E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
1015AM SUNDAY
31 JANUARY 2010
2UE WEEKENDS PROGRAM
GEORGE MOORE: The story this week of course was the launch of the Government’s My School website and we’re told this morning, according to the Sunday paper, parents are rushing to either move their kids to other schools and so on, I think that might be a bit overstated, but obviously if you do something like this people are going to take notice of it…
PAUL KIDD: A tiny bit overstated I would think.
GEORGE MOORE: Yeah, Julia Gillard is the Deputy Prime Minister of course and this has been her baby so to speak, for quite some time she’s been pushing for the My School Website, we’re pleased to say we have Julia Gillard on the line. Good morning.
JULIA GILLARD: Good morning.
PAUL KIDD: Hello, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD: Hello.
GEORGE MOORE: Hi, I just did a check on my old school, Wagga Wagga High School and I do notice that they’re doing much better since I left.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, that’s one conclusion people can draw when they’re using the My School. I as Minister for Education don’t have access to your individual schools report, you’d be pleased to know.
GEORGE MOORE: Good, I’d hate that coming up later. How do you think, on Sunday, and it’s been going on half this week or so and there was a bit of a crash when it first started, how are you felling about it now? Are you happy with the way it’s all gone?
JULIA GILLARD: I am really happy with it. The aim here was to give parents more information than they’ve ever had before. Parents have obviously voted with their fingertips right around the nation and got online and looked at My School. And we want them to have that information because they’ve got a right to it, because it helps inform them as they have conversations with their child’s school, with the teachers, with the principal about how they’re all going to work together to improve the school and yes, it’s going to help people make choices about schools.
People make choices now; they make it on the basis of religious preference, because they want their child to have a Catholic education, or family preference because they’ve heard good things from family members about a local school. So all of that’s still going to go into the decision making, but My School will give them some extra information they’ve never had before.
PAUL KIDD: Has it been a concern to you, Julia, that it may show some schools up in a bad light or is that only in a bad light in the eye of the prospective parent thinking about sending their child there?
JULIA GILLARD: It is going to expose and is exposing some painful truths. It is telling us that some schools are underperforming. We knew that would happen and that’s why we’re bringing more than $2 billion of new money and new programs to help those schools who need that boost up.
What My School does which is really powerful is it enables us to compare schools that are serving similar kinds of kids and if you see one school going streets ahead then obviously you’re going to want to go and pick their brains about what they’re doing right and for the school that’s falling behind we want to work in partnership to lift it up.
GEORGE MOORE: I’m basically in agreement with what you’ve done. I think you’ve fought for this really well and you’ve got it through; however, and it’s an incredible coincidence, just the other night we were watching and episode of that excellent American crime drama called The Wire which is set in Baltimore and the episode was set in Baltimore schools and we wouldn’t want schools like that here, let me tell you.
JULIA GILLARD: That’s President Obama’s favourite show, apparently.
GEORGE MOORE: You should have a look, it is really good but anyway they were talking in the schools about lifting budgets and getting revenue coming in and they had to teach to the tests and they had to throw all the thing about teaching and had to teach the kids just to pass the test.
Now I noticed on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald this week the Teacher’s Federation representative said teachers are not fools, you will see people now teaching to the tests and I thought; wow, that’s exactly what they’re doing in Baltimore.
That is a genuine concern so what’s your response to that?
JULIA GILLARD: I can understand that concern and that’s one reason why we haven’t just pinched a model from the US or the UK. We’ve purpose designed My School for Australia and it now only shows how kids are going against minimum benchmarks or against averages, it shows the spread of achievement. So if a school said to itself, I know what we’ll do, we’ll teach kids just to get them to the national average so we look good against the national average and we’ll forget about doing anything else then that would actually show on My School because My School is also showing how you’re extending the kids at the top of the achievement levels.
So it’s showing the spread of achievement as well as how people are going against the national average and the average for similar, statistically similar, schools.
GEORGE MOORE: So yours is broader than what they were saying in that American episode?
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, it’s broader and different to the sorts of things that have happened elsewhere. We’ve purpose designed this and I also understand that there’s a range of things that happen in schools that aren’t caught by national literacy tests. That’s one reason why the Prime Minister this morning has announced that we will work this year so that in the future My School can show the results of parent surveys so we can get a feel about how parents think a school is going on issues like dealing with bullying.
PAUL KIDD: Now, Julia, does this include private schools as well as public schools?
JULIA GILLARD: Absolutely. One of the things that’s so precious about My School is it’s the first time ever we’ve had comparable information on all schools in the country; government, Catholic, independent, every school.
GEORGE MOORE: And a few surprises coming out there too.
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, a few surprises and just because the information challenges long-held assumptions doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s going to give people something to think about.
GEORGE MOORE: Thank you very much for taking the time for a chat this morning. We appreciate that.
JULIA GILLARD: My pleasure. Thank you.
ENDS.