My School

Just out of interest, I

Just out of interest, I posted a copy of a letter to my local Labor candidate here a few weeks back, in response to the new website and the inevitable league tables. I had requested a response, but there has been nothing from my candidate. Is this the new management style, or perhaps the Best Practice we are supposed to adhere to? Imagine if I, as a teacher, were to ignore communications and requests from members of the school community!

The My School site using

The My School site using NAPLAN is not a true comparison. You can only have a true comparison if variables are controlled and the same for each test/experiment. Therefore if My School wishes to compare schools and thus teachers they must at least test the exact same set of students at every single school. At this point in time this is not the case and therefore any results or comparisons are very skewed. Factors such as socio-economic status, environment, health, facilities, opportunities, cultural, and the list goes on all play a part in education.

Like I've said before, the Labor Government needs to protect schools, teachers, parents, and children from the incorrect use of material on this site. The media is already using this material to attack schools, teachers, parents, and children by placing the information on this site into league tables. The Queensland Teachers' Union and the AEU would just like this information copyrighted so these tables cannot be created. We all talk about creating the best environment for our children. How can we create the best environment if schools, teachers, parents, and children are being attacked by the media.

Can we put top teachers on

Can we put top teachers on line and give them a show case? May be others can learn from the showbiz, in this way both kids and new teachers can learn some new tricks from the best in the teaching business.

Wow bloody briliant

Wow bloody briliant fairdinkum

Well done Julia for

Well done Julia for introducing the My School website.

It's so sad to see the AEU taking a stand on school ranking. After years of destroying any attempts to be able to compare schools and thus allow Governments to allocate remedial money they are now fighting the only comparison method we have left: The Naplan.

The whole reason the AEU is taking this position is that they are horrified of Australians finding out the results of their support of Edubable. Edubable is the doctrine on education formulated by the Educational Left in the Universities and the Socialist Left in the ALP. Its key policy is encapsulated in the 'equality of outcomes' nonsense which says in effect that everyone should get their VCE and by the way don't worry too much if students cannot read or write to anywhere near the VCE level. All will be well in the AEU heaven. Students can then attend remedial courses at universities and / or undertake Mickey Mouse 'degrees' in order to keep the youth unemployment figures artificially low.

Marcus L'Estrange
St Kilda, Vic

Using the NAPLAN Tests given

Using the NAPLAN Tests given over two days and MySchool to decide whether a school needs more funding is useless. There are many other factors to consider when addressing the needs of a school. Things like location of the school, economic issues, social issues and environmental issues. You cannot get this information from a NAPLAN Test. Besides, what if the flu has affected one part of the country more than other parts when the students sit for the tests. A true and accurate record of a student or school's performance would take on a range of factors and a range of tests, not just one or two pieces of information. Living in Queensland I know our children are actually one year behind the other states from year 4 up with educational experience. So how can MySchool present an acurate picture of Queensland in this situation.

The MySchool website may not

The MySchool website may not be a league table Ms Gillard but your governments inaction on preventing media outlets from publishing tables is shameful. The website provides a warped view of the reality of school performance. For example it does not recognise the size of the cohort sitting each test which could be as low as one student. How is that reliable data?
The publication of league tables has had a negative effect on schools who are working extremely hard to improve student performance way beyond the 'one off' NAPLAN tests. These 'high stakes" tests have succeeded in narrowing the curriculum in schools who now must concentrate on teaching students how to do tests at the expense of quality curriculum. Ms Gillard needs to understand that student performance is much more than the snapshot that NAPLAN provides. Teachers and students should not be judged, named and shamed in this way. Ms Gillard has demonstrated her lack of understanding of education by persisting with this rididulous political approach to testing.

This is the statement at the

This is the statement at the core of concern: "My School is not a league table and My School is not about naming and shaming schools.”
Ms. Gillard, "The road to h*ll is paved with good intentions." My School can be added to the list.
Without the appropriate safeguards around the information on this site there IS no way to stop it being used for the creation of league tables which are nothing but detrimental to students, schools and their communities. Headlines in a major newspaper firmly confirm this attitude within the media. On the day MY School was released it was: Schools Exposed. The second day was: Class Wars. If you provide the ammunition and know the targets then you ARE responsible for the damage! Through this website Julia Gillard is providing the ammo. She cannot deny responsibility. There is undeniable evidence internationally of the distress caused by the release of such data without the full context and facts, and when simplistic league tables are created from this.
Assistance to identified schools and targeting funding to schools on their individual need is welcome support, and long overdue. The facts are that teachers, schools and communities would have been able to identify these schools (and did at State levels!) without NAPLAN or My School. They ALREADY have assessment and testing which is far more relevant to students than NAPLAN or the website data. Parents/Carers are ALREADY provided with this information about THEIR child.
‘Data is not information. Information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom.’ Wisdom is what is required in this issue, not a political solution for something that should be completely separate from politics: education.

Spot on. The data on literacy

Spot on. The data on literacy and numeracy has been available to parents in Queensland for over 12 months. Ask and yee shall receive.

A Julia Gillard supporter, I

A Julia Gillard supporter, I will say I understand the sentiment of giving parents an insight into schools. But ... I'm a teacher too so I know just a little more than some parents. I can point to two remote NT schools with 100% Indigenous cohorts that are roughly the same size and one might think very similar. Certainly the school blurb would indicate they are (albeit with different first languages). The schools, however, could not be less alike and their environments are as individual as Kings College is from Kormilda College (NT). When I look at the similar schools list it is like a work of fiction and provides very little useful information for parents. Comparing apples and oranges comes to mind.
I am very worried that this website might be simplistically used by parents to consider what school to choose for their child. After many years in a classroom as a teacher and involvement as a parent I know the magic ingredient is first and foremost 'teacher and parents'. This website cannot show the difference individual teachers make. That only happens when you build a relationship with your school.
NAPLAN is a useful snapshot tool to get an indication of trends over years but it is useless in a context where children have to learn English before they can begin to learn to read and write in English. If English is your first language you come to school ready to learn to read and write. If it is a new language for you it takes time - not surprisingly.
The NT had a testing process called MAP before NAPLAN. Every child could start at a level appropriate to them and after a couple of years teachers had data they could use. Teachers in remote schools who had children over a few years could see that even if the child did not quite reach benchmark they had often made more than two years of progress between the testing years of 3 - 5 or 5 - 7. NAPLAN tells these teachers nothing. Australia missed an opportunity when they refused to consider the NT option as a national one.
So how about we dump NAPLAN as it exists and bring in multi level assessment where at least we can measure growth for everyone.

The Labor Government needs to

The Labor Government needs to protect schools, teachers, parents, and children from the incorrect use of material on this site. The media is already using this material to attack schools, teachers, parents, and children by placing the information on this site into league tables. The Queensland Teachers' Union and the AEU would just like this information copyrighted so these tables cannot be created. We all talk about creating the best environment for our children. How can we create the best environment if schools, teachers, parents, and children are being attacked by the media.

Earlier in the afternoon

Earlier in the afternoon there were 47 comments on this article as opposed to 46 listed at the time I that I posted the original version of this message.

By the time that I completed the original post a further 10 comments had been removed.

Now most of my comments have been removed. Does the ALP no longer believe in free speech? Is it only cheerleading support that is sought here?

My School is full of

My School is full of inaccuracies and is a very blunt instrument, especially without information pertaining to school income. It is completely inappropriate to use it to facilitate the ranking of schools - NAPLAN results were never designed for that purpose. The Minister is to be held personally responsible for the recent creation of simplistic and crude league tables that name, shame and stigmatise schools, teachers, students and communities. Nowhere in the world has naming and shaming worked - it is a demonstrable failure in the US and UK. The Minister's hair-brained Teach for Australia scheme, which parachutes partially trained teachers (6 weeks) into the most challenging schools, is another indication that she does not truly believe in evidence-based policy. Parents should show their contempt for uncaring and unthinking politicians by withdrawing their children from the NAPLAN tests in May. In the absence of government action to prevent the misuse of the data by third parties, the time has arrived for coordinated dissent.

A major part of the rationale

A major part of the rationale for Julia Gillard’s transparency agenda for the reporting of school NAPLAN test results is that it will enable additional resources to be deployed where they’re needed and so ensure that low performing schools and students improve.

Does this mean that after the system has been in full operation for a while all of the schools and, as in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, all of the children will be above average?

How can we justify this data

How can we justify this data being published in this way? The NAPLAN Tests are a 2 day snap shot of a school. And an average at that. It doesn't show the work that teachers have put into improving the kids, the effort that parents go into to helping the school. The NAPLAN results were meant to be used to get an idea where problem kids existed... based on a single test. NOW they are being used to compare entire schools. What is going to stop the media from creating leaue tables??

Julia, all well and good but

Julia, all well and good but it does no one any service to allow these results to be published by the media who ALWAYS skew and slant the results to denigrade public schools. None of these results should be published. If people have an interest, let them go to the website and examine the schools that they might be considering as prospective ones for their child and let them make a decision rather than let the media make wrong decisions for them.

The only thing that will

The only thing that will convince me that "My School" will do more good than harm, is if
1. The "real" funding to public and private schools is made transparent in the data
2. The selection process for enrolment is transparent
3. The behaviour management policies of private and public schools are made transparent

How will public debate change when all is revealed?

What will happen when the public find out that the private school "down the road" has had the advantages of

1. Being able to select it's enrolment based on previous academic achievement
2. Receive more money, in federal grants to redesign its road system (for the four wheel drives to pick up and drop off the kiddies) than a public school, "down the road" receives from the state government as its total budget.

and their results are no better than a public school "down the road", with no control over enrolment, little or no support from the department to "unload" violent mentally unstable students, and inspite of all of this, the public school has similar or "better" results.

Just as teachers' unions (private and public) block anything that will expose the weakest teachers in schools, the private schools will move heaven and earth to make sure the truth about the relationship between $ and results is not transparent.

Good luck with making the imputs transparent as well as the outputs.

As a Labor Party

As a Labor Party member/supporter for 30 years, my goal is not only for the Rudd government to be re-elected with at least the current majority, but also for the new Senate to have many fewer Senators who obstruct Labor’s legislation.

After 10 days of laudatory newpaper coverage (the only time I can recall any Rudd Govt. action since The Apology being given frontpage, centrefold, opinion columns and editorial praise in the “Daily Telegraph”), why is it that support for the Government has not significantly increased in the most recent polls?

Is it because voters who do think MySchool is educationally sound and useful rate this as a lower voting priority than the new Coalition Leadership, or the alleged BIG new tax on everything, or our sacred soil being supposedly “flooded with illegal” boat people?

Or is it because there’s tens of thousands of teachers who might not be overly ecstatic to discover that the Party which they have supported against Coalition governments for so many years has now taken an action that they consider (correctly or not) to be educationally unsound?

Or is it that the political benefit to Federal Labor from the MySchool initiative is more likely to be manifested “in the fullness of time”, as Sir Humphrey would say?

I am not discussing the educational merits or demerits MySchool here because my assumption is that the horse has bolted, but I am heeding Rudd’s admonition to Labor Caucus and Party supporters this week about the upcoming election .

How history repeats itself.

How history repeats itself. I have been a teacher for 60 years. We, in Canada, went through all of this discussion and the unfortunate results for our children in the 1950's and, to a lesser degree in Australia in the 70's. Teaching to tests is bad enough, and do not try to deny this is the inevitable result of this type of testing but comparing schools in similar socio-economic areas is even worse. Not to mention using testing types developed in the worst education system in the English speaking world (I wonder who is making vast sums selling this nonsense.) Politicians on either side seem determined not to listen to the teachers who deal directly with children, or, for that matter to parents. The time and money wasted on this vast project would be better spent providing decent school libraries, smaller classes and time to communicate directly with parents and, above all encouraging teachers to discover individual student's strengths and build upon them. school person, BEd, MEd

This is my 30th year in

This is my 30th year in education. I have seen many governments come and go; sadly they all want to "judge" education, rather than resource schools to make real differences in kids lives! In the 1970's the ALP made University education obtainable for all ( and thanks to Gough I could afford a university education in Graphic Design and later in Education).... sadly we have taken an economical rationalist approach to all forms of education in recent times... are we getting (test) results for our money!! We are now developing a judgemental mentality based on "testing' rather than looking at what schools do for the development of the "people" we educate. Preparing them to the best of their ability to become independant thinkers in our society. We need to stop thinking schools are like Banks and profit margins are the major goal. Our kids deserve investment in their future through funding needy kids and schools. Has the real Labour Party forgotten the real social justice agenda; is winning an election more important than our kids future? Invest in our future, stop judging and kicking the very system that gives kids the chance to take hold of their own future. Education can give equality...... only if the ALP has the guts to put funds into areas of education that are in need; rather than "reacting" to a conservative agenda, be proactive to real need! Unless you are wondering, I still face every day eager and prepared to be part of the lives of the 11 to 18 year olds I teach. I started teaching in 1980 believing I could make a difference in kids lives... nothing has changed, kids still need us to allow them to have some control of their lives through education. testing is OK if you intend to give resources to skill these kids who struggle. Don't publish to gain political points... fund to make real improvement! PS. I am available to help in your planning for the future. Glenn Roberts

My child is not currently of

My child is not currently of school age but at 18 months old we have started looking for the right school. I am generally in support of the My School website because I think that parents do need and deserve a neutral information source, in my case possibly looking at Private Schools - they all do a pretty good job at selling themselves. I am by no means an expert in the area of education however I do feel that people need to remember that this is just the START, with age the website will provide increasingly beneficial data and I imagine different areas of interest will be added to it. And yes schools have so many more character developing areas other than the three R's but for goodness sake these basics should be skills ALL Australian children have.

I do have concerns regarding how the tests that determine these results are taken... Are they taken under strict testing conditions or could teachers or schools with their reputation at stake alter papers, mark easier/softer or engage in other dishonest acts to improve their results?

Another thing to keep in mind is that I don't think this website has been designed to be 100% of the decision making process in regards to your childs education. Up until now people have shared information about teachers in the school carpark, at dinner parties and on the sidelines of kids sporting matches. Parents have gone on school tours and attended school open days to get a 'feel' for the school. As far as Im concerned this will just provide me with additional information to that.

Thank you DPM Julia! Schools

Thank you DPM Julia! Schools and teachers are the key in our kids's education. In Chinese we have a saying 有教無類。(youjiaowulei) Meaning you can teach any children, there are only incapable teachers, but never there are unteachable children. Good luck in this brave new world of myschool .
jennie

i see the problem with my

i see the problem with my school web site as changing the education balance, teachers will spend more time trying to get better results for the tests that are used and less time giving a balanced education my daughter teaches in the UK and the major emphesis is on the statistics not a balanced education in fact education is put on hold to get the right results in tests and audits

I think the testing of

I think the testing of students and then ranking them against schools is very wrong. It does not take into account the demographic or the type of students in the schools. The language and ethnic groups the socio economic groups when comparing the schools against each other.

This a very poor effort by the Government to make the private schools look good as they always would against a Outback school in the middle of the NT.

Shame on you listening to the University Boffins who think that it will be good for parents to have this information. Parents know what the good schools and bad schools are and it is not always the teachers or students fault that they rank lower than another school in similar area.

myschool website was

myschool website was inevitable. There is WAY too much emphasis on "three R's" - as a result - too many schools only "teach to the tests" these days - a return to the 50s and 60s at the expense of creative arts and studies of human societies and integration.. everything we strived for as educators in the eighties and nineties has been eroded by the coalition years...

Is it more important to calculate numbers and compare statistics if learning environments are allowed to become overcrowded and meaningless??Is it important to learn how to UNlearn the racism we all learn from each other via ignorance and fear? Are all these statistics more important than the ARTS (which labour used to support)?

Because of the lack of any help (or employment as a teacher or artist or publisher) i was forced to release the school resource for free. PLEASE SHARE IT - and perhaps oneday i might get a permanant JOB instead of more aristocratic elitism from the political ranks and the uncertaintey and lack of job security which comes from being forced into overcrowded classrooms as a relief teacher and dole instead of holidays... we need more teachers employed properly in nsw.

I support a Whitlam-styled Labor.

to me "myschool" is a drop in an irrelevant bucket but its a start in public connectivity and openness. The biggest complainers were from the expensive private and religious sector who seem to have been proven to be less effective in so many instances.. But congratulations for your efforts for education, after the previous government sold it out to the wealthy private/elite sector for over a decade. Will university ever be free again? So many talented and deserving aussies can't afford it, and new permanant teacher jobs are so rare (in nsw) that class sizes have increased in public schools which is tragic for effective school learning. But we have new buildings started in your first term.. perhaps we can put more teachers in them and reduce class sizes?? That's be revolutionary....

Anyway.. I invite you and your guests to please support this educational resource which used to cost schools $300 but is now available FREE with no strings or spammy corporate or religious "sponsors", by sharing this link with teachers : ~ http://www.youtube.com/musicartstar ~ It's the revised and remixed version of a well loved and AECG, Pat Dodson, NSW Ministers, NSW BOS and many schools endorsed educational resource about Australia's black and white history leading to current recurring issues. Its also an anti-racism resource, though some call it a "reconciliation" resource

...its FREE for a "free education" country as we should be. Thankyou for producing this portal as well as the myschool site and congratulations to your team.

Best wishes for the future.

This website is good, but

This website is good, but because it only includes results from the last 2 years, you really can't compare them as the same kids are doing the tests every 2 years. Like with everything in life, you need to read/watch/get the information, put it through a filter or two and then gather the information at the bottom. I don't believe the website is there to be a "Be Alla and End All" website and is the only thing available "judge" schools and their performance. Parents must remember its different for individual kids as they aren't all the same, and each kids needs are different. I understand the concern of teachers regarding this website, but like all things in life, don't take things too seriously and get your information from multiple places.

Outstanding initiative, just

Outstanding initiative, just read your biography too, now I admire you even more! Congrats all round.

I know this is a long

I know this is a long response, but please indulge me. This is a copy of a letter I have sent to my local Labor candidate. I have considered myself a staunch Labor voter for almost 30 years.

'I write to you out of disappointment bordering on disgust at the recently established My School website, and to make you aware that while it is born of populism and political opportunism, it will also cost votes at the looming Federal election and beyond.
The very popularity of the site, in terms of the number of visits it has registered since opening, is one of the reasons Federal Labor should not have engaged in such a cynical, school-bashing exercise. The party’s social ideals and integrity should have dictated that the government actively support school communities and assist their development with resources and equitable funding rather than initiating a system of denigration and misinformation designed to win votes and distract from real educational issues. Unfortunately, Labor’s focus group polling would have told the government it was on a vote-winner with this light pandering to popular misconceptions regarding one of everyone’s favourite barbecue topics, education. The betrayal of all those school communities is therefore even more dire.
I write from what is in one sense a position of strength in that I teach in one of the secondary colleges that has rated well on your limited website and managed to achieve a good ranking in the inevitable league tables indulged in by the media. I do not write out of the bitterness of one who has obviously suffered at the hands of the government. If I were not to speak up now I would have no right to speak up when this roulette of worth were to give my school the kick in the teeth your government has just delivered to so many school communities.
Having taught in the real world of school communities for a quarter of a century I can assure you any of the respect and goodwill I am receiving from my school community as a result of our favourable rankings will be conversely mirrored in the negative, second-guessing, critical lack of support colleagues will receive from their communities because of the government’s selfish exercise. Students, teachers, parent bodies and principals in so many schools - almost half the nation, by definition - will be feeling worthless and, frankly, gutted at the report they have received through this obviously flawed system. Programs across broad curriculums, special student and staff initiatives, extra-curricular activities; which I might point out exist through goodwill; all count for nothing. Socio-economic demographics have clearly not been accurately considered or reported, as exposed even today through media outlets (you should have realised they would be the only real winners in this situation) nationwide. The colour-coding and dumbing down of information gleaned from such a narrow aspect of school life leaves schools catering for troubled communities, low socio-economic areas, special needs children and those with a high ESL component condemned to pink and red ignominy, no matter how much work and extra effort goes into the joint effort at those schools.
Does it disturb anyone in the government that the nation’s principals and teachers are as one in their opposition to the inaccurate website and its implications? Has everyone in Federal Labor really fallen in behind its increasingly manipulative and self-seeking leadership in believing this website presents any kind of accurate picture of school life and the naive suggestion it will lead to fruitful discussion and enhanced education outcomes?
As an interested party I have noted the coming and going through the years of a number of politicians in education portfolios, at both state and federal level, who have tried to make their mark by importing failed overseas models. Each has been seen to be doing something and later moved on to bigger and better things, in terms of self-interest. I fear this failed overseas model of standardised testing and reporting will leave behind the most widespread trail of destruction yet, especially if it is tied to the sort of funding vandalism characteristic of those failed models. The noises coming from your own leaders are not encouraging.
For my part, I can tell you I will not be voting Labor at the next election, for the first time in 29 years. I will also be urging as many others as I can not to vote Labor, which will come as a shock to many of them, coming from such an avowed Labor supporter. I know a large number of similarly disillusioned Labor supporters who are involved in education, and who are disenchanted enough on this issue alone, to also not vote for Labor. I realise this may not trouble the government, who will rejoice in the initial populism of the exercise, but I feel that just as Howard’s Battlers finally realised the damage that was being done to them, the very ones who had elected him, and subsequently dumped him, so Federal Labor will eventually be rejected by the communities it is betraying.
In the interests of the robust dialogue I choose to seek with you, my local candidate, I would expect a non-generic, detailed reply to this letter.'

my daughter is a teacher and

my daughter is a teacher and it does not faze her at all.

Essential information needs

Essential information needs to be added, which particularly affects NT and other more rural schools and reflects directly on the poorer results in testing.

1. The turn over of students per year - a considerable number of children attend a many schools, often in a number of different systems. eg defence families

2. The turnover of teachers. - It is not unknown for one student to have more than 5 teachers in a school year, many have 2 or 3..

The program is good. It will

The program is good. It will deliver assistance to schools in need of funding and assist in the growth of children, teenagers while also assisting teachers becoming more proficient in teaching future generations of Australian children.

By 8 million hits on the first day of the website operating I think parents have really wanted a source of information about their kids school and now can have a positive influence and open communication with their child about their school.

In conjunction with this website and other blogs parents and the general public will be able to have a clear channel of communication that is not blurred by media biased (eg channel 7 to Liberal).

Well Done Labor!

The devil is always in the

The devil is always in the detail. The popularity of the website is indicative of the demand from parents for a greater understanding about their child's schooling. For attempting to respond to that need, the government is to be congratulated. However, the minister earns a very poor score for creating a website which easily enables newspapers to create and publish league tables. This is despite, the Minister's comments that the My School site is not a league table and is not about naming and shaming schools.

Evidence from overseas experiences strongly indicates a narrowing of the curriculum as a result of the publishing of league tables. Schools wishing to improve their ranking on those tables and need only 'teach to the test' to the detriment of other key learning areas and skills.

I have two questions for the Minister.
Firstly, "how do you ensure that league tables cannot be created or published?" and secondly, "how do you ensure that schools maintain a broad curriculum?"

I agree with the above

I agree with the above comments congratulating the Rudd Government on pushing forward with this new era of transparency. What a wonderful resource for parents!

This is also a massive slap in the face to Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne who declared this site an internet bungle. With 9 million plus hits in the week of launch, calling My School an astounding success is understating it.

The Government has reacted to demands from parents for more information and has surpassed expectations with the quality and breadth of information. Big congratulations in order!

Personally I'm more

Personally I'm more interested in the school blurb. I like the fact that they get to have a say in how their school is represented. I think there was a lot of fear before the launch that it would be an unfair representation based on tests alone, but the end product is really fantastic and hasn't fallen into that trap at all! A+, Band 6!