School League Tables Harmful

When My School is updated the temptation is to treat these results as you would a competition. But rather than a sprint it should be seen more as a horserace where some contestants are handicapped.

Publishing tables of results as though some schools have ‘won’ over others fails to address context, but it is kind of fun, in a mean way.

Pasi Sahlberg from University of Melbourne says, “Research shows that standardised tests like NAPLAN are poor indicators of school quality because most variation in student scores is explained by factors outside the school, especially socio-economic background, family resources, and broader community conditions.”

And education leaders from across Australia have written an open letter to News Corp Australia, calling on them to immediately cease the publication of school league tables.

The joint open letter was published today in Nine Newspapers, after News Corp newspapers refused to publish the letter, for which advertising space had been booked.

The 41 signatories expressed deep concern that News Corp continues to produce crude rankings based solely on NAPLAN data without accounting for the greater context of each school.

They warn that these tables harm students, teachers and communities by oversimplifying complex learning environments and misrepresenting school performance.

As the letter states, ranking schools in this way is not in the public interest, causes harm, and does nothing to support improvement. Crude tables ignore progress, fail to show how schools help students grow, and undermine public confidence by reducing education to a simplistic competition.

The leaders also highlight that data, when used responsibly, can inform improvements, celebrate genuine achievements, and help identify where additional resources are needed.

They call on the media to refocus on deeper, more collaborative reporting that enhances community understanding rather than reducing schools to rankings.

Stephen Gniel, ACARA CEO says, “When our education leaders including teachers, principals and experts join forces with parent groups to call out the harm creating and publishing crude league tables cause, ACARA expects those media organisations to heed the advice.

“ACARA has long discouraged the use of data from our My School website to create and publish league tables - they are misleading for our parents and carers as it doesn’t tell the full picture of a school. It’s also disrespectful to our hard-working teachers, principals and young people who deserve better - especially in those areas of significant socio-educational disadvantage.

“Only ACARA’s My School website - myschool.edu.au - provides the comprehensive picture for every school in Australia for free. It gives parents and carers, as well as the wider community, a richer insight which, of course, should always be accompanied by a visit to the school itself.”