Online School Report Card to be Published in 2009

Communiqué, Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, 28 September 2009; The Age, 26 September 2009; The Age, 30 September 2009

The Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) has agreed on the format of the new online school report card that will be published at the end of 2009.

Every school in Australia will have a report card published on the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) website, outlining the performance of its students on national literacy and numeracy benchmark tests.

The school profile will also identify 60 ‘like schools’ that enrol students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. A new national index called the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) will be used to determine ‘like school’ groups.

The Chairman of ACARA, Professor Barry McGaw, stated that the school profiles initially would provide only limited information for parents, but argued that additional information would be added to the school profile in future years, including details on school resources, senior secondary outcomes and parent satisfaction surveys.

Unions and teacher groups have argued that the publication of the report card will ‘pave the way for league tables’ and have indicated that they may consider boycotting national literacy and numeracy benchmark testing. They have also criticised the Australian Government for publishing the school report cards before information on school resources is available.

 

 

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