What is the Aim of the Decile System?
The decile system is a scoring system used by the Ministry of Education to determine the financial needs of public schools. Each school is assigned a rating between one and ten depending on the percentage of enrolled students from low socio-economic backgrounds. A higher score indicates less students from low socio-economic backgrounds and the school is allocated less funding (Education, 2019).
The decile system was implemented in 1995 with the purpose of distributing government funding in a way which helps to provide extra support to learners from disadvantaged communities. The system aims to give extra support to those who are disadvantaged in order to provide equal opportunities for the success of all students (PPTA, 2013). However, the decile system is commonly misinterpreted as being a reflection of a difference in the quality of the education provided at different schools. Parents often avoid sending their children to lower decile schools in favour for a higher decile, as they believe their child will have better academic success at a higher decile school.
Is Decile Score Synonymous with Quality?
When comparing the average NCEA grades achieved at schools of different decile rates, it is evident that lower decile schools achieve, on average, lower grades than higher deciles schools. However, according to Thrupp and Alcorn (2011) comparing school achievement in a decile-based context is “a case of using available data rather than good data.”
Children from low socio-economic communities face many more obstacles on the road to academic success than children from more privileged backgrounds. As low decile schools have a higher percentage of disadvantaged children than their high decile counterparts, directly comparing the average NCEA results of these schools is to neglect the inequality of preparedness between children of high and low socio-economic status. In order to fairly compare the quality of education provided by each school, one must also take into account the starting position of the students within the school. To compare academic success based on the end point of the child’s education alone would be a gross misrepresentation of the obstacles each child has had to overcome in order to arrive at the destination.
Also, as there is no difference in the level of qualification needed to teach at schools of different decile levels, both high and low decile schools draw their teaching staff from the same pool. This suggests that there is no difference in the quality of teaching between schools of different decile levels (ERO, 2016).
While on the surface it may appear that the decile rate of a school corresponds to student success, this is not a true reflection of the quality of education provided by the school. Therefore, comparing the average NCEA results between school does not fairly represent the quality of teaching or the success of the schools ability to teach the child, instead this difference in achievement highlights the importance of providing additional support to disadvantaged children, as is the aim of the decile system (PPTA, 2013).
References
Education. (2019). School Deciles. Retrieved from https://www.education.govt.nz/school/funding-and-financials/resourcing/operational-funding/school-decile-ratings/
Education Review Office. (2016). High Quality Education and Care – An Overview. Retrieved from https://www.ero.govt.nz/publications/quality-in-early-childhood-services/high-quality-education-and-care-an-overview/
PPTA. (2013). A Hierarchy of Inequality – The Decile Divide. NZPPTA. Document 338. Retrieved from https://www.ppta.org.nz/dmsdocument/338
Thrupp, M., & Alcorn, N. (2011). A Little Knowledge Being a Dangerous Thing?: Decile-based Approaches to Developing NCEA League Tables. New Zealand Annual Review of Education. 20(2010), 52-73. Retrieved from https://www.victoria.ac.nz/education/research/nzaroe/issues-index/2010/pdf/text_thrupp.pdf
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Hi Karly,
Great blog, having already talked about the decile it was interesting to read this, and i totally agree on your points you have talked about. It is super interesting that after we both wrote about this that the ministry of education is to scrap the decile system by 2021-22. Instead, this will be replaced by an index and this would include: Proportion of time the child has been supported by benefits since birth, child has a child, youth and family [Oranga Tamariki] notification, mother’s age at child’s birth and father’s offending and sentence history.
Otherwise, a great read and good use of referencing too. 🙂
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Thank Jordan, It was great timing that I wrote about the decile system just before the announcement, right! It will be interesting to see what happens with the new equity system and if it is an improvement on the decile system. The concept sounds very similar to the decile system with allocating more funding to children of low socio-economic families, but seems a like the new system has a few improvements such as; more factors will be taken into considerations when deciding what has an effect of the childs ability to learn. This will now include information such as the parents criminal and offence records. Another improvement is that the equity system will control a larger proportion of the funding so those schools with a higher proportion of students for low socio-economic homes will be supplied with more funding than in the decile system, which will hopefully have a greater impact on less fortunate children. Another difference between the two systems, and perhaps the most important one in my opinion, is that the funding will be child specific rather than school specific and will be anonymous. Therefore, parents cannot judge a school based on a rating system as we saw with the deciles system. It will be interesting to see if this lessens the divide between what used to be high and low decile schools but I think it will take a good few years to really have an impact and restore the reputation of low decile schools.
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I was just about to comment on the same thing Jordan!, wonder how the equity system will go compared to the decile system. On another note, I saw this article, which highlights the areas you discussed in your blog https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/114067757/call-for-debate-on-white-flight-from-low-decile-schools.
What struck me by the article was the affect on the quality of the teaching based on the decile of the school. As you commented “as there is no difference in the level of qualification needed to teach at schools of different decile levels, both high and low decile schools draw their teaching staff from the same pool”. But for teachers looking for work, would the decile number of the school not factor into their decision?, if you could go to a higher decile system, where you are supported and resourced and their is a culture of learning compared to a low decile school, where there might be behavioural issues and truancy, I can imagine a quality teacher might decide the higher decile school.
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This is a really good read on the decile system in New Zealand and its reflection. I, too, agree that the decile system is not an accurate representation of the quality of education or the success of students, especially when the only set of data being used to show these two aspects are NCEA results. However, the decile system was not created to show these factors, so why are NCEA results being used to conclude things that are irrelevant to it? If you were to conclude the success of what the decile system was created for, I believe it would be better to use data that showed how government funding has changed the school situation in terms of resources. It could be through resources the school has been provided or even programmes that extend students outside of the school environment.
For my practicums, I had been placed at a high decile, low decile, then a private school. From this alone I could clearly see the differences in student’s lives, including the disadvantages and privileges you talk about. It was obvious that the students in low decile had more obstacles in their way of doing well, such as not having access to devices and resources. This clearly was not an issue at the high decile and private school, where the students constantly had access to a range of knowledge sources; and therefore, did generally achieve higher in tests compared to the low decile students I experienced. This goes back to the point of how NCEA results (along with quality of teaching like you mentioned) are irrelevant to the decile system. To see an accurate representation of how well the decile system works, more factors that lie outside of school need to be considered, as well as seeing how funding is used.
Overall, however, I do absolutely believe the decile system needs to be supporting disadvantaged schools and students, as was the original aim when it was first set.
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Hi Karly,
Great blog, having already talked about the decile it was interesting to read this, and i totally agree on your points you have talked about. It is super interesting that after we both wrote about this that the ministry of education is to scrap the decile system by 2021-22. Instead, this will be replaced by an index and this would include: Proportion of time the child has been supported by benefits since birth, child has a child, youth and family [Oranga Tamariki] notification, mother’s age at child’s birth and father’s offending and sentence history.
It was interesting that I went to a decile one school but the student’s achievement felt higher, and hopefully, by replacing the decile system there will be less stigma around low decile schools. As parents are more likely at this stage to send their children to lower decile schools.
Otherwise, a great read and good use of referencing too.
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