A method of evaluating schools is to determine if student marks in a school are on average improving as the students in that school pass through their grades. I have seen evidence from a school to show that the marks being achieved by students in Grade 8 were almost identical to the marks being achieved by students in Grade 12. This was happening year after year for decades.

This was excused by the school by saying that “there will always be students achieving low marks”, but a good school (and not a lazy school) would isolate what problems each student was having, work on those problems, improve the marks for each student, and eventually improve all students.

The idea that schools should be continuously given more and more public money would need to be justified, and schools should become much more accountable in how they spend that public money, particularly when nearly everything purchased by schools is now imported, and this is everything from sporting equipment right through to computers

Schools should not be allowed to spend more and more of taxpayer funding on imported items with no accountability shown.

“In study after study, good teaching has emerged as the principal determinant of high performance. …It is achieved by attention to recruitment and training, by valuing teachers… and by “relational trust”, building relationships between community, school, teachers and students.”

A recent newspaper report about the lack of Maths specific trained teachers in Qld and the quote above reminded me of my teaching experiences in the Qld state school system.

Every Maths department in every state school in which I taught followed this structure:
• a HOD who had been appointed at a relatively early stage of their teaching career and had held that position for a number of years
• one or two teachers who assumed the role of the HOD’s deputies
• a core of teachers generally with 5 or more years of service and
• a number of teachers in their first or second year of teaching.

The HOD and deputies shared the bulk of the “good” classes – senior Maths B and C classes along with the top streamed classes from Years 8-10.

The second group of teachers shared the senior Maths A and “better” streamed classes from Years 8-10.

The third group of teachers shared the remaining students who were often challenging, unmotivated and described themselves as being in the “dumb” classes.

The idea was that the beginning teachers would soon realise that unless their moved on then all they could expect was more of the same. Most did and a fresh crop of bunnies would arrive at the start of the next year.

Strangely, about 15 years ago less and less bunnies arrived and those that did not only left sooner but left the teaching profession altogether.

The collective effect of this HOD-centric model over the last 20 years has irreversibly damaged state schools and the status of Maths and Maths teachers.

Sorry I was in a hurry, it should read:
The idea was that the beginning teachers would soon realise that unless they moved on then all they could expect was more of the same.

This reminds me of that part in Freakonomics where the teachers are caught out cheating. Be careful where your incentives lead...

The NSW D of E runs its own League Tables which measure academic achievements and changes in student outcomes based on the socio-economic level of the schools catchment. ie schools are already rated against each other within SE groups. Despite the dangers there are no good reasons why 'guvment' should hide this info. Despite the mad dog press, this data belongs in the public domain on FOI grounds alone.

Socio-economic levels are the biggest single factor in outcomes. The government does spend a hell of a lot of money trying to compensate for this factor. But nothing can fully substitute for a supportive and capable home environment.

Creating an environment of ongoing professional learning is crucial to improved educational standards, and shifting the TU's defensiveness has been crucial.

Getting rid of ineffective teachers remains a problem. The levels of protection afforded the incompetent and the ignorant are laughable. A teacher who doesn't 'get it' or who just doesn't care can survive for decades behind layers of union and departmental protection.

Since the Dept. already collects data into Tables they should publish it, and then fight the good fight.

The publication of official league tables would at least prevent the media from picking and choosing information to create their own, with rather warped representations of schools. Every year, QLD newspapers publish details of which schools had how many OP1s. They seldom mention the numbers of students who achieve high level vocational qualifications; they also seem to forget to mention the distribution of OP25s. While it is a bit of a reach to suggest that media sources deliberately misrepresent schools, it is certainly true that, with the limited information presented to them, they DO misrepresent schools. Perhaps a league table that presents ALL the information may set the record straight.