Should school leaders give a Gonski (2.0)?: Implications of the 'report of the review to achieve educational excellence in Australian schools'

Australia is one of the most educated countries in the world and the Commonwealth education system has long been regarded as one of the top 20 most outstanding in the world (United Nations Development Programme 2013). That said, international and comparative studies such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) suggest that Australia's performance is in decline (Hunjan and Blumer 2016). While it is important to take note of and respond to such trends, they do not take into account distinctive and dynamic features of the Australian system, such as markedly different issues that face remote and metropolitan schools, rapidly changing demographics, differences between state education policies, variation in instruction within schools, student recruitment and enrolment systems that encourage competition between schools rather than collaboration, and many others. As such, performance on such examinations are therefore more useful to think of as important, but also as one indicator among many. Other learning outcomes and processes are also important, including: local, state and national testing; evaluation of educator and principal preparation and professional development programs; classroom- and student-level evaluations conducted by high-quality educators, and; context-specific educational analyses. These can collectively help us understand how, why and where we might improve teaching, learning and leadership in a holistic manner across Australia - as well as individual schools and classrooms.