http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/200911200.asp

Homeschoolers are definitely a distinct social group but are not a parallel society the way the German courts are trying to use the term, Donnelly said. The irony of German court decisions is their position that the state must teach tolerance for diversity by forcing children into public schools and stamping out a diverse form of education recognized in all other Western democracies as a legitimate educational approach. Pluralism is supposed to stand for distinctive groups living peacefuly together.

The only answer so far suggested is to use threats of violence against the child and his/her family to beat them into normality. But even these threats can’t actually work when there is no place in normality for uneducated people. This track is a dead end; the only place it can lead is escalation which is the core of Jen’s suggestion. If you want what’s good for society, you do not want to go down the escalation track. Believe me, when it comes to ruthless, don’t pick a fight with someone who has nothing to lose, they can always sink lower than you can.

You say the restricted entry schools get good results, which is no surprise when you consider that the restriction is keeping people out. These schools have so many people wanting to get in that they would never take a single student who does not absolutely want to be there. Attendance is 100% voluntary and if they extended school hours with optional extra classes then no doubt those would pack full as well.

The lower end of state schools suffer a substantial percentage of attendees who really don’t want to be there, and indeed who probably have very little rational reason why they should be there, other than because the law says so and for fear of retribution. We have a law of compulsory education that insists the individual must put their future into someone else’s hands. The one-size-fits-all design of state schools guarantees that whilst the bulk of students gain something from this arrangement (some more than others) there will always be a non-trivial fringe who are individually penalised by the compulsion. We solve the moral difficulty here by blaming the individual (rather than the system) because for the system to admit failure in even a single case would also be admitting that these individuals had no escape.

I suspect that the league tables will drag this problem into the light. IMHO if the state is happy to compel me to pay for a service that it compels citizens to use, the lease it can do is be honest about what exactly this service does.

Yes, that’s what I had to do and that’s what teachers expect compliant children to do on a daily basis.

I’m surprised that more of the libertarian, anti–nanny-state warriors haven’t mounted a defense of league tables. It’s probably because the post is so long that no one has the patience to follow my argument.

Moreover, the way the parents we’re talking about neglect/abuse their children is morally worse and much more damaging to their kids than the criminal behaviour for which home detention orders are currently imposed. Why should abusing and neglecting your kids be regarded as less serious than (say) a few minor break and enters (which is typically the sort of behaviour that leads to a home detention order)? Do we simply ignore the parents’ behaviour and let the kids be abused? Or remove their children into welfare (research and experience shows that often brings even worse outcomes)? Or do we fund and resource careful preventative support and interventions which might culminate (in worst case situations – that’s what Jen is talking about) in a home detention order? I don’t know, but it’s worth discussing (although possibly not on this thread because it’s strayed rather a long way from James’ intended topic – sorry James).

So after a few stints of home detention, whatever job they might have had (probably not a good job), they don’t have anymore cos not many employers can deal with workers taking random days off.

Since the home they are detained in is probably rented they can juggle a home detention order in one hand against an eviction notice in the other — brilliant!

If you cant control your childs behaviour why do you think other peoples children should have to live with the consequences of your brats behaviour.

So you are saying that a child who is learning nothing and knows they are learning nothing should stay “controlled” and grow up ignorant? In effect they sacrifice any hope of an educated future for themselves to make things convenient for the teacher and the rest of the class? Sorry, but nothing in the world favours people (children or adults) who do this to themselves, pick any social group you like: religious / political / cultural / disability / socioeconomic — they get attention when they demand it, not when they sit quiet and cop it sweet.

Brats as you call them (i.e. somewhat self-centered and self-determined people) are running this country, and just about every country, in industry and in government. You go tell them to control their behaviour, see how far it gets.

Where should these students go? Where do they belong? How can anyone decide who is terminal(headed for a stint in the big house’), who is just bunging it on in a temporary kind of a way. and who is truly insane?

We try to sort the insane ones as best we can. This leaves the other two categories.

Should we fast track the terminal? Get them into a jazzed up juvenile detention set up filled with a mix of teachers, welfare workers, psychologists and bouncers, and call it school?

What then about the bungers? Would they became terminal if they attended the juvenile detention set up? Perhaps there is a place for them in the mainstream school, but in a separate behaviourally challenged stream. Here students could operate under the imperative that they get it together within a specified period or they are sectioned to the JDSS.

The students I know that fail to behave appropriately on a consistent basis are kids whose parents need some help as well. Some people have managed to grow up and have children without the first idea about how to get along in the mainstream. They send their kids to school and they make havoc, then the parents come to the school to help their child and make havoc, and then the school tries to keep everyone safe from everyone else.

It’s a problem.

Consider for a moment home detention for one or both parents if their child is suspended more than twice in 6 months for violence. Imagine an extension of the “if your kid doesn’t attend school then you get your benefit reduced” policy. Parental home detention could be enforced by spot checks from ‘welfare’ and police who could be looking to deduct funds if parents don’t know where their children are. Other deductions could be made if children haven’t been fed, if there is filth everywhere, if members of the household are being bashed, if they are drunk or stoned all day, if their children’s clothes stink, if their hearing aids are smashed, if they are being molested, if they haven’t got anywhere to sleep.

Some parents I know would be permanently in home detention – they might not even really mind!

Also from personal experience I have “team taught” streamed groups listening to an outside presenter. My observations were that streams A and B heard more material than the second group. Streams C and D had children with behavioural problems so much time was spent trying to quieten them down. The language used to explain the concepts was limited [and actually vague] and there was no attempt to cover the topic in any detail [which possibly made it less accessible].

Agree with Ken Parrish that children with discipline problems should be ruthlessly excluded from mainstream classes. I spent much of high school watching teachers wrangle a particularly tortured soul who is now a leading child psychiatrist. Our stream did not get an adequate maths background to support our adult careers and none of us sent our children to that school. As an emergency teacher I have watched children cower as a child went berserk and we all thought someone would be hospitalised by the end of the period.

Tel_ if you can’t control your child’s behaviour why do you think other people’s children should have to live with the consequences of your brat’s behaviour.

… the biggest payoff in terms of outcomes would be gained not from ability streaming but from ruthlessly excluding behaviourally difficult children from their mainstream peers …

For the student getting nothing out of the class because it is either stupidly easy or stunningly difficult, what do you expect them to do? Some will sit and quietly introvert, (maybe learn something after school by accident) but others will want to complain about the hopeless situation in which they find themselves. So where is the complaints department in our school system?

Oh that’s right, there isn’t one.

Naturally our system of examinations (with score mangling, re-normalisation and what have you) are less than ideal ways to identify an educated mind, but they are what we have; and if a better design appeared tomorrow it would at least be given consideration. Publishing league tables today still leaves the door open for improvements. What’s more, the current examination system (flawed as it is) seems to be regarded as perfectly acceptable for making decisions about a student’s future. If it’s good enough to grade students by examination scores, then what makes teachers and principals so special that they cannot be graded?

Surely, even if positive self-image results in better performance (and it probably does), any such effect is likely to be counteracted by the “living in a fool’s paradise” effect i.e. I think I’m really smart until I get out into the real world of work or a large university and discover that I’ve been “coasting” on the erroneous assumption that I’m a top performer.

I couldn’t see anything in Conrad’s linked article that dealt with such issues per se. Maybe it’s a bit like the Kath and Kim sketch though, in terms of short term ego gratification:

Brett: Well, there it is. I know it’s the worst house, but it’s on the best street. It’s what you’re supposed to buy.
Kim: No, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re supposed to buy the best house on the worst street, ’cause then you can lord it over people.
Brett: I don’t want to lord it over people.
Kim: Well, doesn’t that just sum it up, Acting Assistant Deputy Sales Manager in Charge of Software. Wow, I’m impressed… not.

Nevertheless, to save readers from wading through Conrad’s linked article, the only section I could find that was relevant to the question of the benefits or otherwise of academic streaming is as follows:

Effects of Ability Tracking, Achievement Grouping, and Gifted Education Programs

In their discussion of gifted-education, Dai and Rinn (2008) note that: Related to this issue are the effects of ability (homogeneous) grouping on self-concept as compared with that of heterogeneous grouping. Findings seem mixed in that regard (see Kulik and Kulik 1991, 1997) (p. 12). However, their summary of research in this area is not entirely accurate. Indeed, there is a large literature on the effects of tracking, ability grouping, contextual effects, and compositional effects on diverse learning outcomes. Particularly tracking and ability grouping are often evaluated from the perspective of contextual effectsthe effects of school- or class-average achievement after controlling for the effects of individual student achievement and other individual characteristics. The main focus of this research has been on the implications of ability grouping for academic achievement. Although distinct from the effects of such ability grouping on ASC that is the focus of the BFLPE, this research on academic achievement is relevant. A comprehensive review of this research is beyond the scope of this article; however, Hattie (2002) conducted a meta-analysis that incorporated data from all existing meta-analyses of this research, providing a comprehensive summary of this research. He concluded that tracking had almost no effect on academic achievement; average effect size=0.05 (se=0.03, n=261 studies, 784 effects). Although there was some evidence that tracking benefited the most advantaged students in terms of academic achievement, the effect size was small (0.08), whereas the effect size was close to zero for low-tracked students. Particularly relevant to the Dai and Rinn (2008) review, Hattie emphasized that it is important to separate gifted programs from high-ability tracks when evaluating the effects of tracking. Hence, when the effect of special gifted programs was excluded, Hattie reported that the average effect size for high ability tracks was reduced to 0.02. Hattie argued that positive effects of gifted programs are due to changes in the curriculum and quality of education rather than to ability tracking per se. Many of the features of gifted programs reflect good educational practices that would likely benefit students in homogeneous classes as well.

For what it’s worth, my own ad hoc view, derived from second hand experience of being married to teachers for the last 25 years and from teaching the products of high school education at university for the last 10, is that the biggest payoff in terms of outcomes would be gained not from ability streaming but from ruthlessly excluding behaviourally difficult children from their mainstream peers of whatever ability stream. Maybe that happens in other States, but it doesn’t in the NT in any meaningful way, despite the fact that such kids are profoundly disruptive of the educational progress of everyone else. Maybe that’s why NT results are measurably worse in NAPLAN, PISA etc than all other States.

It’s an interesting idea, but it’s not clear to me what would be the schools’ incentives to maximise their ‘multipliers’. To do so they would need to attract realtively weak students in the early years. Knowing this, how would parents interpret a school’s high multipliers?

Schools like Scotch College in Melbourne do not stream, the boys are placed in class alphabetically. Imagine the pressure on the headmaster to place boys in stream A.

Parents will look for the school with the highest level specific multipliers. Provided the school has a class for my child’s ability level, I will consider moving him/her to the appropriate stream in that school. The disruption cost of moving would presumably stop parents chasing statistical noise.

Streaming is problematic if done too rigidly. One might have the department mandate four streams with the mean performance would have to fit within a range for each ability level. But also allow some overlap between the four groups. Schools could choose to have more or less variability within a class. You might then actually get some hard data on whether having diverse ability within a class is good or bad for the overall learning outcome i.e. the multiplier.

Streaming is absolutely beneficial to bright kids in the top stream. The difference in the amount of information you can impart to a well behaved class compared to what you can teach a class with clowns in it is so staggering its shameful. No parent should permit their child to be in a class with a discipline problem. I think teenage ‘discipline problems’ are such a disruptive waste of space they should be babysat away from schools. Sometimes when they go berserk they are dangerous to their fellow students and the teachers delivering hospitalisation level injuries.

Parents concerned about little Johnny’s ‘disruptive behaviour’ should not buy Red Bull, cordial, processed foods, chips, twisties, sugar, fast foods. Children should have regular meal times and be in bed before 8:30pm. Its child abuse to never say “No” to your child, the parent’s job is to set boundaries.

On the other hand NAPLAN promotes transparency, a quality that is missing from the current mechanism for weighting year 12 assignments marks into the final HSC mark is unfair, lacking transparency and accountability and reliant on the assessment of the schools worth. Students from ‘bad’ schools have their assignment marks discounted. A easier and fairer system is just to rely on exam marks. I don’t know how useful that is for woodwork or art.

From the point of view of the system as a whole, you get better results at every level by grouping together classes where students are of a similar ability.

I argued that, if this is true, it would be better to have an explicit streaming policy, either within schools or among a geographically group of schools, than to publish NAPLAN scores and set a chaotic, spontaneous streaming process in motion.

Billie

Is there or is there not a net social benefit from publshing school-level NAPLAN scores?

NAPLAN tests allow us to openly wipe off whole suburbs of children highlighting the hollowness of the myth of an egalitarian Australian society

From the point of view of teachers, even an unexceptional, middle-of-the-range teacher is going to have a brighter day, and get better outcomes when teaching a class of bright kids than struggling with a class of dopey kids. Thus, to the extent that teachers can choose their place of work, most will want a high performing school rather than a low performing school.

From the point of view of the system as a whole, you get better results at every level by grouping together classes where students are of a similar ability. Admittedly, the concept of “ability level” is vague and difficult to determine but having one smart kid in a class full of thickies doesn’t work, and having one thick kid in a class of bright kids doesn’t work either. The league table merely assists this stratification process, and I’m well aware that the very concept that some people might have different abilities to others is an anathema to some ideologies but that doesn’t change any of the incentives at work here.

The only real problem I have with league tables is that a single score cannot represent the very complex nature of real-world ability. It is however, better than nothing and if the Education Dept releases the raw data then various groups can construct specialist league tables based on their own interpretation (e.g. a sport-oriented league table).

A school’s quality is often a reflection of the community it serves. Schools that serve professional enclaves will perform better than schools based in under privileged areas.

Although commentators remember back to their school days with a certain level of jaundice at the old battleaxes that tormented us and wonder whether the fossils should have been teaching – those days finished in the 1970s. Since the 1970s teachers in Victoria have to be qualified. In 1993 schools dismissed many teachers. Since the 1990s there has been surplus in teacher graduates. You would be hard pressed to find an incompetent teacher in Victoria.

I think its unfair to pay teachers based on NAPLAN results. Teachers in poor schools often find themselves funding breakfast club. Paying teachers based on NAPLAN results will just entrench privilege and increase social inequality. I think a more equal society attains a higher GDP than an inequitable society ie a more equal society is happier and more prosperous.