I am personally aware of a parent who has had 3 children taught by the same teacher. Each child has been given the same assignments and the same homework.

The teacher has not changed anything from one year to the next, and if a student was not doing well, "so what".

League tables may help to change that.

Schools and universities purchase almost nothing from Australian companies, and give the public very little information.

There is almost no connection left between the Australian education system and the rest of Australia.

Either the schools start and provide some decent information to the Australian public, or they cease to refer to themselves as being Australian.

The sloppiest thinking of all is to think of students in collectives such as schools. According to this view, it is the poor governmental bureaucracy that is 'disadvantaged'; the students compelled to attend it are merely its chattels or assets on the basis of which it receives funding.

The purpose of education is to fulfil the potential of the individual student. Anyone who thinks this is best acheived through a gigantic government department, in league with a left-wing union, based on compulsory contributions, compulsory attendance, compulsory curriculum and compulsory accreditation, is dreaming. It is in fact a paradise for vested interests, such as the comfortable socialist academic author, who has not the slightest direct interest in a successful outcome for a given student. And fighting to keep it that way!

The only real failure of the league tables is that after being published for years and pointedly identifying the poor performing schools, the state department of education and teachers union have chosen to do nothing constructive.

What they are trying to do is shoot the messenger, and hush it up.

I thought we were living in a democracy?

League tables are a failure because they make a complex problem unrealistically simplistic. The underlying assumption is that schools are the critical difference between a successful education and a poor one. I have taught in a large number of schools and have learnt from that experience that schools play only a small part in a student's success. Factors such as whether or not parents can afford private tutoring, the education of the parents, the amount of reading the students has been exposed to before starting school, the amount of books in the house, parents income, nutrition....the list is almost infinite.
The only real value of league tables lies in guiding policy makers in their allocation of scarce resources - yet they are rarely used for this one purpose.

Thanks for that Baygon, some real truth in your important point. "Whether the parents can afford private tutoring", is the real fact.

I thought that's was what we paid teachers for.

Now get out the violin, & play the one about large classes. Before you do, remember some of us went to school with classes of well over 40, & often 50 kids. Strange isn't it that we were getting over 90% in external exams, in senior physics, & maths, in such classes, with out coaching.

This was before the syllabus was dummed down to be more girl friendly. Are you telling me that the current crop of teachers are less competent than those of yore? Well well, we now agree on something.

So what will fix the problem? How about league tables, not only on schools, but on teachers too.

Remember the old inspectors, who used to rate teachers for the promotion list? Inspectors rating them for the incompetent list would help, heaps right now. The bottom 5% to be dismissed, or would this be against their human rights?

Our schools have become a haven for the lazy & incompetent, protected by the union, & trendy "education" systems & waffle. Our kids deserve much better, & league is a part of fixing the mess.

Did I hear the union saying teachers are worth more money? HA.

To Baygon. I agree with all those extra success factors on your list and I would add one more significant feature, which can even override negative home influences - the quality of an individual teacher or, on a wider scale a particular subject faculty in a high school. I am sure in your experience you would have encountered those teachers who consistently get results well above the school average and whose classes students manoeuvre to get into, but when there individual successes are aggregated into an overall school result this data is lost. I also came across an article in the Sydney Morning Herald last week (19 Aug)where in a list of 12 priorities, happiness and safety of students was at the top, followed by a school being clear and consistent about its objectives, while the influence of student results came tenth.

When I started teaching the maximum salary of a classroom teacher was equivalent to that of a backbencher. Today a few principals of extremely complex schools attract such a salary.
Over the years I have seen the salaries stagnate but also the lack of support for teacher development and growth. Instead of maintaining an inspectorate that was designed to encourage best practice and remove under performing teachers we create a national system where the only ones being assessed are the students.
Periods of acute shortages meant that some poor teachers were either appointed or kept on. (When working in recruitment I was directed to appoint a person to a school because she was the only willing to go a particular remote area - so inspite of poor academic results and poor prac teaching reports she was appointed and after three years was given her preferred city location.)
There have always been outstanding teachers who can inspire and counteract negative influences.
Private tutoring? I have been involved with that industry ever since retiring - it is mainly the children from the elite private schools who attend.
We should be suspicious of league tables because I see it as yet another instance of governments introducing a measure that enables them to be seeing to do something about the poor state of our education system without actually doing anything substantive.
I too was taught in a class of sixty but I would like to think we have moved on and are able to do much better.

Another real issue to add to BAYGON's list is whether or not parents really care about their children's education. This can affect the performance of individual schools - the one at which I am employed draws a huge portion of its students from wealthy tradies who have done well out of the mining boom. Many have been very successful in life without ever having achieved success at school and, as a result, naturally place a low value on academic achievement. I can't really blame them for that, though - they earn a hell of a lot more than I can ever hope to. And good on them for that.

What this amounts to, though, is a group of parents who tolerate compulsory education but do not place a lot of value in it. A couple of weeks ago, we had a parent-teacher interview night. I requested 63 interviews - of those, 2 said they would come and 1 actually showed up. Last week, I contacted more than 20 parents about their students' non-submission of drafts for upcoming assessment. The following week, 3 drafts were handed in.

When the message from home is that academic achievement is unimportant, how are we as teachers meant to counter that? I have 200 minutes of access to each class in a week - that's not a lot of one-on-one time in which to convince kids that performance is important.

Well Oto, there should be no trouble caused by league tables, with all those people, should there?

None of those parents are likely to ever read them.

However parents like us, who have the ability to help our kids with their studdies, should not be denied access to test papers which can show where the kids are struggling. We should be swamped with information, if teachers care, in the hope that some kids will be helped.

This, along with school, & other kids results, are being hidden from parents, not to advantage kids, but to hide teacher inadequacies. All the mumbo jumbo is simply window dressing.

I personally have no problem with league tables. At the moment, access to information on Queensland school achievement is fragmented - you can access school-by-school reports on NAPLAN results for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9; you can also access a wide range of stats on the Year 12 cohorts - OP ranges, VET qualifications, QCE attainment and even the number of students who graduated with nothing. Unfortunately, you have to access a number of different reports to get the whole picture.

Take my school. Our NAPLAN results weren't that great (partly because of the demographics I discussed in my earlier post and, no doubt, partly because some of the students have been through 9 years of bad educational standards). Our Year 12 results, however, show that out of about 350 students, only 12 graduated with no qualifications. The rest either achieved OPs, most being offered university places, or completed VET qualifications. This suggests that we have worked with our students to identify their needs and aspirations. Those who wanted to go to uni were given the support they needed to achieve that goal; those who didn't were given opportunities to spend their senior schooling years working towards qualifications that were meaningful to them. NAPLAN suggests we are a bad school; the Year 12 results suggest that we aren't so bad after all. The trouble is, parents have a lot of sifting and interpreting to do to find that. Maybe well-structured league tables would help that.

As a final note, I'd like to remind you, Hasbeen, that the incompetent, inadequate and lazy teachers of today were educated by those wonderful teachers of yore. Perhaps they weren't so wonderful after all - or perhaps we aren't as incompetent as you would have us believe.

To get back to ‘league tables'.

Can we take the following as givens?

1. In OECD comparison, on internationally recognised testing in literacy, science and mathematics Australia is around fifth behind Scandinavian countries, Hong Kong and Singapore. The USA is in the middle of some forty countries.
2. However in the same comparisons we underperform in results from our disadvantaged students – if we could improve these our world ranking would increase and over the past ten years our achievements in the lower socio-economic ranges has actually got worse!
3. Our teachers, like any sub-set of the human population, vary from the highly intelligent professional to the fairly ordinary.
Will publicly ranking schools on performance improve this situation?

I would argue:
1. That ‘choice’ has played a part in this decline, because it has concentrated the majority of students have no effective choice and removed role models.
2. A public ranking will only accelerate this decline. There are not ‘failing schools’ but students who are being failed. Governments already have the data to do something about this but it is easier to blame others.

For those generally interested rather than just indulging in ‘teacher bashing’ I would strongly recommend the work of Trevor Cobbold in his well researched paper ‘League Tables increase Social Segregation and Inequity’
http://www.valuesineducation.org.au/pdf/cobbold0903.pdf

There are areas where I disagree with Trevor but this is one case where I think he is spot on.

The comments to this point contain much polemic and ranting that amounts to little more than the usual mindless bashing of teachers. Teaching has become more difficult, notwithstanding the reduction of class sizes since the mid-20th century. Teachers today must teach increasingly complex and wide ranging material to increasingly hard-to-motivate, rude, inattentive and disruptive students (the product of their parents and a consumption-mad society) while experiencing over time a continuing erosion of their pay, professional standing and community esteem. Furthermore, these factors have made teaching so undesirable an occupation that the academic standards required to enter training have dropped, and beginning teachers usually say they see themselves teaching for only a few years.

League tables have achieved nothing anywhere; they are merely a means for more teacher bashing and school closures. Finland is known to have the world's most successful education system; its teachers are highly educated, highly motivated, highly esteemed. It does not use league tables, it's private sector has shrunk to a mere rump, and it does not spend massively on education. I suggest that Hasbeen and co. read the Finnish Education dept. site:
http://www.edu.fi/english/SubPage.asp?path=500,4699
and then
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080502015.html
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2007/09/why-is-finlands-education-system-the-best-in-the-world.html

It's Finland we should be looking at, not the failed methods of the UK and the USA.

Thanks for the link, Ian. I found the paper very interesting. After taking a while to think about it, I came to two conclusions:

1) Those of us who are interested in educational standards on a national (or any other collective) level are unlikely to see much benefit in league tables. They simply point out which schools are doing well and which schools aren't doing as well at any given point of time. They can also lead to rash decisions - parents (and policymakers) armed with a little bit of information they don't fully understand may make uninformed decisions as a result of their findings. Rich and urban parents will send their kids to high-achieving schools, while poor rural parents do not have the luxury of choice and must keep sending their kids to the underachieving schools. These schools continue to underachieve but are frequently whipped by the policymakers for their poor performance. Their teachers, sick of the stigma and low morale attached to their workplace, transfer to 'better' schools and staff turnover becomes a bigger issue than it already is. Meanwhile, educational standards don't improve but at least we know how low they are (which, apparently, isn't all that low).

2) Parents have a right to be selfish in their selection of schools. Their sole interest is the educational wellbeing of their own kids, so they should have access to as much information as possible to make a good decision. League tables indicate where their kids are most likely to achieve success, so parents are right to demand access to the information.

In conclusion, I have no real conclusion - there are two sides to this argument, both of which transcend the 'teachers are stupid, ignorant and lazy and deserve to be exposed and punished' argument.

The suggestion that league tables are too simplistic and don't convey the full complexity, is one of the most pathetic arguments I have ever heard. It assumes that the general public in looking at the schools to send their children only look at the league tables and are too dim to consider anything else.

When I go to vote, I consider all the issues, and am aware that all parties stand for things I dislike, and have to vote on the balance of the issues. Should we ban elections because the result is too simplistic to reflect the complex issues?

The league tables may not be perfect, but they are the only independently verifiable measure we have. All the other factors they want to throw in are wildly subjective.

The only reason to stop the league is the union's fear of exposure.

Parents have a right to know. Why does Labor and the unions want a cover up?

As the article states there is a big difference between 'underperforming' and 'disadvantaged'. To assess a school merely on results without acknowledging other factors, that many astute people have raised above, is to merely whitewash the problems.

Even golfers get a handicap when it comes to scoring and level playing fields.

League tables in no way increases choice for parents, unless money is no object, and none at all, in the public system, as one is restricted by zoning.

The responsiblity for underperforming teachers lies with the principal and the education department.

If we look at education from a holistic perspective the outcomes for a child in the system is influenced by parents, schools, teachers, politicians and departments (through curriculum design).

The introduction of transparency in school achievement should be supported by the introduction of a comprehensive voucher system.

Putting the knowledge (this school sucks/is brilliant) into the hands of parents will, on its own, change nothing. Except perhaps increase a feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration in those parents.

Giving them at the same time the ability to "vote with their voucher", and encourage the perception of competitive excellence instead of comparative failure, just might bring about an improvement.

And it could silence once and for all the issue of government support to private education, by making it, too, totally transparent.

With the choice firmly in the hands of the consumer, assisted by some credible performance indicators to assess the options available, there would be some pretty strong positive incentives to improve.

A reasonable hope from a teacher engaged in trying to make things work.

In Qld, nothing short of hosing-out the Ed Qld senior managers and principals would assist our schools.

There is no requirement for any PD, no financial benefit for any higher degrees. We have principals who have only the BA or B.Ed. they left college with 30 years ago, HODs with their Dip T still plugging away on the same boring projects year after year.

I know of a teacher undertaking a PhD in the subject who is going to be denied a return to the workplace as a result of being 'too qualified', although that is not the official response, and the teacher untrained in this area will continue in it.

Such is the 'thinking' within EQ senior managers to using new resources, such as better qualifed staff.

I know a primary principal in a southern UK town in a depressed area under Thatcher and Blair. Both did their utmost to cut costs and punish schools like his. Poor maths results led to less money not more... and so with all other subjects as the school disgraced itself in the league tables.

If teachers have a hard time today with 'disruptive students' maybe it is time to look to see how to reorganise the running of schools, away from the 19th century factory model we still have, while accepting that we, as adults, have changed the world we live in and set the pace for students of today?

And, certainly from an EQ perspective, it would be good if we stopped allowing total rubbish, like Intelligent Design, to be passed off as legitimate teachings in Science classes.

Gillard refuses to deal with any undermining of the tight grip 'fundies' have on our state schools.

Her league tables will solve nothing at all because many parents think they need them, which is why they take the soft option of trying to buy 'advantage' for their children in private schools. And few educators in the game, at least in Qld, really have any idea how to run a school.

There does seem to be a lot of "parent bashing" being carried out by teachers.

If the student does not do well, then blame the parents. If the student does well, then the teachers pat themselves on the back, (but odd how the teachers do not attribute the student doing well to their parents).

I have been involved in a number of teacher’s groups (although I am not a teacher) and I never once heard a teacher make any positive comment about parents.

Another factor is that teachers taught the parents, and if teachers do not like the way parents are, then the teachers only have themselves to blame.

The main attributes of a modern teacher: -

- Spend every cent of taxpayer funding on imports and pretend this is innovation
- Encourage students to think of anything made in Australia as being inferior,
- Release as little informaion as possible and hide as much information as possible,
- Have a ready made list of excuses to cover any eventuality,
- Seek no accountability for anything
- Ask for more wages.
- Blame parents for any shortcoming of the education system

Vanna's claim that teachers 'blame the parents' but 'seek no accountability for anything' is, ironically, another 'blame the teachers' rant.

Why is it the teachers who have to shoulder 'accountability' forced down from above (from accountability-denying politicians and bureaucrats) and up from below? When are the students going to be made accountable? If they are not 'accountable', why not? Is it just possible that their parents ARE to blame? Or are just as despairing of their children's behaviour and attitude as the teachers? If Vanna had ever been a teacher he/she might have had the common experience of seeing a parent crying at P/T night over the seemingly intractable problem of his/her child's attitude and behaviour - apparently the same at home as at school. Or of coming very quickly to an understanding of how a child had become a disruptive recalcitrant either through the ignorance of an overbearing or apathetic parent, or the parents' complete absence altogether for the umpteenth time from the P/T interview.

The complaint that teachers 'ask for more wages' is just plain churlish. They ask for higher wages no more frequently than other occupational groups, and in fact have suffered one of the most severe degradations, over many years, of their real wages. The attitude of people like vanna is in stark contrast to the deep and widespread esteem shown towards teachers in Scandinavia and Asian countries.

Rapscallion is right about teachers wage claims, they, like us, are entitled to get increased pay. But like Vanna's claims against teachers, perhaps Rapscallion is over-egging the problem in blaming parents for all ills.

As for the esteem in foreign-lands being shown here, there is much work to do before many Qld teachers receive that from our household.

Which is not to say that some do not already get held up as virtuous people doing good work, but there are far too many who simply should not be in the job.

My children did OK at school, but not as a result of the systems in place, the attitude of management, the classroom practices of more than a handful of classroom teachers, the science, English and maths texts used, the vengeful, petty punishment regime in place, or the over-enthusiastic support for evangelical fruitcakes, on staff and allowed to wander the school.

No, they came through the school via their own efforts, home support, mountains of reading, being involved in music and by ignoring the base behaviour of many staff.

There is not the space to even outline the crass stupidity of adults paid to 'educate' who prefer to obsess over sock colour, shoe shape, ear 'oles, and the like, while happily forcing students to sit in the sun and fry for hours, in the Land of Melanoma no less, or who would invest hours in designing 'levels' systems to 'measure' behaviour that even students can see through.

No, there is a desire here to respect classroom teachers and school managers, but simply no demonstrated reason to do it.

I've given up attending P/T nights, fed up with being treated like a nuisance in a 120 second burst with a teacher and learning absolutely nothing at all from the demeaning exercise.

I no longer attend any school functions, preferring not to be prayed-upon some some demonic evangelical 'chaplain', or to suffer hearing the staff heap self-praise upon themselves at every gap in the proceedings.

I am NOT impressed with what passes for 'education' in The Smart State.

The Blue Cross,

I suggest that you find a new school for your kids. If parent/teacher interviews at your school are limited to 2 minutes, there's something wrong. If the teachers are obsessed with heaping praise on themselves, there's something wrong. If there is a considerable amount of base behaviour on the part of the staff, there is something wrong. Luckily, of the five high schools in Queensland that I have experienced, only one could justifiably be accused of these things.

When you do find a new school, perhaps you could attend P & C meetings. This will help with your disgust at teachers' obsession with "sock colour, shoe shape, ear 'oles, and the like", as uniforms are determined by the P & C, rather than by the school. I suspect that the parents who put the effort into attending these meetings and working on these policies would be distressed if teachers simply ignored the rules they had laid out - then we'd be hearing complaints about teacher apathy.

None of this really addresses the issue of league tables, though. It does, however, indicate that a closer school/parent partnership may result in mutual respect and increased performance. Just as many like TBC and vanna show considerable disdain for teachers, I am ashamed to admit that many of my colleagues show the same disregard for parents. Where does this leave the kids?

There is nothing to be gained from parent, teacher or bureaucrat bashing – there are saints and sinners, and everything in between, in all groups. The point is how we can build on the strengths of each.

I have spent four years assessing teachers for Quality Teaching Awards in NSW http://www.austcolled.com.au/award/nsw-quality-teaching-award and the skills, commitment, dedication shown by the teachers who achieve these awards as well as the respect given by parents and students is very life-affirming. They never use parents, students or governments as excuses – they know they can make a significant difference.

Admittedly these high quality teachers are a minority, but even ‘ordinary’ teachers must be doing a reasonable job judging by international comparisons of our results. However one of the greatest lessons we can learn from Finland (see the references in Rapscallion’s links) is rigorous selection at the start – only a small minority of those who apply to be teachers are selected – and training is to a Masters Degree level. I would add to this high quality mentoring in the first few years when good teaching practices are established. A former policeman who then went into teaching observed that the selection procedure he went through for entering the police force was far more rigorous than that for being a teacher – they should at least be equivalent.

Well interpreted evidence on school results will be a help in the short term, so that governments can direct the resources to areas of greatest need, but increasing the number of very high quality teachers is far more important in the long run and for the teachers I know, respect and job satisfaction is far more important than salary – in fact teachers salaries in Finland in 2003 were three quarters of Australian salaries and less than half the OECD average.

I still maintain that ‘league tables’ that become in effect only a ranking of social disadvantage are a distraction from the main game.

Otokonoko, thank you for your sage wisdom and advice. Clearly you have never been in a P&C before.

But I am pleased that you agree 'there is something wrong'.

We have three state high schools here. Each believes that 'Qld- The Smart State' refers to crisp uniforms, white socks, all-black leather shoes, and girls frocks that scrape the pavement to protect them from the evil stares of 'the boys'...it also refers to 'staff in the shade and students in the sun'on sports day.

'Boys are bad-girls are good' is one of the the major underpinnings of EQ schools, at least outside of Brisbane where EQ cares not two hoots what happens.

The vast bulk of parents who attend P&C meetings are mutes, or put-upons who support whatever the school principal wants, and they love harsh and petty rules about uniforms, although the line about P&Cs making the rules is frequently used by staff uniform-Nazis who abuse their unbridled power while blaming the P&C for the rules, so I am well aware that that old trick, thanks very much.

As the author of this article says in his post above here... this is not about league tables, which I agree are a total waste of time as well as being a distraction from the real issues in our schools. These are very poor management, a broad acceptance of unprofessional conduct, a disengaged parent body, and students who try to make the most of a frequently very dull school life lived in an environment largely unaltered since Dickens was at school.

Even if we wanted league tables to guide decisions about what schools would deliver better education we would be frustrated for reasons that have nothing to do with teachers or unions. As distinguished researchers like the late Kenneth Rowe have shown the operational unit is the class not the school and variation between classes and amongst children is so great that tables only allow distinction of the very best from the very worst.

We have very good information indeed on why some children do not perform well at school and why others do. Finland has invested in the future of its children. Finland does not suffer from the locally funded school system in the US which condemns children in economically poor areas to out of date text books, rat infested classrooms, inadequately trained teachers and so on. US reforms because they have not paid attention to the research. In Finland if tests are used at all are used locally.

Research shows that about half of the inputs to the educational attainment is due to what the child brings to the school at the time of joining – which is influenced by early childhood education – and more than half of the balance is due to the instructional system, specifically the feedback the student receives from the teacher. The best systems involve teachers working together to a common set of goals in an environment with a high degree of autonomy in a community which respects teachers and understands the importance of teacher development as well as of special tutoring for those students who are having difficulty making the grade, and of parent support. Student performance is assessed frequently and used to re-orient the classroom instruction and highlight areas for further development.

People advocating approaches other than league tables and those who point out the difficulty of coping with socio-economic disadvantage are reflecting what is known, not just what one would like to believe because it is part of current political rhetoric!

“in fact teachers salaries in Finland in 2003 were three quarters of Australian salaries and less than half the OECD average”

Interesting, and it only supports my belief that teachers asking for more money will not improve student marks.

In terms of teachers getting more “respect”, I think that teachers have a long way to go in that area, particularly when there are teachers who believe that anything Australian is inferior, and they spend every cent they are given of taxpayer’s money on imports.

In terms of P&C’s, teachers often rule the roost, and any parent who goes to a P&C is putting their children at risk. If a parent says one word that a teacher doesn’t like, then that teacher (or school teachers) can easily take it out on their son or daughter attending the school.

Many schools are also attracting feminists, and a feminist teacher cannot be trusted with anyone’s son or daughter. If a teacher says they are feminist, best for a parent to have their son or daughter immediately removed from that class.

If well managed, of course league tables will improve schools. In fact, they are carried out in the wonderful land of Finland.

Finnish schools are measured for performance, and after years of doing this, Finnish schools now have only a 5% difference between them, regardless of the socio/economic background of the students attending the school.

The excuses of "bad parents" or "bad district" etc are rather thin excuses.

"Bad attitude" of the teacher is the number one factor in student performance.

Des,

You are right about the importance of early childhood education. I recommend anyone genuinely interested in educational reform, as opposed to the mantras or league tables, performance pay and all the other irrelevant nonsense that clogs public discourse, take a very careful look at the work the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is doing on the early childhood area. (I do not know if it is on the departmental website yet.) If done well, this has the potential to transform educational achievement in this state.

The important point about “autonomy” is that it has to be the autonomy of the individual teacher to make professional judgements about individual students and the autonomy of the teachers as a whole in each school to make judgements about the educational program, of the school. Unfortunately, “autonomy’ is often used to disguise the empowerment of principals and the disempowerment of teachers in a market-based “system”, an idea which has proved a dismal failure in the last 15 years in this state and which is being slowly reversed – just as WA foolishly copies it.

Indeed, some of the lessons now forgotten were learnt more than 30 years ago. I taught in a disadvantaged high school with principals who knew how to work with their teachers (all of whom were centrally appointed and none of whom had access to performance pay or even had to endure performance reviews), with real curriculum autonomy and no strategic plan or accountability regimen, with better staffing - and thus smaller classes, lower teaching loads and extensive remedial programs - than most schools have today and with the additional funds of the Commonwealth Disadvantaged Schools program. The current eduction decision-makers ought to look up the evaluation reports in the archives.

I discussed this thread with a former colleague his comment: We live in an education world where experts and others march around in circles, revisiting education and schooling cemeteries, noting in passing on each circuit whatever is on the many headstones; some few warriors taking up the cudgel for a round or two for a particular methodology, a smaller number actually changing their respective allegiances but overall to limited impact. Moments of glory only.
I note that a partly funded 'independent' school teacher is having some success and publicity (other such schools have shown interest) with teaching adolescent girls and boys manners and politeness - all very nice, boys opening doors, eating the right way etc. Reads like 1895 St Peters. So what can one expect but that schooling as ranking and dividing is also re-visited on the circuit and in the cemetery."
he is right, much of the debate is about old wine in new bottles; rather ironic since education is supposed to be about learning yet it seems that we have learnt very little from past successes and failures.

vanna,

Andrew Leigh has done work that shows the substantial decline in relative teacher pay over the past three decades has been accompanied by a decline in entry scores for teacher training, suggesting that lower pay leads to a decline in the ability of those entering teaching, which in turn suggests that the restoration of teacher pay to the levels of, say, the 1970s, would lead to an increase in the ability those entering teaching and thus in educational achievement.

It is unlikely that you know what teachers spend their money on. You would have to follow them around 24/7 and have access to their credit cards and cheque book statements. If they buy imports, that is the modern economy. Protectionism would make Australia an economic backwater.

You talk about P&Cs as if they had a significant formal say in running schools. This may be the case in some states. In Victoria, it is not. Victorian schools are run in general terms by largely elected school councils of parents, teachers, community members and, in secondary schools, students, and have been for more than 30 years. Parents form the majority on the school council, which appoints the principal and determines the school’s policies.

In 33years, I never saw a teacher punish a student for the actions of a parent.

I think you have misunderstood something in your statement about Finland. Five per cent of the difference between students is explained by the school they attend. That is not the same as saying that schools vary by only five percent. The statistical data is very clear: the biggest factor in student performance is what the student brings to school, not what the school does, not what the teacher does.

Finland does not have league tables. Perhaps you are confusing this with its participation in PISA tests.

Chris C
There is only a 5% difference in average marks between schools in Finland, and disciplinary issues are almost non-existent. Their university system is also quite different to Australia's, with their system more like a mentoring system, as opposed to our university system that has become like a mass production assembly line.

The other significant aspect of Finland’s education system is that primary school students don’t start grade 1 until they are 7, and then only for ½ a day.

This is contrary to our system that takes the child as young as possible and installs them in a day care centre, followed by pre-school, followed by primary school, followed by secondary school. The children are very much a product of the state under our system, with very little time for unorganized play, and very little time to simply be themselves.

While teachers like to point the finger at parents, who are the children most likely to be disadvantaged, and what type of families do they come from?

Not the family type that has increased over 10 fold in the last few decades, and now, not only does this family type have the highest rates of child poverty, but also the highest rates of child neglect, child abuse, run away children, underage smoking, underage drinking, underage sex, teenage pregnancy and teenage involvement in crime.

If teachers believe that children are being disadvantaged by their parents (or parent), then why don’t teachers say something about the family type most likely to disadvantage a child.

I think that because the education system is so feminist, any teacher that says something about single parent families will find themselves on the dole line faster than they can say “give me an increase in pay”.

For P&C's, I would not recommend any parent belongs to one or attend any meetings. If a teacher in the school has children attending the school, then that teacher can go to a P&C, but often these teachers are quite militant, and the P&C meetings are often overrun by teachers.

I've got it now - vanna/HRS/Timkins/Timithy's ex-wife is a teacher, who was educated at an Australian university.

That would explain his entire woeful posting history, under his various aliases.

Surely, vanna (and The Blue Cross), if P & C organisations are overrun by teachers (which, from my limited experience, they are not), the logical response would be to encourage more non-teachers to attend? One minute we're accusing teachers of apathy, then getting upset when the teachers are the only ones who show an interest in the running of the school. Along the same lines, I think it's a bit far-fetched to say that the militant teachers who have overrun these P & C committees victimise the children of other members. From the parents, teachers and students I have known, there is simply no evidence that this is true.

Vanna,

Having spent a fair amount of time in Finland I am fully aware of how the public school system works there, and the attitude of the Finns to education.

http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/artikkelit/pisa-tutkimus/index.html?lang=en

"On all school levels, teachers are highly qualified and committed. They require Master’s degrees, and teacher education includes teaching practice. As the teaching profession is very popular in Finland, universities can select the most motivated and talented applicants."

As a society competence is expected, and a teacher that does not met the grade would not survive. While league tables are not published, the level and depth of evaluation of teachers and school performance renders this redundant.

While children only start grade 1 at 7, child care is free, and some education occurs here too, such that most children's education is well under way.

This level of focus and results is equalled only by the private schools in Aus.

I would be happy to forgo the league tables if the Finnish model were applied, but I think the high level of scrutiny would not be tolerated by the teacher's union.

Otokonoko, thanks for bundling me in with Vanna, but I do not believe that teachers hog the P&C, in my experience. They do 'gather' when a contentious issue that might disturb the status quo arises though, or when the principal needs support to put down a desire from the P&C members that upsets their powerbase, but on the whole, they happily keep away- and why not?

Like Shadow Minister, I'd support a Finnish-like model here but far too many incumbent teachers would have to be tolerated for years until the new version of teaching took over.

And SM is correct about the scrutiny not being tolerated. Certainly within Ed Qld there is a total absence of scrutiny, a failure to implement the most basic of EQ policies across the state, and a 'fools gold' approach within EQ senior managers towards what they are actually achieving.

There is a 'first response' mode within EQ, which is based on total denial of the 'bleeding obvious', as well as large doses of well developed 'Nelson's Eye' syndrome.

You know the line, it was practised by Howard and his chums 'Oh, no one told me that', or 'Oh, I was not aware', when everyone else knows and everyone else is well aware.

When private school results are praised though, as with SM, should we be even more cautious? Certainly here, in a town overrun by private schools almost in a canetoad fashion, anecdotally at least, I know as many parents fed up with silly rules, poor management, bad teaching and other similar complaints as come from the state schools, plus parents have to pay a fortune for a not-much-different system.

Private schools 'buy' success with lower fees and scholarships, and parents self select making the demographics hardly comparable, and giving something of a free kick when it comes to 'being better'.

In tutoring students at university, it is not possible to pick which schools people attended, execpt for the ragtag religious extremist schools where students are brainwashed into the silliest and most unproductive of 'thinking'.

Those dodgy establishments we could all do without.

Sorry, TBC - I didn't mean to bundle you in with anyone. I just drew the connection that both of you are disenchanted with P & C organisations and thought that, if these bodies had more vocal or passionate members like the two of you, they might achieve something beyond a 'rubber stamp' status.

Back to league tables, though: I've said it before and I'll say it again - I have no real objection. I would like to see tables that represent facts and allow parents to make their own comparisons, though. Grouping of 'like schools' is problematic - I can state with almost 100% certainty that my workplace is one of a kind. Without giving details which may reveal identity, several factors make my school exceptional. To compare our results with schools of a similar size would be misleading; to compare our results with schools of similar ethnic makeup would also be misleading.

Realistically, I think league tables need to be used as rods with which to whack the department, rather than as rods for the department to use to whack the schools. Where we fall down, the department needs to explain how they will pick us up. Staffing, budgeting and other factors come from above the school level - we can do little to fix those problems. My department's annual budget sits at less than $10.00 per student per year - and students (and parents) wonder why we are still in the process of replacing novels that have been hired out to students every year since 1980. And the average age of teachers in my department is 24 - far from the 44 statewide. With that level of experience released from Brisbane by EQ, what hope do we have?

Thanks for that clarification. Whilstever schools actually resent parental engagement and parents and students are treated as unhelpful distractions to the easy life in a school, there will be no progress in creating improved relationships and any form of productive 'partnership'.

It is impossible to 'whack' the central managers because they pass all decisions to the local level and take no responsibility for what happens in individual schools- they simply blame the principal.

The other side to your, and our, out-of-date books is that politicians refuse to be honest and explain to we dimwits that taxes are needed to be able to buy the books, and are always keen to pretend that we can live in a 'world class' (whatever that empty phrase means) society and create a 'smart state' or the equally gormless 'knowledge nation' while also living in a 'low tax state'.

Tables or no tables, the real problem is that education is not valued, because it's not valued, and it won't be valued until those who run it understand that they are running it badly and for no real purpose, other than to provide acquiescent employees to the factory-fodder consumerist industrial base we all so need and love.

Without going down the Senator Bill Hefferlump path of abusing Gillard for not having children, I do think it would help to have an itelligent Minister, as I believe Gillard must be, who had also struggled with schools as a parent if they were going to have any chance of understanding first hand just what schools do, and do not, do. And, of course, it would be good to find an ALP politician who still sent their children to learn with the hobbeldyhoys in state schools, unlike Rudd and all the others.

“but I do not believe that teachers hog the P&C, in my experience. They do 'gather' when a contentious issue that might disturb the status quo arises though, or when the principal needs support to put down a desire from the P&C members that upsets their powerbase, but on the whole, they happily keep away- and why not?”

Exactly “The Blue Cross”,

I have seen a “contentious” issue raised at a P&C meeting by an unsuspecting parent, and that issue was tabled for discussion at the next meeting.

About 30 teachers turned up at the next meeting, outnumber the parents by about 5 to 1.

Unfortunately a parent may not know what will be a “contentious issue” or not, so best not to attend at all.

A parent is unlikely to learn much at a P&C meeting, other than what a principal wants them to know, and not what they should be told.

There is a difference.

Properly implemented league tables would give a parent much more information about a school than the information provided by a school principal.

Also Finland is not the be all and end all of everything. Finland’s economy crashed out more heavily than most other European countries recently; mainly because of the fact that its economy was so heavily dependent on banking and service industries