Justine Ferrari, Education writer | February 18, 2009
THE federal Government's focus on social disadvantage to improve students' education is misguided, a leading education researcher argues.
Instead, funding should be directed at low-performing students, the Australian Council for Educational Research's Steve Dinham said.
With the Government handing over more than $1billion to schools with low socio-economic status, the biggest leveller in education was a quality teacher in every classroom, he said.
Asked if the Government's investment in socially disadvantaged schools was a waste of money, Professor Dinham said socio-economic status (SES) was a "red herring" and the funds should be put into "low-performing schools and low-performing students".
"Across the SES spectrum, there are low-performing kids in all schools," he said. Professor Dinham - ACER research director in teaching, learning and leadership - said low socio-economic status was often used as an excuse to dumb down curriculum. Many teachers wrongly believed that students' backgrounds determined their potential at school.
"There are too many fads, fashions and ideologies in education - postmodernist claptrap, things like learning styles and categorising students in various ways," he said.
"There's a mountain of research, and teachers still rely on routine, past experience, hunches and superstition." In seminars for school leaders next week, Professor Dinham will say many people, including practising teachers, "still subscribe, consciously or subconsciously, to various forms of biological social determinism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary".
"What students can achieve in their education is not predetermined by heredity, where they live, their socio-economic background or family circumstances. "All students can benefit from quality education, but people see a group of kids who are indigenous, come from non-English-speaking backgrounds, or poor" and assume the best they can do for those kids is to "keep them off the streets, give them social skills and boost self esteem". Professor Dinham said low expectations of students were common in disadvantaged areas, starting a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"We shouldn't put all low-SES schools in one basket. We should be looking at low-SES schools that are doing well and the lessons from them," he said.
Professor Dinham said attaching a low SES to a school was often used as an excuse for not doing things, and for dumbing down courses.
"The minute you start dumbing down, you're limiting people's horizons," he said.
He said teacher quality was the key to overcoming differences.