Give Naplan an `A’

CRITICS of NAPLAN claim disclosing how schools perform in the national tests has been “disastrous” — that it puts unfair pressure on teachers and students and that parents can get the wrong impression from the data.

But part of their objection seems to be that teachers and principals are accountable for their workplace results, just like most Australians.

Critics claim the NAPLAN system gives a skewed view of how good or bad a school is because it doesn’t account for non-academic elements of the school which may be praiseworthy.

But people are actually savvy enough to interpret the data, and parents largely won’t expect a school in an impoverished suburb to be outperforming one in a wealthy suburb. Someone using the myschools website will know that a school one rung below another may in reality be that other school’s equal or its better. But they will also know the schools that have performed the best in the state garner great academic results and those which performed the worst may have some issues.

As ex-PM Julia Gillard has pointed out, one of the effects of the publication of this data has been an increase in the share of people sending their kids to public schools.

“What people worked out was a lot of state schools were outperforming expectations,” she said. “And a lot of nongovernment schools ... weren’t going as well as their historic reputation would have led people to believe.”

So this should not be seen as a rich versus poor or public versus private issue.

It should be seen as letting information out, and letting the sunlight in so that parents can make informed choices and all schools have some sort of measure so they can seek to improve themselves for the benefit of their young charges.

Critics also snidely point out that NAPLAN has charted standards slipping since its inception. But it is better for us to have the tools to diagnose the illness and seek a cure than to draw the blinds and seek to live in blissful ignorance.