Perfecting Performance

The discrepancy in school resources across Australia attributes to a significant proportion of students’ academic performance that does not meet the international minimum standard of proficiency.

— ACER, 2012 & Gonski, 2011

Improving the capacity of schools in regions of adversity will ensure greater consistency in levels of learning and the acquisition of skills across the nation, enhancing Australia’s prosperity and global competitiveness. ‘Perfecting Performance in Australian Schools’ funding reform proposes to provoke greater realization of educational goals and resources in common and share these more effectively through clear, visionary policies that encourage collaborative approaches to striving for greater student performance outcomes. By Introducing bi-partisan action and centralised funding which is allocated impartially by the department of education aims to reduce political hindrances that can favour particular academic institutions and regions, whilst bypassing schools with the most need. This can occur because of individual politicians’ prerogatives or covert, complicated design of current federal and state funding arrangements. The reform attempts to simplify the design of schools funding arrangements with a shared online database for the purpose of generating greater accuracy of the provision of resources in terms of concentration in areas that have been determined as requiring the most support, ensuring educational needs are met across all schools in Australia. Additionally, increasing transparency, in turn accountability of education staff, public servants and politicians will enhance the performance and efficacy of resource allocation and help raise the results of Australia’s lowest performing students.

Context

As the Gonski (2011) Review highlighted, current schools’ funding arrangements in Australia are not only inconsistent due to its reliance on the willingness of politicians, they’re also disorganised as a consequence of the simultaneity of federal and state funding arrangements, leading to doubling-up and in some cases, direction of finances to already abundantly resourced schools, while regions in poverty and students facing adverse circumstances aren’t considered. The antagonistic rivalry between state education departments can be unhealthy and counter-productive, variances in state’s resources and needs result in dramatic inconsistencies across Australian schools, despite a common national need for high-quality learning sequences and high-performing student outcomes. Even funding from the federal level such as the Socioeconomic Status Score funding model (SES) introduced by the Howard government is an inaccurate devise as it allocates proportional funding based on regional income averages, rather than addressing specific school needs. Under the current Abbott administration, suspicions of wasted funding are warranted through the lack of disclosure regarding the details of funding arrangements. Furthermore, positive educational initiatives are often threatened by changing political cycles, preventing the longevity of proposals designed for sustained practice in order to produce the desired outcomes. Compounding this issue, politicians are reluctant to commit to reshaping schools funding arrangements, precisely because of the difficulty and expense of the reform, producing a vicious cycle of inaction. This confirms the need for bipartisan agreement in terms of the realization that the performance of schools in Australia is a shared goal, requiring mutual recognition and responsibility of developing students’ skills. 

Government figures alike understand that evolutionary social and economic change has presented the conundrum of the increasing public demand for social and environmental requirements that involve careful management whilst there are also increased limitations on resources to provide them. Political leaders and public administrators are constantly criticised for the constraints on public infrastructure, the national society are often skeptical of politicians’ agenda and capacity to enact meaningful change in terms of the management of public services, exacerbating the tension in the relationship of the government and the public, reducing productive democratic exchange and influence. This has led to pedagogical trends towards improving the transparency and accountability of managing public resources. This approach attempts to unify the community on every level in terms of understanding and working towards shared goals, reduce notions of paternal governance and social dependency on government institutions, by empowering a wider bandwidth of actors to use their discretion and operate more flexibly. Through proceeding in this manner, governance strategies can harness previously untapped human and information resources, allowing for function with more efficiency and less effluence of bureaucratic procedures and decisions that do not genuinely benefit the public. In congruence with contemporary governance theories of accountable and transparent management, collaborative and networked styles of operation can assist to transition from traditional hierarchical and resource-intensive procedures for schools’ procurement of funding, towards contemporary concepts that are more sustainable, sparing time, finances and ideas, whilst producing more evidence-based, discerning and effectual allocation of educational funding. Whilst these theories of governance purport to have positive outcomes, they are not without limitations. Although accountability, transparency, collaborative and networked approaches are integral strategies for the reform and are incorporated in the design of ‘Perfecting Performance in Australian Schools’, performance enhancing mechanisms are paramount and for the purpose of this project and therefore will be the primary focus for discussion in this instance. 

Key Considerations

To begin, it is worthy to identify the benefits (with caution) of borrowing business-styled models in order to improve learning outcomes for students. Horlick-Jones, (2005) explains how some:

“…Practices are also concerned with the creation of a target-setting framework of accountability for specific workers. In this way, notions of efficiency and control are deeply embedded within what one might call the ethos of risk” (p. 295). Introducing key performance indicators can be helpful in establishing tangible goals and objectives, with incentives to perform. However the challenge of a system such as this, for educational purposes, lies in creating appropriate, broad-encompassing targets that reflects the holistic nature of learning and development, whilst providing a focused scope in order to make the objectives clear and achievable. In terms of its feasibility, the duality of reward and penalty for education staff reaching proposed targets is naturally complicated and potentially detrimental for the sector. Firstly, it may undermine the intrinsic nature of professional performance, secondly, the difficulty associated with managing higher staff turn-over and correctly attaching result status to individual actors is severe and finally, the introduction of a remunerative target-setting framework conflicts with the collaborative nature that is needed for improving performance in schools. To further this notion, Lewis, cited in Shah, (2007) details elements that are essential to establishing a reliable and functional performance mechanism:

Measures of volume, quality, efficiency, and effectiveness are among the basic building blocks of a performance management system. Based on subjective (for example, satisfaction levels) or objective data, measures should be quantifiable, valid, relatively inexpensive to operationalize, tailored specifically to the program and community, and replicable over time (p. 201).

Here it is identified that target-setting can be deeply valued if it is truly reflective of the organisations existing objectives, coupled with comprehensive measurement of extensive indicators. For the purpose of improving outcomes for schools in Australia, non-intrusive target-setting devices will continue to be utilised, however if they are to be worthwhile for education staff, and departments across Australia, scientifically-designed templates should be distributed for consistency, objectiveness and measurability. Considine, (2003) confirms that targets ought to be practical tools to have meaningful value for institutions:  

“Because of the work of lower-level officials is likely to be less contaminated by political rhetoric or corporate ideology, we can take these results as more or less reliable guide to the emergence of a very different form of public organisation, in which rules are replaced by targets and, in some cases, by economic incentives or notions of coproduction with other officials and clients” (p. 139). 

For departments of education, existing professional standards can be modified to objectives with quantifiable and qualify-able scoring systems, making it easier to distinguish and track professional goals. This would substantially improve the utilisation and efficiency of existing resources, whilst providing crystallised opportunity to direct funding in a fashion that raises the potential for lower-performing schools. Rodgers and Housel (2009) suggest that: 

“Modern day organisations need to more actively identify and measure these key resources and drivers of value in the organisation. The ability to drive value from Information Assets depends on organisations’ governance and management practices. It is, therefore, critically important that these assets are well understood, properly managed and that they play a major role in the strategic management process” (p. 115). 

It is useful for the feasibility of improving educational organisations in Australia to take stock of existing resources and their usefulness in order to invest correctly in future resources. The value of evaluating successful operations through target strategies is extensive as costs can be saved through replicating successful sequences in different contexts. Here, the benefit of targets transcends to collaborative and networked strategies, as the sharing of information and assets can efficiently lift the performance of organisations with objectives in common. Although, this approach is potentially erroneous as calculating the resources may be mishandled or competitively concealed by rivaling institutions. Mugaloglu, (2013) confirms this when he states: “Commercial corporate rating practices are subject to substantial measurement errors, and therefore, commercial organizations cannot devise reliable measures of corporate governance even if they have substantial expertise and extensive databases” (p. 217). This example of disagreement between theorists demonstrates the complex nature of establishing beneficial arrangements for enhancing the outcomes of schools. However, the saving from re-investing in under-performing resources and sharing of information resources through a national database can abate some feasibility issues and therefore, provide savings, some of which can be invested in the impartial monitoring, evaluation and distribution of resources by the departments of education, without expanding the department, rather changing the devise for arranging resources. That said, the entrenched political state rivalry continues to present as an area of concern, whereby a reluctance to genuinely cooperate exists and this is directly attached to notions of political party preservation existing as a barrier to productive target regimes and sharing of resources in common. Dubnick and Frederickson, (2010) demonstrate this when they note:

Even if there is goal agreement, it is often difficult to find measures adequate to the determination of social outcomes. Performance measurement represents attempts to superimpose managerial logic and managerial processes on inherently political processes embedded in the separation of powers (p. 157). 

The consequence of this is that applying increased pressure on government bodies through corporate accountability mechanisms will not necessarily remove the scope for party self-interest to prevail. In fact performance measurement as an instrument may be used as a lever for the values of the party in power. Although politics is imbedded in federal and state funding regardless of procedural designs to maximise accountability, as previously mentioned, a bipartisan goal for addressing funding shortages for low socio-economic regional areas, combined with performance measurement strategies can increase the chances of governmental departments’ success in reaching a shared outcome. To further quell this potential challenge, the installation of purposeful leadership and accountability mechanisms can attend as mediation and tribunal powers. For example, the board governance can be founded as a function of ‘ownership’ by all involved, such as; the state, local community and members. The department of education can be accountable to the owners for everything within the organisation. The board authority is a group comprised of members from all states. Finally, the boards must empower a chief executive while remaining fully accountable. To substantiate this proposed model, Emslie, S, Oliver, C and Bruce, J, (2006) highlight the importance of legislating a formula such as this when they suggest:

… it is only through written policy that a board can encapsulate its vision, perspectives and values in clear statements of enduring importance – readily transmittable to all and impacting every aspect of the organization’s work in an efficient manner (, p. 72).

For fruition of this reform, constitutional adjustments must be made in order to protect the integrity of the design, bind opposing parties through bipartisan agreement and clarify the arrangements through legal imperative for the interests of local schools, state and federal education departments and political parties. Finally, the key driver of parsimonious reform for education funding is for qualified, credible and visionary leaders to articulate the importance, relevance, benefits and imperativeness of enacting constitutional changes through parliament, the media and in political meetings. Albrow and Holland, cited in Walker and Thompson, (2008) expose the nature of collaborative commitment to the agenda when they state:

… Ideas are more than just resources, even if they are common resources. They may harbor the non-negotiable, the sacred, and the true, which means that quality as resources will only be revealed incidentally … They can also can be conveyed through any medium of communication (p. 269). 

The political representatives of the reform must be both offensive in promoting the proposal and defensive in diffusing criticism through validly reasoned responses to overcome areas of disagreement. The zenith of justification for the reform which must be convincingly promoted is the financial sustainability of utilising targets as performance indicators, networked systems of shared resources and bipartisan action on education objectives for Australia. Following this, proposed solutions will be recommended, with particular emphasis on the implementation and analysis of potential impacts of these changes.

Proposed Solutions

The core elements of ‘Perfecting Performance in Australian schools’ reform are: Initiating bipartisan action among federal political parties, centralising funding collection before it is distributed to states, creating a streamlined, transparent, national online database for collection of requests for funding for analysis and allocation by the state education departments and introducing a simple, target-setting devise which can be used by all educational staff to identify and monitor professional accomplishments. These proposals will be compared with empirical evidence and research regarding similar contexts, evaluated for their potential contribution to enhancing the performance of schools and assessed in terms of their effectiveness. 

Bi-partisan Agreement

Constitutional reform for bipartisan agreement regarding performance strategies for education in Australia is necessary for the permeability of initiatives. For ‘Perfecting Performance in Australian Schools’ to have the desired outcomes, prevention of changing objectives that are usually associated with political cycles must be minimised. Additionally, consistent values must be established in order to link with productive policy for the enactment of strategies by all stakeholders involved. Brenda, Trettel and Yeager, cited in Sutin et. al., (2011) recommend the following five best practices which have provided guidance in the development of institutional strategic plans for almost 15 years, and remain relevant: 

“Stretch goals that drive to reflect a continuous improvement philosophy, formalise the communication process, emphasise action plans and strategic thinking, explicitly recognize strategic planning as a key element in the management system, and document the strategic thinking process” (p. 85).

The impact of congruent communication of objectives and targets by political leaders regarding education in Australia would attribute to significant growth and development of the sector. Formalising these strategies through legislative change would hold the political actors more accountable and clarify expectations for government departments also. Clearly articulating the necessity and benefits of the new arrangements would also attribute greatly to the success of the agenda, therefore, this is arguably the most significant factor driving the reform. 

Political leaders and public servants from the department of education need to connect more meaningfully with teaching professionals in order to pitch the reform successfully; otherwise it risks aversion from staff who resist change. Not only is this beneficial for embedding values from the top down, it is also helpful for connections to be made at the grass roots to develop increased awareness and cooperation for an eventual and sustainable collaborative approach. Teuvo, 1974, reflects on a program in Finland with the objective of improving outcomes for schools and detailed that it included:

Interview inquiry, preparation of the project’s general design, inquiry into the stimulation of children, a school student experiment, multiple problem study, initiatives and decisions concerning realization of the project, management of the project and the structure of decision-making, financing, evaluation of the project (p. 7 – 11).

This practical approach outlines the simplified steps towards creating more innovative schools. On a more specific account of steering the transformation of service delivery in Germany, Ellwein, cited in Merritt and Merrit, 1985 noted that: 

“Changes that have occurred … include the possibility of relaxing the special legal bonds tying the civil servant to the state; bringing civil service salaries into line with general income levels; creating a vast number of new positions, partly to improve career chances and salaries, partly to maintain internal differentiation within the service; and finally, differentiating the civil service to accommodate not only its traditional members… but also many new professional groups that have entered the public service. Through changes of this sort, the civil service could adjust to new demands being made on it without changing its original legal structure” (p. 123).

Australia can incorporate the German experience into a reform project that utilises resources more efficiently than expanding the scale of state departments which are politically unfavourable and do not fit with the current context. Instead changes to management of education can create space for including community input to help institute a shared goal. With agendas in common among all stakeholders, greater enthusiasm and responses of validation from education sector employees, increased commitment and therefore success of the reform can be realised. Bipartisan commitment in the Senate is also important as political will is the key driver of budgetary arrangements that are essential for enhancing the performance of schools facing adversity. Klingner and Nalbandian, 1993, illustrate how: 

“The budget preparation and approval process is, in effect the ‘engine’ that forces legislative and executive decisions on programs and expenditures. While the budget is a central policy-making and control mechanism, human resource planning would be incomplete if it did not include a concern for the interaction among goals, budget, position allocations, work-force skills, competencies and final services” (p. 49).

For this network of objectives, resources and delivery of funding to be functional, created spaces for accomplished experts involved in the reform to consult with colleagues and professionals from other fields in order to share strategies and knowledge should be initiated as a small project to support staff through this period of change. Productive knowledge is collective concept and this approach would not only boost morale, but also allow for relevant professional development in a relatively short space of time for a limited cost. Positioning these actors to network, would also attribute to the familiarity and development of the task.

Clear Communication of Agenda

It is important that the plan is adopted by all involved for its longevity and effectiveness and this requires a domino effect of well-articulated details and advantages of the reform from political leaders, through departments of education, to teaching staff and the community. Krippendorff, cited in Verganti, 2008 refers to the importance of explaining the reform package and assuring others of well-reasoned beneficial outcomes when he states: 

The etymology of design goes back to the latin de þ signare and means making something, distinguishing it by a sign, giving it significance, designating its relation to other things, owners, users or gods. Based on this original meaning, one could say: design is making sense [of things] (p. 440).

Signals are integral to the clear communication of the purpose and strategies used to enhance performance in order for the great number of actors involved in a project like this to feel confident about their roles and enact the recommended changes. Psychologically, the unfamiliarity of change can be discomforting for people and therefore signposting goals through clear objectives and targets can make it easier for them to adjust. This is especially important when linking departments in common, when they only have experience operating within their own systems.  Holzer and Schwester, 2011 illustrate the paradigm when they state: “Network actors cooperate ‘because they trust that the other actors will also play their part’ and fulfil their responsibilities… Networks are formed based on interdependent relationships in which members are ‘highly committed’ to the goals at hand” (p. 451). Although some people find it difficult entrusting others with tasks they are ultimately accountable for, there is overall greater advantage in empowering others in order to delegate more effectively. This process can also contribute to professional satisfaction and lead to more opportunities as there is a mutual goal and greater variety of ideas to be shared. One of the methods for constructive, personalised interaction with limited opinionated or critical matter is the art of telling the story. O’Brian, 2013, confirms this when he suggests:

“It has also been argued that institutions of higher learning should foster a vision of education that has comprehensive integrity. This involves teaching different stories, including stories that enable students to interact more creatively with the emergent processes of the universe, providing not only the understanding and sense of direction for sustainability, but also evoking the energy needed to create this new situation. Efforts to promote higher-order thinking and ‘resilience-thinking’ through problem-oriented teaching methods has been effective” (p. 54).

To embed common goals among schools themselves and the reform agenda, resilience should only be encouraged to promote approved behaviour. For most occasions, permanent practices should be prioritised as they are more sustainable. Similarly, simplifying funding regimes and making this a Commonwealth agenda has more permeability than conflicting, combinations of both federal and state regimes.   

Centralised Funding

Establishing organisational reform of schools’ funding will increase the validity of the direction of finances, create a more efficient and effective process of allocation and make replicating successful practices easier. This would occur through collecting revenue on a Commonwealth level, even distribution to state departments and distribution through state department evaluation of notified needs from regional sectors in order to lift levels of achievement in lower-performing schools across Australia. Brenda, Trettel and Yeager, cited in Sutin et. al., (2011) discuss the implications of a strategy such as this:

Silo orientation of management functions often inhibits an institution from achieving its desired outcomes and prohibiting the transparency of operations. While conceptually it is a relatively simplistic task to link the several functions in practice, in reality, it is a major challenge. The evolution of enterprise financial management software systems create opportunities to integrate partially connected silos. Under conditions of restricted resources, competition for resources becomes a major distracter in the procurement and allocation of program funds (p. 82).

From this we can understand that disclosing financial details can present the undesired contention between organisations and departments since their involvement in distributional funding may complicate the process. To overcome this challenge, it is important to design an information system with clear criteria and justified reasoning in an attempt to prevent disagreement and counter-productive behaviour. A transparent system naturally attracts increased scrutiny which is to be encouraged in order to enhance the democratic effectiveness and fairness of the funding mechanism. Certainly debate over the priority of funding is healthier and more productive than the current uncertainty regarding resources that education practitioners’ and public servants face. Sutin et. al., (2011) suggests an impartial board be established for the harmonious cooperation between actors at different levels. 

“The steering committee is responsible for the oversight of the planning process including the appointment of working committees, such as student affairs, workforce development, facilities, finance emphasis, among others, which approve timeframes, components of the plan and make recommendations (p. 83 – 84).

This may comprise of a professionally acclaimed member from each state department of education that takes an advisory role and can mediate regarding any discrepancies about state funding allocations and distribution to regional districts. 

Distribution of Resources

As previously mentioned, the effective organisation of resources is a logical solution to improving performance outcomes without necessarily increasing expenditure. With recent budget cuts to most government departments across Australia, the necessity to obtain ‘more for less’, has never been more obvious. Donato and Segal, (2010) share an evolutionary adjustment to the health industry, which can be replicated in the education sector. They explain:

“A core structural element, which can be facilitated through unifying funding and policy responsibilities in primary healthcare is the establishment of a coherent and national strategic approach to infrastructure and capacity building. This includes the development of information systems to support patient enrolment and common electronic patient records and integrated IT systems across service care boundaries. Information linkages are crucial to the coordination and integration of care, to enhance decision support and quality assurance and accountability mechanisms and to empower and engage patients in their own care” (p. 618). 

This comprehensive strategy demonstrates the bountiful positive output resulting from simply streamlining resources professionals use to arrange demand for services, resource allocation and networked operating systems to save time and costs. The incorporation of a national information technology system in education that is used for monitoring the achievement of professional objectives, resource demand and allocation of funding would improve the organisation and output of education departments Australia-wide.

An alternative method to resourcing primary and secondary education is for schools to establish direct connections with private organisations. It is appealing for businesses and philanthropists to privately finance non-government schools; however tax reform is needed in order for public schools to equally benefit from this method, since donating to state schools is complicated and there is no incentive for non-government organisations. The OECD (2011), highlight the benefit of increasing private financial funding for universities, which has similar advantages for schools: “Greater participation by business may strengthen the links between university and the economy” (p. 76 – 77). The private sector can relieve some of the pressures on public resources through supporting schools. This alliance can be mutually beneficial as industry connections with schools may help students through various programs such as work placement opportunities.  

A case study from California demonstrates how individual schools can become more autonomous through being granted greater control of finances. As a national database would make it simple for principals to address the needs of their schools through an already established criteria-based, algorithm-styled information technology program, leaders of schools would not need to develop any specialised skills; they would only be required to detail the perceived needs of their school. The design of the program may be inspired by research such as the key principles Rose (2012), identifies that school finance systems should embody: 

Adequacy: Provide students with enough resources to the meet the state standards. Cost differentiation: Recognize that costs vary depending on student need and other specific district factors … Transparency: Design funding formulas that are straightforward and transparent … Equity: Allocate the same per-pupil revenue to all districts with the same cost factors … Local flexibility: Provide more local authority in how revenue is used, so districts can address their local needs given their mix of available personnel and other resources (p. 17).

A system like this one would ensure the highest degree of fairness and accuracy regarding appropriate distribution of funding is reached because education sector staff on all levels is given more sovereignty to use their professional judgement whilst accountability and transparency through disclosure of reports allows for careful evaluation of processes and maintains integrity. 

Performance Indicators

To begin, Yozenawa, (2008) explains how tertiary reform in Japan has introduced change in order to become more accountable through disclosure to the public and being open to scrutiny. He explains that for the purpose of increasing performance, education professionals are: 

“…under increasing pressure to demonstrate public accountability in university activities, academics in the social sciences have also become engaged in various quality assessment procedures, further contributing to the already intense market competition to attract students, external resources for research and to establish consultancy relationships” (p. 71). 

OECD studies published in 2007 reveal Japanese universities have the highest output flexibility world-wide and therefore an emphasis to increase education staff accountability in Australian schools and education departments, through target setting and disclosure of this statistical data would be a very effective devise, if used in conjunction with other proposed aspects of the reform. In order to transplant this mechanism to the Australian context successfully, the element of primary concern is the design of a user-friendly, accurate and comprehensive monitoring mechanism, supportive frameworks to assist education professionals reach their targets, gentle exit options for staff who are unwilling to adjust to this change and attractive recruitment incentives to attract quality educational professionals, particularly to areas experiencing difficulty managing a more competitive approach to delivering the service.  

Social, economic and environmental shifts have caused government organisations to adapt more flexibly to rising demand for services. Certain performance models of behaviour have been grafted from the private sector. Some of these include competiveness and structural change to reflect changes in perceived public needs and wants. Hüfner, (2003) describes transformations in the Deutschland tertiary sector which are useful to consider for Australian schools reform: 

The privatisation of higher education implies that teachers and assistants …would lose their civil servant status and lifetime guarantee of tenure. The institutions would be run as enterprises under private economic conditions. The advantage would be that they could more easily adapt to the changing demands of the environment. Faculties could be reduced in size or even closed (p. 153).

Typical German efficiency can be identified here, whereby careful evaluation of the relevance of particular types of education delivery in universities leads to the removal of less utilised programs, to make space for more innovative and useful projects. This confirms the benefit of creating a more rigorous, accountable and transparent evaluative system for education Australia in relation to the distribution of funds and the performance of staff to ensure parsimonious quality of service over quantity of ineffectual agendas. 

Conclusions and Recommendations

In order to overcome the lower levels of academic achievement among Australian school students and alleviate pressures on resources some of which result from disorganised and overly complicated funding arrangements, Australia needs ‘Perfecting Performance in Australian Schools’ reform to increase the performance across schools and education departments on a national scale. The timeliness for this evolutionary change is strikingly clear as the climate for Australia to compete on a global scale with limited access to fiscal resources and heightened demand for quality learning programs is ever present. Megginson, cited in Gaston, (2013) famously noted:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change (p. 201).

Simple structural management changes recommended for this purpose are bipartisan agreement among the Senate to ensure sustainability of objectives, clear communication to embed shared values among the community, centralised funding on a Commonwealth level to equalise discrepancies across states, a national database used for evaluating need and distributing funding and a more rigorous and appropriate target-setting mechanism for all staff to easily identify progressive performance.

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