School league tables lie at the heart of an ideological struggle over how best to educate our children. In England, parents can easily compare average test scores and exam results between schools. Loathed by teachers and generally scorned by educational experts, such crude measurements have nonetheless been shown to increase standards.
An oft-cited study at Bristol University found the decision in Wales to remove league tables reduced average school performance and raised inequality in attainment. Critics, however, say what is measurable does not necessarily equate with what is valuable.
A recent European study, part-authored by Dublin City University academics, identified “unintended negative side effects” from competitive inspections.
Policymakers in Ireland are resolutely opposed to school league tables. One of the last acts of Ruairí Quinn in office was to get Cabinet approval for legislation to ensure that standardised test scores would be excluded from an extension of the Freedom of Information Act.
Yet parents crave information and it is in that spirit that The Irish Times has for the past 12 years been producing "feeder" tables. These identify the rate of progression from secondary schools to higher education. The tables are far from perfect and carry numerous qualifications. They are, in fact, a product of the only information obtainable by law.
For each school, a progression rate is calculated by dividing the number of pupils who accepted a college place last September by the number of pupils who sat the Leaving Cert four months earlier. The number of acceptances includes those students who deferred college entry for a year or more or who repeated the Leaving Cert externally.
Hence it is possible to have a progression rate of more than 100 per cent, and in fact more than 60 of the State’s 730 secondary schools achieved this feat in 2014. St Joseph’s CBS in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, clocked in a progression rate of 135 per cent which – all things being equal – suggests that all of its class of 2014, combined with all its repeat students, went on directly to higher education.
Does this mean it is the best school in the country? Well, a perusal of inspection reports – available at the Department of Education website education.ie – shows it is certainly not bad.
A 2013 whole-school evaluation of St Joseph’s says: “In most of the lessons observed, the quality of teaching and learning was good or very good . . . Relationships across the school are characterised by co-operation and collaboration and are focused on fostering pride in the school.”
Reading such reports gives parents the flavour of what actually goes on inside the classroom. Under a new process driven by the department’s inspectorate, schools are also obliged to prepare school self-evaluation and to provide summaries of these to the school community each year. Once these come on stream, they will give parents another layer of information on schools.
Hard data remains elusive, though, and into this void come “feeder” tables. Among the many qualifications acknowledged is that the tables only deal with third-level entrants and thus exclude students progressing to further education or training.
There are clearly many ways of succeeding and going to university is by no means the only one.
