Sydney paper's crude school ranking is damaging and deceptive

Dr Kaye said: "This is the first step in the race to destroying quality education and demoralising schools that serve disadvantaged communities.
 
"The Herald, using data pulled from Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard's website, has averaged literacy and numeracy test results to produce a top to bottom ranking that will mislead parents and undermine education.
 
"Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard and her NSW colleague Verity Firth claim that they are opposed to league tables. Within 24 hours of their 'my school' site going live, at least one media outlet has harvested the data and produced a crude and damaging league table.
 
"Julia Gillard and Verity Firth's obsession with reducing educational achievement to a table of numbers has exposed many excellent schools to the slander of a poor ranking.
 
"They have started the process of forcing teachers to sacrifice curriculum time to teach to these narrow tests.
 
"The nation's education ministers bear a heavy responsibility for failing to act on the lessons of the USA and the UK.
 
"Ranking schools on the basis of their average NAPLAN results is statistically unsound and will produce results that do not accurately measure the progress made by students, even within the areas of literacy and numeracy.
 
"The Herald's high school results are particularly meaningless. Half of the score is based on year 7 tests conducted in the first three months of a student's time at that school. The outcomes have very little to do with what happens at the school supposedly being ranked.
 
"The Herald's school ranking is not 'information' but a simplistic and misleading  index that will add nothing to the understanding of schools and their needs," Dr Kaye said.
 
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455