My School 2024: Competition Beats Equity.

I've been reflecting on this week's release of the 2024 My School data and trawling through media story after media story, following the same annual pattern of listing schools like it’s the NRL/AFL finals-season Top Eight.

I applaud ACARA's focus on "schools making a difference" and its efforts to move beyond simplistic league tables, but it's not working. The media reinforced commodification of schools continues unabated, and is not supporting the equity we promised our kids in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration of 2019.

We should absolutely celebrate the successes of our schools and the positive impact they have on students. I'm struck by the incredible work being done in our public schools, despite being consistently underfunded – a situation that persists across all states and territories except the ACT.

The chronic lack of resources remains an ongoing challenge. The Better Fairer Funding Agreement Bill has now passed Parliament, but sadly falls short of the 100% SRS Minimum Standard for most states, and NSW, Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia have still yet to sign up. We need to urgently address this funding inequity and ensure every public school has the resources to support every student.

Performance reporting has focussed for years now on the narrow literacy and numeracy metrics, which have in turn narrowed the agenda for schooling in this country, compounded by a media obsessed by school competition. That we are comfortable with our kids implicated as winners and losers according to their schools' overall performance in a ranking list (as seen here for example) is deeply concerning.

This narrow, flawed view of education as a commodity renders complex learning environments vulnerable to a callous news-cycle frenzy that belies the significance of the work and undermines the efforts of teachers, students, parents and school communities, who know that their children are more than a naplan score.

The current reporting often favors schools already advantaged socio-economically, such as high fee-paying private schools and selective public schools. This reinforces the segregation we're seeing in Australian education and highlights the unequal opportunities available to students from different backgrounds.

It seems likely that continuing with MySchools in its current form will further disadvantage the students who need the most investment. Publishing individual school results can lead to a decline in enrolments and resources for schools perceived as less desirable, reducing their capacity to support learning for those remaining, bumping up pressure on the public system even further.

We need to remember that behind every school's name are hundreds of individual students with unique strengths and needs. Supporting each student requires a collective effort and a commitment to equitable resource allocation. That means a long term reform ambition for investing properly in all our schools, using a fair, transparent, and consistent funding model.

While My School data can inform system and school improvements, the publication of the data to inform 'choice' in reality is only serving those with the means to choose, and contributing to an increasingly stratified school system. The competitive environment it fuels is detrimental to student well-being and the long-term future of Australian education.

The commodification of education undermines its value as a public good, and reinforces social divisions. This contradicts our country's Mparntwe commitment to provide a quality education for every child, regardless of their background or school.

The media plays a crucial role in shaping public perception of education. While reporting on My School data, they have a responsibility to move beyond rankings and engage with the complexities of disadvantage. This means telling the stories of schools facing significant challenges, highlighting the systemic factors contributing to inequity, and advocating for policy changes that support these schools. Equally important is celebrating the successes of all schools, not just those at the top of the NAPLAN tables. Recognising the diverse ways schools contribute to student growth and well-being creates a more balanced and accurate picture of Australian education, and will likely help achieve a better, fairer Australia.