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11 Feb 05:50am

Filed under: Education, Julia Gillard, My School, Schools

Deciding to take a peek at the My School website was a little like tuning in to Big Brother – I knew what I was about to see might alarm me, but I couldn’t help being drawn in for a little look.

It says here that you're a genius…Julia Gillard at the My School launch.

And given the huge number of hits on the site over the last few weeks, there is no doubt that education – and the quality of education – is a huge issue, although I did wonder if they were all guilt ridden mothers like me who spend too much time on the net.

Just like Big Brother, My School has proven a high rater on the shock factor. I saw schools extolled by Ministers as models of inspiration and hard work look like they’re failing.

The Deputy Prime Minister has implored parents like me to use the site to tackle teachers about any poor results, or alternatively pluck our children from underperforming schools. But gazing at the coloured bars of schools as far flung as inner Sydney and outback Western Australia, I tried in vain to comprehend what I’m supposed to do with all this information?

I’m all for empowerment, but seriously, am I responsible for school performance? Education isn’t a commodity that can be shopped around for, schools aren’t stacked in neat little rows like the TV’s in Harvey Norman, and I know first hand that settling children into a new school is no walk in the park.

Education is also an area where the problems are really hard to fix. The My School website shows a clear link between better school performance and social and economic advantage, and conversely performance appears lower in areas of disadvantage.

This might seem pretty common sense, but its now common sense backed by an invention called the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA).

Trying to fathom the variables in the ICSEA presents its own literacy challenge, but basically it’s a highly complex modeling process to compare like with like student populations. But it’s looking at schools with unlike populations where the real trends become apparent. This show that if household income is low, joblessness is high, and there’s no computer at home then the school’s population has a lower ICSEA ‘value’ and generally this trends towards performance that is under the average, although there are exceptions.

Of course, education, policy and union advocates have been banging on about the link between education outcomes and socio-economic disadvantage for years but My School sets it out pretty baldly. Rather than a website that suggests the real policy challenge is to falsely empower parents to address individual schools shortfalls, Government needs to take up the real challenge and adequately fund schools based on community need.

A simple explanation is that our whole social policy framework is cracking under the strain of neo-liberalism, and many of these problems end up getting played out in the classroom and become the responsibility of schools. Neo-liberalism isn’t a word that you’ll hear at the local public school P&C meeting, but every parent there will be well aware of funding shortfalls, teacher shortages and the endless fundraising drives that it carries in its stead.

In a recent collection of essays on inequality, the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Zoe Morrison has calculated that one in seven Australian children lived in poverty in 2005. Morrison says a major contributor to Australia’s high child poverty rates is high levels of lone parenthood, joblessness and wage inequality. It’s no big leap to see how these policy failures in areas like the labour market can find their way into the classroom – greatly testing the job demands of teachers and the resources of schools.

Other contributors to this collection highlight the vital role of education in alleviating social and economic disadvantage. But as community expectations of education continue to rise, almost in tandem, the share of public funding for education – already at the low end of international comparisons in 1995 – has fallen. This is explored in a forthcoming book by Ross Gittens and Rodney Tiffen How Australia Compares. They point out that our private share of education spending was third highest compared with 17 other advanced economies including Canada, US, Japan and Western Europe, while our spending on public education spending was 12% below the average.

Unfortunately the My School website seems to be good for headlines, but little use for meaningful comparisons unless equity in funding and support for needy schools is part of the policy mix.

Still information technology will never properly capture the huge value add that any school and its staff makes to students lives. Nor can it replace the experience of being part of a diverse and supportive school community.

- Jo-anne Schofield is Executive Director of policy network Catalyst Australia

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30 comments

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- persephone says:
  
  06:53am | 11/02/10
  
  Well, I looked up my local school, which has been losing students by the busload because of its poor reputation in the community and discovered that it was, in fact, performing quite well.
  
  If ‘My School’ helps correct false perceptions in this way, it will save students from travelling hours a day to attend another school whcih has a better reputation but achieves no better results.
  
  And you’ll be pleased to know - and would have known, if you’d even bothered to watch the TV news or listen to the radio over the last few weeks, let alone read a newspaper - that funding and support for needy schools IS part of the policy mix.
  
  Reply
Nong Labor voter says:

07:17am | 11/02/10

If Rudd said that Red was Blue you would believe him. I f the redhead said that education was bad for the Labor Party we would have the present situation of people not knowing what they are voting for, fore four,4,I am confused. You should go back into the underworld where you belong, or is that the underbelly.
CSallen says:

11:54am | 11/02/10

are you sure you’re not Julia Gillard?
persephone says:

12:15pm | 11/02/10

Almost positive, CS.
Jane says:

12:48pm | 11/02/10

Nong and CSallen, right on the money.

“...that funding and support for needy schools IS part of the policy mix. “

So why are they ‘needy’ in the first place?.....and why so only now?

I’ll answer for you..because the STATES ( who are responsible) have allowed them to become so with neglect and under resourcing despite ample funding and ample revenues available to them for over a decade.

It’s just another ‘cover -up’ for the STATES mis-management and failure by this federal government. It’s a ‘2 birds with one stone’ deal…a ‘win win’ they think - a) So the Feds look ‘good’ and are seen to be somehow ‘delivering’ and b) because theres a STATE election coming up for Victoria this year at least and for other States soon and their failures in Education can be masked and ‘fixed up’. Basic maintainance on schools has been neglected and schools allowed to fall into disrepair yet bogus and often unecessary cookie cutter school halls are being foistered onto them regardless of need to bignote ‘government’ and divert attention from the reality.
The reality is that STATE’s have failed their STATE schools on all levels of responsibility.
This is a diversion and a cover-up only.
persephone says:

01:42pm | 11/02/10

Well, CS allen can’t be right on the money, unless of course I am Julia Gillard, which I doubt.

Sorry, Jane, but some schools are needy DESPITE the government. They are needy because their students come from impoverished backgrounds.

And I don’t see what this initiative has to do with the Victorian election - unless, of course, it highlights the fact that Victoria was the best performing state under the criteria used to evaluate schools (NAPLAN tests).
CSallen says:

02:14pm | 11/02/10

Despite the fact that I am a rabid Liberal (shock horror) I do agree with Persephone. The MySchool initiative is a good one which will open up the education industry simply by providing a central point of information to any person wanting to find out what is available to their children and make a slightly more educated decision on their pride and joy’s future.
What I don’t agree with is another part of the so called education ‘revoloution’ which is to provide useless school halls etc to schools that neither want or need the facilities.
The money would have been much better spent on following up on information provided by MySchool and working toward bettering poor perfoming school results.
Unfortunately Labor does not seem to be able to make two parts of an approach work together to achieve an end result- rather they develop two seperate parts of their plan that do not work when rolled out at two seperate times.
Surely this would have been more revoloutionary if MySchool was backed up by funding and new laptops for all- rolled out at the same time as part of the same budget?
Jane says:

03:44pm | 11/02/10

Sorry Perse…but you said “funding and support for needy schools IS part of the policy mix.” as some sort of bonus ...and my rebutal was that it ( funding, support, whatever is ‘needed’ for the ‘needy’) should already have been done by the STATEs who are responsible for education….so my point remains valid.

NAPLAN / LAP testing is not new and been in practise for some years now so individuals and schools have been able to be identified as ‘needy’ or not for quite some time now already.

ACT, NSW and Victoria top the list..as expected that they would be and should be with less indigenous in Victoria to bring down the mean score… Vic is only slightly better than NSW, but as you’d expect….most likely due to that fact of it being the least indigenous State. So, unless you can credit the Victorian State govt for it being least indigenous it’s a moot point. The % of NSW’s above National standard is actually better at year 3 even so. There is much more to education than NAPLAN scores…....however valuable they are on a child to national standard basis.
The MySchool site on the other hand is nothing more than a tokenistic stunt that does nothing for education other than confuse and distort the issue and pretend something is being done.
persephone says:

09:51pm | 11/02/10

Jane
yes, I know the testing isn’t new - why shouldn’t the information be made available to parents? It’s better than making assumptions about your local school based on gossip and innuendo, surely.

Even before this testing, schools were targetted because of perceived disadvantage, usually on the basis of parental income.

Even that’s a crude tool, however; NAPLAN testing allows another degree of refinement, comparison with like schools another one, so that the community can build up a good picture of what’s going on at their local school.

I find your comments re indigenous students and educational outcomes a little distasteful. My understanding has always been that aboriginal children perform on par with students from the same demographic background, so unless Victoria also has the least number of disadvantaged students full stop I can’t see that that would distort the figures.

Educational expenditure in Victoria has been on a constant upward trend. Well before the Rudd stimulus package was announced, the state had embarked on a program of replacing/renewing all existing schools, which is already well under way.

I’m not sure why you’re against parents knowing stuff the Education Department already knows but hasn’t been telling them.

And I’m all for money being spent on schools, but believe it should be targetted to where it does the most good.
Usually a Labor voter says:

07:21am | 12/02/10

Persephone,

The Naplan results have always been available to parents - they appeared in school annual reports and were available at any time if requested from the school. In that sense, the My School website hasn’t provided any information that wasn’t previously available.

Saying that funding is available because of the site is a furphy. The governments (state and federal) have had access to Naplan results since they started. I find it disgusting that only now when they put out this website with its ridiculous comparisons that funding is forthcoming. The funding should have been provided years ago to help reduce the gap between schools. The funding (pathetically low as it is) has been provided now as a political stunt.

Cheers,
- iansand says:
  
  07:35am | 11/02/10
  
  “This show that if household income is low, joblessness is high, and there’s no computer at home then the school’s population has a lower ICSEA ‘value’ and generally this trends towards performance that is under the average, although there are exceptions.”
  
  Isn’t this telling you something? That the school is only one factor in the education of children.
  
  Reply
David C says:

01:17pm | 11/02/10

Bingo - exactly right
- Paddy says:
  
  07:50am | 11/02/10
  
  It is trying to cover up lack of funding by the three State Govts going to an election. Vic, NSW , SA.
  Statistics lie. In Vic we spend billions on MYKI, Very Fast Train Spencer St station in cost over runs yet have Smith Family seeking donations so kids can go on learning excursions and buy books.
  
  Reply
- AdamC says:
  
  08:38am | 11/02/10
  
  I do acknowledge that schools are increasingly being asked to do more (such as in areas of child welfare) without necessarily being given more to do it with. I also agree that our modern society with its broken families, chronic welfare-dependency and substance abuse means many kids don’t get much of a shot at education.
  
  But I would also argue that chucking money at teachers, either to pay them more or pay more of them, will do little to help a kid who didn’t eat a proper dinner the night before, let alone a proper breakfast in the morning.
  
  Special pleading is special pleading. If union advocates want more money for their members (or just want more members) then they should come out and say it. Exploiting social problems that your constituency can do little about in order to get them more money is not convincing.
  
  Reply
Jolanda says:

10:06am | 11/02/10

The way I see it is that parents are being asked to do more and more. With the current set up in the system if your child isn’t coached or tutored outside of school they will struggle to compete. All well and good for the highly educated parents or parents who can afford tutoring/coaching but what about the poor kids who do not have access to optimal home learning environments or even non disadvantaged schools.

School is becoming a place where students go to compete against other coached/tutored kids. It is no wonder so many kids have lost interest and hope.

Education - Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/
Anon says:

10:58am | 11/02/10

Jolanda:

Students that are willing to work for themselves will excel. Lazy students will drop behind. Neither I nor my siblings ever had tutoring, we had parents who were not particularly well educated. Neither finished yr 10 at high school. My mother was unemployed for most of my life and my father had a pretty average job - so money was a luxury we didn’t have.

Somehow my siblings and I excelled at school, we each have 2 or more university degrees ranging from science to law.

I know plenty of others that have managed similar results from similar backgrounds. Admittedly this is anecdotal but it does counter the argument that such children have no chance.

Simply, there are some students who choose to give up and claim it’s all too hard, others that work to get good result.

From the day you are born until the day you die you will be competing with people who have more money, have better opportunities, are physically fitter, are ‘smarter’ and have all the luck and are generally in a better place. Such is life. It’s up to the kids themselves if they will compete or if they will give up and say “It’s too hard”.

My motivation was that I didn’t want to live the life of my parents - So I made sure that I didn’t have to live that life. It’s a choice. Maybe students need to accept responsibility for their choices.
Jolanda says:

01:00pm | 11/02/10

Anon you are talking about then and I am talking about now. The pressures that children have today socially so as to be ‘accepted’ cannot be compared to the pressures that many of us had as kids. Family units are not the same and things have changed.
HelenF says:

02:39pm | 11/02/10

I agree with you Jolanda.

Anon, funding has to be put right into the mix. I don’t know when you went to university but I went very much thanks to Whitlam and Labor making it possible through a vision for the kind of society we could be and through funding. Declaring people lazy for not getting out of poor situations is lazy thinking. There is so much more to it.
also anon says:

04:57pm | 11/02/10

Anon,

I can see your argument, because I come from a similar background to your own but with 8 other siblings.
We had pretty much nothing, if we needed something bought that was other than books and bags, my mother would nag about the cost so we received little.
A couple of us were rebellious, but finally saw the light, a couple didn’t care to be educated but one is now changing his ways. But for the majority (less the one still in school) most are productive part of the community, non of us are really well off but have different hopes for our own children, however most of us are intelligent enough to tutor our own children if necessary.
But I can also see the other point, were some children this is not their fault and require that additional funding. However teachers should be able to work out these types of students and spend time encouraging their abilities. This is what most kids needs, just an inspirational teacher willing to see past their ‘inherited’ lot and make a difference, not everything is about money.
Everybody remembers that one or more teachers who impacted their life, hopefully for the better.
- exzilerate says:
  
  09:02am | 11/02/10
  
  A wonderful tool thanks to the Rudd government. Now we can all see the true picture of our schools. the Rudd government again leads the way in opening up the mysteries behind the schools and providing parents with valuable information - only those schools with something to hide will be concerned with the Myschool website. well done Ms Gillard !
  
  Reply
JJJ says:

04:08pm | 11/02/10

‘My School’ shows a limited picture of student achievement in limited areas of Maths and English only. It is NOT a good reflection of student wholistic achievement, teacher capability, nor school outcomes in the slightest. You will find that schools rating well generally have teachers who spend weeks if not months preparing specifically for the limited tests that NAPLAN conduct. Although I generally enjoy ignorance (as I find my own ignorance often makes me happy), I just had to inform you that your joy is largely unfounded on anything signficant and your congrats to KRudd sadly unwarranted.
Red says:

07:51pm | 11/02/10

I agree exzilerate. The site provides stacks of information useful for everyone. The tests exhaustively test achievemnent and can be used to help improve outcomes for all who take them. The people who criticise them are probably the same ones who reckon that today’s kids can’t read, ‘rite or do ‘rithmetic
- terry says:
  
  10:41am | 11/02/10
  
  What a revolution, a website to tell us something we already knew. Well done to the Rudd Government, I’m sure the masses will believe you’ll now do something with this “new” information.
  
  Reply
CSallen says:

11:57am | 11/02/10

totally agree- I thought a revoloution was supposed to be, well, revoloutionary.
- Jane says:
  
  11:01am | 11/02/10
  
  It’s still a stunt, funding or no funding.
  The information was and is available to the government/s anyway to make that assessment themselves without creating a public website.
  
  STATE schools ( mutated to the term ‘public schools’ to obscure the direction of responsibility for them) are mainly funded and administered by the STATES…with top ups by the federal govt. With GST receipts to STATES and other revenues far and above what was expected over the last decade the STATES have had ample monies to do what should have been done - if funding was the sole problem.
  
  So then it gets back to ‘stunt’?....Sure is.
  
  Reply
- John Foley says:
  
  01:04pm | 11/02/10
  
  My School is no stunt.Transparency is now the major remaining economic reform needed and provider capture is the main inhibitor. Education unions understandably resist; education writers have no excuse for failing to question or resisting frreedom of information for syudents and parents. If My School works whatever next - patients empowered with knowledge in the Health Sector, train passengers; taxpayers might question the size of the public service, etc?
  Julia Gillard is no economic reformer. In fact she is responsible for re-regulation of industrial relations and the re-installation of the Industrial Relations Club, but with My School she is right and going in the right direction.
  
  Reply
- jamie says:
  
  02:53pm | 11/02/10
  
  I think that it’s only teachers and unions who are against this site. Sure, it may only be a snapshot of a school, but it all adds up. Stunt or no stunt, people seem to want it therefore I can’t see a problem
  
  Reply
- john says:
  
  05:13pm | 11/02/10
  
  ‘My School is a stunt if it’s not backed by funding’ - a simple statement that sums up the rudd government, all talk with zero action. C’mon guys are we really going to give them another term?
  
  Reply
- Jolanda says:
  
  09:18pm | 11/02/10
  
  Often the problem isn’t the funding. It is what they are doing with the funding that is the problem. There is so much maladministration, waste, nepotism, prejudice, cover ups and corruption. Our children are not safe nor are they being set a good example!
  
  Education – Keeping them Honest
  http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/
  
  Reply
- natasha says:
  
  10:03am | 12/02/10
  
  Doesn’t it come back to housing, land values and the way Sydney has become a divided city and NSW a divided state? We have such blatant divisions between the rich and poor in our city/ State. This is what needs to be addressed. We need public housing, more of it, and it needs to be scattered throughout our city/State. Not clustered in ghettos.
  
  Reply

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