New website My School launched

[miltenburg]

Quote:
...The Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage takes into account 16 variables proved to strongly influence educational results including income, employment and education levels of the area, and the proportion of indigenous students...
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gi...0129-n46u.html

and what message does that send to indigenous students and their families, that by attending a school they are affecting community socio- educational advantage. How ridiculous, it's two steps forward three steps back again, plenty of Indigenous students excel at school.

[tash]

Pleanty of indigenous children don't attend school as much as they are supposed to either (and they get paid to be there) or when they do are just disruptive. The % of indigenous students makes a big difference to us selecting a school for our children, alot of the reason we chose not to school in Kalgoorlie. Some may call it racist... well so be it, its a fact and Im not affraid to point it out.

[miltenburg]

That's fair enough Tash, that's your opinion and you obviously have your reasons for feeling that way, but this is a government initiative and our government is meant to promote reconciliation so progress can be made in that area.

The high school I went to in Midland had a fairly high Indigenous population and where attendance may have been an issue disruptive behaviour from the Aboriginal students I went to school with was no more than any other person, if anything they were quieter in class.

A good school with or without Indigenous students will include Aboriginal studies so all students can learn about Indigenous culture and history, which we were never taught in school, or were only taught about from a 'white Australia' perspective.

[baudman]

THE principal of Victoria's top-performing government school has slammed the Federal Government's My School website, describing it as a ''crock''.
Jeremy Ludowyke, the principal of Melbourne High - which last year was the top government school in the VCE - said selective-entry schools like his that stood to gain the most from published league tables should be the loudest critics against ''this nonsense''...

Read the whole article here - http://www.theage.com.au/national/my...0207-nkt2.html

Here's the bit that most concerns me...

...Last week it was revealed that the Victorian Education Department has instructed teachers to explicitly teach for the national tests, a cornerstone of the My School website...

The fact that schools were doing this to get funding was bad enough. But now the results are being made public I think it'll only get worse. (And, I believe Gillard was saying that was one of the reasons it went public, so the schools could get funding - you mean they couldn't report this stuff internally FFS???)

Breathe, Cory... Breathe...

[sandcastles]

I think it is worth remembering that these results were taken from ONE test, performed by years 3,4,5,6, at the beginning of the school year.

On subjects that they maybe haven't covered yet.

They had this in the UK, the results were so terribly flawed, it has now been pulled off the internet & is no longer a means to 'check out a school'

[mishy]

When I spoke with our principal he wasn't too worried...out of the 5 year 7 students who completed the test (new school, not many older students), I think of the 5 who sat the test, 4 of them had english as a second language, with one kid coming into australia a week before the test...so the results surely don't refelct the school (as other grades did fine!)

[sandcastles]

We discussed it at the school's AGM tonight....it's a crock! Takes nothing else into consideration AT ALL.

It will go the way of the UK one, for sure!

[pigz]

I looked up our local school. 'Student population below reporting threshold' We have 30 kids all up at the school. I looked at some of the schools in the next town over, not good. Lots of Red.

[baudman]

An article on the NAPLAN tests...

...They end up on the My School website, or, as I like to call it, ''My school's better than yours dot com''. Because that's what happens. You can't tell me that every parent doesn't skip straight to their kid's school, clock the score, then check out the figure for the next closest school. ''Aha, we kicked their backsides! Eat our dust, St Josephine's!'' ...

Read the rest at http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/pol...0515-v5hg.html

Dave O'Neill, the author, is a radio personality - but he studied as a primary school teacher. I pretty-much agree with everything he says (well, in this, anyway).

[sandcastles]

Many schools in SA are trying to prevent the latest NAPLAN results going on the 'my school website'