A Judicial Review

Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA) System

Historical Background July 1998: parents lodged complaints on

discrimination in SSPA September 1998: EOC launched Formal Investigation August 1999: EOC released Report finding gender

discrimination April 2000: ED announced refusal to change July 2000: EOC applied for leave for Judicial Review May 2001: High Court Commenced hearings June 2001: High Court found ED in violation of SDO

Gender is Considered

Using gender curves to scale IA scores resulting in students with lower IA scores getting higher placement scores.

Banding of students, by sex, so that girls in the majority of cases needed a higher scaled score to get into a district band.

Fixed quotas of female/male students in co-educational schools resulting in a girl/boy with a higher scaled score being denied a place at her/his preferred school whereas a student of another gender, with a lower score, might be admitted.

Stated Purpose of Scaling

Scaling is used to compare the standards of the different schools.– If so, the internal IA rank order of the students

should not change after scaling.

The Two Gender Curves Intersect at 70 Percent

30

50

70

90

110

130

150

5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95Internal Assessment

AA

T S

core

Boys Girls

Intersects at 70 %

x

y

Impact of Gender Curve on Upper 30 Percent: More boys are advantaged

100

110

120

130

140

150

65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100

Internal Assessment

AA

T S

co

re

Boys Girls

2 students with same IA score get different scaled scores

A student with lower IA gets higher scaled scorey

x

Impact of Gender Curve on Lower 70 percent of Students: More boys are disadvantaged

30

50

70

90

110

130

150

5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95

Internal Assessment

AA

T S

core

Boys Girls

A student with lower IA gets higher scaled score

2 students with same IA score get different scaled scores

x

y

Banding by Sex

Boys and girls are first separated by sex. Each gender group is divided into 5 different

bands within each of the 18 school districts. Each band consists of 20% of the number of

students in the sex-segregated rank order of academic merit.

The band-cutting score of each of the district band was different for boys and girls because of the separate processing by sex into 20% segments.

Impact on Boys and Girls:Banding by Sex

For Band 1:– Girls needed higher scaled scores to get into

Band 1 in 11 out of 18 school nets.– Boys needed higher scores than girls to get into

Band 1 in 7 school nets. Excluding Band 5:

– Girls needed higher scores to get into 60 of all the district bands.

– Boys needed higher scores to get into 12 of the district bands.

Allocation By Fixed Proportions: Gender Quota

Each school agrees with the Education Department on the number of boys and girls to be admitted into the school.

If a school has 50 places for boys and 50 for girls, the 51st girl/boy would not be able to get into the school as there is no place for a student of that sex.

Another student, of another sex, could get into the school, with a lower score, as there might still be places for students of that sex.

More Boys Got Their First Choice of Schools in All 5 Years

Allocation Year

First Choice: Male

First Choice: Female

1994 18,296 (41.4%) 16,272 (39.7%)

1995 17,596 (40.7%) 16,398 (40.6%)

1996 17,860 (43.6%) 15,772 (41.6%)

1997 17,859 (44.2%) 15,921 (42.8%)

1998 16,713 (44.3%) 14,558 (41.5%)

Scaling as a Special Measure for Boys

Scaling does not consistently protect boys.– Boys receive lower scaled scores, in the lower

70 percent of the gender curve, even if their IA scores are higher than their female classmates.

Banding as a Special Measure for Boys

Banding does not consistently protect boys.

– For Band One, boys needed higher scores to get into 7 of the 18 school nets.

– Excluding Band 5, boys needed higher scores to get into 12 of the 72 district bands.

Gender Quota as a Special Measure

Gender Quota does not consistently protect boys.– If a school has admitted its quota of boys it

would not be able to admit another boy as there would not be any available places for boys.

Held

All three gender-based mechanisms challenged by the EOC as being discriminatory are contrary to the SDO and are unlawful.

Declaratory relief granted.

Computer Simulation

Impact of Discriminatory System on 2000 allocation: 3 bands and Past average AAT for scaling with Gender Quota:

1. Boys get 57.72% of first choice of school2. Girls get 54.82% of first choice of school

Impact of Non-discriminatory System on 3 Bands:

1. Boys get 54.29% of first choice of school2. Girls get 57.95% of first choice of school