School Lines PAI in the SKAI Public Achievement Information seen through Simplistic Kaleidoscopes of Amazing Inexactitude
Lester Flockton
feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz
Kaleidoscope noun. A toy consisting of a tube containing mirrors and pieces of coloured glass or paper, whose reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole when the tube is rotated.
other relevant national and international reports will be added. H. Parata In line with its Minister and the Minister’s bosses, the Ministry repeatedly proclaims National Standards as the key to education for a successful life in a modern world, and that the depiction of the success or otherwise of schools and teachers is evidenced through data (numbers, tables, and graphs). Moreover, that data (always spun as ‘high quality’) is the key to helping improve achievement.
In this case, the toy consists of the Ministry of Education’s website containing a myriad of coloured tables and graphs depicting national standards data. Oh, glorious data. The bureaucrats’ high definition technicolor dreams have attained reality: data driven education, data driven improvement, data driven The trends we are dreamtime. In August last year, Ms Parata currently witnessing, announced the advent of Public Achievement Information (PAI), of increasing amounts of saying it is the Government’s approach data being manufactured for to improving the quality and use of achievement information at year, public consumption, results school and national level.
We want all of our kids to be successful in the modern world. Providing high quality data that helps us all to understand and support a student’s learning is one of the ways the Government is working to raise student achievement and to ensure this happens. Information from your school and other schools in your in part from demands for area, such as National Standards data Public Achievement Information and Education Review Office (ERO) (PAI) will be available on the greater transparency reports, will all be found in one place. Ministry of Education’s ‘Education Over time, additional information and freedom of information. Counts’ website. from here and overseas will provide It will allow parents to see how their child’s school is a rich and comprehensive body of Public Achievement performing and will allow the Government to see how well Information (PAI). Ministry of Education the system is doing as a whole in order to raise achievement for all learners. And it gets richer than that. Under its web heading, ‘What Public Achievement Information (PAI) will include will National Standards data show me and why is it being National Standards data, Education Review Office (ERO) published?’ the Ministry advises parents that the various bits of reports, schools’ annual reports and NCEA data. Over time information about a school “are important considerations, along
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with National Standards data, when you are looking to make decisions about schools for your children”. The implication, of course, is that all of this stuff is trustworthy, wholesome, and fair. It implies that the school itself is mainly responsible for every child’s successes or failures. It relies on the public’s and media’s shallowness of data literacy and the Government’s penchant for reductionism (i.e. reducing truths down to those that are convenient to its political purposes or those beyond its own comprehension). The trends we are currently witnessing, of increasing amounts of data being manufactured for public consumption, results in part from demands for greater transparency and freedom of information. Most conveniently, growing internet access facilitates dissemination on an unprecedented scale. Added to this is a worldwide trend of Governments producing masses of data for public consumption on a range of subjects, including the performance of hospitals, police crime statistics, and school league tables. It is believed that the publication of this data will spur improvement and vindicate Government policies. Unsurprisingly, much of the data is carefully tailored to this end. The point here is not that the public be denied information about schools, but that all performance data should be put into ethical contexts that truthfully acknowledge and explain all of the major determinants or variables that directly and indirectly influence and impact on a school’s performance and results. To constantly drill into the public’s mind the simplistic idea that the school’s performance is largely of its own making, while downplaying, denying or ignoring equally powerful factors outside of the school’s control is tantamount to public mis-
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education, mis-information, and deception. Moreover, to only display a few areas of a school’s significant contributions to the child’s education and wellbeing is to perpetuate a lopsided view of what should be a good and balanced education for our young people. At the end of the day, it seems that history keeps repeating itself – which suggests the dogma and ideology of Government and its officials seriously obstructs their capacities for progressive thinking and learning! The following item was reported in Dunedin’s Star newspaper, Thursday, 2 March, 1893. ‘Percentages in the Primary Schools’ The Otago Education Board has been moved by the Hon. Mr Macgregor to consider the subject of percentages in connection with educational results in the primary schools. The Hon. Gentleman referred to put the following resolutions before the Board for consideration: “That the practice heretofore followed by the Board, of publishing in the annual report the percentage of passes obtained in the various schools, and of publishing lists of schools attaining the highest and lowest percentages, be discontinued. “That a circular be issued to school committees suggesting the propriety of discouraging the publication of the percentage of passes made by individual schools.” No fully educated person will need to have Mr Macgregor’s reasoning explained.