Inconvenient truths of Education spending

With the election still (too many) months away there is already so much excrement flying around one must keep their head down. Yet I cannot help raising some inconvenient facts that seem to be ignored in the political brouhaha.

Lets take just a look at education spending. Leave behind all 'opinions' and look at just those facts that are not disputed by any of the political parties or the commentariat.

The inconvenient facts are just these; - 

Inconvenient fact 1:

Australia has substantially increased its education spending in real terms over the last decade. Yet, in the same period, Educational outcomes have not improved but if anything deteriorated.

Inconvenient fact 2:

Across the world educational spending does not correlate with educational outcomes. (see Figure 1 below and the earlier post Education Spending scores an "F" giving some background.)

Given these inconvenient facts how can anyone justify more spending on education?

The LNP has just committed some $1.2B to the states for education, this comes after their more sensible proposition to limit spending at the 2014 budget. Still this is far less than the ALP's commitment of $4.5B over the forward estimates, amounting to ~ $37B over the next 10 years. 

Even if Australia had zero debt, and had money to burn, it would be a reckless politician who simply threw more money at a problem that has undoubtedly become worse despite more money. Yet our politicians are doing just that. Simply ridiculous! Clearly this is not their own money. Even a politician would not put more of their own money into an enterprise that generated less desirable outcomes by his so doing.

And yet our professional media, the 'last bastion of truth', is sitting mum. They are very busy, massaging, organizing and presenting election policies in the manner most convenient for their preferred political party. Yet they ignore the inconvenient truths. As if we were in the fairy tale and no one is willing to say it, "the emperor is naked"!

Spending more money on education is not the answer.

School spending spree

The ALP is at it again. Yesterday, proudly with grins and great flourish, the ALP committed to spending of "$4.5 billion, over the forward estimates" and "reversing all of the (LNP) government's cuts over the next 10 years (totaling) some $37 B in spending provisions" to fully fund the Gonski education reforms.

Without even a hint of embarrassment, the pre-election spending spree is off to a flying start.

Aware that it is facing an increasingly skeptical electorate, still wondering how and when the last Labour bill will be paid off, the announcement was sprinkled with well repeated declarations that this is all paid for by savings that have already been announced. Yes, it all brings back images of Treasure Swan and his declarations of "Surplus in our time". Or the many spending commitments that were to be paid by the Mining tax. But lets suspend incredulity for the time being and assume that the new school spending will be paid for by cuts or by borrowing. Is such spending worthwhile?

No doubt education is seen by the ALP and indeed the electorate as a cause worthy of investment. Who can argue with the need for a country to educate its future workers, especially when it want to generate a society of innovators. Indeed, even if it is paid for by borrowing there is a poetic irony that the cost burden will be borne by those receiving the education. A case of accidental cosmic justice.

However such additional spending on Education ignores a critical inconvenient fact. The inconvenient fact that education expenditure does not correlate with educational outcomes. You can seem my earlier post Education spending scores "F" for the details but it is summarized most  simply in the following table.

Countries with lower "investment" in education are achieving better education outcomes than Australia and countries with higher expenditures are achieving lower outcomes.

Any teacher will tell you this does not support increased spending on education! Well perhaps not a teacher but our proverbial "fair-minded lay observer" certainly would.

Education outcomes are the result of a complex melange of factors, spending being just one. Simply throwing money at the problem will not guarantee an improved outcome. In fact recent Naplan results show the opposite.

In any case, any objective look at the table shows that Australia is not faring well. It is well down the list in 16th place with many of our neighborhood countries beating us "hands down", and with lower education spending than ours. So lets stop throwing money at the problem but really go and find how to get more bang for the bucks we are already spending.

My advice to the ALP, save that money that you say "has already been saved" and pay off some of the debt you burdened the country with after your last spending spree.

Education spending scores "F"

The recent Naplan review results has highlighted the disconnect between education expenditure and educational outcomes. Too often poor outcomes generate simplistic impulses to 'throw money at the problem'. Indeed the reaction to the recent poor results, by many politicians and commentators was to criticise governments for not spending enough.

But after increasing educational spending by some 40% over the last decade with no improvement in outcomes, one is forgiven for refusing such demands and taking a more considered approach.

Indeed this is not a new revelation.  Simply looking at world rankings shows little correlation between spending and outcomes. The table below shows the top 20 countries plus the US ranked by Educational Outcome together with the ranking of their relative expenditure.

Educational Outcomes vs Spending
Country	Outcome Rank(1)	Expenditure Rank(2)
1. Singapore	1	21
2. Hong Kong	2	18
3. South Korea	3	11
4. Japan (joint)	4	19
4. Taiwan (joint)	5	n/a
6. Finland	6	3
7. Estonia	7	15
8. Switzerland	8	10
9. Netherlands	9	8
10. Canada	10	12
11. Poland	11	14
12. Vietnam	12	9
13. Germany	13	17
14. Australia	14	16
15. Ireland	15	13
16. Belgium	16	2
17. New Zealand	17	1
18. Slovenia	18	4
19. Austria	19	7
20. United Kingdom	20	5
28. United States	28	6

Notes
1. Outcome rank from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32608772 and is for Science and Maths skills at age 15
2. Expenditure rank is the relative ranking of the top 20 outcome countries plus US and is based on % GDP spend on education taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_spending_on_education_(%25_of_GDP)


The table shows no apparent correlation between educational expenditure and educational outcome. Indeed the top relative Expenditure country, New Zealand, only achieved a 17th ranking on Outcome. At the same time the lowest country with the lowest relative expenditure, Singapore, achieved the top ranking on Outcome. Yes, this is a relatively simplistic set of figures with many limitations, and I am not concluding that Expenditure has no influence on Outcome.

However it is clear that expenditure is not the single key factor in achieving good educational outcomes. Moreover knee-jerk calls for increased investment are naive. They only serve to deflect focus from doing what is really required, to identify the many factors that can lead to better outcomes and to take progressive actions to achieve this objective.


If expenditure is not the key factor what is?

Educational outcomes are the result of the complex interaction of a wide range of factors. These include, in order of priority, the skills of the student, the support of the parents, the skills of the teachers and the resources available to 'oil' the education process. Greater educational expenditure may attract better teachers or indeed better training for teachers, and can provide more resources but they come to naught with poorly motivated students due to negative parental support or for students with poor underlying skills.

I would suggest there is an even more important factor which has contributed to the clear dominance of Asian nations in the Outcome rankings. It is the value given to education by the society. Societies that respect, encourage and value education generate better educational outcomes for lower investment.

"Aye, there is the rub". We all determine the value and respect we give to education. A society which values film-stars and sportsmen more than engineers or educators, will continue to generate more great sportsmen and popular film-stars and mediocrity elsewhere.

What can we do?
There are many micro actions we can take to improve outcomes especially in regions and sub-groups which are performing particularly poorly. Many of these will require additional resources and increased expenditure, perhaps re-directed from sub-groups where performance is above average.  These are likely over time to raise the poorest performers.

But for all groups, be they above, at or below average, the lowest cost improvement will come from changing our attitudes. While social change is no doubt difficult and takes time, we could re-direct some money to raising the standing of education in our society.

There are many ways that the values of a society can be slowly moulded. The key ingredient is positive feedback. Quite simply provide recognition to those who have contributed to high educational outcomes; - teachers, students and parents.

For example; -

• Provide better recognition to successful teachers by publicly awarding a medal or certificate and /or paying a bonus to those who generate better outcomes. Could start at the best performing and most improved schools under Naplan.
• Provide better recognition to best performing students, not just at the HSC level but even earlier. The recent Spelling Bee reality show is an example. I prefer the team approach with schools competing against each other as was the "Its academic" TV show of the 1970s(?). With the current spate of reality shows it could be very successful and run in prime time. 
• Provide recognition to the parents of high performance students. Recognition could be a certificate or even a driver's licence with a gold star. Their child's results are to some extent the results of their support and encouragement. So make this public. This would no doubt have an influence on all parents! 
• With all the recognition to our sports stars and movie stars why not recognise those who have used their education to improve our society; our Doctors, Engineers and educators with annual awards.

Most importantly for maximum impact this recognition should be broadcast as widely as possible. Ideally award ceremonies should be televised on free-to-air television at prime time. If the commercial stations don't want it, what is more appropriate than our public broadcaster, our ABC.

These are just a few ideas that came to mind, and I am sure there are many more out there. 

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