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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3385 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

said, but the classic example is Tuggeranong Homestead. They wanted to put residential on a block of open space. This government has said that that is unacceptable and we will add that back into the defined open space by protecting it, along with the 100 hectares of yellow box red gum that we will put back into the urban open space, and along with the land that was saved at the Gungahlin town centre when the former planning minister, now the Chief Minister, shifted a whole town centre because we understand the value of the environment and the value that the people of Canberra put on it. We have now added to that list the proposed Jerrabomberra town centre which now will not go ahead.

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Stefaniak as Minister for Education and it is in regard to the recent decision by the department of education to require schools to release to their communities their ACT assessment program results, including school and system averages, from 2001. After the receipt of 138 submissions and the results of a 500-strong random telephone survey of parents and carers, the minister has said that parents do not want leagues tables. In advising schools of the process to be followed, the department has said the school ACTAP results-that is, the results of literacy and numeracy testing-will not be published in a form that could be used to form league tables, and that schools will not use ACTAP data or comparisons with system results for marketing purposes.

However, with the release of information on the performance of schools against the system average, how did you resolve the concerns regarding parents shopping around for schools which have results well above the system mean; schools in one way or another promoting their performance against the average and therefore against other schools; schools with a student mix that produces numeracy and literacy results below the system average losing students to schools catering to a less diverse community; and the media publishing de facto leagues tables extracted from the information available? I can see that Mr Moore is trying to help you answer the question as well.

Mr Moore: I take a point of order. I believe the question is out of order, because Mr Berry has a motion on this matter on the notice paper.

MR SPEAKER: That has been drawn to my attention. It is difficult to make an assessment. Mr Berry certainly has the following motion on the notice paper:

Ms Tucker: May I speak to the point of order?

MR SPEAKER: Yes, you may.

Ms Tucker: Mr Stefaniak has said that the government does not support league tables, but they have produced a different form of information. My question to the minister is: how is that not going to be a problem?

MR SPEAKER: With that clarification, I will allow the question.

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