Schools are complex environments and there is increasing complexity with the young people we educate, which is reflective of society. Teaching is both an art and a science. There is the distinctive ability to build respectful relationships with young people which partly underpins quality teaching, and that is not found in textbooks or educational theory and probably why teaching is often described as a calling.

The South Australian Labor opposition's intervention into the "education-outcomes" debate, with a focus on sacking teachers, is disappointing for its failure to address the key issue of chronic under-resourcing of our public schools, in all states and territories.

The federal government sets a Schooling Resource Standard, which is the minimum amount of funding a school needs to deliver quality education for every child.

The federal government has capped at 20 per cent their contribution to the SRS and the Tasmanian government has agreed to meet only 75 per cent (including paying depreciation and part-funding the Teacher Registration Board) of the funding required, so every school is left short. The state government will not even achieve that 75 per cent commitment until 2027.

This is a big chunk short in every school's budget - it could mean extra teachers to reduce class sizes or deliver specialist classes like science, maths, languages, art, music, drama, or technology.

It could also mean additional education support personnel for students who most need it or administration staff to relieve the bureaucratic burden from teachers.

Blaming teachers, which is essentially what the South Australian Labor policy is about, is seductive for government's because it presents as a budget-friendly solution to the problem of Australia's sliding student performance. The "teacher quality" debate conveniently takes the focus from cuts and underfunding that would not be countenanced by any other public service. For example, when was the last time you heard "doctor quality" as the reason for ramping at emergency departments of our hospitals?

Or what about a bad fire season being blamed on "firefighter quality"?

I can remember my very first day, after graduation, as a full-time teacher in a grade 2/3 at George Town Primary School.

Let's be honest, I was young, naive and still learning the ropes. I was good at building relationships with children, but far from what would be described now as a "highly-proficient teacher". Those first weeks of term 1 were nerve-racking, and I often felt out of my depth. Unfortunately, South Australian Labor's Plan for education focuses on giving principals the power to sack a young me, rather than explore the real issues of underfunding and understaffing that affect new educator performance and student achievement. To think that in just 10 weeks, my career as a new teacher, according to South Australian Labor policy, could have been over with the principal sending me on my way to the blackboard scrapheap.

From my experience every education minister, or shadow minister, has an unquenching desire to place their stamp on education and intimately involve themselves in operational matters like they are the captain of the team, rather than the coach.

We have seen this happen in Tasmania many times with good intentions but poor outcomes.

The Tasmania Tomorrow reforms, then there has been extending all high schools to year 11 and 12, and most recently an agenda to effectively privatise TasTAFE operations.

And when we put money behind decorated and deeply researched initiatives such as Teaching for Understanding, politics soon takes over but only for private schools who take the best of public education innovation to implement it for themselves and too much fanfare. Education ministers, and their advisors, should commit to staying well out of the way of teachers.

Administrators can provide a strategic overview, underpinned by goals, and guided by a set of values, but in doing so they should not interfere in classroom practice where educators have the expertise.

The intervention of education departments in top-down driven initiatives has stifled the innovation and creativity that teachers and support staff hold dear.

An endless focus on school improvement plans that effectively ask principals to increase the workload of already workload-stressed educators only damages the profession. Politicians charged with answering questions about education should be focusing squarely on teacher workload, teacher and professional support staff shortages, and systemic underfunding rather than who can be sacked on the "turn of a dime". In my 25-plus years following and researching educational initiatives, I have never witnessed more top-down driven bureaucratic oversight and demands on teachers than now. We are experiencing a nationwide teacher shortage which is particularly biting in Tasmania.

The effect of teacher shortages is collapsed classes, reduced curriculum, principals forced back into class to cover gaps, and retired teachers encouraged to return to fill shifts. All these challenges ratchet-up pressure on a public education system that remains desperately under-resourced.

Performance management is a small part of improving "teaching quality" and it's the wrong focus in a system that is chronically underfunded. The mantra that business bosses just sack people and therefore principals should be able to do the same is simplistic rubbish in the context of extremely complex school and college environments. Schools and colleges are not in the business of producing "widgets" - they educate young minds which is an art and a science that requires proper resourcing.

Across private enterprise, there are rigorous performance tracking measures no different to the public service system in place. South Australian Labor's plan to abruptly say adios to teachers fails to address the heart of the issues and will simply do more damage to the profession and ultimately our students.