GARRETT STUFF UP HITS LOCAL SCHOOLS
04-March-2011
Schools in North East Victoria are suffering again because of bad Labor policy.
School Education Minister, Peter Garrett has again proven he has the reverse Midas touch as the MySchool fiasco once again descended into chaos. Local schools have raised serious concerns about misrepresentative data on the website which could affect Government funding.
MySchool 2.0 was due to be launched last December, but was delayed due to flawed data collection methods and misrepresentative figures that did not accurately reflect school demographics.
Beechworth Montessori School raised concerns last December when the MySchool website ranked them as the third most advantaged school in Australia. Mr Garrett has relaunched the website today but the problems have not been fixed.
Principal of Beechworth Montessori, Heather Gerrard said that “the methodology behind the calculation of the ICSEA score is fundamentally flawed and that the reported data for our school is inaccurate and open for misinterpretation.”
Sophie Mirabella MP, Federal Member for Indi is calling on the Government to delay the relaunch until the data is correct.
“Another Peter Garrett program, another complete mess,” said Mrs Mirabella.
“Mr Garrett has had two chances to get this right and once again, he has failed.
“There are schools in Indi that are being totally misrepresented and that has serious consequences in terms of the funding they receive.”
Ms Gerrard first raised concerns last year when the website ranked Beechworth Montessori above Xavier College and Melbourne Grammar. After submitting new data, the school has only dropped 126 points on the ICSEA rankings, which still ranks them amongst the most affluent schools.
“This is simply not acceptable,” Mrs Mirabella continued.
“The results have totally distorted the reality of the situation. These inaccuracies must be rectified before further damage is done.
“Labor is desperate to force these programs through as quickly as possible without doing the necessary groundwork. We saw Mr Garrett try and do the same thing with the Home Insulation Program and look what happened there.”
Albury Wodonga Community College was also unfairly represented on the MySchool website.
“I have written to the Minister, demanding that the data not be published until it accurately reflects the situation at local schools like Beechworth Montessori and Albury Wodonga Community College,” Mrs Mirabella concluded.