Antiseptic,

The abilities of the teachers and headmasters are the prime influences in the performance of the children. The tables are not the only indicator of performance, but consistant poor perfomance against similar schools is a sure indicator that intervention is required.

I agree that it is the teachers that make the difference but the proposed best practice mindset does nothing to distinguish quality teaching despite demographic 'status' being applied.

A school that rates less well may contain a large proportion of high quality dedicated teachers dealing with a whole gamut of socio-economic problems. What is not shown is how much worse the school might have performed without those very good teachers, given other social disadvantage factors.

I attended high school in a very English working class city and for some students it would not have mattered how good the teacher was, they were always going to perform badly. On the other hand some teachers had different variants of success with disadvantaged kids. These teachers under the Gillard tables would still be reflected as inadequate, or would rate poorly. There was very much the mindset then that you did not aspire out of your class. Dad was a boilermaker or fitter so son will be too. Nothing wrong with that in a society that still requires a variety of different skill sets.

Parents aren't stupid. They know the 'good' schools and the not so good. The parent grapevine or personal experience has always been the best measure for choosing a school without all the bureaucratic gloss and sideshow.

What exactly does “commandism” mean. Perhaps “best practice” would imply using words that others can readily understand.

“we can share that best practice ... school by school, this information is vital to making sure we know where best practice is”

Good.

This is the path of progress, and it is the opposite to the insular, aloof and remote system that is currently the education system, where the most difficult thing is to get a teacher to actually communicate. Even students have difficulty getting a teacher to mark their assignments and return them within a short period of time, AND with some decipherable and easy to understand comments added to the bottom.

As far as Myschool.edu.au is concerned, another “Good”.

It has “.au” attached to the URL, which means that it comes from Australia, and it is a step towards retrieving the education system back from the Teachers Uinion, socialists and feminists that currently run the system, and handing the education system back to the public where it once originated.

It provides 3rd party information about a school, quite different from the biased information that a member of the public is guaranteed to receive from the principle or any teacher of a school.

It sounds to me like some of these schools are running scared.
Whats the matter with a bit of online paperwork.
Maybe people will get to know too much.
Every body and thing has to be accountable.

The Myschools website mostly informs people of the blindingly obvious: that schools in higher socio-economic areas (both public and private) do well, and selective public schools in NSW do the best.
However, according to the Myschools website, we are expected to believe that a local private school in my area of Sydney- which charges over $20,000 per annum per student, has extensive facilities, and employs over 140 teachers with over 60 support staff for a student body of around 1200 students - has a student body with a much lower socio-economic status than the two local public comprehensive high schools (both well-regarded due to their location in a solidly middle-class area). Interestingly, according to the website, these local high schools employ half the teachers and a miniscule no. of support staff for student bodies of around 1000 students each.
How about this for a radical idea: future government funding (both federal and state) to private schools should pay for the teacher salaries for the number of teachers that the private school would have if it was a public school with a student body of its size. Private schools would then pay for everything else themselves (except for the curriculum materials provided free from state governments). This would free up lots of funding for public schools to improve both their facilities and the number of support staff. Pouring government money into private schools only seems to have resulted in them raising their fees anyway. Better public schools would compete better, therefore forcing private schools to lower their fees. Everyone would be a winner.

All this talk about "choice" etc is to me a glaring admission of failure. If a parent does not "choose" the nearest school to their home then it is a statement that the education system has failed as the local school is crap. The fact that many many children travel outside their local area to go to school shows that the system has failed completely. It would be preferable for no child to have to travel long distances to go to school. All schools should be resourced equally and adequately and anything else, especially something that sees kids travelling 2 hours a day to school and back, is inefficient, damaging and divisive.

Bring back the inclusive, comprehensive public school system we used to have and get rid of the elitist, expensive and indoctrinating private and religious schools that are scamming us and the system and dividing the community.

Oh and the shcools ranking website will be a disaster. Especially for schools ranked at the bottom who's students and teachers will be vilified, humiliated and effected in their prospects of gaining employment.