NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli is again at odds with his federal Coalition counterpart Simon Birmingham over education funding following the release of flat NAPLAN results, which Mr Birmingham said were "not good enough".
Mr Piccoli strongly defended the Gonski needs-based funding model and his education reforms in the wake of the test results, saying it would be "naive" to expect a turnaround in student performance this early in implementation.
But Mr Birmingham argued the opposite, saying the preliminary 2016 results, which showed a plateauing in student achievement since 2015 meant "the evidence is there, funding itself does not deliver improved outcomes".
The federal government is increasing school funding from $16 billion this year to more than $20 billion by 2020, but has stopped well short of committing to the "full Gonski", or needs-based funding model, which Mr Piccoli supports. The federal government's funding boost is about a third of what Labor was promising.
Mr Birmingham said: "We've got three years now of funding under the new school funding models that were put in place and what we've seen is 23 per cent growth in funding and a plateauing of performance in terms of actually what's happening in our schools."
But Mr Piccoli disputed Mr Birmingham's argument.
"I don't draw the same conclusion," Mr Piccoli said. "It is naive to think that within two years at 9 per cent [additional funding] you're going to see the results straight away.
"We're in the third year of Gonski funding. So those students who did NAPLAN in May had access to two years of that additional Gonski funding. Remember it ramps up, so they've had access to 9 per cent of that funding.
"It's wrong to say Gonski hasn't worked. The measure of Gonski funding will be in probably four or five years' time as to its effectiveness."
He said the NSW government's reforms need time to show improved results, including the new minimum entry standards for teaching degrees, this year's funding boost for school counsellors to help students struggling with bullying and mental health problems and the recently announced changes to the HSC, which start next year.
"There's certainly more to do," Mr Piccoli said , speaking at the official opening of a new primary school in Cammeray, Anzac Park Public School, on the site of the former ANZAC Memorial Club. The $30 million school, first announced in the 2013 state budget, is part of the government's response to another looming education policy challenge: the massive shortages in public school places across the state. The NSW public school system will be required to cope with an extra 165,000 students by 2031, requiring hundreds of new classrooms each year.
Mr Piccoli's argument that more time is needed to see the effects of additional funding found support from education experts, including the Grattan Institute's schools program director Peter Goss, and the NSW Teachers Federation. Its acting president Gary Zadkovich said "to say Gonski funding is not lifting results is like calling the result of a 100 kilometre race after only 18 kilometres".
The national NAPLAN results by test area were mixed, showing no change from 2015 results but significant improvements in all areas (except writing) since 2008 across some year groups. NSW achieved small gains in numeracy but went backwards in reading and writing, averaged across all year levels.
The CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which administers NAPLAN, Robert Randall, said "plateauing results are not what we should expect or assume from our education systems", and told the ABC that ACARA would now work on analysing the data and identifying the underlying trends behind the results.
Dr Michael Bezzina, the director of teaching and learning at Sydney Catholic Schools said NAPLAN "is a very narrow reflection of what kids know and learn and understand and appreciate.... NAPLAN tests don't tell us whether a child is learning how to be a good citizen or whether they are developing a sense of social justice or leadership skills. If people keep it in proportion, they see it as a snap shot in time that allows us to track growth in two very important areas, that's fine, but it's wrong to judge a school on NAPLAN scores alone."
With Rachel Browne
