Tapu Misa: Choosing a secondary school isn't easy for parents

COMMENT

The school year hasn't even begun and already there is much ado about NCEA and the fact that this year's league tables won't give parents the kind of meaningful information they need to compare the relative merits of competing high schools.

According to some of the new system's harshest critics, the tables giving achievement results for the nation's schools will be skewed because some schools have been given permission by the Qualifications Authority to make themselves look good by "hiding" their failures and recording only their successes, while others will stupidly tell the truth and suffer by comparison.

Which means parents who can afford to shop around for the so-called better schools won't be able to tell the good from the bad simply by checking out the exam results, as if the league tables in the good old pre-NCEA days ever really helped us to do that.

Never mind the unfairness of comparing the exam results of schools in poor areas, such as Otara and Mangere, with those in Epsom that have the pick of high-achieving and mostly well-to-do students.

Or the fact that some schools had become quite adept at manipulating the old system, not allowing their least-able students to sit exams, for example, thereby putting themselves in the best possible light.

As many teachers have long argued, exam results don't take into account the "value" added by schools. They tell parents nothing about how well a school does with the pupils it gets. Still, politicians and parents love those league tables. We like to think they give us certainty, and provide the means to hold our schools accountable.

That seemed to be the thinking in England when the Conservative Government promised in the early 1990s to "take the mystery out" of education by publishing league tables that allowed schools to be ranked by their national exam results.

Since then the annual tables have been the target of trenchant criticism from educationists, who have argued that they have resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum, with teachers "teaching to the tests" and in some cases cheating to produce high test results.

That criticism has led Scotland to back away from the tables (following the example of Wales and Northern Ireland, where exam results are made available locally to parents), and the publication this year in England of the first so-called value-added league tables, which attempt a fairer comparison by tracking the improvements made by students from the time they first attend a school.

According to the BBC, the tables show that three-quarters of the top 20 schools in England this year are in relatively deprived urban areas. Which doesn't help those of us here, who continue to fret about the best schools for our children.

If league tables are misleading and open to manipulation, how are we parents supposed to find out whether a school will provide the kind of education that will help our kids to realise their potential and, more importantly, get them into the kinds of jobs that will earn them enough money to support their parents in their old age?

It's a question that has been the subject of intense discussion in our household this past year, especially as the day approached when we could no longer put off enrolling our eldest at a secondary school. We agonised over whether to try the low-decile local high school just five minutes away - which sourced two-thirds of its students from outside its zone - or the more desirable and, therefore safer, schools a little further away.

The local school won, but it wasn't an easy choice, particularly given the philosophical divisions in our household. That's what you get when you put an Auckland Grammar old boy and a one-time Porirua College student in the same house.

What clinched it? Not last year's league tables, which weren't spectacular, or the Education Review Office report that told me of the school's strongly student-centred learning environment (a good thing, I guessed) but couldn't give me what I really wanted - an unequivocal assurance the school would guarantee a first-class education.

Of course, you can never be entirely sure, no matter how apparently good the school, but I'm reassured by the advice of teacher friends, and research which confirms my experience that bright kids tend to do well in good, lower-decile schools, and that great teaching, good home support and the student's own motivation make the critical differences to achievement.

I had heard good things from parents I talked to, who raved about the principal, the school and the cultural mix, which is more diverse than the more affluent schools, now overwhelmingly white and Asian. Our local seems more reflective of Auckland - about a third Pakeha, a third Pacific, 16 per cent Maori and the rest mostly Asian, with some Muslim. That was important for us.

I have to admit that there is a certain satisfaction in supporting the local school. There are the obvious advantages of proximity. We felt good about the school and its teachers, too - and that seems as reliable a test of success as any.

At least for now.

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