League Tables Miss the Point

By Dr Bryan Cowling

Posted on 18 August 2009

There's been a lot of media hype in recent months about the concerns that some people have about the use of publicly available data derived from national testing to construct school league tables. The Council of Australian Governments representing the Premiers and Chief Ministers of all States and Territories and the Prime Minister (COAG) is keen to make more information available to parents about  the performance of all schools throughout Australia.

The introduction of national testing in 2008 was a novelty for Australia. Unquestionably it has yielded lots of valuable diagnostic information to schools and the education employing authorities. Some of this information, interpreted sensibly, can throw light on a school's performance in certain areas and facilitate improvement. I have no doubt that Minister Gillard believes that it is in the interests of transparency that parents are given access to more data on the supposed performance of their schools.

There is no reason why this data should be used to construct league tables. In fact it is fallacious to make comparisons between schools on the basis of such limited data collected for other purposes. I agree with my former boss, Dr Ken Boston, when he speaks about the devastating effects on principals and and teachers in England of the misuse of national testing data to classify whole schools as ‘failures.' We do not want to see that happen in this country.

But there's a more serious issue at stake for education in this country. It has been smothered in the debate about national testing and league tables. It's the issue of what education, and schooling in particular, is all about. Is it about only those things that can be measured by national tests? Is it only about literacy, numeracy, history and science?  Is education more than just preparing young people to be the unquestioning producers and consumers in a market-driven economy?  If you read the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians adopted in December 2008 you get the distinct impression that the education our political leaders want us to have is primarily about individual success, fulfilling, productive and responsible lives.

As Christians we argue that education must be more than this. God made us in his image. He has made us to become responsive and responsible disciples of Jesus Christ. Schools therefore should be learning communities which care for students' spiritual, moral, emotional, social, aesthetic and physical as well as their all-round intellectual growth.  Without this purpose, schooling will not produce the whole, complete and integrated young people God intends them to be. Nor will it foster communities that hunger and thirst for personal and social righteousness and justice. None of these attributes lend themselves to national testing. They'll never be captured in league tables either. It's time we Christians entered the real debate.