Restricting the damage from League Tables

Here's acknowledgement that ACARA will make mistakes when implementing league tables and that league tables have caused issues in other countries for those implementing them. I hope the Federal government realises the potential effect on public schooling straight after the damage done through the tragic implementation of OBE in WA.

This being the case Dr Hill (head of ACARA), it would be a good idea to limit the damage and make sure league tables actually work in one state/territory (I'd suggest NT as that's where NAPLAN shows the biggest issue is) before inflicting it on the rest of the nation. It is utterly irresponsible to do otherwise. We need to learn in education circles from the OBE fiasco... (Learning in education?? Don't be stupid!!) Oh and by the way, progress is not the best indicator of effective change in a school, if your progress is defined by invalid statistics.

On that topic, well done WA, we've taught to the test and improved our NAPLAN scores (see Saturday's West, 12 September p.7). There is still an absence of statistically valid evidence of curriculum improvement and retention of skills and knowledge beyond the test - at least none that I have seen. I wait to see the improvement in year 10's next year that should follow great NAPLAN results (highly unlikely due to changing demographics within the suburbs I teach due to increasing concentrations of refugees & 457 working visas) - I hope I get a performance pay rise too for being "super effective" as our results improve dramatically once normal demographics return and urban gentrification continues.

I hate to say it, as I'm as impatient for change as anyone but let's get the league table concept right (I don't see how but I'm open to rational argument) before implementing anything systemically across the nation. This takes time, which means political time lines of four years with political implementation periods of 2 years against educational timeframes of 14-16 years before success can be measured effectively. I hope someone other than government is given ownership of this issue (institutions, Curriculum Council, WACOT listen carefully), someone financially or legally independent from government interference needs to control the education debate. I can't believe I'm promoting three ineffective bodies but the government nonsense has to stop, the damage is potentially worse as Party politics swing with the latest trend.

Bring on the next batch of teacher bashing - we're whingers standing the way of progress. What would we know, we only teach, have degrees and live the education debate. We can't run when policy is wrong. Blaming teachers for poor results in the whole of WA is a cop out - after all teachers are not responsible for the systemic mismanagement of education over a long period of time, government is. We could probably also blame the union movement for something - that's a trendy way to shift blame too.

Politics is again in the way of common sense and we will again have to jump through hurdles for political necessity rather than good practice. Whatever damage is caused should be placed squarely in the lap of Julia Gillard and the Labor party (in the same way they will celebrate any successes). It's a big risk given the failures in other countries that could easily be mitigated through running a simple prototype and having statistically sound evidence of the positive effects first. The teaching fraternity cost the Labor party the state election in WA. Perhaps federal Labor too are forgetting (or have been ineffectively OBE taught) lessons learned in History classes.

Update 8-10-09: Here's another link about validity of league table findings.