DET tries to impose annual school report changes

By Jennifer Leete

Federation has lodged a dispute notification in the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) about changes that the Department of Education and Training (DET) is attempting to impose in relation to annual school reports.

DET recently briefed Federation's Senior Officers and provided "samples" to show the effect of the changes which DET claims are necessary because of a report from the NSW Auditor-General and because of new conditions of Federal Government funding imposed by Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson. Last year, NSW Auditor-General Bob Sendt was critical of the current annual school reports and made a series of recommendations requiring detailed reporting of how each school performance compares with others. These overlap with the Dr Nelson requirements attached as conditions of funding to the Schools Assistance (Learning Together -- Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004.

The content of annual school reports has previously been a contentious issue between Federation and the DET, with the union seeking to avoid the possibility that damaging "league tables" of school performance could be created from information published in annual school reports.

The imposed changes which DET claims it will "trial" in 2006 include the mandatory inclusion of:

• statistics of staff attendance and leave rates
• teacher qualifications, including degree or no degree or higher degree
• staff retention rates
• post school destinations of students.

The biggest change, and that which will present the greatest dangers of potential misuse, relate to mandatory reporting of results of external tests in graphic form determined by DET. The Department will be creating and using a concept of "Like School Groups" which essentially puts schools into one of nine different categories across the state, based on similarities in socio-economic status of students and geographic location. The graphs will then show the school's results in external tests, including proportions of students achieving in each skill band compared to state averages and averages for the Like School Group. Schools will also be required to report on the proportion of students meeting the National Benchmarks for literacy and numeracy in years 3, 5 and 7. In addition, schools will be forced to publicly report the so-called "value added" data which is currently provided to schools for their own internal evaluation and planning purposes.

There will also be mandatory requirements for reporting school based assessment data, again in graphic form, this time based on a software package provided by the DET.

Federation members should be aware that publication of results of certain external tests is currently limited by a Regulation of the NSW Education Act. The Education Regulation 2001 includes: "Results to which this clause applies must not be publicly revealed in a way that ranks or otherwise compares the results of particular schools."

In addition, in the settlement of disputes in the IRC and in the making of the last salaries award, there are "protocols in relation to the reporting of external test data" which are also relevant.

In response to these developments Federation issued a press release on 14 June which stated (in part): "The Federation has a State Industrial Award that covers the issue of Annual School Reports. This item was placed in our Award by the State Government in 1996. The Federation will lodge a dispute notification to ensure that Dr Nelson cannot impose new conditions by threatening to withdraw Federal public money from our public schools."

Jennifer Leete is the Deputy President.

For further information

June 2005 contents