Page 1879 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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The study by University of Chicago economists Derek A. Neal and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach lends some empirical support to the common perception that schools are focusing on students in the middle—the so-called “bubble kids”—in order to boost scores on the state exams used to determine whether schools are meeting their proficiency targets.
Part of the problem is the proficiency targets that go along with the sorts of pronouncements that our federal education minister comes up with. If those are tied to funding, schools are forced to go through hoops and to make things look different from what they are sometimes just to achieve essential funding. The promise by the federal government, only partly resisted by state governments around Australia, is to link commonwealth funding to educational outcomes assessed by the standardised testing of a narrowed curriculum.
The consequences of this move are likely to be increasing disadvantage and poorer school outcomes and experiences for a significant minority of students and the erosion of the democratic underpinning of our society. It is worth remembering that our affluent and egalitarian society was shaped, at least in part, by the emergence of a free, secular, public education system in the second half of the 19th century. Nations that were similarly blessed with resources and opportunities but did not take that path to universal public education, such as Argentina, for example, have been dogged by inequity and corruption ever since.
The most interesting trend in education in Australia is its growing tail. That is, while most students do very well—we are still in the top two or three nations in the world in student outcomes in literacy, numeracy and social science—a growing number of students are marginalised in our community and do not succeed at school. This contradicts other societies with high-achieving education systems such as Finland and South Korea. While the highly disciplined institutional approach in South Korea is culturally based and unlikely to assist us in Australia, we could learn something from Finland.
In Finland teachers are greatly valued, five-year trained and well paid. The curriculum framework which guides their work is broad, and they have substantial room in which to respond flexibly to perceived student need, particularly at primary and lower secondary level. Non-government schools are uncommon, but where they exist, they are government funded and cannot charge tuition fees. I am not advocating the Finnish system; I am simply pointing out that one would think that we have more to learn there than we do by looking at the US, with all the problems that come from a two-tier education system which entrenches social disadvantages and is not backed up by public social services.
The secondary college system is one of the strengths of the government schools in the ACT. I suppose it is the strength, although certainly secondary education, years 7 to 10 levels, needs a lot more attention. But the secondary college system—though I believe it has been eroded this year by changes through the EBA, which I hear has had a very bad effect on morale—when the report that Mrs Dunne was referring to was written offered an opportunity for students and to teachers across a wide range of subject areas, and still provides a form of assessment that measures ongoing output and capacity of students. Its successful outcomes and attractiveness to young people
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