Well, have you had a look at the My School website?
What did you think?
The Sydney Morning Herald site states, “The My School site gives parents information, based on the national testing of children's literacy and numeracy, known as NAPLAN.” The My School site shows results for each of the five areas tested: reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and numeracy.”
How do you compare schools and teachers? What else do you need to know? Are there certain schools that suit particular children and not others? My gut feeling (not statistics) tells me this is so.
What is left out of this comparison site?
What about community support for families and children, what about teaching children about other cultures and learning from each other? What about learning about being a good family, school, town, country, world member? Oh, there is so much more. What about the arts and their value? What about science?
OK so now we have this website, what can we learn from it?
Firstly to prevent our local schools from joining many others in teaching towards these tests! Why? Because other parts of the curriculum will suffer. Why would the school spend time teaching art, language, fitness and PE, when teachers could be their time better teaching toward the NAPLAN tests? Anyway, if every school spent more time teaching towards tests in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy; there would still be 50% of the schools in the below average category! This is not a competency based test result, it is a ranking.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy are all very important. In the past I taught Business English at TAFE and CIT. These are important skills, but so are many other skills and qualities that need to be taught. How do you rate the intangibles?
My politician website?
OK schools play a very important part in educating our citizens and making Australia what it is and will be in the future. Schools should be supported and held responsible, but through what means? This is really the question.
Politicians are also an important part of making Australia what it is and will be. Yes, we can judge them by voting them out, but where are our statistics to help us do this?
If the government has provided vital information to help parents decided where to send their child, let’s also provide vital information to help us vote in the next election.
Information we might want collected for us as voters to use could include:
• Community profile of politician’s region (for comparison)
• Local issues in each politician’s region
• How each local politician voted on areas important to his/her local community
• Visits the politician made to local areas with a break down to types of visits: school presentations, shows, churches, volunteer organisations, etc.
• A list a major issues currently important to Australians with each individual politician’s record: voting, speeches, articles, etc.
• Each politician’s attendance record in each Parliamentary sitting and participation in each sitting and what participation he/she had in it
• Expenses claimed for and how these expenses helped to provide better governance
The My Politician website could provide a set of quality data that voters and the wider community could use, along with other information, to help ensure that every politician in every region is region is providing a high quality service to its constituents. Politicians from similar areas will show what is possible and raise expectations. They may also hold the key to working out what needs to happen in order for all politicians (and government) to perform at a high level, (adapted from the My Schools Fact sheet to support student improvement).
Then we could have My Electricians, My Plumbers, My Real Estate Agents, My Storekeeper, My Bank, My Lawyer,etc. Is this what we want?
Useful websites?
www.myschool.edu.au
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/my-school-criticism-fails-test-20100128-n1rm.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/parents-guide-to-my-school-website/story-e6frg6nf-1225823836189
http://www.myschool.edu.au/Resources/pdf/My%20School%20FAQs%2020100120.pdf
http://www.myschool.edu.au/Resources/pdf/My%20School%20FACT%20SHEET%20USING%20MY%20SCHOOL%20TO%20SUPPORT%20SCHOOL%20AND%20STUDENT%20IMPROVEMENT%2020100120.pdf
