NAPLAN and its forerunner in NSW, the Basic Skills Test, was designed to provide a snapshot of the progress children were making in achieving recognisable outcomes.
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Instead, it has become a breast-beating tool for politicians and a bargaining chip in pay negotiations with teacher unions.
Had it been used to determine needs-based funding on a three- or four-year cycle under the Gonski plan, it may have been justified.
But, as we know, the current federal government has as much commitment to Gonski as it has to family violence.
The tests now are no longer about children.
They are about teachers. Before each series of tests, all schools spend weeks preparing their children ... coaching them for a test.
Regular learning is held in abeyance.
After the tests, the annual wrist-slashing exercises in staff meetings are bad for morale and don’t place the focus on individual children, but rather the cohort.
In small schools, such small cohorts give wildly changing results every year, and parents and education department overseers gnash their terrible teeth and roll their terrible eyes.
The same teacher is doing the same things to a different cohort and yet last year, the results were splendid!
The best application of NAPLAN is consideration of results over time.
Viewing the results of a one-off test is useless, but comparing the progress of individuals over a series of tests several years apart can be helpful in seeing what has been gained.
The group application of NAPLAN is about ranking schools, which might be helpful if it was aligned with funding to support programs to address needs.
It is not what the primary intention of the testing was or still should be.
In the meantime, schools become places of tension and pressure for teachers and even more importantly, children.
Some parents have it “suggested” to them that it might be better if little Johnny stays at home on the day of the testing, but often it’s not for reasons of protecting him from emotional turmoil and the fear of failure.
It does improve the school’s results, though.
Finally, NAPLAN tests numeracy and literacy.
While important, they are only two of six key learning areas which constitute education in Australia.
Progress in science, human society and its environment, the creative arts and physical education are not examined in any way.
In a society which gives the appearance of presiding over degrading moral standards, a lack of engagement with social issues and rising obesity, this lack of attention is a good thing?
The strongest societies have always had a rich arts culture, but we focus on accurate reading and number crunching.
NAPLAN, as it stands now, is a crock.
Peter Langston
Tamworth