Category: Equity in education

The Minister for Education, Andrew Barr, claimed last week that the report on student performance commissioned from the Australian Educational Research Council (ACER) shows that “our lowest socio-economic students performed better than their counterparts anywhere else in Australia” [ABC News, 26 March 2008]. He also made a similar claim in a media release on the report.

This claim is false. The ACER report clearly shows that 15 year old students from the lowest socio-economic status (SES) levels do no better than those in at least several other states.

Continue reading “False Claims by Minister on ACER Report”

Trevor Cobbold, spokesman for Save Our Schools, recently delivered an address to a forum on the future of public education in the ACT sponsored the ACT Public Education Alliance. The address makes four key points:

• The ACT schools system has very high quality outcomes, with little difference between the government and private sectors, especially when the different social composition of the sectors is taken into account.
• School outcomes in the ACT are not improving and, indeed, have declined in some areas over the period of the Stanhope Government.
• There is extensive individual and social inequity in ACT school outcomes with a large achievement gap between students from low and high income families.

• There is increasing social segregation in the ACT school system that is reflected in the ongoing drift of enrolments to the private system.

The paper also canvasses some broad policy proposals to address key weaknesses in the ACT school system.

Continue reading “A High Quality, Low Equity and Socially Segregated School System”

There was an orgy of self-congratulation by the ACT Government following the publication of national school results last week. In the extravagance, some irksome realities were ignored.

Continue reading “Self-Congratulation on School Results Ignores Real Problems”

ACT Greens MLA Deb Foskey has said the ACT Government’s education policy is failing too many Canberra students.

“I congratulate ACT teachers for their efforts towards achieving
excellent achievements for many Canberra students” Dr Foskey said today.

“However, the Greens are concerned about the alarming and growing gap between the achievements of students from high and low income families, as the Productivity Commission’s latest report has made clear.”

Continue reading “Education policy fails kids”