Right:An Australian Education Union advertisement criticising "league tables".
.Arguments against the My School Internet site
1. The data gives a simplistic picture of school performance
It has been claimed that the data actually encourages simplistic judges about individual schools' performances and simplistic comparisons between schools. It has further been claimed that the My School site does this, despite federal government assurances to the contrary.
On January 29, 2010, the Save Our Schools education lobby group issued a media release in which it stated, 'The Prime Minister and the Federal Education Minister gave assurances that schools would not be unfairly compared; schools would not be "named and shamed"; and that they would not support "simplistic" league tables. My School shows they have failed to deliver on all of these promises. Their assurances are exposed as duplicitous.
The Prime Minister has long said that government schools in disadvantaged areas would not be compared with "likes of Geelong Grammar and the rest" but this is exactly what My School does.
Its local schools webpage compares the results of Geelong Grammar - one of the wealthiest schools in Australia -with government and Catholic schools in Corio and Norlane, which are amongst the most disadvantaged suburbs in Australia. Geelong Grammar has 1% of its students in the bottom quarter of the My School socio-economic index compared to over 90% for many other schools in the area including Corio PS, Corio South PS, Corio West PS, and St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School.
This is the kind of "simplistic" and "arbitrary" school comparison that the Prime Minister and the Federal Education Minister say they are opposed to. It is not the only example. My School provides many other unfair comparisons between the most advantaged and disadvantaged schools around Australia.'
2. The data is subject to commercial misuse
I has been claimed that the media and other groups could manipulate the data in a way that damages or misrepresented particular schools or sets of schools.
As an example of this misuse, the ABC reported that New South Wales banned the release of data about school performances in 1997 after a newspaper report about Mount Druitt High School carried the headline 'Class We Failed'.
Similarly, on February 17, 2010, The Age reported that a company was compiling crude school league tables based on data from the My School website and selling them to parents online for $97.
The 'data', which originally included some errors, listed 8000 Australian schools ranked from 'top' to 'bottom' and includes a list of the 'top' and 'bottom' 100 Australian primary and secondary schools, suburbs, attendance rates and highest and lowest growth schools. Schools have been given a score based on an average of their national testing (NAPLAN) results.
Peter Hill, the chief executive officer of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, which developed the My School website, has expressed concern that some private firms were trying to profit from the data.
Mr Hill stated, 'We believe there's a danger they could be promoting misleading conclusions to the public and ... they're making money out of this information ...[The authority] does not support the use of NAPLAN data for this purpose.'
3. The My School data is flawed
It has been claimed that the 'like school' comparisons on the My School website are flawed because they do not actually compare the test results of schools having similar socio-economic student populations.
It has been argued that My School's measure of the socio-economic status (SES) of schools is systematically biased in a way that favours private schools in comparing their results with so-called 'like' government schools.
My School tends to under-estimate the SES of private schools that draw enrolments from high SES families living in lower SES areas. It also tends to over-estimate the SES of government schools because high SES families resident in their area tend to choose private schools. This is because it ignores the fact that many government schools lose their best students to private schools. Thus, though a government and private school may appear to be drawing their students from the same socio-economic grouping the private school has the self-selecting 'best' students from among this pool.
It has also been noted that the SES of international students, who generally attend private schools is not included in the data. It has been suggested that this also works to the advantage of private schools as a majority of these students come from wealthy, well-educated families.
4. The data could harm schools that are already struggling
It has been claimed that the data from the My School site can be used to assemble 'league tables', rankings of schools which list best to worse performances. The Australian Education Union (AEU) has repeatedly argued that such listings are very damaging for poorly performing schools, harming the total school community.
On its federal Internet site, the AEU has stated, 'League tables which rank schools based on raw test scores are bad for students, schools and education.
Naming and shaming schools that don't get high marks in the tests is devastating for those school communities and makes it much harder for students and teachers.
Already in 2010 newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and the Northern Territory have published damaging league tables using data from the My School website.
The Education Minister Julia Gillard says league tables are misleading and make the job of teachers harder, but so far she has refused to act.'
On January 29, 2010, the Save Our Schools education lobby group issued a media release in which it stated, 'Julia Gillard gave an absolute guarantee that schools would not be 'named and shamed'. Yet, this is precisely what My School does. Schools with the worst results are given a red flag. The red flag signifies danger, don't go there. Why else was the colour red chosen to grade the lowest performing schools, other than to punish them?
Most often it is schools serving the most disadvantaged communities in Australia that are given red flags. These are the schools working in the most difficult of circumstances, yet their reward from the Rudd Government is to be pilloried in public.
This is public shaming of the worst possible kind. By "red flagging" schools, Gillard is aiding and abetting an annual ritual hunt for the worst performing schools around Australia that happens in England and the United States.
This is not the path to school improvement. Students in these schools will be humiliated and demoralised. Students who are humiliated for their learning accomplishments are unlikely to respond positively in their future learning. It makes the task of teachers and schools that much harder.'
5. The information the site contains is already available to parents and governments
It has been claimed that the My School site is essentially a public exposure exercise, rather than an attempt to give governments and parents information. This claim is made because, it is asserted, governments and parents already have access to the information the website contains, but not in the highly public form of a widely known Internet site.
School performance data is already forwarded to state and federal education authorities. The only reason My School could be constructed was because governments already had access to the data.
As Jenny Mace, Bega Teachers' Association counsellor and representative, has noted, 'The Federal Government should already be aware of schools are struggling and under resourced.'
Equally, it has been noted, parents have access to data showing their own son or daughter's performance in NAPLAN tests and to their children's Year 12 performances. They also have access to their children's school's Annual Report. These reports are presented to the School Council. Many schools publish their Annual Reports on their Internet sites.
6. The data could be misused to make judgments about individual students
It has further been claimed that the My School data could be used not only to make judgements about schools, but also about individual students.
According to this line of argument, if browsers use the My School data to make negative judgements about individual schools, they can equally use that data to make judgements about particular students who have or still attend that school. This could be particularly damaging for individual students, especially if these judgements were made by potential employers.