Dear all

I am bemused by the hoo ha going on regarding the publishing of league tables which are all about school performance and how well they educate children.

The NSW teacher's union is only concerned with protecting its members and if NSW government secondary teachers are anything some of my former Victorian colleagues, then their primary interest is in covering up their un professionalism, their ineptitude and their bias

Parents have a right to know what is going in with the education of their children especially as teachers are so well paid and now demand merit based pay. How can you claim merit unless we know what is going on.

Sadly, there are secondary schools (plural) in Victoria where to pass any year all you need is 20%. The Department has been made aware of this fact and instead broken the whistleblower's act and attacked.

But I have worked with teachers who state - 'all this class is dumb', some stating so for classes of ethnic Australian kids due to their own inherent bias, and so do not even try to teach the kids as well as those children deserve.

To claim that poorer schools and poorer families will under perform and so we hide the truth means that we would not even try to help those kids to improve and thus condemn them and their families to eternal poverty and misery.

With broad band internet access and computers now being guaranteed by our federal government under PM Rudd and Deputy PM Gillard, students have access to a world library of information, a wealth of knowledge and the opportunity to do as well as almost any other.

The publication of these tables will force bad teaching practices out and shake up schools that do not try.

And I do not accept that some kids cannot be taught. I have taught tough kids and rough kids, and found that a professional teacher backed by their school will get through and achieve success. Our students and our communities expect no less.

 
Mr Ange Kenos
Ex secondary teache

When your son or daughter comes home from a job interview saying they didn't get the job because everyone knew they came from a lowly ranked school maybe then you will realise the damage this can do to our young people.
It will stigmatise children from certain schools and probably lead to them closing down and the loss of more local community education facilities.
Why not just privatise the school system and be done with it. Any student who doesn't perform up to the standards can go to bootcamp or gaol maybe.
What do you think will happen to the bottom ranked school each year? A party? A commendation? No it will be ridicule, witch hunts and shame heaped on the staff, the students and the parents. Good job school just what we go there for. A bit of ridicule, shame and disgrace

Added to school comparison tables should be a system to compare current student marks to the marks obtained by students in the past. There is some bench mark testing taking place, and those bench mark tests seem to indicate that on a national basis, student marks have declined over a number of decades (and the education system is going backwards, not forwards).

While school league tables may compare the marks obtained by the students in a school to a state average, the exercise has limited value if student marks across the state are actually declining.

The common excuse from many teachers that declining student marks are because of parents is rather a thin excuse, as who taught the parents?

Added to the now dismal academic record being achieved by the education system is the practice by many schools of importing nearly everything they purchase. This trains the students in the school to use imported items only, so as the students get dumber in time, they are also being trained to buy imported items only.

A double whammy for the Australian taxpayer.

RE Ange Kenos

Mr Kenos, your experience must have been painful.

My experience of the actions of teaching colleagues in a low-socio-economic environment is very different.

My colleagues, and I, believe that all students deserve the opportunity to learn. However, we also recognise that not all students will be provided, or will be able to access learning opportunities in an equitable manner.

These teachers are funding the education of their students by purchasing resources out of their own pockets, to the tune of thousands of dollars every year.

Both international, and national, research has determined that there is a strong link between socio-economic background and school performance.

Socio-economic background is not a DETERMINING factor for every student's learning development. However, socio-economic background is a strong INFLUENCING factor in that development.

There are many other factors at work in our schools:

Attitudes in the home, and peers' home, environment.

A nation-wide absence of funding to enrich school learning opportunities.

Integration of students with disability WITHOUT ADEQUATE LEVELS OF SUPPORT PERSONNEL AND FUNDING.

The declining attractiveness of teaching as a profession.

Behaviour in the community has set the background to inappropriate student behaviour in Schools.

Related high levels of teacher stress.

Teacher salaries that have not kept pace with other professions, across the country.

Teacher advancement opportunities are too few.

Issues over educational policy and teacher education.

The constancy of change.

The presence of league tables might appear to give parents the opportunity to choose a 'better' school, but the reality is different. Academic performance is only one factor in what makes a good school, albeit an important factor.

Such complex issues are not easily resolved by playing the blame game.

I believe that it is now time to stop allocating blame, and to work towards solutions from non-politically aligned positions.

Our students deserve the best from our school systems.

The present 'one-size-fits-all' model of education will not provide the best for all students.

Please, Mr Nelson, engage in a more appropriate process, alongside your colleagues, your political opponents, and State and Federal Government bodies, than the one outlined in your article.

Incompetence and corruption love the dark.

Which is the teacher's union trying to protect?

To claim that the league tables can't be published because there are lots of immeasurable factors that aren't included is suggest that the public are imbeciles. No one seriously believes that the table results will be the only factor or even the most important one that parents use to decide where to send their kids.

However, it is the one factor that is easily measured and can be published without risk of subjectivity.

The lame excuse that the poor performing schools will be victimised is pathetic. The failure of a school to educate the children under their care is a serious problem, and to sweep it under the carpet because someone's sensitive to criticism is shocking.

The under performing schools need to be reviewed for the causes, and incompetent teachers should be retrained or sacked rather than continue to damage their wards.

Shadow Minister

I notice that the issues of adequate funding for schools, and the socio-economic backgrounds of students do not appear on your radar.

Education and learning require both teaching and learning. Underprepared, inappropriate, and under-resourced, teaching will provide a reduced benefit to student learning.

Students, who by virtue of their background are not ready for learning, will not benefit as much as those who are ready for that learning.

I also notice that your solution for underperforming schools is to retrain or sack the teachers.

Given that there is an undersupply of teachers, especially in specialist areas like Maths and Science, do you foresee that the solution could be worse than the problem, as you see it?

Why is there an undersupply? Because Maths and Science graduates, among others, find other careers more attractive than one in which the salary structure, and the career opportunities are far fewer. Add to that the abuse that teachers receive from many students, some parents, and not-a-few politicians, and perhaps you can understand why graduates choose teaching over, other careers, in fewer numbers than ever before.

Would you also consider, as some Governments have in the past, that underperforming schools might benefit from an improved level of provision of both personnel and teaching and learning resources?

One-size-fits-all? The evidence would suggest otherwise.

I also find the comment, at the start of your response, an interesting one for a former Education Minister to make. As a teacher, I find the comment offensive, as you would if it were aimed at politicians.

Again I remind you that I believe that the debate would be better served by dealing with the complex issues, rather than laying the blame.

RJ,

Sorry for the delay in resonding, but I had already exceeded my 5 posts and being unwilling to let it lie, I had to create an alter ego.

For a teacher, you either completely misread my post or deliberately misinterpreted it.

All the issues such as funding comparisons, background etc etc these are all difficult to measure accurately (and as such difficult to publish) and simply just thrown up to try and muddy the water. As I said previously, Joe public is not stupid enough simply to assume that the rating table is the only issue.

However, the league tables are easily measureable benchmarks for the performance of the children, and in the absence of anything else they should be published. Other information can be included where available.

Also I did not say that retraining or sacking incompetent teachers was the only solution, but in response to the post by MIKK.

I said the causes of schools underperforming should be reviewed, and incompetent teachers retrained or sacked.

Finally Shadow Minister is a tongue in cheek name I chose, as I have neither the time nor patience for politics.

I have learnt from bitter experience the value of careful performance management including the need for measureable performance targets and the means and tools required to meet them. (i.e. teachers and funding)

There is a business saying that is universal: "you cannot control what you don't measure"

I confess that I find education speak baffling so I can easily miss the point.

If we compare high schools now would we find out:
what percentage of the cohort made it through to the end
how many students passed their final year assessment (however described)
compare how they did

This is pretty much what passes for comparison today, each year which schools top the results tables. Interesting it is mostly private schools which makes me wonder if they are better or just better at pressuring students and parents to accept that little Johnny is really as dumb as that proverbial box of hammers and should choose basket weaving and recreation studies to keep the averages up.

Interesting that here in the West I think the threat of measuring schools seems to have resulted in an argued dumbing down of courses so the schools can look better.

I speculate that one popular measure would surely be continuing professional development which would measure teachers credentials but not whether their better developed mental pecs were impacting on the student population.

Probably a worthwhile discussion - better effort than the reactionary work of The Abbott of Warringah : "Tony could do better but tends to be distracted by outmoded thoughts."

i have mixed feelings about league tables. but i don't appreciate lectures from someone who was such a godawful minister of education, as part of a government which reached the absolute depths of anti-intellectualism. nelson should just shut up and go away.

SM2, completely agree with you, could I add though.

When you say - There is a business saying that is universal: "you cannot control what you don't measure", we have a variation of that in the engineering world.

"you cannot improve what you cannot measure", it's why we strive to improve measurement skill and reporting endlessly, as it leads to greater innovation and productivity .. very relevant I would have thought.

Improving your processes is a great achievement, it might be painful at first, then everyone benefits. We all went through this with our ISO9000/9001 qualifications and there was much resistance in the industry, years later it is a minimum standard, which no one questions the value of.

We can't let the emotions of a selfish few rule the process of education, it's too big and important for that. Not "few" teachers, but few when comparing teachers to the rest of the community. It's only the teachers against this, I don't know of anyone else who supports them except through Union linkage / mutual support agreements.

I don't much like the Rudd government because of their reliance on spin, tricky wordsmithing and the blame game, but I wish Julia Gillard all the best in this endeavor. If push came to shove and my vote could turn the tables on this issue, she would have it.

There are better ways of getting improved educational results than populist media shocker jocking.The children at many disadvantaged schools will not do any better to have the reputations of their schools further degraded.

If you want better education outcomes,pay the more able teachers more money to teach there ,re-introduce discipline and respect.Get parents involved in the education of their children.If you listen to your children read,how can you not know that they are progressing satisfactorily?

Parents are the chief educators and their role must be integrated into the school system.If parents need meaningless statistics that can be manipulated to suit some biased agenda,then they are not doing the basic groundwork like talking to other parents and teachers at a particular school before they choose.

Good results at exams to not necessarily reflect good teaching.At selective schools children are self motivators and will learn no matter who teaches them.

Grading schools in a numerical order is just meaningless as grading the children in your own family.They all have different talents and abilities.This is a very devisive policy that is open to abuse by simplistic mono-rail thinkers.

SM2 "you cannot control what you don't measure"

Absolutely.

I once attended a number of P&C meetings of a major high school (1500 students). At each meeting the principal issued to the P&C their “Principal's Report”

Having been involved in developing a number of reporting systems in a number of companies, I thought the “Principal’s Report” fell somewhere between pathetic to disgraceful.

The statistics I immediately noticed missing from the report were any statistics relating to student safety. In every company I had been in, safety statistics were the foremost item on similar reports (including reports to the board of directors), and safety statistics were the first item read out to the workforce at toolbox meetings.

Other statistics such as school attendance records or statistics relating to student disciplinary issues were also missing. The academic statistics were dismally presented, and these statistics usually contained terms and acronyms that were totally esoteric and could only be understood by someone within the education system. No attempt was ever made by the principal to explain to the members of the P&C what their report actually meant.

I attribute this dismal failure by the school principal to satisfactorily report on anything of any consequence to the regional education inspectors, who are supposed to be maintaining some type of standards between the schools.

Because so many schools now have minimal accountability to the public, these schools have become totally stagnant with almost no innovation occurring in them. They import almost everything, and I personally have known teachers to say that importing an item such as an interactive whiteboard was “innovative”. So importing something with taxpayer funding is now termed innovation.

No wonder student marks across the country are progressively declining.

The sound of my wife, choking on her coffee caught my attention. I looked up in time to see the end of the new Queensland teachers union commercial. When she had regained her composure she, who is usually very kind, simply said, "they wouldn't like that".

She was, of course, talking about their claim that they want to be payed what they are worth. As a professional, working around, & with teachers for 18 years, she has some idea of what that is, & it does not require any increase in pay to achieve it.

I found the bit where they complain about their being the second lowest paid, in the country a bit strange. I would have thought that, being the second lowest achieving teachers in the country would be quite likely to attract just such a level of pay. Obviously our teachers have some other criteria on which they base their evaluation of their worth.

If they were to start to try to impress us with the superiority of their efforts, I'd be out there shouting for them, but while their union puts most of its effort into trying to hide the incompetent, & plain lazy amoung them, they loose my vote.

League tables may be a start, but to get some equity back into our schools requires q full blind marked, external exam, to rate students for matriculation & uni entrence. Not only would this be much fairer & transparent, It would give us a chance to get rid of the 10% of totally incompetent teachers hiding behind this lousy system, & union.

I had 2 kids who went through a large [1650 kids] near city high school. they were both serious students, wanting maths B, & C, & Physics for their future studdies.

The school had 2 year 12 classes, [52 kids] for physics, & 2 classes [46 kids] for maths C. Unfortunately the school had only one teacher capable [& qualified] to teach these subjects. Instead of having this bloke teach all the kids, in 2 sittings, so to speak, half of them copped, first a lady from the subcontinent, who could not have passed a grade 10 exam, then a nice asian lady, who although reasonably competent, spoke english so with such a heavy accent, that most of the kids could not understand a word she said.

It gets worse. The one master was a union delegate, &/or officer, & spent, the year we kept records, just under 15% of his time out of the school, on union business.

Most of those poor kids, the pick of their year academically, had no chance of getting a good OP. I felt really sorry for those kids whose parents did not have enough education themselves, to be able to see what was happening to their kids.

My kids only got there by spending every saturday at QUT, getting Physics & maths coaching. They had over 3 hours traveling, plus hours of saturday schooling, at more than a little expense, to make up for the incompetence of the teachers, & the sysyem.

At least with an outside exam we would soon see which so called teachers were useless, & perhaps get rid of them, before they ruin the chances of any more kids.

Hasbeen,
The teachers in QLD should not be getting any pay rise.

Recently the QLD state government gave every teacher a free laptop, and the teachers themselves made a choice of what programs to install on their free laptops.

They chose 28 programs, and all 28 programs came from the US.

Although the laptops were paid for by the QLD and Australian taxpayer, no QLD or Australian content was placed on the laptops.

If the teachers want a pay rise, they can get it from the US government, because they are more American than Australian (and the US education system isn’t all that tremendous either).

Vanna

I am not sure of the source of your information about teacher laptops and programs.

Laptops were allocated to Schools by Education Queensland [EQ], as part of the department's Computers for Teachers program. The integration of technology-based teaching and learning is a key component of EQ policy.

The laptops are loaned by Schools to teachers for School-related work.

While the teacher remains at a School, the teacher has use of the laptop.

When the teacher leaves the School, the laptop, and the data on the laptop remains at the School.

Access by a teacher to a laptop allows a teacher to be able to access "OneSchool", the Education Queensland database for student performance and behaviour, a valuable, but time-consuming, tool.

All reports of outstanding positive, and all inappropriate, behaviour is reported using OneSchool.

All academic reporting to parents is completed using OneSchool.

Access to a laptop also allows a teacher to use in-class data-projector presentations to provide information that is not available in textbooks.

Access to a laptop allows a teacher to search the Internet for the information, images and videos, required for the data-projector presentations, in order to provide more-up-to-date information. VERY time-consuming.

The benefit to the students is as great as, if not greater than, the benefit to the teachers.

Neither I, nor any of my teacher colleagues, were consulted in relation to the programs that were installed on the laptops. I can only assume that decision-making happened at a higher level.

My son met four Mr Chips in his public school experience. If I had the money I would have elected to send my son to a private school, but he objected when I could have got him a bursary because he was diabetic with specific learning difficulties, as he felt he would be socially rejected as I was a sole parent on a pension. And would be rejected by his social mates all public school students. Nor was he a sportsman of repute, although he tried. One can't win.

I don't think public schools cut the mustard in some ways, especially
with students who are not exactly considered disabled, but those on
the borderline with specific learning difficulties, ie. dyslexia.
But have an above average IQ? Or have chronic disabling diseases like
Type 1 diabetes that can present with emotional and concentration ups and downs. Took years to explain this to educationalists circa 1985 onwards. One bush school told me my son was intellectually challenged because he was tested in reading and numeracy, (age 6 yrs) while he was an undiagnosed dyslexic! And had an IQ of 60! Years later under supervision he gained 140 IQ. Too late then he thought himself 'dumb or dumber'.

I reckon Private schools say - You can do it, now stop pondering and
work for it! I'm sure some public schools do the same, but some of these small bush schools have no ambition for their students, and show it. And are socially prejudiced.

If your Dad is prominent in local society you'll do OK just, or you might not be favored unless you are absolutely fantastic at sport. But what happens later, eh! I was told by one teacher, I had to take a stick to my son, or he would end up in jail, because as a sole parent I couldn't hope to succeed bringing him up. That's just before
he was diagnosed as dyslexic. By then he was 11 years of age, been
diabetic since 2 1/2 years old. He still has a poor opinion of education services.

It would seem that the simple solution here is to quantify the downward slide in the motivation and intent to learn among young Australians and find a suitable set of shoulders to lay the burden on.

This may seem to be a rather grandiose comment but the intention is to remind the reader that the burden of a teacher is simply to educate a student, not to raise them. If a student enters the classroom with a predisposition which is opposed to the common schooling system then educating inevitably becomes re-educating. You can lead a horse to water etc...

Perhaps the greatest problem associated with the proposed school failure index is that it will undoubtedly lay most of the blame at the feet of teachers, a group who are without a doubt one of the most overworked and unappreciated in the country.

Teachers, despite the common perception, do not work short hours. It is not uncommon for teachers to work non-stop nine hours a day, five days a week; far more during assessment periods. When one adds an 'office' crammed with thirty or so teenagers to this equation the stress levels under which our teachers operate becomes clearer.

The simple fact is that if teachers were able to operate under ideal conditions, with all required facilities and a comprehensive behavior management and counseling system in place, then we would achieve the literacy, numeracy and teacher retention rates we desire. At present this is not the case

Perhaps if some of the funding that is to be directed towards this proposed failure indexation for schooling was redirected towards increasing available resources for both teachers and parents then the right of parents to choose a 'suitable' school would require nothing more then a bus timetable and Google Earth to be satisfied.

Sadly, until funding and staff support reaches equitable levels across the board the issue will remain the subject of politicking and blame gaming.

Willm,

While the general perception is that most teachers are hard working and competent, the perception by the general public is that for public schools:
- There is little to no accountability for the children,
- there is little accountability for performance for the teachers,
- the rules make it difficult for the teachers to do their jobs properly.

These are all easily fixable but require some review of the system which starts with actually openning to the public what is happening to their children.

RJohn
I enquired very high up regards the laptops going to the QLD teachers. I was told that only US software was being loaded onto the laptops, “because that is what the teachers wanted”.

I also enquired as to whether any teacher in the state had complained that no QLD or Australian content was being loaded onto the laptops, and the answer was “NO”

While the laptops were supposed to be for education, the software being loaded onto the laptops did not even include a dictionary or an encyclopedia.

It does appear that the only time teachers have any real interest in Australia, is when they want more money from the taxpayer.

But if they get more money to buy something, there is almost 100% guarantee that it will be spent on imports.

Have a look around your school, and try and find a “Made in Australia” sticker.

Vanna

Thank you for your response. I would be very interested to know how the "very high up" person/persons discovered “because that is what the teachers wanted”, as I am not aware of teachers' being asked.

I would also be interested to know what process was provided to seek out feed-back on the range of soft-ware provided.

Most of my colleagues use only the elements of Microsoft Office in their daily work, and, of course, OneSchool.

If OneSchool is not Australian-origin, you would need to take that issue up with Education Queensland, as EQ arranged the development of the database that is the core of the programme.

It is my understanding that EQ provides ON-LINE access to a dictionary and an encyclopedia. These days software that can be accessed on-line, when needed, is not loaded on to the hard-drive of a laptop to allow more space for document storage, with a backup on School and EQ servers. Laptop hard drives fill up quickly with teacher-developed PowerPoint presentations.

As you acknowledge, it is not easy to purchase "Made in Australia" in the educational, and electronics, fields, apart from the purchase and replacement of textbooks that consume much of a School's educational budget. Most textbooks are Made in Australia.

School Administration teams work hard to get the best value for the dollar for students, when purchasing equipment. Decisions are usually made to stretch out the available funding to the greatest benefit for students. The end result is that "Made in Australia" is often not a priority.

I agree with you that this is a sad outcome.

But then, look around people's homes. Made in Australia does not feature often on electronic items, including computers.

RJohn,
Here is the list of the US software loaded onto the laptops going to the teachers in QLD schools. You can follow the links to find the people responsible.

http://learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=36699

Nearly 30,000 laptops have now been delivered, and you yourself can enquire as to whether any teacher anywhere in the state has complained that no QLD or Australian content has been loaded onto the laptops (which were paid for by the QLD and Australian public).

For the education system to be sustainable, the education system has to be generating sufficient wealth inside the country to run the education system. That is not being done by the education system, and the education system seems to be operating on the concept that it imports everything it can possibly import with taxpayer funding, in the hope that one day, somehow, it will produce a student smart enough to export something.

Teachers can always apply to Microsoft for a pay rise, as Microsoft must love Australian teachers.

In terms of educational software, I can supply a link to some QLD produced science educational software that is now one of the highest rate science programs by the CNET media network in the US. The CNET media network includes CBS, CNN, the New York times, Tech republic, Download.Com and Z.net. However the teachers in this country won’t even look at that QLD produced educational software because it hasn’t been imported.

In terms of measuring and reporting, I once talked to a group of teachers about the concept of “Zero Injuries and Zero waste” for their school. They were all keen, until I mentioned that they would have to carry out regular audits and carry of quite intensive risk assessments on anything they purchased so as to reduce waste and eliminate hazards. Then they suddenly lost all interest.

Once they learnt that they had to change what they were currently doing, they immediately became comfortable with the waste and the injuries they currently had.

I believe it is exactly the same with teaching practices and student marks.

Thank you Vanna

I would be most interested to learn about your "QLD produced science educational software", as I am not aware of much broad-based science-curriculum software, and any software is worth evaluation.

I am not sure how I would get my School to authorise purchase of your software when "it hasn’t been imported", but, if the software meets a need, I will work on it.

I am not sure that I understand your comment, "For the education system to be sustainable, the education system has to be generating sufficient wealth inside the country to run the education system." Didn't every working Australian go to School, before they contributed to the economy of the country?

It's interesting that, when Australia was a booming economy, education did not receive a proportionate boost in funding. Now that Australia is in recession, we are receiving a boost in infrastructure funding to help maintain the economy, and overcome the lack from the boom years.

I read the list of software on school laptops. The list reads like the list of software that is on ALL computers at the point of purchase - and not specifically teacher-requested software.

Departmental requirements for the maintenance of "regular audits" and "quite intensive risk assessments" are justifiably time-intensive. When these tasks fall on teachers, as they tend to do, they become another burden in an ever-growing list of demands on teacher time.

Often, valuable programs fall by the wayside, because teachers, putting in between 60 and 70 hours a week, [on average based on a state-wide survey of teachers], would have to remove another valuable program from their teaching tasks in order to adopt the new program, or to reduce precious family time with unacceptable consequences.

Resistance to new programs is often seen as resistance to change.

Resistance to new programs is usually resistance to another time-demand, with an unproven benefit, in an increasingly time-intensive and stressful workplace.

I would ask you to read again my first comments [Page 1] in relation to teachers and the one-size-fits-all approach to educational policy in Australia, especially in schools in low-socio-economic areas.

Shadow Minister,

Insofar as your comments on the accountability of the education system is concerned I find I must, in a sense, agree.

When you say that there is no accountability for the children I find myself asking who the children should be accountable to. I would assume that you are not asking students to be accountable to the taxpayers whom foot the bill for education. It seems quite apparent that the children are not to be held accountable to their teachers. To me this only leaves their parents, and taking parents to task over their childrens poor performance in school is undoubtedly a slippery slope; I do not foresee any sitting politician wishing to tackle an issue like the relative merits of methods of child rearing with regard to an issue as sensitive as education.

With regard to the accountability and performance of teachers, the nature of the system at present is probably the greatest factor contributing to the almost total lack of reliable information.

A teacher receives one out of a required five items of assessment from a student, one would expect the student to be given a total of twenty percent of the available marks for the subject. In a case like this it is not unheard of, in fact it is quite common, for a teacher to be instructed by the schools administration faculty to grade the student on the strength of that one submitted assessment to ensure that the schools marks are not sullied by failures.

This can result in students who have done no work receiving marks equal to those who have worked diligently to gain marks required for university courses. I have witnessed the disillusioning and demoralizing impact practices like this have on teachers, particularly those new to the profession. To see a student who has shown no desire to progress given a mark on par with students the teachers have worked with undermines the concept of teacher job satisfaction utterly.

RJohn,
In relation to a sustainable education system: - Companies have to earn a profit to pay tax to governments. Governments then spend some of this tax money on education. If businesses don’t make sufficient profits, then governments receive less money to spend on education.

If education systems do not generate sufficient wealth inside the country, then education systems become uneconomic and non-sustainable. So by asking for more money from “government”, the education system is actually asking the public to earn more money so that they can pay more tax.

For every dollar spent on imports by the education system, the public have to export more or there is an increase the trade deficit.

Computers in schools are an example. For every dollar spent by the education system on imported computer hardware and software, Australian industry has to export more or there is an increase in the trade deficit.

It is easy to spend taxpayer’s money on imports, it is not easy to export more.

Instead of nearly every item inside a classroom being imported, nearly every item inside a classroom should be Australian made, as this would encourage students to produce more, and not just import and increase the trade deficit.

In relation to teachers not wanting to do risk assessments or proper reporting, they will ultimately be falling further and further behind (the rest of the country and the rest of the world). Without proper risk assessments and proper reporting, the teachers will not be solving problems, but instead they will be spending their time coping with current problems that are never being solved.

In relation to the QLD produced science freeware on CNET:-

http://download.cnet.com/Calculator-for-Science-Students/3000-2054_4-10893276.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

http://download.cnet.com/Science-Data-Reference-System/3000-2054_4-10895955.html?tag=mncol

CNET staff gave both QLD produced science freeware programs a rating of 4 1/2 stars out of 5, making them one of the highest science educational programs ever rated by the CNET media network that now spans the world. It is ironic that the biggest media network in the US gave the QLD produced educational freeware such a high rating, when the education system in QLD will only use US software.

Will.m

When I said that kids are not held accountable, I meant that they were not held accountable for their own actions.

A friend of mine whose son had been at a public school and under achieving sent his son to a private school where his results improved dramatically. One comment of his was particularily telling when he said in surprise "at --- it's not cool not to do your homework" and he suddenly found that his peers measured him by how hard he worked and so he did.

Private schools have the luxury of choosing whom they will educate and whom they will exclude. This avenue is simply unavailable in state schools. As far as holding students accountable is concerned; the only true measure of this is the assessment made of their progress by their teachers and the schools administration.

Enacting an indexation system based on students results which has the potential to effect a teachers pay and job security would undermine any attempt to accurately measure student progress. If teachers and administrative staff had a vested interest in the results achieved by their students then the potential for corruption of the marking system would skyrocket.

Ultimately the accountability of students lies with their parents. This again raises the question of wider social and economic factors which impact on the growth of the student in their formative years. Schools in general seem to bear the brunt of blame allocated for social dysfunctions or academic inabilities which are more often then not a preexisting condition not relative to the environment in which they are educated.

Vanna

Thank you for the link to the software.

I thought that I would purchase the software from Dot Point Learning Systems, an Australian company.

On the Australian website, I discovered that the software can be purchased at a very reasonable price, in American dollars and Euros - but not Australian dollars.

A quick glance over the software suggests that, rather than being a learning resource, the software is an information resource, set out in tables. The information available is extensive. Some is suited to secondary School, with higher level information better suited to a tertiary environment.

will.m

I understand your angst at having to provide a rating for students who have not completed the core curriculum learning material in a unit, and have not submitted the assessment items required to demonstrate that they have attained the core skills and knowledge.

I gain the impression that "Not Rated" is no longer an acceptable result for students who do not complete any core learning in a subject.

I too have been told, that students ought to be assessed on work that they have submitted, without being penalised for uncompleted assessment.

I believe that there is strong evidence for departmental support of these practices, in public Secondary Schools, Years 7/8 to 10, around Australia. External moderation of Year 11 and 12 subjects discourages the practice from Senior Schools, except in significant extenuating circumstances.

Bush Bunny

Yours is a truly distressing story.

Regrettably, classroom teachers do not have the diagnostic skills of specially trained and experienced support personnel, nor do they have their detailed knowledge of the many types of learning difficulty and disability.

Where the option of referring a student for assessment to the specially trained support personnel is not available, students fail to gain the learning support that they need.

Sadly, some teachers fail to recognise learning difficulties because of their own lack of experience.

Teachers, and their unions across the country, have complained about, and campaigned for, issues surrounding availability of diagnosis, referral, support personnel, and support programs, for students with learning difficulties and disabilities.

We can always do better.

Will.m,

Most private schools have feeder junior schools, and as a result cannot be selective for the majority of their students. The scholarships offered are for a few percent. However, the parents of the children generally are making a sacrifice, and are more interested than most on their child's performance.

In countries where indexing was used, what was often found were that there were schools in poor areas with limited funding that did exceedingly well, and those in better areas that did poorly. This enabled the teachers in the well performing schools to be rewarded, and the poorly performing schools to be reorganised / retrained.

As the results were externally audited, with controls, bias was mostly ruled out.

The main benefactors were the children, whom I thought were the main focus of the schooling.

RJohn
You are saying that there needs to be specialty teachers to diagnose learning difficulties, while in QLD there is now talk of having specialty teachers to teach science to primary school students.

This brings into question what are teachers themselves being taught in teacher’s colleges? After 3-4 years of college, a teacher still cannot diagnose a learning difficulty or even teach primary school science (which is very fundamental).

Apart from asking for a pay rise or spending as much taxpayer funding as possible on imports, what else can they do.

Vanna

A teacher can recognise that a student is having difficulty learning.

The reasons for the learning difficulty could be many and varied.

Education authorities, across the world, set processes for referral of students with potential learning difficulties to specialists [teaching and medical] for diagnosis of the reasons for, and the nature of, the learning difficulty.

These same education authorities set processes for documentation, and official "recognition", of a student's learning difficulty, and the possible allocation of resources to support that student.

Sadly, these processes can take from 6 months to 2 years, and do not always result in support for the teacher or student, because of financial restraints.

During the process, teachers make, and document, observations, and seek supporting documentary information, that will assist the specialists in their diagnosis.

At the same time as preparing learning materials and strategies for another 25+ students, the teacher would normally prepare a different range of learning materials and strategies for the student with learning difficulties.

In many Schools in my area, it is unlikely that a teacher would have only one student with learning difficulties in a class.

I have had a minimum of 5 students, and up to 15 students, with learning difficulties or learning disability, in my "normal" classes of around 25 students, for the past 7 years.

Having a teacher diagnose a learning difficulty would be like having the Triage Nurse in a hospital diagnose a patient's condition on arrival. The Triage Nurse gathers information and observations that are rightly passed on to the Doctor for further observation, assessment and diagnosis.

I would not like to have my medical condition diagnosed by a Triage Nurse, even if that Nurse made valuable observations that assisted the Doctor to make the final diagnosis, and direct appropriate treatment.

Similarly, I refer students to specialists for diagnosis of learning difficulties and disabilities, after making, and documenting, my initial observations.

RJohn
By having to call in a specialist teacher, the normal class teacher is now de-skilling. Similarly, by having to use a special teacher to teach science, the normal class teacher is also de-skilling, yet teachers want more money.

As was mentioned in earlier posts, nothing improves without it being measured.

I have seen reports prepared within a school that showed that the marks obtained by a student in the first semester exams of grade 8 were the type of marks obtained by that student in grade 12. If the student received mainly C’s in grade 8, they mainly received C’s in grade 12.

A good school should be able to gradually lift a student’s marks as they progress through the grades, so if the student received C’s in grade 8, a good school should be able to lift their marks to B’s (at least) by grade 12.

That would be a good school, and that is the type of school parents want to know about.

That is the type of school teachers should want to know about also, but neither the parents or teachers will know about it if nothing is properly measured and reported on.

Did you also see the list of calculators on the largest French site on the Internet (30 million hits per month). That site lists 170 calculators from all parts of the world, and a freeware calculator designed in QLD for students is at the top of that list.

http://www.01net.com/telecharger/windows/Bureautique/calculatrice/

Of course the QLD education system would never use it, because it hasn’t been imported at taxpayer’s expense from the US.

One of the obvious benefits of having schools assessed and ranked would be to identify those that needed help.

(You would at the same time, of course, need to commit to providing such help.)

An acquaintance of mine in the UK is an ex-Head Teacher, whose job was to trouble-shoot schools deemed to be "failing". This involved temporarily standing down the incumbent Head for a minimum of a full term, and running the school for a period to determine where the key problem areas lay.

The report at the end of the period formed the basis of an action plan to increase performance. Staff, facilities, support services, all were examined - not by a bureaucrat with a clipboard, but a fully-functioning and highly experienced Head Teacher.

From the few before-and-after reports I have seen, it was quite effective.

There is always suspicion, where measurements are concerned, that they will be used adversarially. This doesn't need to be the case.

Sweden, for example, recently tackled the vexed question of their hospital waiting lists, by reversing the interpretation of the data involved.

They had...

"...tried and failed to cut queues by increasing direct funding for hospitals and even issued an edict requiring hospitals to cut queues for elective operations to three months. Then, last year, the health ministry said it would create a fund into which it would pay SKr1 billion ($128m) a year for local authorities that managed to reduce waiting times to that threshold. Nine months ago virtually none of the counties passed, but this month the health minister revealed that nearly all had cut their queues to three months or less." The Economist June 25th 2009

The measurement - length of waiting list - didn't change. But the authorities' response to it, did.

"In the past... hospital bosses believed waiting lists were a sign of being overloaded, so they tolerated them in the hope of winning more funding. With the new scheme, however, 'no queues means more resources'”. ibid.

They might get the support needed if the perception of school ranking tables could be turned from "failure" to "opportunity".

Pericles

A non-adversarial, consultative approach seems to be more desirable than the currently-proposed approach, which has strong potential to degrade communities, Schools and teachers, rather than promote the cause of learning.

The idea of a truly-independent peer Principal assessment has a degree of potential to provide some desirable outcomes.

There is always the risk of School, community, Departmental and Government "politics" influencing the outcomes.

Depending on the person who performs such an evaluation, and any agenda that might be "provided" for them, the evaluation by a peer Principal, in the manner suggested, could help recognise the significant issues that need to be addressed in a School in a particular community.

It would be essential that the peer Principal had the opportunity to recognise any resource issues that needed to be redressed, and community issues that were beyond a School's reach.

It would also be important to the success of any such scheme that any recommendations received timely, appropriate responses at Government level.

Education Departments across Australia currently run regular, consultative, external, independent reviews of Schools that involve peer Principals and Departmental staff interacting with School staff, students and the wider community, although not in the manner suggested.

On your other point, it could be quite revealing to know exactly HOW the hospitals achieved the reduced waiting lists.

Vanna

Externally moderated assessment is the norm used by Education Departments across Australia to determine student achievement levels at Senior levels of schooling.

The nature of managing and moderating these levels prevents ALL students from achieving higher grades as they progress through a School, or ALL Schools.

If ALL students in a School, or ALL Schools, improve their raw scores across a subject, or ALL subjects, then the grading level [what you have defined as A, B, C] is influenced through the State-wide moderation process, using statistical measures.

The end result is that across the State the percentage of students who achieve at a particular grading level remains statistically consistent from year to year, with minor variations.

However, it is true that some students will progress, and increase their grades, as a result of the interaction between student learning and teacher instruction.

Research has shown that the teacher-student relationship is one of the most important factors in developing a positive interaction between student learning and teacher instruction, resulting in improved motivation and student learning.

RJohn,
If there is a state average, then of course there needs to be benchmark tests to determine if the state average is actually increasing over time or declining.

By various accounts, student marks have declined over the past 20 years.

However, if there is a state average, then a school can say “We will lift the marks of our students by x% as compared to the state average” (and not “Maybe” or “Would like to”).

Once a school says that they “Will” lift the student marks, and they actually do, then that is the school to focus on.

But I have a proposition for you.

Why not say to your class next week, “Class, at the end of the year we are going to carry out a class project. As a class, we are going to develop something that you can give to the students next year that will help them achieve better results”.

The class can then be left to think about it.

Then, at the end of the year, the students themselves develop something that they believe will enable next year’s students undertaking the same subject to achieve better results.

As a side issue, it will also be teaching the students to make something or produce something, and not just import everything from another country at the expense of the taxpayer.

I had to read through your response a couple of times with my jargon-eliminator, RJohn, to work out whether or not you were agreeing with the system I was describing.

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure.

But one thing I did notice was that you managed to avoid the topic, which is "could league tables be useful".

Of course it matters how you use the information.

Of course there might be "agendas" at work.

Of course statistics might be maliciously manipulated by those people with those agendas.

Of course there might be politicking at "School, community, Departmental and Government" levels. There always is.

Of course the quality of findings depends on the quality of the evaluator.

>>It would be essential that the peer Principal had the opportunity to recognise any resource issues that needed to be redressed, and community issues that were beyond a School's reach. It would also be important to the success of any such scheme that any recommendations received timely, appropriate responses at Government level.<<

As I tried to point out, in my jargon-free way, "Staff, facilities, support services, all were examined" and "You would at the same time, of course, need to commit to providing such help".

I suspect that you might just be defending the status quo...

>>Education Departments across Australia currently run regular, consultative, external, independent reviews of Schools that involve peer Principals and Departmental staff interacting with School staff, students and the wider community,<<

... on the basis that doing nothing is far easier than working through a few problems.

You come across as a person who is fundamentally fearful of any form of assessment. You'd far prefer simply to list all the system's ills, blame them all on lack of funds, and shrug your shoulders when no-one comes running to throw money at you.

Pericles
“You come across as a person who is fundamentally fearful of any form of assessment. You'd far prefer simply to list all the system's ills, blame them all on lack of funds, and shrug your shoulders when no-one comes running to throw money at you.”

I totally agree. I know quite a few teachers and every single one of them thinks along these lines.

They say that student marks will not improve unless teachers are given more money.

Time after time I have seen how teachers and school principals spend the taxpayer money they are given, and no government should be handing out any more taxpayer money to teachers or to schools until student marks actually improve.

The teachers and schools gets more taxpayer money after they improve student marks, not before.

RJohn,
If you are interested, the type of thing that current students could develop that would be useful for new students could include:-

-The students could develop a set of flash cards that new students could use to learn key terms and equations.
-The students could go through the books in the school library and write out a list of books that they would recommend for new students.
- The students could write out tips on how to do assignments and exams in that subject, or how to study for that subject.
-The students could develop some educational software that new students could use.

The list is rather endless really, and I think that by getting current students to develop something useful for new students would eventually get all students interested in learning.

It would help stop the gradual decline in student marks that is occurring across the country, and it would to stimulate initiative and innovation in students.

It is what the country needs, and the students may not become like their teachers, who produce nothing except demands for more pay, and believe that innovation and initiative involves getting more and more taxpayer money, and then spending every single cent of that money on imports from another country.

Pericles

One reason for my participation, in this blog, is the lack of knowledge of educational systems that has been, at times, displayed in the interactions. My comment is a general one, not directed towards you.

In response to your assessment of myself, I wish to say that, as a teacher within a State School in Australia, I am restricted from making public criticism of my employer, the State Government, and all its agencies.

I find your peer-assessment idea attractive, subject to the qualifications that I mentioned, as you have noted in your response.

Given that School peer-based assessment already occurs, how can we find a way around those qualifications to obtain a useful result?

In this day and age, there are many factors at play in the provision of teaching and learning in Schools.

I would like to see greater improvement in the manner in which all Schools, and their teachers, provide for the needs of their students.

In order to improve, one component of the process must be assessment of all factors relating to the provision of teaching and learning.

As a teacher, I constantly use assessment to assist the development of the students who sit in my classes.

I regularly evaluate the effectiveness of my assessment, and strive to increase its validity.

I work to ensure that my assessment evaluation is passed on to care-givers, and to other people, who can use that evaluation in an effective manner for the benefit of each student.

I am obliged, by my duty of care, to restrict access to that information from those who might use it in a manner that could have a negative impact on the student.

In this regard, I find myself no different from my teaching colleagues.

My concerns with "league-tables" relate to the factors of validity, effectiveness, the manner of dispersement of information, and the issue of content without context.

For the sake of the students, should we do nothing? No.

If we can find a way to bring benefit to students from the current national assessment programs, let's do it, and do it well.

Vanna

I have seen students, every year that I have been teaching, produce resources both digital and physical, that have been used by students over the following years.

I have seen some highly creative work produced by students.

Given the varied options that are available to allow students to participate in their own learning, I have seen work from students that has impressed me with its content and creativity.

My teaching colleagues have also made similar statements.

As teachers, we do not want students to be like us.

Rather teachers want, and work to encourage, students to develop to the maximum of their own unique potential.

Statisticians would tell us that it is important not to draw conclusions from a small sample.

Every year, teachers, that I know, spend thousands of dollars from their own salary to produce resources for student learning, that are not available in the Schools where they teach.

I do not expect that all teachers do this, because their personal situations may limit this level of provision. These teachers make their provision in other ways.

Reading some of these posts, I am waiting for that dreadful next step of suggesting that we should consider talking with our students to gauge their views. Such practices cannot be allowed to take place if we are to maintain our power and simplicity, mediocrity and a lack of progress are to be maintained. The educated have no right to be consulted, just as many a principal never really consults with teachers about school policies, programs, renovations to school buildings...

RJohn,
I would agree that there are students that show initiative and innovation. It is the teachers and the education system that are the problems, and I believe that there are teachers who are doing everything they can possibly do to kill initiative and innovation amongst students.

I have a relative who has been to 3 schools (4 counting pre-school) and every piece of software they have been given to use by a school has been imported, with nothing from Australia.

I have known a senior science teacher who does not use anything from Australia. Everything they use to teach science, from laboratory equipment through to software, has been imported from another country.

So much for innovation and initiative from teachers.

I also am a member of a teachers group (QSITE) and I was a member of a P&C until I resigned because of the reluctance of the school to develop even the most basic risk management systems. I receive 2 sets of educational magazines and several sets of email newsletters and I have never heard of a teacher running a class project to develop something that would be useful for the students next year.

The students might do this of their own accord, but I have never heard of a teacher doing it as a formal class project.

As far as too little money going to the education system, I have known of a major high school that was offered large government grants, but knocked them back.

The reason: -The school had purchased so much already (and for a teacher "purchasing" basically means importing as much as possible from another country at taxpayer’s expense) , that they had run out of storage room. They couldn’t fit anything more into the school, and they had begun to realise that the more they purchase (or import) they greater their ongoing maintenance costs for everything they have purchased (or imported).

Teachers and schools should not be given a single cent more until student marks increase. After student marks increase, then the teachers and the schools are given more money.