By Jordan Baker
The state’s two powerful private school sectors want the government to publish more information about HSC results, saying the present system leaves parents in the dark and recognises only a narrow definition of success.
The Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, said she would ask education authorities to look at different approaches, “with a view to increasing visibility on school performance balanced with careful consideration about student privacy and fair reporting”.
The state’s two powerful private school sectors want more HSC information published.Credit: Wolter Peeters
HSC reporting is highly controversial. NSW used to release school-by-school tertiary entrance ranks, but stopped doing so about 25 years ago after a story by The Daily Telegraph about the lowest-achieving school in the state, Mt Druitt High (which has since been re-named), sparked outrage.
For the past 20 years, authorities have only released the names and schools of students who achieve in the top band of their subject; most are in selective or high-fee schools. Laws only allow media outlets to identify the top 10 per cent of schools.
Catholic Schools NSW has written a new report examining HSC public reporting and exploring potential alternatives.
It suggests NSW consider releasing more data, such as where students end up with training or work, the median ATAR for a school, growth measures focusing on the progress students make compared with previous assessments, and band distributions, showing a range of results.
The report found Victoria already provided similar data, including each school’s high scores, its median VCE score and information about what students did when they left school, such as work or study.
“Publishing a wider range of measures would give parents a richer set of information on school outcomes, better reflect the variety of schools and models of success, and help schools avoid any distorted focus on any single, narrow measure of success,” it said.
Dallas McInerney, the head of Catholic Schools NSW, called for an HSC reporting framework that reflected the efforts of all students, rather than “just a narrow focus on the top end,” he said.
“I do think what parents want is to have their children’s effort and studies reflected back to them fairly and appropriately. At the moment, they’re just getting a very small sliver of that. And the current reporting framework characterises it as band 6 or nothing.”
The head of the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, Geoff Newcombe, said releasing more data would give parents and schools more information and greater transparency. AIS research has shown most parents relied upon word of mouth when selecting a school.
“There is a clear appetite among parents for more information and better-quality data but there is a lack of reliable and useful information available,” he said.
Dr Newcombe said the NSW Education Standards Authority already did extensive sector-by-sector analysis of HSC results, broken down by geography, gender and other characteristics. “However, this analysis is available only to a very small number of senior administrators in each sector,” he said.
“AIS NSW believes a tailored version with relevant information should also be publicly available on the NESA website to help parents make better informed choices about their children’s schooling. It could also support increased parental participation and engagement in the educational process.”
Ms Mitchell said accountability was key plank of her education reforms. She has asked the NSW Education Standards Authority and the NSW Department of Education to examine best practice and the approach of other jurisdictions.
“That said, our long-standing position of preventing unfair comparisons of school performance is unchanged, as we have seen the damage these can do at an individual school and student level,” she said.“Naming and shaming schools is not how we achieve the best for students.”
It is illegal for media outlets to identify low-achieving schools.
The call for greater transparency was also supported by NSW Labor and One Nation MP Mark Latham, who is influential in the upper house.
“NSW should be highlighting the full range of high school student achievement and identifying how to replicate good results across the state,” said Opposition education spokeswoman Prue Car.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.