I cannot stand podcasts. I really hate them, for all the obvious reasons. They typically consist of self-satisfied tossers interviewing their self-satisfied tosser mates, teaming up to aimlessly piss away an hour with smug pseudo-wisdoms and leaden jokes. Michael Spicer has captured perfectly their awfulness. Being aware of my opinion, it was therefore very brave of frequent commenter JJ to recommend to me two podcasts.
One of the podcasts recommended by JJ was terrible. Or, at least, the first three minutes were terrible; that was all I could stomach. The second podcast, however, was excellent. It was an interview with Sir Nick Gibb, who had been the British Minister of State for Schools for about a decade, under a succession of Tory wankers. Gibb, however, is no wanker. He is smart, attentive and hard-working, and he has a sharp eye for good and necessary education reform. Gibb achieved a hell of a lot and apparently all the right people hate him for it. Tony Gardiner briefly discussed the Tory reforms in this comment (and, at a guess, was somewhat involved).
The Gibb interview is the most recent episode of Chalk and Talk, a podcast hosted by Canadian mathematician, Anna Stokke. She is excellently back-seat in the interview, simply guiding Gibb to tell his story. Which consists mostly of Gibb fighting the forces of nonsense to implement no-brainer reforms.
There is no point in summarising the Gibb podcast: listen to it (or read the trancript). I will just point out two pieces of Gibb wisdom, one that would appear less than wise, at least in the Australian context, and the other essential.
First, the dubious wisdom. Gibb is big on school autonomy (52:00):
We gave the power to any governing body of an academy, of a school to leave the local authority and become a, what we call an academy, which is essentially a charter school. And now we’re in a position where 80% of high schools are now academies and 40% of primaries or academies.
And you say, “Well, why does this matter?” Because, well, they have in, they have autonomy over many of the decisions that they want to take, and it means that they can be free to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies that had, until we came into power, really dominated the local authorities. And it was very difficult.
Ignoring the inconsistency of a micro-managing government minister lauding school autonomy, does the autonomy work? That depends in very large part on the dominant ideology of the school and its teachers. Perhaps it worked in England (or perhaps Gibb only permitted the “autonomy” of which he approved), but would it currently work large-scale in Australia? Gibb appears to have faith that there is a “critical mass” of free spirit “thought leaders”, Tom Bennett and Research Ed and so forth, to guide the way. That is not the critical mass that I am witnessing.
I remember going to a school in my own constituency in Sussex where the, I said, “Are you doing multiplication tables checking?” And she said, “No, I’ll ask the local authority whether I should.” That filled me with horror. You know, you should decide not some person, advisor in the local authority who presumably would say no because they were dominated by that very progressivist ideology.
So, individual primary schools legislating on the importance of the multiplication tables? That’s effectively what we have now in Australia, on all of it, and the majority of schools are screwing it up.
Gibb’s much less dubious wisdom concerns the proper role of bureaucrats (68:00):
Well, [ministers] have to decide the policy. You cannot rely on the civil service for policy. I have a huge respect for our civil servant in Britain. They’re very good at implementation. They are absolute past masters of implementing things, they are not good at policy development. And why would they be?
…
It’s the thinking and the honing of ideas where policy emerges. It does not emerge from a civil servant who’s good at implementing, sitting down a piece of paper saying, “Well, how do we solve this problem?” And the other thing that civil servants tend to do is that they think they represent the sector.
So if the sector says “You don’t need multiplication tables,” then that will be the view of the civil servants. You don’t need multiplication tables because that’s what the sector says. So you mustn’t rely on them. Therefore, you must have your own, your own analysis of what the problem is you’re trying to solve and how to solve it.
(emphases added)
ACARA, VCAA, are you listening? You have a proper and important job: figuring out how a massive machine can deliver the educational outcomes determined by your bosses, the ministers and, by extension, the public. You are not, however, the thought leaders that you imagine yourselves to be, and that you are not supposed to be. You do not know enough. You do not even know enough to know that you do not know enough. Which is fine, if you stick to your proper job. But if, for example, you have profound opinions about teaching through “real-world” “problem-solving“, or if you are of the profound opinion that CAS is essential rather than a poison, then perhaps you could shove these opinions up your nose, shut the hell up and get on with your proper job. Hopefully, eventually, the education ministers will demand that you shut up and get on with your proper job.
Nick Gibb had quick but strong words of praise for Minister Carroll. With the huge exception of Carroll’s cowardly and disastrous Pontius-ing of Kylie White, the praise is deserved. But will Carroll have the sense and the balls to take on any halfwit ideologues still inhabiting or orbiting VCAA? Will Carroll, and Clare and their fellow ministers, finally demand some humble sanity from ACARA? There is little sign of it.
Carroll is good but he is not Gibb. Clare is definitely not Gibb. We need a Gibb.
I am dubious about the autonomy thing too. NSW tried that with respect to funding; the policy was called local schools local decisions (LSLD). Essentially, the accountability and reporting aspect of how money was spent to improve student learning was so laxed that the review in 2020 couldn’t workout the impact of the policy. All they noted was things stayed the same or got worse, and there was more administrative burden placed on schools. I could only imagine that same would happen with curriculum autonomy.
Link to review:
https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/education-data-and-research/cese/publications/cese-evaluations/local-schools-local-decisions-evaluation
A couple of comments:
About autonomy, I don’t know. I do know that the amount of work a principal has to do these days is crazy.
Actually, bureaucrats should do policy. It’s just that the bureaucracy is very weak these days and is captured by fashion. A weak public service, that just does what the politicians tell it to do is not going to provide our Community with the best services.
Nick Gibb is an incredibly rare politician these days. He was in the same position for many years and actually took the time to learn what was really going on. Most modern politicians are career apparatchiks. They don’t give a stuff about anything except their own careers. It’s not just the public service that has declined, so has the parliament very much.
Carel seems to be doing some excellent things. My guess he’s angling to take over from Allen and he’s getting a track record for achievement. But he seems to be doing the right things. One would guess he will become premier at some point, because the Victorian liberals have done the almost impossible and that is to look even worse than the current Victorian labour government. So unfortunately labour may well win in 2026. However,At some point the debt will strike home and Allen will have to go. BTW, I laughed out loud when I read that they are going to use AI to save money!
My guess is, it’s worth trying to let Carel know about VCAA maths being a disaster beyond the exams. After all maths is the key to a modern economy. It wouldn’t take too much to get rid of CAS and let him know that the SACS are a disaster and the auditing is regarded by teachers as a joke.
Also-podcasts are brilliant. I have learnt so much by choosing the right podcasts to listen to, even if your taste differs from mine, Marty.
Thanks, JJ.
(1) Bureaucrats should “do” policy? If “do” = “enact”, then fine. If “do” = “make”, then hell no.
(2) You’re 1 for 2 on the podcasts. Don’t press your luck.
(3) Why on earth would Carroll listen to me?
I see that you agree with Scott Morrison Marty about policy. People like Nick Gibb having good ideas as politicians is pretty damn rare. We live in a complex society and it’s useful to have people who really understand how systems work and have thought decades about it and been involved over that time. Political parties branch structures which might have generated policy have weathered away.The most recent development over the last few decades has been the emergence of think tanks to contest the policy space with the public service. If they don’t get their policy in the public service, they’ll definitely get it from consultants or think tanks. And pretty much the only decent think tank is Grattan.
Jesus, JJ. I agree with Scott Morrison the way you agree with David Leigh-Lancaster.
Come up with a coherent argument and we can have a coherent debate.
Fair cop Marty – who then do you suggest makes policy? Very few politicians have policy ideas Indeed – Nick Gibb is a very very rare politician. Not only does he have deep knowledge, but he’s also been appointed to the portfolio he has deep knowledge in. That is pretty rare as appointments are usually made based upon political usefulness. Then you might think the party branches, But they have almost withered on the vine. Who else might do it? Well think tanks come up with ideas – but very few of them are non-partisan and Gratton is extremely rare in being not only non-Partisanbut also very competent. Then you have lobbyist – they have a lot of vested interests. Of course you have consultants – the expert at coming up with ideas, but Never being there to fix the problems when they arise all the situation falls apart.
Ideally, and this is vastly reduced these days, you have a disinterested party with considerable expertise in the field in the public service. They also understand the politics of this situation. It has to be admitted that there are far fewer doctors in the health department, teachers in the education department etc etc. And also far fewer career bureaucrats who know their stuff. And of course, bureaucracies are subject to fashions of the time too.
You might say, well people come up with policy ideas and bureaucrats can do the implementation. That’s very much a false idea, exemplified in the 90s by neoliberals talking about separating steering and rowing. The fact is policy and implementation need to be intertwined. Some ideas are wonderful in theory, but just don’t work in practice.
So unless you can think of someone else to do the work, that pretty much leaves the public service.
Interested in your suggestions.
Thanks, JJ. It is obviously a tricky and important, and general, issue. I’m flat out right now, but will reply in a day or two.
Thanks again, JJ, and sorry to have been slow to reply.
Both of us were staking out cartoon positions. I think the obvious reality is how you’ve now stated it: the steering and the rowing, as undertaken by the Minister and the public service, are intertwined. Nonetheless, I believe you are way, way underselling the role of government.
When Leigh-Lancaster screwed up, he was effectively answerable to no one. When Gniel screwed up, he was effectively answerable to no one. If it is any different at VCAA now, it is only because of the public embarrassment of Carrol, who *is* answerable to someone.
Does Carroll have to be Gibb? No and yes. He does not have to be the micro-managing detail freak that Gibb was. (That is a compliment.) But, at the very minimum, Carroll *does* have to be sufficiently across the detail to know who he can and cannot trust in regard to policy.
The buck stops with the politicians, who are answerable to the people. The fact that too many politicians are either incompetent or leave too much responsibility to bureaucrats answerable to no one, is no argument for anything other than the limitations of democracy. It is certainly not an argument for what seems to be your position, that elected politicians too often suck, so let’s leave it to the unelected bureaucrats (who also too often suck).
I am very sorry if I gave the impression that bureaucracy should run things – most definitely not. It has a role to play as part of a larger ecosystem. I basically agree with what you’ve just said above.
Definitely do NOT leave it to the bureaucrats. You can’t be a thinking bureaucrat without realising its limitations and its role as a necessary evil. It can be done well or badly, but should always ultimately answer to elected politicians. and the collapse in our politicians quality is mirrored by the delayed collapse of our bureaucracy. But particularly Victorian bureaucracy seems to be an utter disaster. I always had the sense that New South Wales were better than Victoria. Daniel Andrews knocked off the last functioning department in the justice department in about 2018 or so I believe. He wiped away the experienced executives and replaced them with treasury and premier types. The Victorian education department alsoseems to have been a basket case for over 40 years.
A well functioning bureaucracy (not possible these days) would have decent links to the outside world. Particularly to academics. I remember speaking to academics who told me that they didn’t like working with the bureaucracy as it always let them down. And that was my experience too. The modern bureaucracy is rather hermetically sealed, not only from the people at the coalface in the area for which it is responsible, but also from new ideas from elsewhere.
There are good ideas out there about trying to restore our democracy. Nicholas Gruen is particularly keen on the idea of SORTITION. He is one smart cookie.
In the meantime,Carroll appears to be doing an excellent job. Since the liberals are doing a pathetic job of being an opposition, he appears to be the only hope of finally finishing off the Andrew’s government who’s awful awful legacy of stupidityJacinta Allen seems to be even further driving to NEW levels of insane debt..
Ideally, the education department would have a decent number of former teachers in it. This would particularly apply to its executives. They would also have good relationships with university academics. When you have someone driving an ideological agenda such as appears to have been the case in maths, the only way to stop them is from above as an executive who actually knows what they’re talking about. There are almost none of those left. Executives now are in the job and a department often a very short time and go in and out of the big four go consultants. they don’t have the deep knowledge to pull a lower level bureaucrat into line or for that matter to care what they do. Ideally the head of the education department would know enough to recognise when executives were out of line even though it wasn’t a political issue and quietly resolve it.
Of course better than that would be a minister who actually knew something about education or cared to learn like Gib did. But these days that’s pretty much wishful thinking. Although Carel does appear to show promise.
I think the answer is to make as much hay as possible while Carel is the education minister. That’s the biggest opportunity for change. He does seem to be doing more than just responding to the VCAA crisis.
The other thing we have Going for us is Gratton. They are an extremely rare competent, intelligent and impartialthink tank. Set up under the last really decent government – the bracks Brumby government.
How does this conflict with anything I wrote?
I remember reading, in the year 2017, the text below from Nick Gibb. It is about promoting equity in teaching and some of the myths in education. He presents very good explanations:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nick-gibb-empowering-teachers-to-deliver-greater-equity
Very good. None of it more than obvious, but very good.
Out of interest, what was the other podcast recommended?
Thought about it, but won’t name it. The guys weren’t dumb, but it was chummy and slow and self-satisfied in the manner that Michael Spicer nailed. It was like watching the sloth in Zootopia. I simply could not bear to listen to it.
It’s the JIM rutt show interviewing someone about AI and education. It’s pretty high-level, but I reckon it makes a lot of sense. It was a bit slow but JIM is an excellent interviewer who does a lot of background research.
Thanks JJ. This one’s not for me but Chalk and Talk is always a great shout.