The federal government may give almost all control of public education to state governments, if it accepts certain recommendations from the recent audit.

The Commission of Audit’s report dominates news and conversation this week, including a number of recommendations for the education system which may be aimed at moving towards the American public system.

The school funding suggestions seek to save money by slashing the size of the Commonwealth Department of Education.

The audit says the Government should transfer all policy decisions and funding for schools to Australia’s state and territory level.

The collapse of federal control over schools fits in to the ‘small government’ style of thinking, but it may lead to less equality between regions and total inequity from state to state.

The Auditors also suggest that the Coalition government should get rid of the needs-based funding model in the Better Schools Plan (the Gonski reforms) from 2018 onward.

This mean would that Australia does not keep the funding model suggested by one of the most comprehensive reviews of the nation’s school system ever undertaken.

It would mean true needs-based funding is instituted for less than 5 years before being ditched.

The Commission of Audit believes that “increasing funding does not necessarily equate to better student outcomes”, arguing instead that “what matters most is how schools and classrooms are run”.

While clearly it is important classrooms and schools are run effectively, the audit’s suggestions appear to match those of highly-conservative American think-tanks, which aim to reduce public funding by arguing that resources and outcomes are not linked.

Australian experts and evidence argue that properly targeted funding increases, instituted at the federal level, would produce significantly improved outcomes.

Some Australian authorities have already warned of the dangerously reductive thinking in the Commission of Audit’s education recommendations.

Again, the Coalition government tries to parrot the cut-cost but educationally vapid approach of schools in the USA, rather than the recommendations of the most comprehensive review in three decades (PDF).