{"id":3864,"date":"2010-02-01T08:41:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-01T08:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2010\/02\/give-us-more-numbers\/"},"modified":"2011-02-05T07:46:50","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T07:46:50","slug":"give-us-more-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2010\/02\/give-us-more-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Give us more numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check out Nicolas Rothwell’s article<\/a> in Saturday’s Australian<\/em>. It’s about yes well maybe after all it wasn’t such a good idea the way the Intervention demoralised Indigenous people and engendered a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of Government and its bureaucrats. So, which newspaper has hammered Indigenous people for incompetence and dysfunctionality over the last 4 years? Which newspaper has been applauding itself for triggering the Intervention?
\nAnd thinking of other misusable data, the My School Site<\/a> was launched recently, showing how students across Australia performed on the NAPLAN<\/a> tests of English literacy and numeracy.
\nI’m all for numbers, but I do share Bruce Petty’s concern<\/a> about how these are being used. The numbers we’ve been given are seriously flawed for understanding what’s happening in Indigenous schools in the NT.
\nThese are ENGLISH literacy tests administered in ENGLISH. So if the kids start monolingual in a language other than English it’s kinda obvious that they’re going to do badly in reading and writing English in their first years at school. And they’ll continue to do badly if they don’t get good ESL teaching and if they get so bored at school that they stop attending.
\nLots of the remote NT schools (bilingual and non-bilingual) do really badly. What is unforgiveable is the comparison with so-called “statistically similar” schools. They do not seem to have factored in first language. So, among the schools compared to<\/a> Yuendumu (majority of children speak Warlpiri as a first language) are schools where most children’s first language is English, Aboriginal English or an English-based creole. Here are some (there are probably more but I don’t know all the communities).
\nBorroloola School, Borroloola NT 0854
\nCamooweal State School, Camooweal QLD 4828
\nGoodooga Central School, Goodooga NSW 2831
\nMoree East Public School, Moree NSW 2400
\nWilcannia Central School, Wilcannia NSW 2836
\nEven if you speak an English-based creole rather than standard English, you’ll still do better than a child who only speaks a traditional language – just as English-speaking children find it easier to learn French than Chinese. There are so many similar words.
\nWho could be surprised that these children do better on English tests?
\nAnd, the information one really wants isn’t there on the site. You can get mission statement blah. So the Feds have said they’ll give more information – what parents think about schools<\/a>…. Brilliant, what blame-avoiding PR person thought that up?
\nI bet parents would be MORE interested in the following sets of numbers, which the State and Federal Departments could provide MUCH more cheaply than by conducting an expensive survey of parents:<\/p>\n