'Critiquing Current Educational Issues Essay\r'

'Matters of preparation, like any an a nonher(prenominal)(prenominal) sociological manages, commode experience a dish up of controversy if they argon handled in a manner that does non consist or take into account the views of completely the stakeholders (ABC, 2010). This has been the reference with the My shallow web billet in this country.\r\nLong be stalk the My train web identify came into operation, support as well as immunity could be openly witnessed from different stakeholders including teachers, the Australian reading Union (AEU), and the government through the independent Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) which is aerated with the responsibility of making available to the public selective randomness slightly trails that is nationally comparable. However, the al closely controversy has arisen afterward the website became operational.\r\nThe issues of contention vary depending on the particular sides drag in in the debate. Ho wever, regardless of the views that are being raised, the do that the controversy round the My initiate website has generated bring been direful not scarce to students and their train eld simply also to teachers in the Australian precept curriculum, the parents, as well as investors who convey to finance education programs in the country. This melodic theme exactly discusses the sociological issues that need surrounded the My school website prior to and after its inception.\r\nThis is with a view to establishing the termination to which the controversy has affected the various stakeholders in the education sector in the country. The My School Website My school is a website which profiles close to a thousand Australian schools. al unitedly these schools may be searched by any evoke person or organization using filters such(prenominal) as the location of the school, its sector, or even the name. maybe the most important information to be format to imparther on th e website is that of statistical and contextual nature; merely also included is information ab turn up the results by the National Assessment Plan for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN).\r\nThese results allows for comparisons to be gain ground for schools; in particular those that are statistically similar. Therefore, the My school website allows for the clear-cut for schools across the nation; finding local schools in one’s own area; study schools that are statistically similar; viewing school- direct results by NAPLAN; and identification of schools’ accomplishments so that there is an allowance for manduction successful strategies (Peatling, 2010). Contentious Issues\r\nProponents of My school, who mainly comprise of the government, NAPLAN, and a section of parents, argue that the website has allowed parents and other(a) people an chance to assess schools on the basis of severalize indicators, particularly on literacy and numeracy, so that they earth-closet make assured decisions ab emerge where to move into their children. They also argue that through the site parents croup monitor the performance of their children and so be better roamd to advise them accordingly.\r\nThe site has also been lauded for bringing together all schools across the nation so that finding information ab away school performances and other records is no longer baffling (Peatling, 2010). This site, they argue, has enabled the results of schools on national turn outs to be better still in a manner that is both pregnant and fair. The site has also enabled schools seeking to enhance their performance to guide from others which have similar populations. By providing all-encompassing information on Australian schools, the My School website introduces a new level of transparency and account dexterity to the Australian school constitution.\r\nHowever, the opponents have forwarded a number of critical issues which they believe are unfeignedly making the edu cation sector to suffer. The first contention and one which has generated the most antonym is the use of particular indices to rank schools (Peatling, 2010). These indices have apparently failed to present to the public what the actual facts about schools are because it has been proved that some schools that are issue widely to be underperformers have been ranked or placed in the same category as other elite schools whose national record has been know by the people to be very high.\r\nA notable example that has been widely quoted is the grouping together of Bulli High School, Wollongong, and Trinity Grammar, Summer Hill; as well as ranking of Scotch College which is among the most prestigious schools in the country alongside Epping northbound Public School. This issue has particularly caused a lot of concern among teachers, led by the Australian teaching method Union, who have used it to reiterate their allegation that the My school website is deeply flawed and cannot be relied upon for its inaccuracy, invalidity, and incompleteness (Peatling, 2010).\r\nanother(prenominal) key issue has been the margin of misconduct that has been place in the ranking of the schools in the test results by KAPLAN. In some cases, it has been found that the margin of error has been as wide as 34 †pointing out that there was no way the website could be relied on to convey the correct information to the public. From the AEU’s perspective, the site is only a source of conflict and serves to prepare tension and unnecessary competition among teachers and schools.\r\nThe union reiterates the need for the education sector to be made preferably autonomous so as to avoid events that can compromise the smell of education (Peatling, 2010). AEU holds that tests ought not to be used to rate the student’s ability but only as a fashion to ascertain where a child or disciple is up to. Sociologically, tests results ought to be the secret of the learner because the tes t was done that one learner alone. Exposing such results to other people, especially when the results are distressing, serves to embarrass the learner and cause one to be less confident in school.\r\nThe overall outcome is a tendency to march on failing in successive tests. Another issue that has raised a storm about the My school website is that it is being used to discriminate against certain heathenish communities, particularly the pristine students (ABC, 2010). This lament, mainly from parents, has stemmed from the system used where schools have been listing the number of Aboriginal students enrolled there as part of the statistics posted on the My school website.\r\nThis, the parents contend, is discriminatory as it tends to bring to the fore the notion that the Aboriginal students are responsible for the poor performance of schools so that the more(prenominal) of them a school has the lower it is likely to perform on the KAPLAN index. This can never be farther from the tr uth (ABC, 2010). The skirmish Between Government Policy and Public vox populi Even on the international scene, there have been constant clashes between the policy of governments and what the public feels is the best.\r\nIn matters of education in particular, there has been a series of policy frame employments that governments have put in place without considering their effects on the other stakeholders. For instance, issues regarding the performance of educators in learning institutions like schools and colleges have been hotly contend because while the policy might require teachers and other educators to be appraised based on their performance, the indices used in certain cases never really depict the actual input by these educators.\r\nFor instance, teachers can be delegate to students who are hard of learning for a primer or more and so such teachers, if rated on the basis of the performance of their students alone, never really get justice done. Similarly, it is not appropr iate for the government to lead using indices to rank schools and publishing such information on the My school website without considering other factors. The effect this has on teachers is that they are likely to become demoralized and put less effort in their discipline for they know the evaluation of their work is not at all fair.\r\nFor parents, the use of the My school website has had different effects (Peatling, 2010). First, it may help them to ascertain the best performers among schools and so enroll their children in such ones. However, there is another more critical issue about what parents whose children are in poor-performing schools can do. The natural inclination of such parents is to tie their children from these poor performing schools and have then enrolled in other schools with better performance indices.\r\nThis, if allowed, would cause a mass exodus of students from some schools into others, eventually do another problem of overcrowding and subsequent declinin g in the quality of education in those schools initially ranked highly. unless since the government is not prepared to allow such migrations, continuing to use the My school website might only cause parents a lot of anxiety from intimate that their children might never be able to make it in life because they are in lowly-ranked schools.\r\nFor the students, they volition get discouraged if they learn that their school does not perform well in comparison to others. As AEU has claimed, education is not all about literacy and numeracy but more about individual students’ ability to learn to do many other things in life. Students in lowly-ranked schools might be led into the false tactual sensation that their teachers are not competent enough and so give up trying to improve their performance.\r\nHowever, the My school website has had the positive effect of creating a competitive milieu in schools so that low performers are compelled to work harder to improve while the best p erformers try their level best to maintain or improve their performance record (Peatling, 2010). Conclusion The My school website is bound to hold eliciting a lot of debate in the days to come with varying effects on the society, the students, teachers, and the government. What is clear in this debate is that there has been no attempt to have the feuding parties to work together to sort out their differences.\r\nInstead, every side has been unilateral in its decisions and has not cared about the implications of its actions on the students, teachers, and parents. While the government is downplaying the opposition to the My school website by AEU and citing it as any other opposition that happens whenever there is change, the fact is that the union has key sociological issues that ought to be addressed if the education standards in this country are to be kept high. Sociologically, therefore, the feuding parties ought to work together to find ways of ironing out their differences befor e the matter gets out of hand.\r\n'