Teachers are in the mood for seeing league tables

Jolanda says:

06:54am | 17/11/09

We hear about the ‘teachers stories’ but how about ‘parent stories’ about children whose education in the Public school system was so inappropriate for their identified needs that the children became depressed and sick and didnt want to go to school so the parents made formal complaints and for having spoken out the children were systematically targeted, victimized, bullied, their school applications and test results manipulated and tampered with as payback and so as to discredit the students and parents for daring having spoken negatively publicly about the Education System.

This is the reality of the Education System.  League tables are a problem because the complaint handling system is corrupted and there is no scrutiny or accountability and with a flick of a pen or the press of a button educators and/or bureaucrats can change test results to suit themselves or to achieve whatever outcome they wish to achieve or present whatever story they want to present and not have to answer to anyone.

Everybody has stories to tell but bottom the line is that Educators/bureaucrats are humans and humans are capable of all sorts of things and our children are not protected as Government Departments are corrupted though lack of impartiality, accountability and scrutiny.

Education - Keeping them Honest
http://www.jolandachallita.typepad.com/
Our children deserve better

Mrs Tickle says:

07:09am | 17/11/09

“In several years, I think it will be a good thing and we’ll be saying, why were we so anxious about this?”  So were they anxious? From other media reports the Principles were not happy?

nigel says:

07:32am | 17/11/09

Geez Mrs Tickle, maybe they needed to publish league tables of the school you attended…

Joel B1 says:

07:44am | 17/11/09

“It would be a boon for parents, tired of wearing out shoe leather and drowning in a sea of documents to try to find the right school for their children.”

The right school is usually the closest school. Maybe, rather than travelling 2hrs then dropping your kids off (at the right school) then picking them up at 6pm from care, you should care.

Walk them to the nearest school, get to know their teachers, volunteer to help, be there when school finishes and interact with them and be interested in what they learned.

Or am I (and our kids) just lucky?

Or maybe I just don’t need a 7 room mansion and the latest BMW SUV and a $70K sound and vision entertainment system?

Nick says:

08:03am | 17/11/09

The Herald’s choice of schools for their law breaking publication shows exactly what is wrong with letting the media loose on data. Comparing the score of a comprehensive high school with two highly selective schools is misleading in the extreme. Were these supposed to be ‘similar schools’ because they are all girls’ schools? What of the cultural mix? What about socio-economic data? What about the percentage of LOTE students? What about a measure of average length of education within Australia?

And let a headline grabbing sub editor at it and the article might be headed: “West’s girls falling behind” or “Comprehensive education fails” or ” “Top students behind in English” etc etc

I wonder if Kings would relish a similar comparison to say Sydney Grammar. After all, they are similar schools: high fee, private, wealthy community, extensive property holdings etc

The press has a very poor record of editorialising its articles. Recently the DT carried a story on the dire shortage of trained maths teachers. The sub heading on the front page was: “Teacher +Maths=fail!” Many readers respond only to this heading and do not read (or perhaps understand) the more complex detailed argument in the atricle. Sub-editors know this and are adept at getting a message out in minum words. That the message might be misleading does not bother them in their need to affect public opinion. Here the implication is that teachers are not teaching maths well. Yet there are many schools with excellent maths teachers and maths performance records, and in NSW the performance of students in maths at the HSC is outstsanding considering the high level of difficulty of the top courses.The article acknowledged this and bemoaned the lack of numbers of such teachers and was in fact about the training of primary school teachers who are not specifically trained in maths or may not have a strong background in the subject.. Where was this in the headline?

BTW, there is a very real danger that the national curriculum will ‘dumb down’ the maths component. But that is another story)

There is a report today (DT) of strong opposition to league tables from peak bodies representing all stakeholders.

AJ says:

08:13am | 17/11/09

Jolanda: Good to see conspiracy theorists are still thriving. Your first paragraph was just one sentence, and without a question mark. I suggest in future you break up the sentences a bit to make your argument sound more logical and allow people to actually understand what you are saying. Also, I’d like to hear suggestions for how you think the system can be improved, rather than just criticising what is in place. A real argument lies in a viable solution with a logical basis, not in just saying “bureaucrat” every second sentence.

Joel B1: Not everyone who works too much to take personal care of their children are rich. A lot of the worst-off people are those who are working day and night to keep their families going. Those in mid- to high-paid work may be able to get part-time hours or finish work early or have flexible arrangements of another sort, but there are many jobs where this is inconceivable, and those are usually the worst-paid jobs. There are many, many reasons why a parent wouldn’t be able to collect their kid personally, nor volunteer, nor walk with their child to the gate. I would say yes, you are lucky.

In regards to the article, I think it’s a disgrace the way journalists are under-resourced. It just shows why effective public service news outlets need more funding, particularly in a time of economic downturn. The public has a right to know what happens in their society, and that should happen regardless of economic circumstance. Private news entities should certainly exist, but at the same time we can’t risk our society becoming uninformed because a company wants to make a bit more money this year so cuts journalist numbers.

Julie says:

08:20am | 17/11/09

@Joel B1, it’s natural for parents to want to be able to choose the school that will give their children the best education, and that may not be the one that is nearest.  All schools are not the same, despite the head-in-sand intransigence about this from the education unions.

State-run schools have a lot of very dedicated teachers, but they also have some who think their priority is politics rather than education.  Add to this the many problems created by a rigid bureaucracy and militant union bosses, and it is easy to see why many parents want more information about the possibilities available to them, at both state and private schools.

Jolanda says:

08:44am | 17/11/09

@Nick your first paragraph was designed to discredit me and if you read bureaucrat in every second sentence then you were reading what you wanted to read and not what I said. 

It isn’t too difficult to work out how to improve things but it would mean you would have to think and not just regurgitate what you have been taught. 

We need an impartial, fair and honest system of administration and complaint handling.  Things are going to happen in every school or system - what makes a school a great school is how they deal with the issues they are presented with as when systems cover up complaints and issues nothing changes and all that happens is bullies and those who fail in their duty of care get more powerful.  This is not something we should want for our kids. 

If we are going to have League Tables we need an impartial, honest and accountable system of administration and complaint handling so as to keep them honest.

You must be a public servant to blame ‘lack of resources’ for the failures of the media.  That is such a cop out - one that our Government uses and relies on all the time.

ATH says:

08:48am | 17/11/09

I think everyone just needs to toughen up. If we want to compete with Asia and their highly educated population, Australia needs to encourage the pursuit of the highest quality of education. This includes selective schools and league tables - competition is the best way to improve. A number of non-selective schools in NSW have improved drastically over the past few years (e.g. Burwood Girls, Cheltenham Girls, Homebush Boys etc), and their presence near the top of the league tables and ongoing demand for places in their schools is a just reward which indirectly benefits all of us.

acker says:

08:49am | 17/11/09

The rating of a childs education performance needs to be simplified and benchmarked as NAPLAN mostly acheives.

As did the formerly used A - F report card grading system.

Can some boffin please explain to me how it helps a student struggling with literacy and numeracy skills who has a parent or parents who also struggle with literacy and numeracy skills, when thier parent receives a report card full of politically correct nothing speak, and can’t understand if thier child is doing well or poorly.

So many double meanings in the current report cards, even people like me who I consider have moderate literacy and numeracy skills struggle to work out what my childs academic performance actualy is.

iansand says:

08:50am | 17/11/09

There is a heck of a lot more involved in education than a simple ranking in maths and English.  Anyone who thinks league tables give much useful information should actually go and look at a couple of schools.

Nick says:

09:07am | 17/11/09

Not me Jolanda!

Lexi says:

09:18am | 17/11/09

Firstly, it’s not just teacher and principal unions against this government concept - parents’ groups and private schools are also against this proposal.

Secondly, parents can apply to enrol their child at any public school in the state, however, schools in NSW only have an obligation to enrol children from within their zone - other enrolments are subject to the school’s capacity.  So if you prove that, say, Mosman Public School is the best performing primary school in NSW, every ambitious parent will rush to enrol their “G&T” child there… No surprises when the kids from Campsie or Kingswood are declined enrolment. 

Thirdly, I’ve yet to understand what benefit comes of publishing league tables?  The academic performance of one cohort on one day does not represent what kind of school it is.  You can only understand that from visiting, touring, meeting current and past students’ parents and talking in your community.  Most schools would be happy to explain and discuss NAPLAN results (not those of individual students).

Finally, league tables have not provided any benefits in the UK or US and countries with the best academic results do not use them (those in Scandanavia).  Teachers in the UK and US have been encouraged to teach to the exam rather than teaching the broad curriculum.  Do you want your child learning maths and English all day, every day, to the exclusion of PDHPE, art or HSIE?  A teacher I know in the UK has to estimate the results of each student before the exam and then justify themselves after the results come out.  How is THAT benefitting the students?  “Sorry, your kid’s obviously brighter than I gave him credit for” or “This child will reach her potential when her parents put her to bed at a decent hour and stop feeding her donuts for breakfast”.

Jolanda says:

09:20am | 17/11/09

Let me tell you about tests.  A few years ago my daughter received a result in her Naplan (it was called Ella then) that showed a writing result that was so low that my daughter was very confused and upset as she was a gifted writer and even if she had of had a bad day her results in comparison to the State would still have been above average.  She needed to see how she had achieved the result.

We requested the writing paper under FOI and that paper showed obvious errors in marking.  One obvious error was confirmed by the marking schedule which showed the level and standard required for the different marks allocated for punctuation.  The schedule stated that if the writer has an obvious grasp of punctuation and there is only one minor issue to award full marks and that to award a zero only if the writer has little or no punctuation.  My daughter was awarded ZERO MARKS despite the only punctuation that was missing on the copy that was given to us was the dot at the bottom of an obvious exclamation mark and this was the only thing referred to in the marking results under punctuation.  We asked for a re-mark and the re-mark confirmed the original incorrect marking despite this obvious error in marking being brought to their attention.

We asked for the name of the marker of the paper and we were told in evidence when we sought access to this information at the ADT that there is a meeting and the papers from different schools are allocated to set markers who put their number on the paper and then after the papers are marked they destroy the names of the markers so nobody actually ever knows who marked what test!.

It also came to our attention that they do not actually re-mark the paper they just get a fellow collegue to add up the same marks that the original marker allocated.  The paper is never independently re-marked. 

The whole process needs an overhaul and facelift.  Students should be able to challenge marks and the process of marking should be open, honest and impartial otherwise what is to stop them preparing whatever picture they want to present.  Students should also have all tests returned so that they can see exactly what they need to do to improve their results and they can see where they lost their marks.

Education - Keeping them Honest
http://www.jolandachallita.typepad.com/
Our children deserve better

Jolanda says:

09:41am | 17/11/09

Oops Sorry Nick I mean AJ.

Bruce says:

10:32am | 17/11/09

I fully support the proposed system. If you want to improve your position on the league ladder, its simple, get ridd of the kids who do not want to be at school. In the long run hopefully this will force the “dead beat” pupils out of the schools where kids who want to do well, are not hindered by the “dead beats” bad behaviour. Put the “dead beats” into “Special Schools” which will be not part of the league ladder, until their attitude and behaviour changes. Any caring parent who has kids at school will understand exactly where I am coming from.

acker says:

10:33am | 17/11/09

@iansand…...“Anyone who thinks league tables give much useful information should actually go and look at a couple of schools”

League Tables and NAPLAN seems do something fairly simple that has flown over the over idealistic inadequetely practical Education Dept Guru’s over the years

BENCHMARKING !

And teachers need to realise, the general non teacher public that reads Newspapers can handle League Table reporting and come to thier own conclusions.

Benchmarking reality indicates the top 50% of Teachers are superior teachers to the bottom 50% of Teachers…..that is plain mathematical benchmarking fact.

The better performing teachers need to be paid more and targeted to go to the benchmarked struggling schools.

The Education/Teaching system needs more transperancy not less, and trying to block League Tables looks like an attempt by the Teaching Unions to protect poorer performing teachers and schools by hiding Benchmarked outcomes from the parents of the kid’s.

nic says:

10:41am | 17/11/09

Well done Tracey, one of the better articles on this site.

Phil says:

11:34am | 17/11/09

Dont know about you lot, but when I got the result of the Naplan test, I saw where my daughter fitted in compared to her classmates and the state or national average. She excelled where I knew she would and struggled where I also knew she needs more work. Dont really see a need to know how they go any better than that.

When my wife and I were discussing a school for our children we looked at all options, from Public and Private that were in the near vacinity to our home.

I like most parents, take a great deal of interest in my childrens education, and go over their homework most nights checking and assisting in its completion.

The school where my children go is a private christian school, whose fees are reasonable and they get a good education from teachers who are approachable, and seem to want to help. I am prepared to make an effort to work harder to send them there.

As for league tables, I dont care. If I wanted I would send my chidlren to a better/read dearer private school, but my interest is getting them a good education without two hours travel time each day. I want them to be kids, to be able to get home do their home work and play/swim and have fun or play sport, not sit in a car or on a train.

Good artical Tracey.

If you look at the results nationwide you will find a strong correlation between Asian pupils and excellent results. Many work very hard to get these results and it shows. The parents of these children should be congratulated for in many cases going without to make sure their children are so well educated.

iansand says:

12:12pm | 17/11/09

OK acker.  Different word.  What does “benchmarking” prove?

acker says:

12:21pm | 17/11/09

A big issue on forum sites when you talk about NAPLAN and League Tables is that the teaching lobby which single minded is well drilled by it’s union on how to put spin arguing against them.

Tend to flock to the topic site and drown out the general public.

I think that is starting to happen here and now with this topic.

iansand says:

01:26pm | 17/11/09

Your comment:OK acker@1:21 - defeat the heathen with rational argument.  What useful nformation will league tables or “benchmarking” give you?

By the way, I are the general public. I is not a teacher.  I have a child in school (she has been to 3).  I have looked at schools and sure as hell know that ranking schools on the basis of scores in English and maths will tell me so little about the quality of teaching that the potential damage that ranking will cause is way out of kilter with the benefits.

Jan says:

01:43pm | 17/11/09

Surely the “misreporting” of the conference is a good indication of the “misreporting” to come when the web site goes live. No wonder teachers and schools are wary.

acker says:

03:37pm | 17/11/09

@iansand

I also have children, and I support the idea that a benchmarked table can be published in a newspaper or another media source and I can decide if the data is relevant or usefull to me.

You seem to be trying to prop up somekind of argument that the average Australian school student parent is somekind of brainwashed zombie that is led by the media like a cow with a nose ring.

You do realise we live and are having this argument in Australia, a nation where supposedly we have freedom of the press; although the teaching unions and some of their political friends seem to be doing all they can to stifle the press.

And to argue that benchmarking is useless is pure head in the sand / the earth is flat style fantasy.

iansand says:

04:57pm | 17/11/09

acker@4:37 But what use will the information be?  I don’t give a stuff about publication bans - the information will escape anyway.  I simply cannot see how the publication of a few numbers and a list will provide any useful information.  What do you think you will learn?  If I have my head in the sand, talk me back into the atmosphere and let me breathe.

steve parker says:

06:05pm | 17/11/09

I wonder if the mood shown by Wendy Johnson, principal of Glenunga International High School would be the same if she was in Leadership at Chrsities Beach HS in the outer southern suburbs of Adelaide. I think not!

Chris says:

07:05pm | 17/11/09

Oh, so what? Really? I’m a teacher in a Catholic high school in a big rural town. My students’ NAPLAN results have recently come under scrutiny—good, average and bad.
I personally couldn’t care a hoot if my school is compared with the expensive private school in town, the two state high schools, the Christian school or the small-but-growing Anglican school.
Parents send their children to our school, in many cases, for reasons that go beyond the academic. I mean peer support, the teaching of values, religious education and discipline. I am sure this happens in many schools. Every parent knows that the state high school is an available option, and I would estimate that a small majority of parents in town take that option. So be it. As a poster above noted, parents are not idiots about this—they know that when a table is based on a one-off, standardised test, they need to do some research of their own.
It won’t be the end of the world. Hell, it may not even last very long.

Daniel says:

07:25pm | 17/11/09

If Gillard is really worried about benchmarking she should start with properly funding public education and stop spoon feeding the wealthy elite private schools.

Jolanda says:

08:23pm | 17/11/09

Yes Phil - I agree that if you look at the results nationwide you will find a strong correlation between Asian pupils and excellent results.  We won’t need League Tables to tell us that.  And yes the parents/family are usually doing what they believe is best for their child/dren in order to succeed.  But here is my problem with that. 

The Department of Education offers access to the elite Public Selective school system to a small number of students who get the highest test marks on a set of selective tests taken at a given age.  Year after year these places are being won by students who are coached and prepared externally from young ages to excell in school and tests.

Hitch is that the Department of Education does not teach their bright students above age/grade level or how to take above level tests even though they know that some students are being tutored and coached externally at a higher age, grade and level than their chronological age peers.

The non coached/tutored Public School student is then required by the Department of Education to compete in academic competition against prepared, tutored and coached students from all schools in a Selective test, set at the higher level and grade, for a place in a “Public Selective High School?”.

Is it any wonder that the make up of the Selective Schools intake leans heavily towards particular students.  The DET has set up and supports a Selective School system that compliments certain cultures and these people, being smart, are taking advantage of that.

I do not believe the set up is an equal or fair system.

The Selective system needs to be dismantled.  Failing that it would be fairer and a hell of alot cheaper if places in these schools were won in a lottery instead of with a test.  That would at least leave it up to chance.

acker says:

07:46am | 18/11/09

@iansand : in response to your remark

“I don’t give a stuff about publication bans - the information will escape anyway.  I simply cannot see how the publication of a few numbers and a list will provide any useful information”

Ian if you don’t give a stuff about the publication bans, why are you on this topic thread arguing for publication bans on league tables ?

Most of us on here are just arguing for the right to let the league tables be published so we can make up our own minds whether we find them usefull or not.

That decision should be in the hands of the individuals / parents, not the teaching union.

Also I have spoken to my sons public schools P&C President about what she knew about the NSW P&C Associations support of a publishing ban on League Tables.

She informed that our local P&C has never been contacted by the NSW P&C Association about the League Table issue.

If this is the case widespread, where is the NSW P&C Association getting it’s mandate to take a public stand to ban media publishing of League Tables ?

Or is someone in the leadership of the NSW P&C Association executive voicing their personal opinion and using the association name ?

iansand says:

10:01am | 18/11/09

acker@8:46 I really don’t give a stuff about publication.  But I think that anyone who thinks that the quality of a school can be encapsulated in a couple of numbers has their head somewhere dark and uncomfortable (and it is not in the sand, where mine apparently is).  I think the whole idea is ridiculous.  The trouble is that, once the tables are developed, they will become ridiculously important.

acker says:

10:16am | 18/11/09

@iansand

You seem to totally miss the point

It is not the Teaching Unions right or your right Ian; to select what the media should publish or the format they publish or present it.

You cant stifle the media from publishing this data because you don’t like the context they are using publishing it, because your fearful the public may scrutinize it.

That is not justification to censor the media in Australia, you and the Teaching Unions seem to be presenting a case which would probably better suited to a China style government media interference Ian, rather than here.

Are you honestly happy living in a Democracy with freedom of the media like Australia.. Ian ?

Perhaps Stalinist Russia would have been more your cup of tea

Rebecca says:

10:20am | 18/11/09

League tables are misleading if they are read as an indicator of how well academically a parent might expect their child to achieve at a particular school. (1) The tables e.g., for a particular school might be misleading if the school includes an I.E.C.‘s (Intensive English Centre) results which will (obviously) bring down the stats for the entire cohort. (2) If people are under the misapprehension that rote learning e.g., grammar facts for league tables will carry over and be generalised by the child into writing in general they will be sadly disappointed - such abstract learning is superficial and readily lost. Parents, if you want your child to succeed academically let them learn to think for themselves by introducing them at a very early age into the pleasures of reading; by having a close relationship with your child where you discuss everything under the sun of interest to the child - see the news together, etc., take them to places of interest - have FUN!
If you rely on any school to teach your child how to think independently and how to enjoy reading then yes you might just as well pin your hopes on league tables.

iansand says:

12:14pm | 18/11/09

acker@11:16 Which bit of “I really don’t give a stuff about publication” makes your brain hurt?

The information produced by looking at scores in only 2 disciplines, extracted in a way that pays no regard to the raw material that the school is dealt, tells you so little about the quality of the school that you may as well not bother.  But as soon as the data are produced those data will be given an importance incommensurate with their relevance.

acker says:

01:30pm | 18/11/09

@iansand

The two disciplines you mention “literacy” and “numeracy” form the foundation of just about every thing taught at school’s

All the Australian children in grades 3-5-7 & 9 do the same test. It offers a true snapshot on how your child is traveling compared to others at the same grade level in two core topics.

Ian I sense your argument is more about justifying and offering some self encouragement to yourself about the school choice you have made for your child.

And it’s a free country and you are exercising your right to raise your child and get out of education what you want.

But I look at things a different way, I want my children benchmarked through the NAPLAN test, and I will assess the results as to how as a parent I can improve their learning. I have already had two conflicting results between my daughters Year 7 and Year 9 NAPLAN numeracy results and her School Report card, and have acted on the 2nd NAPLAN numeracy result by getting her tutored in maths external to the school.

The school report cards were not giving her mother and I ( we are separated)  that level of detail, in fact her mothers words were “if you just read the reports you wouldn’t think she was behind in maths”

That’s the value of benchmarking, and it may go beyond that and some parents may wish to compare schools in their area

Not compare Toorak to Sunshine, but perhaps compare Sunshine to Footscray and Altona. Which are schools in a similar area, and that parents should have the right to be able to compare.

For all the good will of schools and teachers, some other schools and teachers may be better at educating children than they are.

If we looked at 100% of teachers ; there will be a top 50% and a bottom 50%

That is not being nasty, that is just mathematical fact.

I would still like to know how come the NSW P&C Association thinks it has the right to come out in the media against the publication of League Tables. When my local P&C Chairperson was not contacted by them about this issue.

Possibly the NSW P&C Association is a loose cannon group of bureaucrats that school P&C groups across NSW should stop funding !!!

iansand says:

02:05pm | 18/11/09

acker@2:30 You seem to be having trouble distinguishing between your daughter and a school.  (Hint:  The school is probably made of bricks and mortar.) The league tables will not rate individual children, but schools. If you think that Sunshine and Toorak will not be compared you should get out more.  The problem is that the comparison will be nasty, brutish and numerical, and will not tell you very much about how effective the teachers are at educating their charges.  They will not tell you a lot about the raw material the schools receive.

And how you think that I am trying to justify choices I made is one of life’s minor mysteries.  I do suspect that, if the league tables measured the ability to frame a rational argument, wherever you went would be in the lower deciles.