Edited by the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology

Why "league tables" of schools are a failure

21 August 2009It is the sloppy thinking that fails to distinguish between "underperforming" schools and "disadvantaged" schools, writes Ian Keese on On Line Opinion

THOSE WHO support publishing “league tables” that rank schools by results often take the high moral ground by arguing that to do so is in the interests of the disadvantaged students and that teachers only oppose them so they can hide their failures.

For instance, on 13 August the Australian reported that “Julia Gillard is to crash through opposition to publication of data on school performance, insisting that the move will allow her to target underperforming schools with extra resources” and she “dismissed complaints that the data would lead to the production of simplistic league tables”. In fact what Julia Gillard said in her speech the day before was far more measured...

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Photo: Susan Stewart/ iStockphoto.com

 

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