Canberra
PM: Thank you very much, good afternoon. I'm here today with Peter Garrett, our Minister for School Education, and with Barry McGaw who leads our Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority.
Earlier this year we launched My School, a website that gave parents more information than they had ever had before about their child's school.
More information about the school and its performance in national testing. More information about the school in terms of the student population. More information about the school in terms of the numbers of teaching and non-teaching staff within the school.
My School has been a hugely popular site. Two and a half million Australians have visited it; it has had more than 4 million hits. And I think we all remember that on the day that My School was launched it was the subject of overwhelming demand.
And after the launch of My School we had an intense national conversation about what has happening in Australia's schools and how we could best improve school education for every child in every school.
We're here today to give you a preview of the next version of My School. My School2.0 will give parents even more information. Even more information about their child's school and their performance in that school. Because we are now at the stage where we have had three rounds of national testing, for the first time My School is able to include data to show the growth in student achievement; because kids that have sat an earlier test have now sat another national test. MySchool2.0 includes new information about school finances. It includes a more accurate method of calculating the community socio-education advantage index, the ICSEA index which ensures that you can compare schools that service similar student populations.
It's got new graphical means of displaying the national testing data and it's got new security features to ensure that the website is used appropriately.
This preview of how My School will now look will of course be followed by the new My School information in December. This is an important set of new data for Australian parents, for teachers and for the Australian community.
I've always believed that if we are to achieve our vision of a great quality education for every child then we needed the whole nation to have accurate information, school by school, about the quality of education and My School is giving that information to parents and Australians.
I'll turn now to Peter Garrett for some comments and then we will take people through the site.
PETER GARRETT: Thanks very much Prime Minister and thank you to ACARA for the work they have done in bringing this previewed site to us for our attention. It's worth reflecting that Education Ministers at the State and Federal level, previous to the My School website, didn't have easy access to national data on education and school performance.
And that's why My School is so important and that's why continuing to improve My School is important as well.
As the Prime Minister said the updated MySchool2.0 site, when it goes live in December, will have a number of important and new features but one I want to mention to begin with is that there will be additional information supplied by schools to contextualise the school, to provide school characteristics on display for parents and those who come in and want to understand more about a school. And I know this is something that principals in particular wanted to see reflected on the updated My School website and it is reflected here.
Growth data - for the first time nationally we will have growth data which shows us how well students are progressing when they undertake their NAPLAN tests. So that is growth data for student in literacy and numeracy. The same group of students who sat the test, say in 2008 and then sit it again in 2010. We now have the capacity under this site to see what progress and improvement has been made by those students. So measuring growth of progress - a very, very important feature in this My School2.0 site.
School finance data. As the Prime Minister said, for the first time the provision of information across government and non-government which determines both recurrent income that the schools have received and also their capital expenditure. Now that's an extremely important piece of work that has been undertaken by ACARA in cooperation with the relevant authorities and I am really pleased to see this information coming up on this site. The first time we'll see the distribution of resources at school level and we'll also see it across the nation.
Finally as the Prime Minister said, the ICSEA index - new and improved - better data coming into that index. That provides a richer information base in terms of looking at where schools sit on the site and that will be of great interest not only to the parents and the student communities but more generally to the community at large.
I want to specifically say that this has been a huge piece of work and you will notice that there are graphical improvements on the site. It's a where when its been tested, that parents and principals have thought that the new graphics are working well. I am pleased to hear that.
It will be very exiting when it goes live in December but for the moment I would like to hand over to ACARA Chair, Barry McGaw to take us through the site in more detail.
BARRY MCGAW: Now the site has the same front page as before. You can search for an individual school by name or you can search by suburb. I'll take you straight into the site. The next page is new. This is a page that sets out terms and conditions of use and also obliges, as many websites do, a user to type some somewhat obscure letters, the purpose being to make sure the user is a human and not a machine that
I'll just highlight some of the things that are new. Over here there is an overall summary of school finances; this is a school with total finance of around $12.7 million and expenditure per student of around $10 000 per student. If you want more detail you can click there but I will show you the detail in a moment.
To get to the rest of the website you can go via a set of icons at the bottom that indicate what you will be going to see. Or you can use as before, the detail at the top.
So we go to the school finance information and what it shows is that the recurrent income that the school had, how much it got form the Commonwealth Government - this is a government school - it got about $2 million from the Commonwealth Government, how much it got from the State Government, how much it raised from parent contributions or parent activities in the school and how much it raised from other sources. In some schools that will be interest earnings through investments or from capital reserves.And that is expressed per student and that was the summary figure that you saw on the first page.
Now we will have that information for the 10 000 schools in Australia, one by one. And you can look it up and see how much is spent per student in every school in the country. That is information that none of us has had before.
And we have also captured capital expenditure. Capital expenditure is going to be 'lumpy' of course in some years when building is undertaken there will be more expenditure than in others. But over a period a picture of capital expenditure in a school will emerge. So that will be provided.
If any of the actual recurrent income is committed to capital expenditure, that is put into capital works and not available as expenditure on the students, we treat that as a deduction and then produce a net figure. And that is the nett figure that you saw before. We've made that able to be seen but not gone (inaudible) and we have got a graphical display.
And when we go to the NAPLAN results themselves and you can do that in a number of ways. It's a graphical presentation rather than just a tabular one.
And you'll notice on the top, this is information that was on the site last year but we have put it together with the results, what percent of students at the school fronted on the day of the test? And if there is any irregulation over time and any decline or fall of students being present that will show. And here is the per cent that were present on the day of the test.
And of course some of them were absent because they've got specific learning needs and they're excluded from testing but the real state of the numbers that are absent and the numbers that are withdrawn, withdrawn by parental request in advance. All of those are conditions that existed for all of the years of the NAPLAN assessment but we brought them together here and put them immediately above the results.
Now here this school's result. 2008, 2009, 2010, in Year 7 reading. We can change from Year 7 to another year if you want, or you can change from reading to another test when you want to look at the other dimensions. This year instead of putting all the results for one year together, we are putting all the results for one test together, because it's the trends that people will start to become more interested in and whether there are three, four, five, six years of assessment, trends will be more evident.
You'll notice as well, an average result over the three years. We've done that particularly because for small schools for which there are too few students to have a result show, in any one year.
So schools are
So that's the nature of the results for the school then it will be possible to say, 'well how are schools with similar students doing in comparison to this school',Just click here, and you can now see, well there's the school's mean and the schools with similar students in 2008 have a better mean, and the fact the pale pink area indicates there is a substantial difference actually between 2.2 and a half standard deviation. We showed that last year with the colours, what we didn't show at the same place last year, but we did show it elsewhere, with something about margins and error and we think we really should have those two bits of information in the one place.
Now, here's the way to read this, this school is between .2 and .5 per cent deviation behind schools with similar students. That's not trivial but it nevertheless within the margins of error - the lines going out indicate that the margins of error for the school, and this is the margin of error for the average with schools with which the 60 schools with which the comparison is being made. Look what's happened over time, the school hasn't changed, but the schools with similar students have been getting better, and better to the point where their average is beyond the margin of error, the schools, so this is a school holding constant but behind it in comparison with schools with similar students.
Now let me show you where that school stands in relation to all schools in the country. All schools in the country haven't shifted and this school is sitting constant with all schools in the country. Now without the My School site, as a parent you would have known, no doubt, the national average for NAPLAN and you would have got your schools result, and you would have seen my schools at the national average and it's still there.
But with the My School site you could say it's actually not doing as well and it's also got students like this school has. Then you can go to the table, which is exactly the way we showed the information last year, and it's still there, but it's better to take people to the graphical presentation first as its easier to interpret and this is even a bit more complicated than last year because of we put the margins of error on but the table is there for people who prefer to look at tables than to look at graphs.
You can then look at the results in 'Plans', which is the same display we had for last year. We think this is very important actually because what's happened in some other countries when they present results that compare schools, they focus too exclusively on what percent of students are above some minimal level, not paying attention to what the really best students are doing.
And you end up with a focus, at that minimum level and schools will concentrate, in many cases, too much effort on the students just above to preserve them there, just below in the hope to get them over and ignore their high performers or their really low performers. There are stories like that from the U.S. and the U.K. We are proceeding in every case, last year and now this year, information that will help them push these students to the highest level in the band compared with similar schools and all schools.And then you can go now to the Student Progress Measure. Now this is the same students in this school in 2008, when they were in Year 7 and 2010 when they were in Year 9. Now we've excluded from the Year 7, any students who were there then but not there now, and we have not included any students who were now there in Year 9 but weren't at this school in 2007. So these are genuinely students for which the school had responsibility for over those two years, and that's how they've changed.
Now what about schools with similar students? And again for all of the schools with similar students, we've counted only students who were in each of those schools on the two occasions. So it's the first time we started to get these trend measures, and we avoid the problem of people saying 'well we only had these students for six months and it's the other schools should take responsibility for them'. So we are focussing here on ones in the same school on both occasions.
It's a site I really like, actually. It's so much better than last year's, it was very hard to read this last year, because we just had the schools listed alphabetically and you'd pore up and down the list trying to see the differences, what we've done this year is - here's your school, put your mouse over it and you get the name of the school, your mean and your margin of error and you can put your mouse over another school. These are the 60 schools, which all schools being compared, you can see them, name by name, save you wading down a list of names, click up here and we'll give you the list of names. They are not there yet, but they will be in December when the site goes live which are the 60 schools. Go back to the display and there it is.
Now this is a margin of error that runs out to about, I can't read it, 5-55. So it's in around here. So these schools are well beyond the margin of error for that school. These are schools with similar student and they are more than half a standard deviation ahead which is a substantial difference. So these are schools doing much better with similar students than this school. And these are schools from which this school might learn about policies and practices. And they know them, by name. They can go look at their website, they can call their principal and that's been done from this site year already. So it makes it much easier. And the school can take gain comfort that the school is only half a standard deviation behind ...inaudible
Now suppose you are a parent and you say, 'well, I already know the national average, I know that
PM: Thank you very much to Barry and we're obviously happy to take questions and Barry will take questions too. Can I just remind people that when we set out on this journey as a Government following the election in 2007, we wanted to transform the way that Australians thought about and talked about school education. We wanted the focus to be on every school. Our politics, our discussion about school education until that point had tended to be about schools systems - public, Catholic, independent. We wanted the focus to be on every school because if you look at every school then you can make a difference for every child in every school.
And the existence of the My School website has transformed that national conversation since it was launched at the start of this year. It has also worked with government to help us better target resources.
I think with this version of the site we are going to transform the conversation again. We'll be now able to talk about what is achieved over time because of having the results for kids across years. And we're going to have a national conversation that is about governments and what governments do and how they fund schools, and we'll have that national conversation with more information than we've ever had before. And it's not only in the hands of people in government, it'll be in the hands of parents and the Australian community.
But I would stress it's more information than Government has ever had before, either. These school by school financial comparisons across sectors, across states, every school, so this is a very exciting development.
Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: There's been some allegations of cheating substantiated against schools in the NAPLAN tests. Are those allegations, the ones that are substantiated, going to be reflected on the My School website?
PM: I'll get Barry to talk about that one.
MCGAW: The allegations are investigated by the state testing authority and then reported to us, and we are going to report them publicly. You will receive, via our website a list of the nature of any misdemeanours and the actions that have been taken.
JOURNALIST: In terms of the My School website, will there be a little asterisk somewhere next to the school (inaudible) allegations proven against this school, and will those results be taken off, and will there be a note there?
MCGAW: If the results are unreliable they won't be displayed.
JOURNALIST: You made a virtue of the funding being revealed for the first time. Will every dollar available to every school be revealed? Because there's been some speculation that, say, some of the wealthier schools that may get income from trusts and wealthy parents and other structures that they have, won't be reflected in these figures. Will every dollar available to every school be revealed?
MCGAW: The financial information available is the money that the school manages, it goes through the school's books. If there are trusts that are not under the school's control then the information isn't available.
JOURNALIST: Even if the money is available to the school to use to-
MCGAW: Depends how the trust is organised. If the trust is managed by the school, it's in the school's books, then we have access to that information.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, when the site was first launched its critics, including the teaching unions, were saying that there was too little information, it would lead to crude league tables. You, at that time, promised more information and context. Do you believe that the new site will satisfy those critics and what is the potential for, down the track, further information (inaudible)
PM: I suspect there will always be some critics of transparency so we will always have the debate.
I've always said in relation to that, that I believe information is power, that parents should have this information and the nation should have this information. I've also consistently said there's nothing to be gained from having crude league tables that just list, from top to bottom, 10,000 Australian schools.
What's powerful about My School - and it's been clear from Barry's explanation today - what's truly powerful about My School is the comparison with schools serving similar students. So we all know, sitting here, that a wealthy school on Sydney's north shore will be getting different results than an Indigenous school in outback Australia. We all know that. We don't need a league table to tell us that.
What is powerful is comparing that Indigenous school in outback Australia with schools that serve similar students and saying 'are they at the bottom, or are they at the top?' And then not being satisfied with just that comparison, how are they going against the Australian average?
So for that school we want the journey to be getting better and better, they can learn the most from schools that serve similar students, they'll be able to go through this site and contact those schools. And obviously we want everybody to be progressing up and seeking to be the top of their list of schools, and we want them to be looking to improve every year.
JOURNALIST: The crude league tables you were talking about - this My School2.0 will crack down on that, so to speak. Is cracking down on it just that security page at the front to stop computers being able to hack into it, or is there other measures to stop, say, newspapers or television stations being able to create those reports?
PM: Certainly the dialogue box at the front is a security measure about people using the site as opposed to programs that are data mining off the site. We as a Government have repudiated some of the calls that have been made about legislation and the like. I don't believe in that and we won't be going down that path.
But we have taken the security measures that you've seen on the site itself.
MCGAW: The terms and conditions that people accept are also part of it, drafted for us by the Commonwealth Solicitor. Because in this last year it wasn't so much people using the data in other ways. There was some misuse of the data, there was misleading use of the data which we acted against, but we'll be in a stronger position to act against. So I mean some of it could be acted against under civil action, and some of it under Trade Practices.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister I was going to ask a question about that because when the site was first launched there was a great controversy over companies using the information to make their own league tables and sell the information to parents. Is there much you can do to stop that (inaudible) about some of the new security measures in terms of the password, on intellectual property grounds?
And secondly, I understand that you say you don't find the information terribly useful in terms of league tables. But why are you squeamish about it? Why not let people see that information ranked if they wish to do so?
PM: Because it's not powerful. It's just simply not powerful, not useful. For us to genuinely understand what is happening in schools we need to understand what advantages and disadvantages kids are bringing to school.
Now we should not then fall for the assumption that demography is destiny. It most manifestly is not. But if we are going to analyse what is happening in a school we've got to understand the advantages and disadvantages kids bring to school, we've got to be able to measure what the school is doing compared with schools that serve similar student populations. That's the truly transformative bit. And when you look at these school groups that are serving like students, they are forming already off My School, and it will be easier for them to do so, connections which enable them to learn from the best of what is happening in schools that serve similar students.
So the thing we're doing through My School is the most powerful thing, the most meaningful thing. And we want parents and the Australian community to have that access to the most powerful and meaningful information that we can give them.
JOURNALIST: What do you want parents to do with that information? If they see this site and they're worried about the performance of their school or the finances of their school, what do you want them to do, who should they contact directly, and what can you tell them about what the government will do with this new information as well? Will you be reshaping funding?
PM: Well I'll turn to Peter for some comments, but what I would say is this: parents are hungry for this information. Some of them will use it to inform school choice, because people have got children - they've either moved suburb or they've got kids who are going into primary school for the first time or into high school for the first time - they use it to inform school choice. And that's one use of My School.
The other use of My School of course is for your child enrolled in a school - you have a look, you form a view, and you should go down and talk to the principal, should go down and talk in the various consultative forums that schools have about what this means for your school and what's going to happen next. Obviously they should be respectful conversations.
But principals want parents engaged with education. I've met a lot of principals in my time in politics, and one thing that hallmarks a good school is that they welcome engagement by parents. They'll welcome those conversations.
On the question of funding, which is revealed for the first time - I suspect people will have a lot of conversations with us, and they'll have a lot of conversations with State Governments, and I think they'll be pretty good conversations.
The nation deserves to have this information.
I'll turn to Peter as well.
GARRETT: Thanks, Prime Minister.
Just one thing to add. This is a richer, deeper set of information for the school community overall, and for people who are serious about the quality of education - that includes schools and principals - they will have a better informed dialogue, as the Prime Minister's just said.
And one of things that's very clear to me in the time that I've spent in the portfolio is that schools do desire to do the best they can for their students, just as parents want to get the best education possible as well.
The interface between those two desires and wants comes about in a better way because of what we've got on My School2.0.
I just add one other comment remember that the Commonwealth is now making significant investments through the national partnerships, both in low socioeconomical schools, also in partnerships around teacher quality, and literacy and numeracy. So we are already seeing that investment going into the schools sector and teachers and the schools system are already giving us the feedback as to what kind of impact that's happening. We are also going to be able to effectively monitor the worth of that investment over time. That will be a very powerful tool for policy makers. Finally we do have an independent schools funding underway chaired by David Gonski. Again a better context for Mr Gonski and his panel to continue their consultation process and ultimately to come down with recommendations for Government to consider about overall funding in the future.
JOURNALIST: Minister what was the cost of the update and did the Government consider at any stage putting advertising onto funding?
GARRETT: I will ask Barry McGaw to answer that question.
MCGAW: I don't have a figure actually I am sure we could I could get you a figure but we did consider advertising.
PM: So this is obviously integrated into the work of ACARA or in ACARA as funding's accounted for in the Budget papers and no we didn't consider advertising.
JOURNALIST: Minister Garrett was there anything since you became minister that you were concerned about or wanted to have looked at on the original My School has changed on My School 2?
GARRETT: What i was interested in doing was seeing what was the decision that Ministers had previously made in relation to the ACARA delivery of the website. And the information that Ministers were seeking and what we've had is Minister's request for this version of the website. Which I think is the next logical step from the first My School website. I mean it is a world first, there's no question about that, and what I saw was an enormous amount of work had been done to get My School underway. Remember it's this year it came out, was it January of this year so we are actually going to get to My School 2.0 within a 12 month period. Which is a pretty phenomenal achievement on the part of all those who have done that work and I was just very pleased to see how hard they were going at it.
JOURNALIST: Minister Garrett you are working on, in line with the election promises, giving more power to principals and I am wondering whether you think that principals will be able to use this as something of a management tool to identify teachers classes areas are working and then to the great power you going to give them take action. Is this designed to be used as a partly management tool?
GARRETT: Well it is designed to give everybody including principals, who are obviously extremely important people in the schooling process, the additional level of information they need to properly understand the progress that their students are making and understand how their school is travelling as well. So I think it will be an important tool for principals and I believe that principals will welcome this tool. They on the other have the discretion how they manage their schools and its different across the jurisdictions as you probably know. But it will be a rich information source for them and think they will use it well.
JOURNALIST: Minister Garrett there has been some criticism from non government schools there is an early criticism of the revised methodology for the index in this version of the My Schools tool. And there has been some reporting suggesting that perhaps the launch of the site might be delayed because of challenges from schools to there IGSA score. What's your response to those criticisms and when will the site fully be launched?
GARRETT: Well three things to say quickly: the first is that any of the schools that have raised issues about their IGSA designation have been given ample opportunity to have that matter properly considered by ACARA and I understand the Chief Executive enabled extra time for that to happen. In terms of the detail, the data detail in terms of resolving those issues that is something that has been undertaken as we speak. And in terms of timelines and delays, I have no advice in front of me to suggest that we won't launch in December.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister your were able as Minister at the time to stop the teachers unions from going on strike over NAPLAN are you confident that these revisions will now stop them from going on strike in the future?
PM: The Government's determination to deliver my school I think as been there for all to see. Yes we did have some conversations with a bit of heat in them with the Australian Education Union. I think we will continue to have some different views about my school but my school is here to stay and we are here today to show you that it is getting better and better for parents. Now I am concerned that sitting day we have question times but if I could
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister on the royal family, do you think you'd like to go to the wedding?
PM: Thank you David Speers, I was going to make a statement about the royal wedding obviously Australians today have woken to the news, that Prince William and Kate Middleton have announced their engagement. On behalf of the Australia people and personally on my own behalf I wish them very well for their life together ahead, I am sure Australians are going to follow all details of this with great enthusiasm and delight, they're doing that today and I am sure they will do that as the wedding itself takes shape.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister on gay marriage, have you seen the reports today that Kevin Rudd before he left that job, agreed with Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese to pursue the prosecution of civil unions, do you have any response to that report?
PM: Look I have seen that report today but my position is very, very clear as is the Labor Party's as from our last National Conference.
JOURNALIST: If Labor is prepared to support the bad motion now why are you not prepare to support a conscience vote on gay marriage?
PM: Lets be very clear about what the motion moved by Adam Bandt is. The motion is about some people being in contact with their constituents. Of course as Members of Parliament when issues are of community debate Members of Parliament should be in contact with their constituents talking to them about their view, that's what Members of Parliament do. For example, I think people will be having a lot of constituent conversations about My School.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on that if the results come back and there is an overwhelming desire, as the polls would suggest, that people are ok with gay marriage. Will you then reconsider a conscience vote on this or change the Party platform?
PM: The Labor Party will have its National Conference and I anticipate there will be a broad range of matters that are discussed there, including this one. We're a Party of Government, were a Party of ideas. We're a Party of Government that is getting on with delivering our vision for a strong economy ready to meet the challenges of the future, opportunities for all Australians and you couldn't get a more powerful example about what that means then the education transformation of My School.
So we are a Party of Government we're a Party of ideas and as a Party of ideas people at our National Conference and in the lead up to it, within and beyond the forums of ALP, will be debating ideas, I think that is a good thing.
JOURNALIST: Will you accept the recommendation of the Conference?
PM: The National Conference sets the Party's platform. I am in exactly the same position as every Labor leader since we have had the Labor Party, which is a long long time ago now, which is that the platform is decided at the conference.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) new legislation?
PM: Well hang on. The platform is decided at the Conference and the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, led by me, makes decisions about how we will go about working on platform questions.
JOURNALIST: When are you planning on releasing the NBN business case Prime Minster?
PM: The Minister's been very clear and that will be in December.
JOURNALIST: Would you be looking to lead that debate rather than just follow and take what Conference says?
PM: I think everybody is getting way, way, way ahead of themselves so let's just steady a little bit. There will be a lot of issues discussed at National Conference, I will of course be playing the role of leader of the Labor Party at that National Conference.
But today here we are in Parliament governing the nation, transforming opportunities for Australian students and when we are talking about the things that will determine prosperity, opportunity and equity in this country for the decades in front of us. There aren't too many more powerful things then what we are looking at today.
JOURNALIST: Are you worried this could prevent an unwanted distraction for the next twelve months?
PM: We are a Party of Government and a Party of ideas. David?
JOURNALIST: Are you aware of any deals struck by Kevin Rudd on this issue?
PM: No.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the AFR survey released today shows that the average salary of the top 300 Chief Executives was $2.25 million last year. Six Executives received (inaudible) are you comfortable with that?
PM: We have acted on executive pay and I share the uncomfortable feeling many Australians have when they see these huge numbers and the thing that used to drive people absolutely nuts was when they would see a CEO walk away with huge truck loads of money following them as their exit package. As a Government we've acted on that. Acted on that because we understood Australians looked at it just amazed that people could be walking out the door with that much money in their hand, but we do have Question Time to go to.
Thank you very much.