Building Educational Capacity: Enhancing Leadership Potential

1. International messages for Australia’s schools: still good but slipping Barry McGaw Building Educational Capacity: Enhancing Leadership Potential Joint Conference of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals and the Victorian Principals Association Melbourne, 1 August 2011

2. Message from international surveys

3. Mean reading results (PISA 2000) Australia tied for 2nd with 8 othersamong 42 countries. OECD (2003), Literacy skills for the world of tomorrow: Further results from PISA 2000, Fig. 2.5, p.76.

4. Trends in PISA reading performance Finland Korea Hong Kong Canada New Zealand Australia

5. Trends in Australian reading performances 95th %ile 90th %ile 75th %ile Mean 25th %ile 10th %ile 5th %ile

6. Countries ahead of Australia in PISA 2009 Mathematics Reading Science -FinlandHong KongJapanKorea---ShanghaiSingapore CanadaFinlandHong Kong-Korea---ShanghaiSingapore CanadaFinlandHong KongJapanKoreaLiechtensteinMacaoNetherlandsShanghaiSingaporeSwitzerlandTaiwan

7. The story so far… Australia’s average performance in international terms is high but slipping.

8. Social background & reading literacy High Two indices of relationship Social gradient Correlation or variance accounted for Social gradient: Magnitude of increment in achievement associated with an increment in social background (on average) Reading literacy Correlation: How well the regression line summarises the relationship SocialAdvantage Low PISA Index of social background Source: OECD (2001) Knowledge and skills for life, Appendix B1, Table 8.1, p.308

9. Social gradients for science (PISA 2006) High quality High equity High quality Low equity Low quality Low equity Low quality High equity OECD (2007) PISA 2006: science competencies for tomorrow’s world, Vol 1 – analysis, Figure 4.6, p.184.

10. Correlations for science (PISA 2006) High quality High equity High quality Low equity Low quality Low equity Low quality High equity OECD (2007) PISA 2006: science competencies for tomorrow’s world, Vol 1 – analysis, Figure 4.6, p.184.

11. Variation in science performance (PISA 2006) Variation of performance within schools Australia 68% 32% Variation of performance between schools Explained by SES Not explained by SES

12. The story so far… Australia’s average performance in international terms is high but slipping. Differences in students’ social backgrounds have a more impact on educational performance in Australia than in most other high-performing countries though there are more exceptions in Australia than in some others.

13. Using national data to address the issues

14. Performance vs socio-educational advantage Performance School B School C School A Index of community socio-educational advantage (ICSEA)

19. Indooroopilly Primary 460 445-475 Brunswick East Primary 524 502-546

21. The story so far… Australia’s average performance in international terms is high but slipping. Differences in students’ social backgrounds have a more impact on educational performance in Australia than in most other high-performing countries though there are more exceptions in Australia than in some others. One way to reduce the impact of differences in students’ social backgrounds is to learn lessons from cases where it matters less.

22. Raising expectations – an international example

23. Variation in science performance (PISA 2006) Variation of performance within schools Variation of performance between schools Explained by SES Not explained by SES

24. Trends in PISA reading performance

25. The story so far… Australia’s average performance in international terms is high but slipping. Differences in students’ social backgrounds have a more impact on educational performance in Australia than in most other high-performing countries though there are more exceptions in Australia than in some others. One way to reduce the impact of differences in students’ social backgrounds is to learn lessons from cases where it matters less. A key research message is that raising expectations leads to improved performance, particularly of low performers, provided students have appropriate learning opportunities.

26. Raising expectations – curriculum reform as one important step

27. The emerging Australian curriculum • Shape of the Australian Curriculum – 2008 • Initial version on Phase 1 – 2008 • Revised version for whole – 2011 • Position paper on whole curriculum, achievement standards, students with disabilities • Adopted by Ministers on Friday 8 July 2011 • Three-dimensional design • Learning areas • General capabilities • Cross-curriculum priorities • Benchmarked internationally • Comments on drafts included complaints about level of demand • All part of asking more of ourselves!

28. The whole story Australia’s average performance in international terms is high but slipping. Differences in students’ social backgrounds have a more impact on educational performance in Australia than in most other high-performing countries though there are more exceptions in Australia than in some others. One way to reduce the impact of differences in students’ social backgrounds is to learn lessons from cases where it matters less. A key research message is that raising expectations leads to improved performance, particularly of low performers, provided students have appropriate learning opportunities. The introduction of an Australian Curriculum with appropriate resources is an important step in raising expectations.

29. Thank you. barry.mcgaw@mcgawgroup.org