I dont think that withdrawing funding from non-performing schools is much of an answer. Surely even governments and the teachers union are smart enough to realise that. Results should be made public, but only after further analysis about the why. Reasons for low performance are normally multi-faceted, and can include low attendance rates, poor homework assistance, poor teacher quality, high teacher turnover and school and community attitudes towards long-term usefullnes of what is being taught. Instead of coercing new graduate teachers into rural and remote areas straight out of uni, why not utilise a training system whereby they are allowed to teach at the top performing schools for 2 years, then as part of the agreement they then have to teach at less desirable schools for say 4-5 years. Give them a chance to get some experience working with teachers that are performing and give them some contacts to help mentor them in their quest to improve the performances of less well-off schools during their years there. If you are wondering how this might be done, how about linking private school funding with those same schools providing the training grounds for these teachers destined for our poorer schools. The public might have less resistance against public funds for private schools if the public schools were getting something in return.

Reducing teacher turnover at these low performing schools is another battle in itself, which can probably only be affected by overall investment in rural Australia. Target infrastructure development to attract businesses, and reform the tax system to create financial incentives for individuals who are prepared to live and work in these areas. By building the size, facilities and job opportunities within these communities we will mke them a more attractive place to live and work for all people, including teachers.

It is not true of Victoria to say that, “Our Departments of Education allow their concern about the stigma that might be attached to schools and students labelled as failing to override parents’ right to know how their child’s school is performing.” Each school annual report contains detailed results on student achievement.

It is not more testing that will improve schools, but the rebuilding of teaching as a profession. In particular, school systems need to undo the huge pay cuts of the last three decades, reward the best teachers (not through so-called performance pay), reverse the staffing cuts of the last 25 years, remove short-term contracts as the major method of employing new teachers, restore permanent promotion positions, restore professional teaching conditions and re-instate the professional judgement of teachers to the centre of each school’s decision-making. In essence, our school systems need to reverse the measures taken over the last 30 years at the behest of the economic rationalists for it seems that the claimed fall in standards has followed the adoption of the sort of proposals that they wish us to endure more of.

Can I make my usual plea for these kinds of discussions to take into account the ways in which education is distributed inter-generationally in families and communities, including by parents as volunteers?

I live in the ACT, which is supposed to have the country's best public school system. The system is apparently not good enough, however, for the children of the territory's relatively well-educated population - ACT residents migrate in larger numbers every year to the private system. Not only does this migration deprive remaining students of the opportunity to grow up in the company of people with wealth whose parents value education (which we know are strong predictors of their future 'success'), but it also deprives the school of the energy and initiative of wealthier and better-educated parents.

Our local primary school relies on parent volunteers to help teach kids who might otherwise have Cape York-level literacy standards to read. These kids exist everywhere - they're just less visible in the cities. School-based volunteers are often remedying a deficit caused by a lack of time, commitment or education sufficient to help kids learn to read at home - the same kind of problem that you find in many remote 'communities'. Because of the long neglect of education in Cape York, and the area's relatively small population, there probably aren't enough well-educated adults to do this important volunteer work. If volunteers are needed to make the public school system work in one of Australia's most affluent cities, it seems unlikely that it can be made to work without them in these disadvantaged enclaves.

Perhaps the time wasted in religious indoctrination should be re-allocated into literacy and numeracy classes. It seems to me that many educational expectations are logically inconsistent. How can anyone expect that children who are fed illogical rubbish as truth on the one hand via the various 'churches' competing for their 'souls' (and their eventual earnings in the secular world) be expected to momentarily 'unlearn' illogicality and apply logical thinking elsewhere? By allowing religious indoctrination in the schools we are helping to defeat the very purpose of education itself.
As to publishing performance statistics - forget it. There is no way that church schools will allow it to happen, and regretfully, they have the political numbers. Such a move would invite far too much scrutiny of what actually goes on. For example, how many more Marist priests would be caught out in the crime of child molestation? Our education system is (shameful as it may be) to a large extent aimed more towards psychological exploitation of children than towards creating a love of learning.

Why does the education minister and the Centre for Independent Studies want to test all students for literacy and numeracy and publish the results? Is it to apply additional funding for remedial reading and writing or is it to punish poor performing schools and ultimately the communities which they serve.

I can see why the NSW Education Department doesn't want to publish results like Mt Druitt's 1996 HSC results where no student got a TER over 50%.
Why does the Federal government want to bludgeon the NSW Education department over that result?
The NSW Education department has kept the kids occupied at school and off the unemployment numbers.
TER is a Tertiary Entrance Rank, it doesn't say a student failed to attain a pass standard it says that the student was ranked below the median performance for that age cohort.

If I was a Mt Druitt parent I would try to find an apprenticeship for my hands on kids and shift the academically inclined kids to another school.

You cannot control what you do not measure. The major difference between public and private schools is accountability of teachers, students, and management. This is the main reason why even low fee independant schools achieve much better results than equivalent public schools and why there is an exodus to, and huge waiting lists at private schools.

Corruption and incompetence florish in the dark and is the only result of keeping these figures confidential.