Why HSC restrictions hide the truths we all need to see

As almost 70,000 Higher School Certificate students begin their stuvac period ahead of exams next month, the Herald has analysed buried public school data that has hidden some important truths for far too long.

For more than two decades, the state’s education authorities have restricted publicly released information each December to band six results only – that is, students who have achieved a mark of 90 or more in any subject, and their schools.

Students of Menai High are rarely recognised but achieve strongly across the cohort.Credit: Wolter Peeters

While those young people are duly recognised, it means that HSC rankings which the Herald prepares each year are skewed to selective and expensive independent schools. The education department then also restricts, via the Education Act, the publication of rankings outside the top 10 per cent of schools.

These restrictions neglect the students who achieve very high ATARs with subject marks in the 80s. And they ignore an important truth: schools – many of them excellent public schools – with very high averages, indicating success across the entire cohort, never receive the recognition they deserve.

At the heart of the restrictions is a Daily Telegraph story that defamed a cohort at a particular school in 1996 where no student had received a tertiary entrance rank above 50. The intention of the story was to point out that, as a society, we had let down those children.

And, ever since, taxpayers have had no idea which schools need more help. Another truth hidden from view.

The Herald has long wished for better data – band fives and sixes would be a start, median ATARs would be better – to give parents a clear picture of how our schools across all sectors are performing.

Families can find out the extent to which schools help students in years 3 to 9 improve in literacy and numeracy on the federal government’s My School website, which publishes NAPLAN results. But the HSC remains an information black hole.

Victoria publishes median VCE (HSC equivalent) scores, high scores and post-school destinations for every school. As a result, our Melbourne-based sister paper, The Age, has developed an outstanding annual series called Schools that Excel, in which it profiles schools that lead the state on each of the different metrics, and celebrates schools from all parts of the state.

It should not have taken the work of a clever year 12 student, Syed Ahmad, to gather better data from hundreds of annual reports across NSW to highlight our schools.

Our analysis of that data – that averages the average of all subjects to form a fairer picture of success – is not perfect: some comprehensive schools are missing, and Catholic and independent schools for the most part do not report their subject averages.

But it is fairer than band six data only.

The Herald also disagrees with limiting publication to the top 10 per cent of schools. If a school is performing less than ideally, parents – taxpayers – have a right to know, and those making budget decisions about the spending of those taxpayer dollars – the government – should be acutely aware.

The fairest measure of a school is its median ATAR. At present, ATARs are given to students only – schools do not even receive them.

Consider this: a student can receive a mark of 89 in five (difficult) subjects, giving them an ATAR above 97, yet they receive no recognition. A school can have its entire cohort score a mark in the 80s for, say, advanced English and not make a rankings table.

No child who receives a mark in the 80s should feel dejected when they open their HSC results. Yet this routinely occurs. Band six data only has warped society’s view of success in the HSC.

Consider this example of mark distribution from the HSC advanced English course. A student receives a mark of 87. He should be proud that this is at the upper end of the majority of students.

Distribution of marks for HSC English.

A cluster of carefully selected, gifted students does not a school make.

And, perhaps more importantly when we consider the welfare of our young people, a mark in the 80s is not a fail.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.