Sitting 'the test': oranges or apples?

On 13 March, some 13,000 NSW Year 6 children will sit the Department of Education's Selective Test, with a view to gaining one of the approximately 4000 selective places in NSW selective schools. My two youngest children will be among them.

Our local selective school is James Ruse Agricultural High School. They won't get in, though. Advised by primary schools to make sure their children had 'space' and 'play' and 'a childhood', mothers like me rejected the coaching culture that increasingly dominates the educational space up here in the great North West. Other parents made the opposite choice, and often for entirely cultural reasons.

My Shanghai-born friend, Paul, explained to me that in China and Korea, unless you pass the test, you cannot move up to the next level. Unless you pass the test, you bring shame on your family. Not passing the test can mean the difference between remaining in rural poverty, or moving into urban affluence.

At our school, in the lead up to the selective test, many year 6 students are going to coaching between three and seven days a week. The Department manifestly refuses to recognize that there is a link between gaining entry to selective schools and the explosion of coaching colleges. Incredibly, the Department of Education actually publishes the percentages of students with language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) who attend selective schools (between 70% and 81% in 2012).

It is the LBOTE students who dominate the rolls of the coaching colleges, and according to the Department's own publicly available information, selective schools. You would think that the Department might see a bit of a link there. But no.

My friend, Paul, listens sympathetically. 'You don't want your children to go to James Ruse,' he says.

Paul's two children do not go to James Ruse. They go to another local selective school. He tells me he did not send them to a coaching college. 'Thousands and thousands of dollars to go to coaching! I can't afford it!' he said. I believe him. After twenty-five years in Australia, Paul still sends money home to China, every month.

The Department has claimed to me that schools can only determine if a child is 'hard working'. Only the Selective Schools' Unit test can tell if a child actually has 'ability'. But questions of ability, or 'intelligence', are vexed. What we have discovered is that the NSW test is geared to the non-verbal, the mathematical, and to speed.

We have four children. The eldest was sent for a Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC IV) test when she was eleven. The WISC IV is the gold standard intelligence test, accepted around the world. The test measures 'verbal comprehension'; 'perceptual reasoning'; working memory and processing speed.

Her 'perceptual reasoning' (spatial nonverbal reasoning, hand eye coordination, working with visual information) was high as was her 'processing speed' (how quickly new information can be sorted in a time limited situation). Her verbal comprehension was assessed as a 'relative weakness'. That child was accepted into selective school.

Our second child also did the WISC IV at a similar age. This child was assessed as 'Very Superior' in verbal comprehension, our capacity to think and solve problems with words. This child is in the top 1% of students and twice assessed by educational psychologists as gifted in English. Her other measures were high. That child was not accepted into selective school.

Paul has heard this rant before. He sighs. 'Why didn't you send them for coaching?' 'Paul,' I say, 'I've just told you. These kids were smart. They shouldn't need coaching,'

Paul has known me for a while and is used to my western ideas of 'shoulds' and 'should nots'. He has given up trying to change me. Being Chinese, Paul is practical. 'Look,' he says, 'coaching isn't about coaching. Nobody who goes to coaching needs coaching.' I believe he is right in this. Out here in the great North-West all schools have above 70% intake of LBOTE students. No LBOTE parent I know would permit their child to under-perform at an Australian school in what is widely regarded as a 'soft' syllabus, especially in maths. 'Kids go to coaching to get practice in taking the test,' Paul explains. 'That is how they get into James Ruse. They get test practice at coaching and they go there every day, seven days a week. You really don't want your children to go to James Ruse,' he finishes.

I am worried about my younger children, at least one of them. My impression as their parent is that he is the cleverest of all; if he is not challenged he becomes bored, angry, resentful and even depressed. 'Gifted underachievers' lose confidence, become disruptive, negative and isolated. They can get into trouble with the law. They have high rates of suicide.

I had the opportunity recently to speak with Magda Pollak, the long time head of the Department's Selective School and Opportunity Class Unit. Unencumbered by educational psychology qualifications, Ms Pollak is confident about what a 'gifted' student really is. According to Ms Pollak, really clever children can do things very quickly. Speed of achievement is her primary criterion; to be able to rattle off 35 answers in 30 minutes. The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) developed test for NSW is entirely multiple choice and favours 'perceptual reasoning', logic and puzzles. And speed. According to Professor Dianna Kenny at the University of Sydney, these skills are developed by test taking practice.

Interestingly, ACER has developed entirely different tests for Victoria and South Australia that use verbal measures. These tests have components that require the writing (and marking) of sentences and short essays. One even includes an interview.

The accepted gold standard WISC tests are noteworthy in how little actual mathematics they use to assess ability. Its primary tools involve reasoning and comprehension tasks that use words, and others that use symbols and other non verbal tools. Victoria and South Australia accept that using both types of measures is sound assessment practice. By contrast NSW undervalues language as a way of measuring intellectual ability. NSW discriminates against types of clever children such as my young son, who hesitates before he answers because he recognizes options and ponders possibilities a less clever child does not.

I mutter at Paul. It's alright for you, I say, your children were exceptional at maths, which aided them in their selective test results. 'You're always saying 'you don't want your child to go to James Ruse', Paul. It's consistently the most successful school in the State. So just why is that, exactly?'

'Look.' Paul eyes me as he does when we are sharing cross-cultural Secret Parents' Business.

'To get into James Ruse, you have to study ALL the time. You train like an elite athlete. Those kids become very well disciplined. Unfortunately, they also become very obedient learners. They learn to stifle their own creativity. Very bad.

'You take the Apple Company. Say 10% of their profit goes to China that makes the hardware. Say 30% goes to Korea where they make the software. That's 40%.

'That leaves 60% of the profits. The majority of the profit goes to the United States, because they invented Apple. So it's the creative intelligence that you want for your children.' He's really got me feeling better about the world and the sharing of our combined West/East parental wisdom. We have talked it through. We have achieved a rare moment of clarity, wisdom and unity.

Until Paul finishes: '.....Because that's where the BIG MONEY IS!'