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GlobalVoices InAustralia; Transparency, Autonomy, and Performance Pay in Australia

A new web site in Australia has become the focus of a swirling debate about national testing, transparency, and performance pay. The new web site, called My School (www.myschool.edu.au), was unveiled earlier this year and reports the performance of each of Australia's almost 10,000 schools on national tests of student achievement. Tests in the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) were administered for the third time in May 2009 for all students in Grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. School "report cards" contain a description of each school along with the raw scores on tests and comparisons to 60 "statistically similar" schools and schools in the same neighborhood. The web site reports student attendance rates and how each school scores on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA). All schools that receive public funds, including public and private schools, have an online report card. The web site has brought into focus extensive debate in recent months on the merits of national testing and the high level of transparency. The public generally supports the testing program and the high level of transparency. But teachers, principals, and the public oppose transparency in the form of the My School web site if it allows the media to construct so-called league tables that compare school performance. Teachers and Testing Members of the Australian Education Union (AEU), the largest of the teachers unions serving the public sector, unanimously approved a resolution at its annual conference in January that teachers will refuse to administer the 2010 tests scheduled in May unless federal Minister for Education Julia Gillard assures them that such league tables can't be produced. She has provided that assurance in the past, but there have been no changes in how school performance is presented online, and several crude league tables duly appeared in several newspapers after My School went live in January. Gillard, who is also deputy prime minister, has threatened legal "strike-breaking" action if teachers withdraw their services. The opposition party in the federal parliament, the Liberal-National Coalition, has taken a cautious approach to the My School web site. The Liberal-Nationals strongly endorse the national testing program--not surprising, because this is the party that initiated national testing when it was in government before the election of the Rudd Labor government in late 2007. On the one hand, the opposition downplays the web site, claiming it will prove ineffective or be ignored, going the way of similar initiatives of the government called Fuel Watch and Grocery Watch. Events since the launch of My School suggest this did not occur. There have been an unprecedented number of hits on the web site, and there has been vigorous and balanced debate on the main pages of daily newspapers. After the initial appearance of simplistic tables, newspapers have refrained from publishing full league tables. A private company that has done so may well be sued by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which conducts the tests and operates My School. The Liberal-National opposition argues that high-stakes testing and reporting demands that principals have more authority to select their staff. The level of autonomy across the country is uneven. Private schools, which enroll about 35% of all students (exceeding 50% at the upper secondary level in the largest capital cities), have a very high level of autonomy; public schools in much of the country have relatively little. Julia Gillard has yet to declare her hand regarding what level of autonomy would prove best for schools. …