Some PISA commentary leans away from truth

In a 2009 paper titled Accounting for school-sector differences in university entrance performance Marks revisits the issue of school sector impact on tertiary entrance and he concludes that schools in the non-government sector “promote a more academic environment that lifts student performance”.

And the stronger performance of Catholic and independent school sectors is not restricted to Year 12 results and tertiary entry.  A third LSAY paper published in 2013, School Completion: what we learn from different measures of family background concludes that, “Respondents from Catholic or independent schools are more likely to complete Year 12 than those in government schools”.

Clearly, Ben Jenson is wrong to argue there is no evidence to support the claim that Catholic and independent school sectors outperform the government sector.  Even worse, the fact that Catholic and independent schools outperform government schools even after adjusting for students’ socioeconomic status (SES) belies the argument that such schools do well only because they enrol already privileged students from wealthy backgrounds.

Based on his research Gary Marks concludes that, “Differences in student performance between and within schools cannot be accounted for by socio-economic background” and “Socio-economic background does not substantially account for the relationship between educational differentiation and student achievement”.

In answer to those arguing that Australian education has an equity problem it should also be noted that based on the 2012 PISA results we are categorised as ‘high-quality’ and ‘high equity’ and as noted in the 2013 LSAY paper previously referred to, “The impacts of family background (parental occupations and education) and type of school have become less marked since the late 1980s”.