Abstract:
Since the 1970s, one of the defining challenges of Australian schooling policy has been how to ensure equitable funding for schools. The role of the federal government in recurrent school funding has been a central point of tension. From the landmark 1973 Karmel Report to the 2011 Gonski Report, the federal government’s involvement in funding Australia’s three schooling sectors (government, Catholic, and independent) has dramatically increased and become highly politicised. While the federal government maintains a national needs-based funding model and multiple other funding streams to promote equity, key indicators suggest inequalities and divisions between sectors have widened. Consequently, critics argue that deep structural change is necessary, advocating for a new school funding policy settlement.
In this paper, drawing on Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’, we propose that an ‘epistemic rupture’ would be required to create the conditions for deep structural change. Without such a rupture, we argue that the current trajectory of reform is likely to continue. To make this argument, we begin by arguing that the 1973 Karmel Report was crucial to establishing the current episteme, which continues to evolve today. Despite widespread claims that the Gonski Report represented a landmark opportunity to alter the course of funding policy, we argue that the report’s Terms of Reference were never arranged in a way that would have allowed substantial change to occur. As a result, the Gonski Report led to incremental change that has done nothing to alter the structural conditions that create unequal educational opportunities and outcomes for Australian students.
Having established these foundations, we then engage in a ‘future-casting’ exercise to imagine the conditions needed for deep structural change to occur. We outline three possible future scenarios that could produce a new school funding settlement, each based on a different ‘epistemic rupture’ (1. economic; 2. technological; and 3. cultural). While each of these scenarios would fundamentally alter the funding future for Australian schools, we do not position these futures as normatively ‘good’, as we anticipate that the disruption required to herald such structural rearrangement would likely result from broader social crises.
In this paper, drawing on Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’, we propose that an ‘epistemic rupture’ would be required to create the conditions for deep structural change. Without such a rupture, we argue that the current trajectory of reform is likely to continue. To make this argument, we begin by arguing that the 1973 Karmel Report was crucial to establishing the current episteme, which continues to evolve today. Despite widespread claims that the Gonski Report represented a landmark opportunity to alter the course of funding policy, we argue that the report’s Terms of Reference were never arranged in a way that would have allowed substantial change to occur. As a result, the Gonski Report led to incremental change that has done nothing to alter the structural conditions that create unequal educational opportunities and outcomes for Australian students.
Having established these foundations, we then engage in a ‘future-casting’ exercise to imagine the conditions needed for deep structural change to occur. We outline three possible future scenarios that could produce a new school funding settlement, each based on a different ‘epistemic rupture’ (1. economic; 2. technological; and 3. cultural). While each of these scenarios would fundamentally alter the funding future for Australian schools, we do not position these futures as normatively ‘good’, as we anticipate that the disruption required to herald such structural rearrangement would likely result from broader social crises.