A culture of collaboration-not conflict-offers solutions for public education. EMILY ROSS reports.

Right now, the climate in public education is decidedly frosty.

AEU federal research officer Roy Martin says one example of this is the current practice of using "good" schools to berate other "failing" schools.

Certainly, a successful school's achievements need to be celebrated, but the best-practice methods need to be shared and learned from through teacher exchanges, school visits and education around effective approaches to teaching, she says. McFarlane believes this collaboration will encourage a sense of common responsibility for improving outcomes for all students rather than an elitist approach that gives certain students advantage over others in the community.

The attack on public education has been ongoing and sustained. Ranging from the raging curriculum debate to the implementation of the controversial A to E reporting system. Additionally, research estimates that the public education system needs at least $2.9 billion in extra public funding to make up for shortfalls. Progress in public education depends on a collaborative effort between the various stakeholders, including federal and state governments, parents, teachers and schools.

This is a difficult task when public schools and public school teachers are constantly being berated.

Education's transformational power

The critical question of systems and schools working together for a better future is discussed in depth in the AEU's 2006 report on the future of education, Educational Leadership and Teaching for the Twenty First Century: A Desirable Scenario (ElaT21).

The report calls for fundamental change to the complex relationship between governments, their bureaucracies and those in public schools. Martin, who is one of the report's authors, also emphasises the need for collaboration, positive interaction and sharing of effective schooling strategies.

"It is about working together to overcome particular challenges rather than setting up competition between schools," he says.

ElaT21 highlights the need for a common responsibility, with systems and schools working together to achieve agreed national goals of schooling established through mutual understandings and shared responsibility. Underpinning this belief is the transformational power of education, the importance of quality public teaching to our society and the belief that every dollar spent on education is an investment, not a cost.

"We need to put in place solutions that support quality teaching-funding professional development, better resources, opportunities for teachers to spend time in good-practice schools and take what they have learnt back to their classrooms," Martin says. Funds for advisory teachers with special expertise would also make a difference, particularly in schools with Indigenous or disadvantaged students.

A mythical 'golden age'

One of the most contentious issues in public education being played out in the media is the curriculum debate and the appropriateness of the current syllabus for students in the 21st century. This hotly contested issue has been heavily politicised; the conversations are typically extremely negative and hark back to a mythical 'golden age' in education.

Commentators say a critical challenge is to 'change the dialogue' and find a common purpose in moving forward. According to University of South Australia's Alan Reid, a curriculum expert and executive member of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association (ACSA), an important step in resolving curriculum conflicts and finding a national consensus would be to tap more into the knowledge and professional expertise of educators. It's important to engage teachers in the process of the conceptualisation of a national curriculum, and "not just treat teachers as implementaters of other people's ideas," he says.

Reid acknowledges the complex role of teachers today, with more diverse groups of students needing a curriculum that will prepare them for life in a globalised world. "Fostering deep learning is an ongoing struggle," he says. "If the conservative critics want to make a genuine contribution to the debate they need to lay out their program of how they would meet the challenges of the contemporary world in curriculum and pedagogical terms, rather than simply assert the primacy of traditional practices."

The need for diversity

Martin agrees that the "sniping from the sidelines" has to stop. "We are not going to solve problems by doing a teacher-bashing exercise through the media," he says. "You will solve them by getting the people involved talking and coming to agreements." At the recent ACSA Symposium held in Melbourne, the association's president Tony Mackay noted a strong measure of support by symposium participants to "productive national curriculum work, as opposed to the partial and often misleading contributions that currently characterise much of the politicking and debate."

The other critical problem with current conservative curriculum commentators is that they fail to take into account the need for diversity in modern Australian society. One critic of this failure is former Queensland-based education academic Bob Lingard who has written extensively on the future of public education. Lingard has recently become the Andrew Bell Chair of Education at the Moray House School of Education in Edinburgh. He argues for teaching policies and funding that "engage difference".

Collaboration needs to occur between public education stakeholders, teachers, administrators, the state and federal governments, unions, parents and the wider community, he says. Finding shared values around quality teaching needs to be at the centre of discussions-and this means moving away from the current model of micromanagement of curriculum and accountability systems. "In order to achieve improved outcomes for all students it is necessary to align curriculum, pedagogies and assessment," says Lingard.

Knowledge-sharing is critical

ElaT21 also reports that excessive competition between schools has proven to be counterproductive and does not foster knowledge-sharing, which is critical to the future of public education. Knowledge-sharing and networking between schools and administrators can only benefit the system. It allows educators access to solutions and expertise they may not have encountered before. This collaboration and teacher mobility allows for professional empowerment through ongoing education. McFarlane believes that much of the positive collaboration going on among and between state systems and schools goes unrecognised, particularly at the federal level.

Improved networking between schools and other institutions also provides support for schools and students. According to Jill Blackmore, a professor of education at Deakin University in Victoria, schools now work in multiple networks-sharing resources and programs-with welfare and health networks, universities, TAFE and industry partners. "This requires seeing schools as more open and porous to community," says Blackmore. As networks require different ways of working based on difference and not sameness, their effect is more difficult to measure, she says. "They are reliant upon relationships based on trust and professional integrity. Systems have yet to recognise that this requires additional support."

With the development of complex networks, it becomes harder to measure educational outcomes. While schools are measured by the government on their "performance" and the school's specific "outcomes", these measurements typically do not take into account the bigger picture. "It is hard to measure outcomes when they are spread all over the place," says Blackmore. "We also know from research that externally driven accountability does not improve what is going on in schools. It encourages people to attend to the accountability stuff rather than the practice of improvement, so you don't focus on student learning."

According to Martin, the education union is more important today than ever before. "The role of the union is to keep speaking for teachers, for quality teaching, to keep saying what is actually needed," he says.

Every teacher's wishlist for 2007 will surely include time for people to work together, to learn and to plan and assistance from other professionals. "Teachers also need support so that they can manage the social and health needs of students," says Blackmore.

More than just dollars spent, the definition of 'teaching resources' needs to include time, support and recognition. With those tools they can get on with their job. As Lingard says, there is "no greater challenge facing educators today than providing educational opportunities that transform the life experiences of young people".

EMILY ROSS is a freelance writer.

This is the fourth and final story in our series on Educational Leadership and Teaching for the Twenty First Century.