HSC Ranking Tables Are Invalid (1 Viewer)

[pHyRe]

Anyone else really hate the HSC ranking tables? People say that Baulko came close to beating ruse a few years ago and so did NSB in 2011 but in reality they are no where CLOSE with Ruse's median atar at 99 point something. I'm not a Ruse supporter or anything, i would probably never go there even if i was smart enough as I hate the mentality. NSB or sydney boys are both much better imo.

But yeah, just hate the inaccuracy of the tables for 3 reasons:

1) Doesnt take top 10 units, rather all the units
2) Doesn't differentiate between a 90 and 99 in a course
3) And it takes the HSC mark which doesnt take into account the difficulty (therefore 2unit basketweaving = 4 unit maths)

Anyone else feel the same way?

 

[OzKo]

You raise some a valid point about how ranking schools based on the percentage of Band 6s achieved out of total attempts is flawed.

What you need to understand though is that the tables aren't inferring that School X is better than School Y, rather they had a higher percentage of B6s. If a school with 5 students had a success rate higher than 68.83%, then does that mean that they are automatically better than JRAHS? Definitely not.

It's when people start to say one school is better than another because they ranked higher that this begins to become a problem.

 

[pHyRe]

But that is what people inherently assume, that one school is better based on these rankings. It is accurate to some degree, Ruse is obviously smarter than Baulkham Hills or any school. But perhaps NSB isn't smarter than NSG or some other top 10 school.

By better here i mean better academically.

 

[D94]

This isn't some big secret...SMH clearly states the rankings are based on the percentages of Band 6's across all attempts. It's there to show the rankings according to Band 6's, and not to rank schools according to some subjective criteria (ie. this school is "better" than another school).

 

[LoveHateSchool]

Let us not forget all those schools out there getting many high band 5s but no rankings...the league tables are just a simplified snapshot of academic performance.

 

[pHyRe]

Why not use let's say, median atar though? That's far better at showing a school's true academic performance in the HSC. Again somewhat limited by far better than the current methodology that the SMH uses.

 

[D94]

Why not use let's say, median atar though? That's far better at showing a school's true academic performance in the HSC. Again somewhat limited by far better than the current methodology that the SMH uses.

Because ATARs are private information and can't be accessed by the public.

 

[pHyRe]

Because ATARs are private information and can't be accessed by the public.

Fair enough, but if the government is going for transparency in schools this would be another frontier to approach it from. It's not like individual ATARs are being given, rather a school's. Perhaps small schools could be exempt (less than 10 people) as it is rather clear when there are 2 people in a cohort and the avg is 50 that you didn't perform that well.

And some schools do give detailed information about their cohort's performance such as Grammar, Sydney Boys and I've heard that about Ruse's median ATAR a lot. Maybe, only the top 10 or 20's ATAR results could be published.

 

[cem]

The whole reason they stopped doing this was after The Telegraph ran a headline 'The School that Failed the HSC' where every student had a TER (as the ATAR was called then) less then 50.

The government's repsonse was to change the TER to a UAI and to make them confidential. Students do not have to tell anyone what they got and even if they do tell the school a figure it doesn't have to be accurate.

Back in the 70s every students' individual results were published but then privacy became an issue and now we have made up rankings etc based on the only information released - the Band 6s.

 

[slyhunter]

Fair enough, but if the government is going for transparency in schools this would be another frontier to approach it from. It's not like individual ATARs are being given, rather a school's. Perhaps small schools could be exempt (less than 10 people) as it is rather clear when there are 2 people in a cohort and the avg is 50 that you didn't perform that well.

And some schools do give detailed information about their cohort's performance such as Grammar, Sydney Boys and I've heard that about Ruse's median ATAR a lot. Maybe, only the top 10 or 20's ATAR results could be published.

That still raises the issue of privacy though.

 

[pHyRe]

That still raises the issue of privacy though.

How so? the current method of ranking still reveals a bit about the school's performance and thus brings into question privacy. I am suggesting a more ACCURATE method of ranking, i dont see how this is more revealing of an individual's performance. And you could only rank top 20 using median atar to prevent the whole, 'this school failed' article and remove small school's results.

 

[LightXT]

I know my school publicly reveals ATAR averages and general statistics.

 

[pHyRe]

And in any case, those failure articles can be run every year. I remember Mt. Druitt has one person passing the HSC from their cohort. not exactly stellar

 

[4025808]

Meh, IMO, just ignore those tables. These tables don't reflect the true ability of a student. It cannot show whether if a particular student has generated improvements in their learning progress anyway.

Having said that, it does to an extent, reflect about how good or bad a cohort is.

University is where the real test is at, where people HAVE to self-learn and not rely so much on tutoring to succeed in their subjects.

 

[bladeys]

Meh, IMO, just ignore those tables. These tables don't reflect the true ability of a student.

Having said that, it does to an extent, reflect about how good or bad a cohort is.

+1, OP should stop having a bitch about the way schools are ranked and just worry about his own HSC.

 

[pHyRe]

+1, OP should stop having a bitch about the way schools are ranked and just worry about his own HSC.

ooft. that's harsh , i was just wondering why they use such an inaccurate way of ranking schools when alternatives that dont impede on privacy are available (imo)

 

[LoveHateSchool]

^I don't there is a definitive way to accurately rank schools. Any statistics you use it could be argued that it is not complete or fair etc.

Because what a student gets back from a school is a partly the resources and the teachers, but more so what THEY put in personally mirrored back to them and reaping the rewards of the opportunities they have taken up. These aren't necessarily purely academic either. If a student wants to succeed academically they will.

We should just be aiming at getting good schools across the board, I mean with league tables not every school can be on top, there always will be a bottom and a middle...

 

[pHyRe]

Well, i wouldnt see too many flaws with showing % of people with 99+, 98, 95, 90, 80, 70 BUT that gives a lot of privacy away for students. Thus my optimal system would be to keep the current one but also have one for the top 20 which gives the median ATAR of each school and excludes any extremely small school.

 

[Bobbo1]

I completely agree with you, however, no one's arguing that Ruse is not the best school in the state..

 

[LoveHateSchool]

^^ATARS are private and not released, you can't even force X amount to reveal it. Also it's pretty skewed if it's median for top 20, some cohorts have a massive top and end, others would be more consistent.
^And yeah, no matter how you splice statistics, Ruse has dominated academically for the last 16 years. Median ATAR is insane. If it's the best school overall experience, maybe not, I mean it was obviously amazing when it first started topping, but now it has the continual drawcard of the best students.

EDIT: I think a really interesting league table would be the improvement on student's performance from earlier NAPLAN testing etc.