Don’t shoot the media messenger — schools should give more details of student performance
IT’S that time of year when the CAO looms large in the minds of students and their parents. As the majority of Leaving Certificate students will transfer to universities and other higher education institutions, it is small wonder that each year parents pore over the league tables published by the Sunday Independent and other media outlets.
These tables typically record the number of students who transfer to higher education from each school in the State. As a general rule, they are loved by parents and hated by school management and teachers. For parents, they are a measure of the performance of schools in an era when attaining a higher education qualification is, for most graduates, a passport to a more successful life economically and socially.
For many teachers and for school management, they are dismissed as measuring the wrong things and as not reflecting the full effort and impact of what the school does.
Whatever the merit of these views — and there is merit in both — league tables are here to stay and blaming the media is pointless and misplaced. If we are seeking fault, then the finger of blame should point firmly in the direction of policy-makers, schools and teachers.
There is actually quite a lot of quality information available about the performance of schools, primarily the published reports of whole school evaluations carried out by the inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills. These reviews report on the quality of teaching and learning, management, and leadership in a school. They also make recommendations as to the development of educational provision in the school.
As part of the process, the schools carry out a self-evaluation, described as being an “internal school review”, which “provides teachers with a means of systematically looking at how they teach and how pupils learn, and helps schools and teachers to improve outcomes for learners”.
That’s all fine, even admirable, but what about actual outcomes for students? There is a clear assumption that if teachers engage in innovative teaching methods, if learners are well engaged with their studies, and if schools are well managed, then the outcomes for students are universally good.
But is that true? And why should parents have to take this on trust? What about attainment and retention of students and their progress after they leave school? None of this information is available at school level. Small wonder then the attraction of school league tables, which offer parents easy access to at least one metric relevant to their interests — the transfer of students to higher education.
Other jurisdictions adopt approaches much less protective of the interests of schools and teachers and balance that far better with the interests of parents and students. In England, OFSTED publishes inspection reports on individual schools with data for context, valued-added progress, completion and attainment, retention, English and mathematics progress and destinations.
Data for each school is compared with the national average; attainment at entry is assessed and reported on, as is progress of the students through their schooling. The educational progress of disadvantaged students and students with special needs is well accounted for.
In Irish schools, opposition to measuring school performance is based on arguments relating to the differing contexts in which they operate, such as socio-economically disadvantaged versus wealthy catchment areas. These are valid, but they are not a barrier to assessment of outcomes and the provision of information on performance to students, parents and indeed the wider community that pays for the schools.
Is it time to create a performance framework for schools, similar to what has been done in higher education? In such a system, the minister sets the areas to be measured, such as valued-added progress, completion and attainment, retention and destinations. A school can self-select, and agree with the inspectorate, the level of outcomes that are most relevant to its student cohort — the amount of social disadvantage; the amount of students with high attainment at entry; the amount of students with special needs and so on. Schools are then assessed on a multi-annual basis against their performance agreement, and the results published.
The performance of schools with comparable profiles in terms of their student cohort could be compared against each other, rather than against national averages. This respects the autonomy of schools and the professionalism of teachers, while providing transparency and accountability for what they do and their contribution to the development of their students.
We have a good education system, but it is not performing for all students. We have an excessively narrow understanding of educational success — participation in higher education. And there is little transparency in what impact a school has on any particular student. Small wonder then that the public at large views success through the lens of the school league tables.
It is a perfectly good metric, but in a well-ordered system no school would be measured on the basis of one metric only. The problem, however, lies not with tables, but with schools and policy-makers who preside over a system where there are no alternative, accessible metrics.
Tom Boland is a former director of strategic policy and legal adviser in the Department of Education and Skills and was CEO of the Higher Education Authority until 2016.