Reporting the ‘education revolution’: MySchool.edu.au in the print media

Abstract

Launched in January 2010, the MySchool.edu.au website, which ranks and compares schools on the basis of standardised literacy and numeracy tests, has been the subject of intense media coverage. This article examines 34 editorials focused on MySchool, published from October 2009 to August 2010, and identifies three key narratives in operation, those of distrust, choice and performance. It argues that these narratives work together to reinforce and promote neoliberal educational discourses at the heart of what Michael Apple has termed the ‘conservative modernisation’ of education and other social services. Together, the dominant narratives position MySchool and the ensuing newspaper-generated and published league tables as the solution to problems of poor performance, ‘bad’ schools and ‘bad’ teachers in the face of times characterised by self-interested teachers and governments keen to shirk their responsibility in the education arena.

Keywords:

• media analysis
• politics of education
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgements

This study was undertaken as part of a Research Fellowship awarded by the Educational Research Institute, Newcastle, to the author in 2010. The support offered by ERIN is greatly appreciated, as is the advice offered on earlier drafts by Elenie Poulos, Susan Groundwater-Smith and Judyth Sachs, and the rich feedback provided by the editors of Discourse.

Notes

1. It is worthwhile noting that often within the editorials the issue of NAPLAN testing itself is conflated with the publication of the results on the MySchool website and the subsequent construction of league tables by media agencies.

2. In NSW, legislation was passed in 1997 preventing the publication of school league tables after a case in which a tabloid newspaper printed a photograph of the graduating class of a disadvantaged public school underneath the headline ‘The Class We Failed’.