Sorry, Dan, but what a load of tosh! Firstly, who says NAPLAN and MySchool are all about parent choice? Politicians and polemicists maybe but everyone knows that the reason kid A goes to school B is complex and mostly little to do with "parent choice". Secondly, which "governments" tell us that we only need to have two pieces of information about a school to make our "choice"? In your car example you say that as a consumer you need to know more than price and fuel economy. How true - but imagine if you were told that you had to make your choice but were not allowed to know the price and fuel economy!
Anyway that's all irrelevent because NAPLAN and MySchool were never about parent choice but instead about accountability and transparency for governments, systems and teachers (unions). No longer can state governments or unions make inflated or absurd comments about "how great our schools are at this" or "if only we did more of that" and get away with it. When Queensland says "We're the Smart State" and our system is as good as any in the world - ahh, no it's not! When teacher unions say if only we reduced class sizes it would lead to better outcomes - ahh, no it doesn't! Now with the addition of funding sources we can finally have an informed debate about what the minimum funding level is to guarantee a quality education and ask why the the Feds are "topping up" private schools to a level well above this when state schools are well below it.
So sorry, Dan, but back to school for you. Can only give you a D- for this.

Fritz, thanks for your comment mate...

I want to pick you up on one point though...

Early in 2010, Julia Gillard (then Education Minister)said...

"before My School, parents would do everything they could to find out as much information as possible about the schools in their suburb – maybe they’ve moved suburb, moved cities, moved states, want to know which is the school that their child should go to and that’s been a hard battle for them to get the information. Now, as one source of information they will be able to get on My School and see more comprehensive information than they’ve ever had access to before."

I'd argue that is only about the notion of choice.

I hope that at least gets me an upgrade to a "D"
:)
Cheers,
Dan

I can see no problems in having a standard curriculum with standard exams for all students.

Most of what is in primary and secondary school education is hundreds of years old.

For example: Most scientific and mathematical laws were developed centuries ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law

So why does each school need to be different. The teaching methods between teachers can, and should, be different, but the general curriculum should be standard so as to include the standard scientific and mathematical laws.

A test of any school would be to see if a student’s marks gradually increase as they move from grade to grade through the school.

If the average student in a school was getting B’s in grade 8, and then the average student began getting A’s by grade 10, then that would be a “good” school.

What is definitely missing from the MySchool website is data relating to the wellbeing of the students in the school, such as student injury rate, student absenteeism rate and student satisfaction rate.

Ironically, I don’t know of any school that publishes such data, while nearly every school emphasises that they are interested in the wellbeing of their students.

If there was a company with a high rate of employee injuries, and a high rate of employee absenteeism, and a low rate of employees satisfaction, very few people would join that company.

Similarly, if there was a school with a high rate of student injuries, and a high rate of student absenteeism, and a low rate of student satisfaction, very few people would enroll their children in that school.

Vanna - student attendance info is on the site.

Overall, I am not a fan of MySchool. I work in a school in South West Sydney and our results were very strong. Does our school look good on the site? Yes! So why don't I like it?

Well, I see my colleagues in other schools, working with students of high disadvantage, becoming increasingly discouraged. All the site shows is that their kids did poorly in NAPLAN. Now I KNOW, by talking to local families, etc that these children are happy with the schools, feel valued and have a positive experience of school. They just happen to struggle academically. Can MySchool show this? No. No website can show near enough to the full picture to give, well, the full picture.

As I said, personally I have no barrow to push as my school looks good on the site. That doesn't mean I can't stop patting myself on the back for a few minutes and consider those being sold short by a sub-standard attempt to compare the incomparable...

rational-debate
"with students of high disadvantage"
So what causes the disadvantaged students, and what are teachers doing to reduce the number of disadvantaged students?

"They just happen to struggle academically"
So why do they struggle academically, and what are teachers doing to reduce the number of students who struggle academically?

As you may be able to tell, I really am over the stage where I automatically believe anything said by a teacher.

No answer from rational-debate.

I would think this typical, because I have noticed an increasing reluctance by teachers to answer questions.

“Conversely, the number of children aged 0–14 years living with one parent is projected to increase in Series II and III, from 745,000 in 2001 (19% of all children) to between 875,000 (23%) and 1.3 million (33%) in 2026, reflecting the effect of increasing numbers of separation and/or divorce of partners
with children.”

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/DF2989BFFA7392E1CA256EB6007D63F4/$File/32360_2001%20to%202026.pdf

I have heard of no concerns from anyone in the education system regards this, and this in itself is very concerning, because their silence basically means that they are accepting of the situation.

It is becomes very important because so many single parent families result in “disadvantage children"

Morning Vanna - not a case of no answer, I just don't log on to this site from home. Nice to see the family from time to time!

"As you may be able to tell, I really am over the stage where I automatically believe anything said by a teacher."

If you wish to accuse me of lying, or even distorting the facts, then please do so openly. I have not done so, and am not sure what possible gain I would have in doing so, especially on an anonymous forum...

The "high disadvantage" to which I refer can be summarised with a few generalisations (not my preferred mode, but hopefully will shed some light in this instance).
- Lack or parent connection with school and education
- Low or sporadic attendance
- Single parent families (as mentioned by you)
- NESB
- Difficulty in attracting staff to South West Sydney
- Etc.

What are we doing about this? Well at my school, the following:
- Engaging parents in a many ways as we can, in the classroom, parent nights, information evenings, etc. There is a very strong correlation between parent involvement and pupil performance. Drives my staff crazy that I am always expecting them to go to this night or that, but it works.
- Spending more than we can afford on support staff
- We host both Speech Therapists and Occupational Therapists on site, to make accessing them more convenient for parents (note we don't pay, just take some of the pain out of getting to and from these services)
- We are in dialogue with any outside professional (universities, specialists, etc) who will talk to us about strategies we can use for struggling students
- We have embarked upon a whole school programme that continually evaluates everything we do, and this includes feedback from parents, students, etc

Sorry that this is a quick response, but work calls.

Rational-debate
It is good that your school is attempting something, as I do think the situation is quite likely to get worse in future years, particularly with an increasing number of children coming from a certain family type that produces an inordinate number of “disadvantaged children”

I could give some opinions that may help.

Not to use terms such as NESB, as few outside of education will understand it.

Attempt to get two way communication with parents, and parent nights and information evenings do tend to be one way communication sessions.

Show credit where credit is due, and I have noticed that if a student does well, then the teachers will say that this is because of teachers and not because of the student’s parents, but if the student does badly, the teachers will say that this is because of their parents, and not because of their teachers.

Engage the students by setting goals and class projects or even school projects.

Eliminate feminism or male denigration out of the school.

Develop a workable system of performance pay for teachers.

Please note that the above are in reverse order of importance.

Fritz:

"Now with the addition of funding sources we can finally have an informed debate about what the minimum funding level is to guarantee a quality education and ask why the the Feds are "topping up" private schools to a level well above this when state schools are well below it."

Valid point. By looking at the data, it is revealed that the federal 'top-ups' do not push private schools above state schools in funding; in fact, the Catholic school at which I work sits nearly $1000 behind the local state school in per-student funding. Interestingly, we achieve extraordinary outcomes despite this.

Otokonoko
"THE nation's most elite private schools have at least twice the income of the average government school yet their students do little better in national tests than their peers in the public system."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/elite-school-students-dont-excel/story-fn59niix-1226016177993

I would think that once a certain level of funding is reached, any extra funding makes very little difference.

There has to be “fire in the belly” for both the teachers and the students to achieve better results, not more taxpayer funding.

Nothing puts “fire in the belly” better than performance pay, or without a well functioning performance pay system, the employees will just go through the motions.

For students, they need to be engaged and also interested in the learning process.

"Eliminate feminism or male denigration out of the school."

I think you'll find denigration of either sex is explicitly prohibited in the state school system, and it is clearly explained why.

If there is a specific instance in which you or your child is denigrated in this way within the system (from any member of the school community) then you have every right to demand that this be rectified.

Blanket comments to the effect that such denigration is commonplace and accepted in a commonplace fashion are incorrect, misleading and do not help.

I'll be happy to provide examples if you are willing to define exactly what you mean by "feminism" in the system and to give concrete examples of this.