Put your hand up to question why

Michael Rowan turns to Socrates to find a solution to troubling retention rates, poor student performance statistics and the myriad other challenges facing Tasmanian schools

THE Education Minister has invited schools to consider offering Years 11 and 12.

Schools are to indicate their view by November 17, following consultation with the school community.

That leaves us with a problem.

How can the school community be sure that the consultation is based on good evidence as to what is in the best interests of their children?

All of us are finding it harder and harder to be sure that the information we rely on is the truth.

Fake news, alternative facts, and public promotion by vested interests through Facebook campaigns and the like can easily trump attempts to carefully analyse a problem and find evidence-based solutions.

However, there is a way to deal with this modern problem, which is as old as western civilisation itself.

Ask questions, like Socrates did. Mind you, he annoyed the authorities so much he was eventually condemned to death for this.

Prepare yourself for trouble if you are determined to keep asking questions until you are satisfied you have the truth.

So if Socrates came to our school for a discussion about whether our children should be able to complete Years 11 and 12 there, what questions would he ask and what evidence would he expect to be given? Let’s have a go ourselves. What problem are we trying to solve by extending high schools to Years 11 and 12?

Socrates would expect the authorities to refer to the Productivity Commission Report on Government Services, which shows that Tasmanian young people are attaining a Year 12 or the equivalent VET qualification at a rate 20-30 per cent lower than other states, and that even children in our high socio-economic status suburbs are less likely to achieve this goal than children in low socio-economic status communities in other states.

If the authorities say that state-to-state comparisons are not relevant because Tasmania is poorer or more regional, Socrates would ask why the Australian census says students in every local government area of Victoria including the Murray, mallee and mountains, are more likely to have progressed beyond Year 10 than all young Tasmanians with the exception of those that live in Clarence, Kingborough and Hobart.

Why is Clarence worse than Cairns, Hobart no better than Holdfast Bay, and Kingborough behind Kangaroo Island?

Is this a real problem, or just a problem with how we define and measure completing Year 12?

Socrates would have often heard that the supposed problem with Year 12 attainment is a consequence of our Year 12 certificate being too hard to obtain and thus that comparisons with other states are misleading.

He would simply ask the authorities to say what our Year 12 attainment rate would be if we replaced our Tasmanian Certificate of Education with the Year 12 certificate of one or other of the other states.

How could they say our certificate is harder without saying which others are easier?

Is Year 12 the real issue or a symptom of a problem with our kids or their earlier schooling?

Socrates would not allow the authorities to blame the kids for our Year 12 attainment problem without good evidence.

He would ask them whether the kids are the problem. How is it that the Australian Early Development Census tells us that our percentage of students beginning school developmentally vulnerable is below the Australian average?

Nor would he be willing to accept claims by those in the senior secondary system that Tasmania’s teachers in primary and high schools are not doing a good job of preparing students for senior secondary study.

He would ask: if that is so, how can it be that comparing like-for-like schools in Tasmania and other states our kids are NAPLAN stars, but do not convert that to senior secondary success as they do elsewhere — by a margin of about 20 per cent?

Is there any evidence that extending schools to Years 11 and 12 will fix the problem?

Socrates would expect the authorities to have considered the rate of students in Year 10 going on to gain their Year 12 certificate — the TCE — in schools that have extended to Year 12 before and after the extension.

He would have noted that while there is a 6 per cent increase in this TCE attainment rate in all government schools, in the schools that have been extended to Year 12 the improvement is double that.

While Socrates would note that not all the additional successful students stayed at their school, he would ask whether our child’s school ending at Year 10 sends them the message that school ends at Year 10, and if so then once our child’s school goes to Year 12, will that send the message that school does not end until Year 12?

But isn’t our senior secondary system the gold standard, as shown by the ACT which has the highest rate of senior secondary success in the nation?

Socrates would enjoy this. Didn’t the authorities protest that state-to-state comparisons are misleading? And now they are suggesting we should take the ACT, which on average has about the same wealth as Taroona, as a model for us?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to say if something works in Canberra, it is likely to be completely unsuited to Tasmania?

And in any case, do we have the same system?

The ACT has a teachermobility policy, which ensures every teacher moves at least every 10 years including between colleges and high schools.

Socrates would ask how many teachers in the senior secondary colleges have transferred to our school?

How many of our Year 10s are going on to get a qualification — TCE or VET — from college, and a university entrance score, and how might we expect that to change if our school offers Years 11 and 12?

Socrates would expect the authorities to make this the focus of the consultation, using evidence from other schools in Tasmania that have extended to Year 12.

He would ask whether they have used MySchool to find evidence from similar schools to ours interstate.

He would ask how Australia’s smallest, most isolated and disadvantaged high schools such as Bourke, Charleville and Tennant Creek can have higher rates of their Year 12s being awarded their senior secondary certificates than any of Tasmania’s senior secondary colleges?

Socrates was a powerful questioner. I won’t have done him justice. But there is really no secret to his method.

Asking questions until you get the answers you need to make up your own mind is always a surer path to sound judgment than accepting what the authorities choose to tell you — especially when their interests may not be identical to your children’s.