trust) on the theme ‘What Future – What
Learning – What Teachers – What Schools?’ (Available
at www.cybertext.net.au/tct2002/dis_papers/organisation/crossley.htm). Crossley,
D. (2003) ‘The role of the private sector on the Department
of Education & Training (DE & T) ( Farrell,
M. (2003a) ‘Popular schools at risk of closure’. Times Educational
Supplement. 26 September. p. 1. Farrell,
M. (2003b) ‘Cracks in private cash deals’.
Times Educational Supplement. 26 September. p. 6. Istance,
D. and Kobayashi, M. (2003) ‘Introduction’ in OECD Networks of
Innovation: Towards New Models for Managing Schools and Systems. Jesson,
D. and Leadbeater,
C. (1999) ‘Towards the knowledge society’. New Statesman. July
12, pp. 25 - 27. Leigh,
G. (2002) ‘Education Triggers Community to Spring to Life’. Paper
contributed to a web-based symposium of the Technology Colleges Trust (now
Specialist Schools Trust) on the theme ‘What Future – What Learning
– What Teachers – What Schools?’ (Available
at www.cybertext.net.au/tct2002/dis_papers/community/leigh.htm). | ||||