Andrews just can't walk on by on education

It was a turning point in a state election campaign that far too often lacked policy substance. Five weeks before polling day, Daniel Andrews stood centre stage at a performing arts venue in Geelong to officially launch his pitch for government. Education was the dominant theme.

If elected, the Labor leader declared, an Andrews Government would rebuild schools, create new tech hubs, and invest in TAFE after years of upheaval. It would tackle disadvantage, too: breakfast clubs for hungry students; financial aid for uniforms and shoes; a special fund for camps and excursions.

And overall, it would spend $1.3 billion to make Victoria "the education state" – you'd even get the slogan on your licence plate.

Linking his vision with Gough Whitlam's policy achievements in education, Andrews set a high benchmark that day. Yet four months later, public school advocates have accused his government of entrenching inequality, pandering to the private system, and betraying the principles of the Gonski funding reforms. What happened?

In case you missed it (and chances are, most folks probably did) the government's first major legislative act on education passed Parliament last month, enshrining in law a guarantee for private schools to get at least 25 per cent of the funding the state gives to public schools.

The problem is, this 25 per cent link is determined by the cost and level of need in the government system – which has 80 per cent of disadvantaged students – rather than need in Catholic or independent schools.

In other words, for every dollar a government school gets from the state, the non-government system gets 25 cents, regardless of how many disadvantaged students they have. And this, according to critics, is completely out of step with the Gonski reforms Labor has championed for years.

For all the politics surrounding it, the review into schools funding by businessman David Gonski was one of the most significant in history, and its subsequent decline at the hands of changing governments and economic constraints is one of the biggest policy disappointments of our generation.

But boiled down, its premise was simple: end the funding of schools based on whether they are Catholic, independent or government. Move away from arbitrary funding percentages in favour of a system where money is distributed to all students according to need. Be sector-blind, more transparent, fairer.

In Parliament, the Greens and the Sex Party voted against Labor's education bill in the belief it failed to meet these aspirations. But while the legislation passed quietly last month with the Coalition's support, outside Parliament, tensions with teachers, parents and funding experts started to spill over.

Not surprisingly, the Australian Education Union (which helped Andrews' campaign against the Napthine government) was unimpressed, pointing out that Victoria's legislation is in stark contrast to NSW, which recently repealed the link between private and public school funding.

Save Our Schools convener Trevor Cobbold went further, accusing Andrews and his education minister, James Merlino, of "being more concerned about appeasing the private school lobby than fully implementing the Gonski principles".

But perhaps the biggest smackdown of all came from Dr Ken Boston, a member of the Gonski review panel, who stood down from a symposium he was scheduled to attend with Merlino next Tuesday, because he refused to share a stage with someone he said now stood on the "far-right" of schools funding.

"The passing of the legislation will mandate continued inequity and underachievement across Victorian schools," Boston wrote in a scathing email informing Merlino of his decision last week. "You have poured fuel on the flames of the public/private school debate, which the Gonski review showed how to resolve. In these circumstances, I am no longer prepared to share a platform with you, and have withdrawn from the symposium in protest." Ouch.

Mind you, Merlino "respectfully disagrees" with his critics, and points out that the changes merely formalise in law what was already an administrative arrangement for non-government schools.

Under that arrangement, the 25 per cent funding link is based on what's known as a Financial Assistance Model with two parts: a per capita component (which every school gets) and a needs-based component (which takes into account factors such as family background, rurality, and indigenous heritage).

To that end, Merlino says, the legislation is based on need, designed to benefit both public school students and those in poorer non-government schools such as St Paul's Primary in Sunshine West, or Sacred Heart in St Albans.

"These are the kind of schools that always get forgotten in the debate," he told The Sunday Age. "I don't buy into this private school versus public school dynamic. I just don't buy into it at all."

Maybe so, but a public versus private "dynamic" has surfaced whether he likes it or not, because the government made an explicit policy choice to legislate a funding system many don't believe is either sector-blind or entirely fair.

Now, as it marks its first 100 days in office this weekend, the government finds itself facing an unwanted backlash from its traditional ally: the public schools lobby. Politics is largely about expectations. By talking up Victoria as "the education state", championing Gonski and funding equity, and vowing to bridge the gaps between schools, Andrews and his team set a pretty high bar. Reaching it will require more than lip service and slogans on licence plates.