Tell-all report cards to rate schools

Surprising sense from a Leftist

The Rudd Government is on a collision course with Morris Iemma and teachers' unions who say its push for transparent report cards that identify test results, class sizes, teacher qualifications and even the wealth of students' families will lead to unfair school league tables. The federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard - having met the chancellor of schools in New York, Joel Klein - says Australia can learn from his methodology of "comparing like schools with like schools to measure differences in school results". A former lawyer criticised for his lack of education credentials, Mr Klein has stirred the ire of New York teachers with his focus on standardised testing and links between student results and teacher performance.

Ms Gillard has distanced herself from criticism from the NSW Government and teaching unions who warn her approach will name and shame disadvantaged schools. Rather, Ms Gillard said yesterday, teaching excellence should be identified and rewarded and high standards expected of all students, rich or poor. "We're not talking about anything as simplistic and silly as league tables," she said at the Australian Council for Educational Research annual conference. "But we are talking about parents and the community understanding what kinds of students are in schools, their socio-economic status, the number of indigenous students, the number of students with disabilities, because that obviously means the schools have special needs."

Researchers have linked low performance at school to social disadvantage, with less able richer children overtaking more able poorer children by the age of six. Apart from investing in early learning and rewarding quality teaching, Ms Gillard said a spotlight was needed on schools needing extra help. "The aim should be to robustly ascertain what mix of capacities and needs children are bringing to their school," she said. "We need this information in order to understand what schools, in turn, should offer to these students, and how governments and communities working together can support schools to do so.

"As a nation, we should then be tracking attainment, knowing that we are in the powerful position of comparing like schools with like schools. If two schools have comparable school populations but widely varying results, we would be able to ask the question why and ascertain the answer. "We should be able to identify best practice and innovation, and work systematically to ensure that they are spread more widely. We should be able to especially assist those schools that need it. Specifically we should be identifying excellent teaching and excellent school leadership. We must expect high standards of every child."

However, a spokesman for the acting NSW Minister for Education, John Hatzistergos, said enough information was already available to help identify struggling students in need of help. "There is considerable concern with proposals to excessively 'tag' students and schools with various labels for little purpose," he said. "NSW is responsible for the welfare and education of its students and is committed to the constructive application of the outcomes of assessment in all its forms."

The Premier, Morris Iemma, said it would be difficult to rank schools around Australia. "It's like hospitals; it's the rules around that [ranking], because if you're going to stand in a hospital - and it's a similar example with schools - like Westmead and compare it, for example, with a small district hospital, like Canterbury, and then attempt in some way from the straight statistics that appear on that list to rank those two hospitals, you would not be comparing like with like."

The president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the learning priorities of students would not be addressed by a "divisive sideshow on league tables". "Raising overall student performance and addressing underachievement requires investment," he said. "Teachers know it and parents know it. "Public schools nationwide require an immediate $1.4 billion per annum to raise retention rates to 90 per cent and a further $1.3 billion per annum to ensure that all primary school-age children reach the minimum benchmark scores for literacy and numeracy."

The principal of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Jenny Allum, said students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 had completed the first round of national literacy and numeracy tests in May, but no results had yet been made available to help schools diagnose any learning difficulties in students.

The federal Opposition's education spokesman, Tony Smith, said: "Already Julia Gillard has failed the first test in refusing to release the individual results of the national literacy and numeracy tests until the end of this year. The whole reason the Coalition government introduced these tests was to provide parents and schools with information in a timely fashion so parents could get help straightaway."

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Education unions oppose choice

Like the little Stalinists they are

The Australian Education Union has reacted angrily to plans to move towards a voucher-like scheme, which would give students the power to choose between private training providers and public ones such as TAFEs. AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos warned yesterday the union would launch a community campaign to head off any such changes, accusing federal Labor of continuing the "failed policies" of its Coalition predecessor. "Vouchers represent an attempt to commodify education and an abrogation on the part ofgovernment for ensuring planned provision of education," he said.

The Weekend Australian revealed on Saturday that the Rudd Government could use its reform of federalism to encourage its state Labor counterparts to introduce competition into vocational education. Victoria has already released plans to make public and private training bodies bid for students, prompting the AEU to declare the shift "the biggest threat to TAFE" in the state's history.

Education Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday the Government was in intensive discussions with the states and territories on the best ways to deliver vocational education and training. But she said training providers should not be the ones to decide what should be available. "Rather, the structure and funding of VET has to give students and industry the power to get providers to respond to their needs," Ms Gillard said.

She said future reforms would, however, not be modelled on the previous government's voucher system, since cut by Labor, which offered young Australians up to $3000 for vocational training. "There are a number of ways of achieving this reform, but an ill-thought-through, badly implemented voucher program like the Howard government's Work Skills vouchers isn't one of them," Ms Gillard said.

Martin Riordon, chief executive officer of TAFE Directors Australia, which represents TAFE and technology institutes, said vouchers were one of the financing options being discussed by governments. While he was yet to see the details of the proposal, he said it was important any reform was accompanied by a funding boost. "The last voucher system was trialled but it really was both poorly targeted and inadequately funded," Mr Riordon said.

"We are just keen to see that, in the next commonwealth and state agreement that comes in force in July next year, whatever funding agreement is ultimately agreed that there's a lift in training funding." Ms Gillard is also negotiating with the states and territories on school funding and yesterday told ABC's Insiders program she was "very assertively" challenging them to open up their schools to public scrutiny.

In a speech to the Australian Council for Educational Research conference in Brisbane today, she will call for school-by-school data on student populations, their socio-economic mix and development status to be made available nationally. "If two schools have comparable school populations but widely varying results, we would then be able to ask the question why and ascertain the answer," Ms Gillard said.

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A great emergency call system

This woman is lucky to have received treatment after two 000 calls for help were directed to the wrong cities. Manunda worker Lance Laverty saw the woman lying beside Anderson St with her head in the gutter about 11.45am on Saturday. He called 000 twice but still had to flag down passing police to get the woman help.

The "stuff up" comes just weeks after a World War II Digger died after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance. "She (the woman) had now been laying in the sun for about 40 minutes," Mr Laverty said. "Imagine if that lady was elderly and having a heart attack or a stroke, what the consequences may have been."

Mr Laverty said he tried to phone Cairns police but eventually hung up and called 000, which transferred his call to Beenleigh police [about 1,000 miles South of Cairns].

"I observed what appeared to be three young men hovering around another person lying on the ground," he said. Mr Laverty said he was reluctant to approach the men, fearing a confrontation, so decided the best action was to call police. After waiting 15 minutes for police to arrive, Mr Laverty again called 000 but was this time transferred to Townsville. [about 200 miles South of Cairns].

"I do not blame the police or QAS, all praise on these people and all other emergency service workers at the coal face, but I blame the system that we keep being told is the best in the world," Mr Laverty said.

A police spokesman last night said when a 000 call was received at a police communication centre experiencing a high volume of emergency calls it was transferred to an available call-taker at another police communications centre. This was the reason calls were diverted from Cairns. The woman was taken to Cairns Base Hospital but her condition is not known.

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Property buyers not worried by global warming

The threat of rising sea levels caused by climate change is not putting off cashed-up Australians from spending big on blue-chip beachfront property. Real estate agents say that dire predictions about the hungry sea swallowing up coastal suburbs seem to be falling on deaf ears. Demand for high-end beach property is holding up despite overall market softness due to a slowing economy and tanking share market. Buyers are either ignoring the experts or don't believe them.

A record was set on the Central Coast when a deceased estate in Pacific Dr, facing Wamberal Beach, offered for the first time in 70 years, sold for $6.2 million. Another picture-perfect beachfront home at Narrabeen, earmarked by scientists as the Sydney suburb most vulnerable to rising sea levels, sold last month for $4.03 million -- 20 per cent up on the price it fetched three years ago.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicts sea levels will rise between 18cm and 59cm over the next 92 years, and another 10cm to 20cm if ice sheets melt faster. For every centimetre the sea rises, scientists say, the beach retreats 1m -- so, by the end of the century, the worst-case scenario is that properties within 80m of the beach will be under water.

But real estate agent Jack Elsegood, an expert in northern beaches property, said there was no sign buyers were worried. "They understand there is a threat but, while it exists, it's not going to be in their lifetime or maybe even in their children's,'' he said.

Oceanographer Dr John Hunter, from the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, said some people did not to want to face the problem. "People want to live by the sea and a lot of them will take these risks,'' he said. "They'll accept them, hoping a solution can be found. (They think) perhaps a sea wall can be built.'' Dr Hunter said it was wrong to think the problems posed by rising sea levels were years away. [Even though sea-levels have stopped rising recently?]

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