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The Forum > Article Comments > Fair to compare? > Comments

Fair to compare? : Comments

By Jennifer Aberhart, published 29/3/2006

Dunce’s hats and public disclosure of rank disappeared from classrooms because they were deemed unfair, so why is it now fair to pit schools against each other?

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I understand why the Teachers Federation are against school benchmarking. They have a comfy life in a walled garden. In NSW, perhaps in other states, government has developed about the same sophisticated expertise in dealing with measures of school quality as it has exhibited with the contract for the Sydney Cross City Tunnel.

Unmentioned in this discussion is that making a paradigm shift to benchmarking needs skill, preparation, good will and, above all expertise.

Moving school education system to a market-based model could (like the preschool system) resemble Russian experience, where, like ABC, a few rich companies snare most of everything.

Or it could be like introduction of the market model into China, where, despite everything, there is still strenuous state control.

Or it could be like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where chaos reigns.

Surely it will not be as bad as any of these, but it will still be painful. (Think Maggie Thatcher performing the Restructure That Britain Had To Have.)

So the Teachers Federation has a very well-founded belief that any major change will create a humungous mess, and probably has no desire to see it sooner rather than later.

I read somewhere, years ago, that it takes 50 years for a new teaching concept to reach 75% of American schools, and 75 years for it to reach all of them.

Atomic scientist Max Planck put it another way. He observed, "science advances funeral by funeral".

There is good stuff that student teachers (my daughter-in-law is one) need to learn.

With good will and firm resolve, Amanda Challita will probably see these changes for her grandchildren, and perhaps - even - her children.

For the avoidance of doubt: I am in not defending bureaucracy, nor am I part of it. I simply note that the rate at which social values change is related to the rate at which one generation overtakes the next.

Paradoxically, in a society where change is supposed to be happening faster than ever before, people are having children later and living longer, so generational change is slower than ever before.
Posted by MikeM, Thursday, 13 April 2006 9:18:29 PM
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Part of the problem is the need for the financial and social elite of Australian society to have a mechanism for deepening and entrenching their power and privilege. Access to education at both secondary and tertiary levels and the 'real' careers they lead to lies at the heart of the education debate. Since Whitlam there has been a huge transfer of investment into 'private' schooling. The restriction of entry and the application of significant additional resources confer an advantage on selective schools.

The publishing of selected information that confirms the academic superiority of these schools serves to justify the huge public investment in them and helps to reinforce the 'drift' towards private education which is a fundamental plank in the education policies of government.

Since the publication recently of a few indices of performance in Queensland secondary schools we have witnessed the media talking about the 'top' schools and pouring scorn on others. While making a self righteous demand that the poorer schools improve their performance, the media fails to appreciate that this can only be done at the expense of the schools currently placed above them. The Queensland OP system allocates scores on a percentage basis to each rank. Therefore a school can only improve its average rankings by taking them away from other schools. The system guarantees failure.

I don't think that encouraging people to make judgements on the basis of the information provided is sensible. It merely punishes some who don't deserve it and reinforces the prejudices of others
Posted by defender, Saturday, 15 April 2006 11:33:09 AM
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There are several rather different problems here. Firstly, school teachers have not had benchmarks against which to judge their effectiveness.

There may be brilliant teachers who worry every night that they are not doing as well as they wish they could, and lousy teachers who are perfectly confident that poor classroom results are simply due to being provided with poor students.

The former teachers resist evaluation. The latter are sure that it is unnecessary.

There are doubtless also excellent teachers who know they are excellent and mediocre ones who know that they are bad at their jobs, but the first two types I mention surely predominate.

I had the privilege of seeing what happened in a state government instrumentality that was corporatised and later privatised. With an influx of external appointments, the really capable people realised how good they actually were, and many left for better jobs. The non-performers were in due course retrenched.

But all this begs the question: what are realistic measures to use to pit one school against another?

HSC pass rates are a fragile tool.

In 1997 Sydney newspaper, The Daily Terror, got stuck into Mount Druitt High School and published a photo of its 1996 HSC class below the headline, "Class We Failed".

The students sued. A Supreme Court jury found that they had been defamed. The newspaper published an apology and a damages claim was settle out of court.

Our universities are suffering from a different problem from trial by media. Their financing structure is increasingly tilting them towards popularity with full fee-paying students. This measure is in fundamental conflict (at least in the short term) with the objective of maintaining academic standards.

Separately again, affluent parents, especially in NSW, seem to be increasingly viewing schooling as a positional economic good - choosing private rather than public schools simply because they can.

This trend will only diminish when credible measures are available for school performance, but simplistic ones (as the Mt Druitt incident and ongoing reports of relaxed standards for foreign university students indicate) will do more harm than good.
Posted by MikeM, Saturday, 15 April 2006 5:41:28 PM
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Jolanda - good on you for your perserverence. I am sure that your efforts will make life easier for the next person and are a step forward to seeing some level of accountancy in the public service. Whatever the final outcome your children will be proud of you.
Posted by sajo, Sunday, 16 April 2006 5:12:35 PM
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Thanks Sago. My children are not just proud of me, they are my greatest supporters! My husband is the also most wonderful man. So in one respect we are very lucky.

Every little bit helps towards change and it is also a fact that I have been protecting myself. Already my children have suffered serious psychological issues and physical problems as a result of the stress, anguish and despair that they have had to ensure at different times. I have always had this fear that one of my children could fall into a depression and they could succumb to it and that one day they would come across the papers and documents that I have and see what was done to them and turn to me and say "Mum, why didn't you do something!". For sure they would have a case against me if I didn't do everything in my power to protect them.

At least I can say that I did everything that I possibly could.
Posted by Jolanda, Monday, 17 April 2006 10:11:34 AM
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I appreciate that it must be hard being a teacher ok? I for one would prefer to be a metal worker. But when you get these teachers who are on a power streak and want to bring you down when you are weak then what do you make of them. They are bastards. Nothing less. Mr Bland, Mr Blackman and that yobbo football playing turd Mr Cooper are prime examples. Then you get some nobby art teacher who doesn't like anything you come up with. Any wonder why kids are very bad today? You brought it on yourselves. Yeah I lived through the muck of the 70s and I would sue their asses if they were still alive.
Posted by yahpete, Tuesday, 11 July 2006 10:33:49 PM
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