There has been much debate and media coverage in recent weeks on the teachers' union pushing its opposition to school performance reporting and threatening widespread industrial action (''Testing times for capital teachers''', July 15, p1).
Scaremongering about dated experiences in other countries and failing to acknowledge benefits achieved are features of the argument. Implied is an arrogant assumption that parents are not capable of interpreting performance information appropriately and that we would all be much better off if we left them in the dark.
It is hardly surprising that the media pays attention to and reports the well-orchestrated and well-resourced promotion of the union's position.
Parents do not enjoy the same level of media exposure yet it would be nice to have their position on transparency in school performance reported, which might give a contrast to the attention-seeking posturing of the union.
The recent one-sided coverage of the issue can only partly be blamed on the media as the parents' voice on this and other issues is not always articulated and promoted very well.
There are parents' organisations and, in Canberra, the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, and the Association of Parents and Friends of ACT Schools, take on this role.
Having been involved in both organisations my observation is that while they are generally highly effective, in some cases there is a lack of confidence in adopting a position that differs from school principals and teachers. In other cases they simply struggle to gain interest from the media.
Thankfully not all the media coverage has been one-sided and it was refreshing to see that the ABC's 7.30 Report on Thursday gave a much more balanced coverage of the school performance reporting debate.
The Federal Government and Education Minister Julia Gillard seem to understand what parents want rather well. They need to understand that the threats and bleating of the teachers' union are not representative of those in the community who have perhaps the most crucial interest in quality education the parents of children in Australian schools.
George Gamkrelidze, Watson '
When I went to school in the 1950s and early '60s the press annually ran what it now denigrates as ''league tables''. A degree of social responsibility focused such reports on the major academic achievers, including Fort Street (Public) High School in Sydney.
The press did not bother to produce a meaningless comparison between schools with totally different catchments for both students and teachers.
At the lower end of the scale, however, problem public schools, in disadvantaged catchment areas that really needed more finance than provided by a ''one size fits all'' bureaucratic funding formula were mercilessly exposed. This was to the embarrassment of politicians and bureaucrat, not parents, students or teachers.
This was often followed, the next year, by heart-warming reports of the magnificent results produced in these same disaster schools following the provision of specialist teachers and programs, ie, funding.
Gary J. Wilson, Hackett
Lead on learning
Some people will be shocked at the assertion by American Professor Jacob Vigdor that home computers can send children's maths and reading scores backwards (''Computer use not a panacea for students'', July 21, p5).
We have become conditioned to believe that computers are essential tools for study in the 21st century and anyone who questions this is seen as a Luddite. When a media story on education appears it usually includes an image of a student sitting at a keyboard. But education is much more than mastering technology, important as that may be. All education should include leading the student to discover things not known before, and learning to ask the right questions and being wary of slick easy answers. The word ''education'' comes from a Latin word meaning to lead out or draw out, and this process always demands hard mental effort. There is still no substitute for books and pen and paper, and the skills to use them critically.
Robert Willson, Deakin
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