Experts Back Ban on League Tables
29 June 2009
Shadow Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli today said the Liberal/Nationals' opposition to the publication of crude, simplistic school league tables was consistent with the views of educational experts across the country.
These views are also set out in the policy platform of the ALP, with Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard, NSW Education Minister Verity Firth and former NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca all opposing the publication of league tables that rank schools.
Last week the NSW Parliament passed Rees Government legislation to allow the Commonwealth Government access to NSW school test results. An amendment to the Bill makes it illegal to publish any list ranking the bottom 90 percentile of school results in a newspaper or other document.
Mr Piccoli said the Liberal/Nationals remained opposed to the publication of crude, simplistic school league tables that unfairly compared different schools.
"International experience shows that the publication of simplistic league tables has the effect of undermining schools, as they do not provide a fair indication of school performance," Mr Piccoli said.
"There is almost universal opposition amongst almost all education stakeholders including the Secondary Principal's Council, the Primary Principal's Forum and the Association of Independent Schools, to the publication of league tables ranking schools, and we are acting in line with them.
"The Labor Party has always been opposed to school league tables, with former Education Minister John Aquilina introducing a regulation in 1997 to ban the release or publication of school league tables using exam test scores.
"Even the Education Minister and the Labor MPs who spoke on the legislation last week declared their opposition to the publication of school league tables.
"The legislation passed still allows parents to access information about their school's performance, includes student results. This information will be freely available on the Minister's website, and can still be legally reproduced or published.
"The Liberal/Nationals believe we should celebrate the achievements of our most successful students, without humiliating students and schools that did not achieve high marks. This often occurs due to reasons like socio-economic standing, location of school and access to resources.
"Like the ALP, we remain opposed to the publication of school league tables in support of every educational organisation representing both public and private schools - all of whom oppose the ranking of schools according to raw student results."