CPA - The Guardian

The federal government’s long term plans for public education took a giant leap forward last week with the release of school test data on the “My School” website. It crashed shortly afterwards following what the government insists was a rush of visits from interested parents. Education Minister Julia Gillard was at pains to point out in the weeks and months leading up to the launch that it would not rank schools in a league table of achievement in the Commonwealth’s NAPLAN testing. Schools would be grouped with “like schools” so that parents can make informed choices and there would be nothing judgemental or damaging to the reputation of struggling schools carried on the site.

It turns out that schools with low achievements have the results shown in red. Good results are displayed in a green box. The schools have been brought together in largely meaningless groups that could not possibly assist in selecting a school. Boys’ schools are sometimes compared to girls’ schools.

“One of the wealthiest schools in Australia, The Kings School, is compared with Concord West Public School in Sydney and a public school in the small village of Gundaroo near Canberra,” Australian Education Union (AEU) federal president Angelo Gavrielatos noted last week.

“Geelong Grammar is compared with tiny public schools like Kangaroo Ground and Arthurs Creeks in Victoria. Holroyd High in Sydney’s west is compared with a school on the Cocos Islands. The elite Trinity Grammar school in Sydney is compared with Bulli High near Wollongong. The Dargo Public School in Victoria, which had one student last year, is compared with Brighton Grammar, Melbourne Girls Grammar and Camberwell Grammar,” he added.

And, as could be predicted, the media quickly extracted data contained on the site to produce what Gillard and Rudd said they did not support – league tables listing the country’s schools according to the NAPLAN data. Not long ago, the education minister said league tables “create a misleading picture and make the job of principals and teachers that much harder.” She was right. The testing was never intended to rank schools, or at least so successive education ministers have claimed. It does not recognise different levels of resourcing, size and enrolment policies. Test results can be manipulated by schools giving dispensation for students to avoid the tests. This already happens.

”Many private schools make excessive use of special dispensations for Year 12 exams. Last year, one Sydney private school received special exam dispensations for 42 percent of its Year 12 students compared to an average of 5 percent in government schools. Dispensations for students in NSW independent private schools were double the rate in government schools,” Australian Council of State School Organisations President Peter Garrigan said last week.

We can expect schools to tailor their students’ studies to achieve a higher league ranking and to resurrect dated rote learning methods to meet the narrow demands of the testing.

Are the education minister and the PM concerned that newspapers in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney have published league tables? Will they act to prevent such crude and destructive information confusing and misleading parents, demoralising teachers and students in lowly ranked schools? Are they concerned about the negative impact league tables have had overseas? Not at all! Confronted recently by journalists brandishing the tables carried in the press, Rudd was unperturbed. “And isn’t transparency a wonderful thing,” he said.

The fact that others would compile school league tables was foreseen and factored into the Rudd government’s longer term plans. It would have been considered unseemly for the government to create tables and be seen to be putting the boot into disadvantaged communities and schools but Rudd and Gillard are clearly happy with this latest development in the creation of an education market. In this market “failing” schools whither for lack of enrolments and close up, their facilities taken over by a private operator or their management handed to more hard-nosed private contractors. The distinction between private and public disappears and the question of which institutions uphold the responsibility to provide free, universally accessible, secular public education becomes irrelevant.

This is the vision behind the Rudd government’s enthusiasm for developments in the US, its warm welcome to controversial New York City’s Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, in 2008. Unless they are stopped, a voucher system will be imposed on parents – cash from the government to spend at the school of their “choice”. Polling shows parents are opposed to this neo-liberal proposition. The ALP’s own polling showed they were opposed to the creation of league tables, too. Parents’ wishes have been ignored. If the government prevails, the market will dictate the future.

The Australia Education Union is determined to stop the naming and shaming league tables. Its members will boycott the supervision of the NAPLAN tests this year. “Teachers will not sit by and let students and school communities be damaged by league tables,” the AEU’s Angelo Gavrielatos said. “If the minister won’t act to protect students, teachers will.”

Gillard and Rudd are seeking to crush the teachers’ determination and press on with their unpopular plans. The education minister will not rule out using strike breakers to get the tests done. She is promising that if the government is re-elected the “My School” site will be expanded to rate teachers.

For the future of public education in Australia, the support of parents and the community for the stand taken by the teachers is vital.

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