Parent Power

Sun Herald

Sunday July 2, 2006

Annette Binger

Parents expect a lot from schools - and when they don't measure up, concerned mums and dads aren't afraid to intervene. But, as Annette Binger discovers, such well-meaning attention isn't always welcome.

Placard-waving parents protest alongside their children outside Sydney's Condell Park High School in March, accusing the principal of heavy-handedness; a year earlier, 600 parents sign a petition demanding answers about a leadership change at Sydney's exclusive Ascham School for girls; in Melbourne, the principal of St Kilda Primary School invites suggestions from parents - and receives about four a week. Three very different institutions with one common denominator: parents demanding

more control over their children's schooling.

It's hardly surprising that 21st-century parents want to take charge of their progeny's education. People are having fewer children - between 1962 and 2002, Australia's fertility rate halved to only 1.75 babies per woman - and over the past few years, there's been frenzied public debate about "fuzzy maths" and the "whole language" method of learning to read. Is it any wonder parents are questioning schools?

Some parents envision a scarily competitive world where their child's academic excellence in early primary years will assure them a year 12 final score that will lead to a tertiary course and, in turn, a well-paid career; Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show that more than 75 per cent of school students completed year 12 in 2005, compared with about 35 per cent in the 1980s. ABS figures also reveal that a growing proportion of parents are prepared to invest in that future and fork out for a non-government education. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of full-time students attending non-government schools jumped by 22 per cent (or 200,000 students), which was five times the increase in full-time students attending government schools.

Sandra White, national convenor of the Independent Education Union education committee, says parents aren't just looking at academic performance when choosing schools but for "the most comfortable fit in terms of its size, denomination, extracurricular activities, pastoral care or philosophy".

Terry Lustig, 50, whose 18-year-old daughter, Emma, completed her VCE at Brighton Secondary School in Melbourne last year, didn't want to cross her fingers and leave results to chance. "A lot of parents lose connection with their children's day-to-day lives, so I've always been active on school council and decision-making committees so that I can keep in touch," she says. "It also means I've built good relationships with teachers." Passionate about public education, her role gives her influence over how funds are spent and programs developed (Lustig's youngest daughter still attends the school). "I feel that my voice on school council makes a real difference; I helped develop the Discovery Centre, a whole new building and program for students who traditionally 'lose it' in year 9."

Mary Bluett, Victorian branch president of the Australian Education Union (AEU), says that although teachers welcome the growing number of parents involved in their children's education, not all parents intervene in ways that are helpful. "The teaching profession is subject to more interference than any other," says Bluett. "Parents try to tell teachers how they should teach reading and writing. They are talking about wanting to bring back the rigid system from their own nostalgic memories yet we're trying to create a workforce 20 years in advance."

"Parents rightly demand more accountability from schools and teachers these days," says St Kilda Park Primary principal Sue Knight, who, after 30 years in teaching, is acutely aware that the days of parents dropping their kids off at the gate and hoping for the best have long gone. "More parents are helping in the classroom, calling us for updates on their children's welfare and becoming involved on school council," she says. "Twenty years ago, you'd never have had so many people wanting positions on school council that it had to go to a vote, which is now our experience."

The Federal Government has responded to parents' demands for greater school accountability. By 2007, it plans to introduce an A-to-E reporting system across Australia after 3000 parents surveyed said they wanted plain-speaking report cards. In fact, this month, when defending the A-to-E grading - as well as the proposed publishing of performance tables that compare schools - NSW Premier Morris Iemma emphasised that such measures were a good start to sharing information with parents and "we will constantly examine ways of providing more." But with states' funding in jeopardy unless they take up the new grading system, the AEU is one of many organisations urging parents to boycott the plan.

(It says the system, which will also rank and grade students across schools, gives little regard to students' social development.)

Teachers, like Bluett, fear such a grading system will only up the ante on already stressed-out teachers and worried parents. "Children who get a C will have been judged as performing according to the level of achievement expected from their grade and age," she says. "It means that even a high-performing grade 6 pupil will now be a B or C student. You can imagine the reaction from parents who understand from their own school years that C means a relatively poor performance. To get even a B ranking, students will have to perform 12 months ahead of the expected standard. Maths students will rarely be able to do that, let alone achieve the A parents are looking for."

While acknowledging that, teachers expect to be judged by students' outcomes. "We want more parents realising they're equally responsible for their children's results," says Bluett. "It's not just teachers who should be held responsible if things go wrong."

"I've had a parent storm into my classroom demanding to know why Johnny didn't get 100 per cent on his test," says one teacher from a high-fee-paying high school in Melbourne's east (and who prefers not to be named). "Something like that happens at least once a week and it's not just academic results parents are pushing for.

We run drug education and have responded to one parent's concerns that her daughter might be anorexic by running a program on eating disorders. There's a real feeling that unless we respond to every concern - some, I think, would be better handled at home - we're not doing our job."

Over the four years Maree O'Halloran has been president of the NSW Teachers Federation, she's had a steady flow of reports from teachers about harassment and intimidation from dissatisfied parents. "Teachers want parents involved; they are actually more concerned about the parents that can't be contacted," says O'Halloran. "But equally, teachers are expected to deal with a lot more than education today ... and some parents expect too much from their children."

Principal Sue Knight promotes parental input and receives three or four requests a week to add new programs to the heavily loaded curriculum and fundraising schedule. Some educational requests have merit, she says, but others "come with a transparent agenda, where a program or fundraising exercise is intended to line one person's pockets." Unfortunately, even the best ideas can't always be accommodated. "We've had fantastic suggestions about ways to enthuse kids about history. But teachers put a lot of work into planning their programs and I can't ask them to throw that all away because I've had one great suggestion."

Victoria Tailby, 44, and her husband, Gary, 46, moved their children from their local state primary school in Melbourne's south-east because they felt it didn't offer the personalised service children deserve and placed Harrison, 11, and Jess, 13, into private schools. "It means we have to make sacrifices, like fewer family holidays. But because I'm paying, I feel that I can expect better attention from their schools without being shoved sideways," she says.

At Currambena Primary School and Pre-school on Sydney's North Shore, none of the 93 students ever sit standardised tests. The school is a democratically run private enterprise, with its board overseeing all decisions about employment, the curriculum, marketing, the grounds and how finances are spent. "The basic skills tests don't tell us anything. I know of schools that prepare students in advance by teaching them what they need to know," says 42-year-old Jenny Williams, chairman of the board of directors at Currambena. "We interpret the state curriculum guidelines to suit each child's interest and abilities. I don't need a standardised test to tell me that my children [Sophie, 10, and Liam, 12] have thrived by learning according to their own passions in a community that values them."

Problems arise if parents want their children to study subjects they have no interest in, says Wendy Pettit, who has been teaching at the school since 1978. "We get together to negotiate the best for the child. Usually the parent will see that there's no value in pushing a child to someone else's agenda."

Parents looking for solace about the rest of Australia's education system may find it in the 2004 national literacy and numeracy results, with the majority of Australian students in years 3, 5 and 7 meeting national benchmarks. The Programme for International Student Assessment, conducted every three years with 15-year-olds worldwide, may also soothe the concerned. John Ainley, deputy CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Research that runs the study for the OECD, says the studies show Australian students doing "quite well" by comparison with the rest of the world. "Australia sits with the second-best groups - the likes of Canada, Ireland and New Zealand in reading and equal to Japan, Canada and Belgium in maths," says Ainley.

And if a child isn't in the top 10 per cent at school, maybe that's not their school's fault, or their teacher's fault. Maybe it's not so bad. "Sometimes parents need to remember what 'average' means," says Pettit. "It means most kids are average."

© 2006 Sun Herald

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