Why ICSEA fails our schools

My point is that Gillard did not need ICSEA to get a list of public schools with socio-economic disadvantage from SA.

Gillard still justifies My School and ICSEA, however, for identifying “struggling schools we didn’t know about” (TV interview with Barrie Cassidy, Insiders Program, April 11, 2010). She refers to “110 schools benefiting out of our $2.5 billion of new money and new reforms to help schools that are struggling.”

Actually, these 110 schools share in $11 million, or around $100,000 each. The money is welcome. It is probably not enough for any school wanting to assist students one-on-one with tutoring and mentoring. And in any case, it still does not identify schools where the most socially and educationally disadvantaged students are enrolled.

The schools were selected because they were worse off in relation to NAPLAN results for all year levels against both the national average for all schools and the statistically similar schools.

Not one Category 1, 2 or 3 IoED school in SA, that is those in the bottom three categories of socio-economic disadvantage, were identified for the additional funding. Four were Category 4 (mid-range) one was Category 5 and one was Category 7 (most advantaged). I have compared the NAPLAN results of these schools with a sample of Category 1, 2 and 3 schools, and the latter all had lower scores.

The Deputy Prime Minister has not had to explain to parents of students at SAs remote Aboriginal schools, or to parents of students in depressed parts of the northern and southern suburbs, the statistical magic that obscures their much greater educational disadvantage from those dispersing much-needed direct additional funding from the Commonwealth.

If a statistical formula could be devised that measured educational advantage of students at individual schools, it would perhaps start with the greatest measure of what constitutes an educational head start: the time spent by parents reading to and with young children.

Gillard knows this: “Mum had made sure that both Alison (sister) and I could read and write before we went to school. So we got a flying start,” (interviewed on Australian Story, 6 March, 2006).

The percentage of students, Birth to Year 3, who had parents or older siblings read to them for at least two hours per week would be one of my starting variables.

So would class size, although Gillard prevaricated about this when asked by one astute journalist (Madonna King, ABC Brisbane 12 August 2008) who gamely pursued the matter across several questions.

So would the percentage of teachers teaching outside of subject areas for which they are trained. (Nor is this taken into account in the new Standards for the Teaching Profession with its categories of graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and leader - although these will no doubt find their way onto My School.)

And to get a tad esoteric - how about the ratio of total teachers to full-time equivalents (FTEs) per school? The ratio at Blackwood is a low 1.06 to one, whereas at St Peters College it is 1.28 to one, which I suspect is a measure of the greater employment of specialised teaching staff at the latter.