Competition between schools

The PISA in Focus report’s definition of competition, on which Cobbold basis his claim, is  “the percentage of students in schools whose principals reported that one or more schools compete for students in the same residential area”.

Not only is there no independent evidence confirming what is anecdotal in nature but, based on Caroline Hoxby’s definition of a market-based model of school choice and competition, Australia’s education system is not a market-driven one.

Take the example of the Western Australian Independent Public Schools initiative.  While often criticised for opening the floodgates to unwarranted competition and choice in education such schools are still very much part of the state controlled education bureaucracy.

Schools, while being granted greater autonomy over staffing, budget and curriculum focus compared to other state schools, must enrol students living within their enrolment zone and do not have full control over staff in relation to conditions of employment.

The absence of parental choice, represented by school vouchers that would allow the money each student is entitled to follow the student whether to a government or non-government school, also proves that we do not have a market-driven system.

It’s also the case that there are many government and non-government schools, especially in rural and regional Australia, where government and non-government schools, instead of competing against one another, share facilities, staff and resources.

In Victoria, for example and as noted in a recent Age story, in the small rural town of Nathalia St Mary of the Angels and Nathalia Secondary College share VCE and VCAL subjects.  In Kyabram government and Catholic secondary schools have jointly established a trade training centre that is available to all students, regardless of school attended.

When measuring success and arguing that competition between schools is not beneficial the OECD’s PISA In Focus paper bases its claim on only one measure, performance in the 2012 PISA test results for mathematics.

At a time when the tide is turning against measuring school success or students’ learning outcomes by one dimensional, standardised test results it should be noted that there are many other measures that should be used when evaluating the success or otherwise of schools.