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.