Measuring achievement: Without levelling the playing field for schools, crude measurements of success are useless, writes Dr Sheelagh Drudy
Education is frequently defined in terms of the role it can play in economic development and in the transition to the labour market. Essential as they are, these are not the only roles education must fulfilin democratic societies.
The responsibility of education to foster personal and social development and to further equality and respect for others, is also acknowledged at national and international levels. Wider goals such as these - including the appreciation of moral, spiritual, religious, social and cultural values - have been clearly set out by the Irish State in important policy documents such as the White Paper, Charting Our Education Future and in the 1998 Education Act.
The views of the international community are reflected in agreements and covenants to which Ireland is a party, and which it has ratified - for example, the U.N. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 13).
Given these very broad personal, social, cultural and economic goals for education, and its role in the development of national and global citizenship, there are increasingly complex roles for schools and for teachers. The way these roles are filled is affected by local social and economic contexts. The debate on educational disadvantage, highlighting issues that have been of deep concern to sociologists of education for more than 40 years, reflects the fact that schooling takes place within a framework of structured socio-economic inequality and, within many urban areas, of neighbourhoods stratified and segregated along social class lines.
As a result, schools face different challenges and must have very different aims and strategies, depending on the socio-economic contexts and pupil intakes which pertain. One of the greatest challenges facing schools in circumstances of structured inequality is to bring about greater equality and to fulfil broader educational objectives.
Schools must therefore be evaluated in terms of a wide range of outcomes. High levels of literacy and numeracy are a prerequisite for success in education or in the wider world. It is fitting that teachers and parents have high expectations for students in literacy and numeracy, in examination performance and in the matter of transfer to third level.
It is equally important, however, that they have high expectations for pupils with regard to a range of other educational outcomes, including social, interpersonal, creative and artistic outcomes and ones not necessarily measured by examinations - development of good citizenship and concern for the environment, care for others, opportunities for music or dramatic performance and prowess in sport, to name but a few. Community education, which aims to develop the capacity of the more marginalised sectors in the community, is also an important role for schools in disadvantaged working class communities, one which schools in advantaged middle and upper class communities do not usually play.
All schools have to be concerned about the issue of educational inequality and the role they may play in its maintenance. Movement towards a greater level of equality in the school system should, of course, be informed by awareness of the evidence from several countries that more privileged social groups will fight to retain their advantages through a combination of resistance to the reforms and by utilising the reforms themselves, if implemented, to maintain their social position.
Thus the burden of school and educational reform cannot be carried by educational institutions alone and must be part of a much wider set of re-distributive strategies by government and the co-ordinated efforts of a whole range of government departments (including, crucially, the Department of Finance) and other official and voluntary bodies.
The ranking of schools using just one limited, albeit important, dimension of their work exacerbates inequality and, by ignoring important contextual differences and goals, introduces unfairness and a further barrier to the possibility of all schools fulfilling the broader educational aims identified by the Irish government and international organisations.
The evaluation of schools solely according to examination performance or transfer to third level takes no account of important sources of variation between schools, such as the socio-economic intake of pupils, the uptake of additional tuition (grinds) by students or their capacity to afford grinds, prior literacy and numeracy levels, and so on.
One statistical nugget produced during the recent debates in the media about examination results suggested that the examination performance of prisoners in a couple of prisons outstripped that of a selection of "top" schools. While the most sincere congratulations are due to all concerned, it could hardly be used as an argument in favour of the enrolment by parents of their sons or daughters in Wheatfield or Mountjoy for their education.
Sections 20 and 21 of the 1998 Education Act make it clear that schools and boards of management must establish procedures for informing the parents of students in the school of matters relating to the operation and performance of the school, with particular reference to the achievement of objectives as set out in the school plan (in the drafting and review of which they are to be consulted).
Many schools already provide substantial details on their policies, structures and achievements on their websites. The more detailed and holistic information that can be provided in fuller reporting gives a far more rounded picture of a school than that provided simply by crude ranking according to examination results.
Professor Sheelagh Drudy, Education Department, University College Dublin
