But it's Less than 10km Away!

Here it comes again: suggestions that schools could be "amalgamated" in order to save money. Oh, sorry, not just to save money... Okay, amalgamation would "save costs" and "result in significant savings" but it would also "provide better quality education and help cope with teacher shortages." ("Don't close small schools, say parents", The West, 24 Feb 09)

Who are these educational experts who know what makes for "better quality education"? The WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIWA), of course. Who better to drive the education of your young children? CCIWA is the representative group for employers. These are the same employers who also want the right to hire -- and fire -- as required, to suit their own day to day profit requirements.

..o0o..

Thinking Lateral
Need new thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com

The West provides an example: White Gum Valley Primary School has just 165 students and is "less than 10km" from Winterfold PS, with "only" 224 pupils. The article is written by Bethany Hiatt, whose journalistic research skills are apparently close to zero.

Okay, I'm about to launch into a separate tirade. If your only interest is in school amalgamations, skip the following section...

Did The West do any research at all?!

Here are the journalistic weasel words: "according to the department's website". So Hiatt tries to pass off any factual problems as being due to the department's website. I quickly found a DET website with the student numbers.

Does it matter -- to Hiatt, or to the sense of the article -- that those student numbers include almost 20% as "pre-compulsory students"? That is, pre-schoolers... Will those pre-schoolers also get a better education by being crammed in with more fellow students? Quite the opposite, I would expect. (Being neither an educational expert nor an employer representative group, I cannot be sure.)

Does it really matter that the student numbers are from the end of last year? In the sense of the article, no. In the sense of a journalist doing more than hack work -- it would be nice if there were some indication of actual journalistic research... Did Hiatt ask the school principals, what are enrolment numbers this year? Did she look further at the DET site, to find that White Gum Valley PS had less students in 2008 than in 2007?

Then there's the distance, from one school to the next...

"Less than 10km", according to Hiatt. Five minutes on the web and I found that you can walk or drive, from one school to the next, in 2km. Two km, ten km, what does it matter? Nothing much for the article. (Though I will get back to that distance.) In terms of journalism -- that is an enormous difference!

Did the "journalist" take the time to check distances? Or did she just take some random figure...

Back to the main issue

Are we really happy to accept CCI recommendations, that schools should be amalgamated in order to save money? Not that we know that the education department will accept the recommendations... but amalgamations have been done in the past.

Is saving money what education is all about? I hope not!

Back to that "less than 10km" distance which was mentioned in the article in The West. A primary school child could walk a kilometre to school. Add another 2km -- including a South Street crossing -- and no, I would not expect a child to walk. So an amalgamation of these two schools would require extra buses, cars, or bikes. (Would you let your primary school child ride a bike across South Street?)

When a lazy journalist throws in "less than 10km" -- it gets ridiculous. Children would (or should) never be expected to walk or ride an extra 10km to school. Still, not to worry, that 10km is just a number thrown in by a lazy journalist...

What about the educational implications?

Research, testing, bias and lies

"Deputy director-general Margery Evans said recent testing produced no evidence to suggest that the size of a school had any noticeable impact on student performance." Is that a result of poor research, inadequate measures, or outright lying?

I took the advice of a previous education minister and did a Google search on "size of school student performance". From the first few, some interesting quotes...

(Tired of reading? Accept my summary -- small schools are better and cheaper -- and skim over the dot points.)

• ...research has repeatedly found small schools to be superior to large schools on most measures and equal to them on the rest. This holds true for both elementary and secondary students of all ability levels and in all kinds of settings
• There is a very large research literature on the effect of school size on student achievement. It generally shows that students perform better in smaller elementary and middle schools while the results for high schools are mixed.
• School district consolidation is often purported to save taxpayers money. However, the current study shows that doubling the size of a school lowers student proficiency passage rates by 1%.
• Results showed greater academic achievement for African-American students from large schools than for African-American students at medium and small schools... Higher attendance rates were found for students in small schools, but no differences were found for dropout or graduation rates. Regardless of relative differences related to school size, the absolute level academic achievement was unacceptably low.
• In the now classic Big School, Small School study conducted by Roger Barker and Paul Gump (1964), small schools (100-150), in comparison with large schools (over 2,000) offer students greater opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities and to exercise leadership roles. In particular, participation in school activities, student satisfaction, number of classes taken, community employment, and participation in social organizations were all superior in small schools relative to large schools. A review of over 300 subsequent studies (Garbarino, 1980) indicated that small schools (500) also have lower incidence of crime levels and less serious student misconduct. In a review of research conducted on the relationship between school size and academic achievement (Fowler, 1992) there was found to be a negative relationship between math and verbal ability tests and elementary school size controlling for socio-economic differences (Kiesling, 1967 cited in Fowler, 1992). Additionally, smaller elementary schools particularly benefit African-American students' achievement (Summers & Wolfe, 1977 cited in Fowler, 1992).
• 4. Much school consolidation has been based on the beliefs that larger schools are less expensive to operate and have higher-quality curricula than small schools. Research has demonstrated, however, that neither of these assertions is necessarily true. 5. Academic achievement in small schools is at least equal—and often superior—to that of large schools. 6. Student attitudes toward school in general and toward particular school subjects are more positive in small schools.

Hmmm... My research indicates that smaller schools are generally better than larger schools. The two mentions of African-American students are contradictory. Other reports indicate that smaller schools are better -- and even cheaper! So why would a deputy d-g of education claim otherwise?

Perhaps we should look at property prices...

Amalgamate schools and get an immediate profit from sale of ex-school land. The extra cost of running a larger school is easily covered: tell each school to cut costs by 3%. Sounds stupid? Well, yes, but it's what's happening right now, for all schools.

The long-term costs -- of poorer education, a worse environment for our children -- well, honestly, who cares?! The politicians who close the schools today will be out on their big fat pensions before anyone can prove how badly they stuffed up. And anyway, their kids all go to private schools...

But what should we do?!

Don't close small schools, say parents. Perhaps we should listen to the parents. After all, they are the ones who are -- or should be -- closest to their children.

And the evidence -- my evidence, backed up by a quick Google... is strongly in support of smaller schools.

So, stop selling school land for reasons based on lies and bias. Think of the children and their education. And keep -- and build -- smaller schools.

..o0o..

Independent Thinking
Independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com