Education Bodies Express Concern About the Publication of School League Tables

The Age, 23 March 2009; Canberra Times, 23 March 2009; Herald Sun, 23 March 2009

A group of fifteen education bodies has written to all Australian Education Ministers, requesting that legislation be introduced to prevent the publication of league tables of school performance information. The group of signatories to the letter includes government and non-government school teacher unions, principal associations and teacher professional bodies.

The signatories have expressed concern about the new requirements under the 2009-2012 funding period for schools to publicly disclose performance data. The letter argues that legislative action should be taken, ‘prohibiting the creation and publication of league tables flowing from the collection of student and school performance data’.

While they welcome comments from state and territory ministers that they would only make comparisons between ‘like’ schools, the signatories have argued that the media and other third parties could manipulate the information to form league tables that compare all schools’ performance.

They have indicated that ‘the profession requires assurances that the misuse of this data will not occur. The damage to curriculum provision, students and entire school communities resulting from league tables is well-documented in international research and evidence. Legislative action is now required to prohibit their creation and publication by third parties.’

A spokesperson for the Australian Government Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Julia Gillard, stated that the ‘new era of transparency’ was aimed at ‘lifting school performance and better targeting resources’, and that the release of school performance data would enable the public to make comparisons between schools serving similar student populations and between schools in close proximity of each other. The spokesperson stated that ‘the Rudd Government is not interested in simplistic league tables which rank schools according to raw test scores, and these will not be a product of the new framework’.

 

 

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