1. The Smarter Schools National Partnership Evan Arthur Group Manager National Schools and Youth Partnerships Group

2. The origins of the National Partnership Approach The key starting point was the need to address Australia’s position as, in the words of Barry McGaw, a high quality/low equity education system PISA results for Australia show a higher correlation between student achievement in reading and mathematical literacy and student characteristics such as low socio-economic status – compared with countries such as Canada and the Nordics The Partnership is a Commonwealth/State activity Its primary purpose is to use dollar flows between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories to affect educational outcomes in schools The Partnership is an element of the school reform agenda set out in the National Education Agreement – Which is in turn a component of the Federal Financial Relations reform agenda

3. Key features of the Partnership Approach As a ‘reform’ NP, the LNNP involves agreements between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories on improvements we want to see in outcomes in schools It does not focus on changes or increases in services in schools It assumes decision making on ‘inputs’ is best made at a level lower than a Commonwealth/State negotiation As a Commonwealth/State document it generally only contains elements relating to actions by the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments It assumes that the details of involvement of non-government schools in partnership activities will be settled at a State or Territory level Funding is provided to facilitate improvement in outcomes And, in two of the three elements of the NP, additional funding can be provided if agreed improvements occur

4. Components of the NP There are three sub-elements of the NP – The Literacy and Numeracy NP – The Low Socio-Economic Status School Communities NP – The Improving Teacher Quality NP Taken together they attempt to address major issues affecting the quality of Australian schools The first two involve selected schools in all States and Territories – The third concentrates on system wide improvements The LNNP and the Improving Teacher Quality NP run until end 2013 The Low SES NP runs to end 2015 How they are progressing and how we are reporting on progress is dealt with by Mary Anne How the NPs are operating within a State is dealt with by Jenny

5. Advantages of the NP approach The Commonwealth has a long history of establishing funding programs to address particular issues in schooling, including equity issues – An early example was the Disadvantaged Schools Program Whatever the strengths of such programs they risk creating the impression that the issue addressed by the program is more of a Commonwealth issue than a State or Territory issue The key aspect of the NP approach is that it represents an agreement across levels of Government that a particular issue must be addressed And the outcomes focussed approach and the provision of rewards provides an incentive to mobilise focus and resources across all levels to deliver change The inclusion of targets and public reporting of progress on targets assists public scrutiny of the effectiveness of NPs All too often with pre-existing programs the most that could be said was that the Commonwealth money provided was indeed spent on the purposes of the program – This is important but hardly sufficient