This briefing reports the outcomes of our meeting yesterday with ACARA, and raises ongoing concerns regarding the policy issues around the shift in ICSEA scores.

ACARA is reviewing as a matter of priority the ICSEA results of CSA members whose scores increased by more than 50 points.

A large percentage of CSA schools fall into this category, regarded by ICSEA as a significant change in ICSEA compared to the 2009 results.

The undertaking to review the scores came during a productive meeting between CSA’s Stephen O’Doherty and Mark Spencer, with Peter Hill (CEO) and other ACARA officers.

CSA expressed its utmost concern about the large number of changes to scores in our sector.

We highlighted a number of anomalies that members have brought to our attention, including an aboriginal school with an increased score of 385 points: the second biggest change in the country. ACARA will investigate the reason behind such results, and we will continue our dialogue with them in coming days with a view to correcting any errors of data.

Regarding financial data, many schools are concerned at the difference between their MySchool data and their financial questionnaires. One reason for this is that a notional share of the BGA administration has been allocated to each independent school. Once again however there has been no information that would allow schools to assess how their raw data was treated to arrive at the reported numbers. ACARA has promised to provide technical information that will allow us to better advise schools.

During the meeting ACARA has apologised to CSA for the lack of consultation in the lead up to the recent changes. The meeting heralded a much better era of dialogue between CSA and the Authority.

Ongoing concerns

Our current objective is to ensure that all member schools have been accurately scored according to verifiable data. This will at least remove some of the uncertainty about school results.

However this alone will not satisfy our concerns with the 2010 ICSEA.  There remain crucial questions about the nature of this new index, what it measures, why differs from SES for some schools (and not others), and what will be the long-term effect of its long-term use.

Our meeting included an open and frank discussion about these issues, and CSA is now seeking more information about how and why the decision was made, by Ministers of Education, to move away from SES to the new ICSEA.

We are most concerned that public school advocates are already suggesting that the new ICSEA scores should become the basis for funding. This would unfairly disadvantage many low fee, faith-based independent schools, who for some unexplained reason seem to be the group most affected by ICSEA changes.

So what’s going on with ICSEA?

In MySchool version 1 (2009), a school’s ICSEA was calculated based on the data from the Census Collection Districts from which the school drew students. This is the same data and methodology used for the SES. It is significant to note that the 2009 ICSEA was therefore, like the SES, based on indirect data – that is, the score was derived from the averaged values within a CCD (of 200 households).

For the 2010 ICSEA scores, it was decided to move to direct data, based on information provided by parents at enrolment about their occupational status and educational background. According to ACARA, their research indicates that direct data on these two factors will “improve ICSEA’s ability to predict individual school NAPLAN performance” and “have greater face validity”. We have asked for a copy of this research, and for the briefings ACARA prepared that led to the Ministers at MCEECDYA to approve the shift in method.

It is the switch mentioned above that lies at the centre of our concerns, because we can not yet be convinced that this will represent a fair and equitable comparison of schools if – and it is only an if – future funding was dependant on this measure alone.

In fact, as ICSEA was designed as a measure “to predict NAPLAN performance,” it is by itself unsuitable as the basis of a funding system.

One of the significant omissions from the new 2010 ICSEA is any ‘capacity to pay’ measurement. Schools with families that are tertiary educated and self-identify as ‘professional’ will rate with a high ICSEA, irrespective of whether the parents are in work, or what they earn. This may have a particular impact on families where one parent chooses to stay at home to care for the children, or who may work part time. This could be a reason that faith-based schools are showing greater-than-expected increases in the 2010 ICSEA.

If this became the basis for funding, one very obvious outcome would be to disadvantage low income families with higher educational backgrounds. There are likely to be other consequences – unintended or otherwise – evident in the new methodology.

Such a significant policy shift should not happen without consultation and to date this has not occurred. We are encouraged that following yesterday’s meeting CSA will have much greater access to ACARA.

Ultimately however the onus for policy decisions rests with Ministers, and we will be raising our concerns with Minister Garrett in a few days. In particular we will be asking for his assurance that ICSEA, and currently constructed, will not become the basis of a funding system. It was not designed for funding, and it is not fit for that purpose. 

This issue will be the subject of much attention in the months to come.