Casting a wider net

The recent media reports highlighting the launch of My School and the subsequent publication of league tables has prompted fresh public debate about how we measure and report school performance. The launch provides a timely reminder about the risks of privileging single data sets over other sources when making judgments about the performance of schools. Under the Education Revolution there is increased emphasis on accountability and school performance. We are continually being told schools have to do better. For the first time, through the website, national testing data has been made available to the public. Is this a good thing? Like all major initiatives the positives often need to be tempered with words of caution.