"Education is definitely out on the table" (The Australian 23/24 January 2010). If the past few weeks are anything to go by, 2010 will be a big year. Isn’t it great that education has become so important that politicians and the community want to know everything about what we do, how we do it, and what we need to do to make it better? In that process, there will be stories, opinions and actions which are critical of the work of some schools, some teachers, and some leaders. We can not become distracted by that negative energy. It is a Federal election year, and we need to be clear about what public education provides, and what we need to make it the very best it can be.

There is always room for refinement or improvement, but we need a good supply of well-trained teachers, we need well-developed leadership training opportunities, we need more than just "adequate" funding, and, if we are to measured, then we need the autonomy to make the right decisions for our school’s context, and then we can take greater responsibility for our actions and our outcomes.

Transparency and accountability are part and parcel of a Principal’s life, and most schools now have comprehensive websites which can be accessed by the public. The issue around the My School website is that we do not want teaching and learning to be reduced to a simplistic table that rates schools from the best to the worst. We value NAPLAN, but it is just one measurement tool in a complex suite of assessment and evaluation tools. There are a multitude of reasons why some students do better than others. Any website must reflect this complexity and diversity, but it is often unrealistic to draw comparisons. Now we watch and wait to see if the inevitable league tables appear nationally. There is already evidence of comparisons in the regional press. This is not going to drop off our agenda, and our response needs to be really clear. We need members’ feedback in readiness for the February Executive meeting. You can send your feedback to us - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

ASPA supports the government in its commitment to improve parent access to reliable and valid information about student performance and school performance, and in many states this information is already available.

It is not a debate about transparency and accountability. The issue is that ASPA can not support the My School website when it has the capacity to be used to generate simple comparisons between schools.

ASPA is calling for measures to be taken to prevent the compilation of league tables.

It has been announced today that Andrew Blair, the past President of ASPA, has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). The award citation reads: "For services to education through the development and implementation of innovative programs and policies and through contributions to a range of professional associations."

Congratulations, Andrew!! It is great to see that your work for the education of young people across Australia has been recognised.

ASPA, as one of the four owners of Principals Australia, has pleasure in announcing the appointment of Ms Liz Furler as the new CEO for Principals Australia. We look forward to working closely with Ms Furler as she enacts the strategic direction of Principals Australia.

Despite a record injection of funds into public schools by the Federal Government private schools will still receive billions more in federal funding by 2013, new research to be released today has found. Click here to download the full report.

The research by senior academic, Dr Jim McMorrow, said the funding imbalance was due to an “unfair and dysfunctional” funding system put in place by the Howard Government that should be scrapped.

The McMorrow report reveals:

• By the end of the current schools funding agreement in 2012/13, private schools will have received $47 billion and public schools $35 billion from the Rudd Government for building works, new equipment and running schools.

• Despite teaching over two-thirds of all students, the public school share of federal funding will be back to 36 per cent in 2012/13. An extra investment of $1.5 billion a year in public schools would be required to return their share of education funding to the level it was under the last Labor Government (43 per cent).

• Public schools are not receiving a fair share of funding for computers in schools and trades training facilities and would be getting $500 million extra if the money was distributed on the basis of need.