NAPLAN: Political Hijack of Educational Achievement in

Australian Schools.

In a quest for votes and other political objectives the Australian Labour Party are cashing in on
the genuine concerns of parents and educators for an education system that is systematically
failing to bridge the gap between high achieving students and those not achieving at all. What
looks to be a willful disregard for teachers own assessment of the children they teach, Kevin
Rudd and his Labour Government have declared a paternalistic ‘Education Revolution’. The
thinking, apparently, goes that a National Assessment Program – Numeracy and Literacy
(NAPLAN) and its political corollaries of a National Curriculum and Schools ‘League Table’
will ‘help’ identify those schools and students in need.

But why do we need a national test to ask that, when teachers and schools and parents
themselves already know who needs the help? NAPLAN is a way for the Federal and State
Governments to look like it is doing something when in actual fact it is passing the buck onto
schools and ultimately teachers. However without proper funding and training support, those
schools and by inference teachers will become whipping blocks for those looking to blame
someone that the public education system doesn’t work. Just ask Queensland Teachers Union
what they think of it.

Dr. Louis Volante calls the current push globally for standardised testing a “zeitgeist in need of
correcting” (Volante: 2008). Real solutions need to embrace multiple modes of assessment that
don’t discount other types of learning and knowledge and low and behold it’s not some external
agency that are best suited to do this but, *gasp* the teacher and classroom based assessment is! As
Steven Schwartz in reading 9.3 points out, “The important question is not what information gets
published but whether performance data, by itself, will result in a better education for our children.”

And the fact is it doesn’t and the proof is in the pudding. Volante isn’t the only critic to point it out
but as he illustrates,

Ironically, countries such as Finland, which possess no centrally administered testing measures,
seem to be leading the pack in the previous international assessments. These findings dispel the
notion that countries which emphasise external testing are more likely to raise student
achievement. (Volante: 2008)

Unfortunately I have not explored the insidious effect that standardised testing can have on
teaching itself, where teachers are put into situations that make them teach to the tests or how
such testing undermines innovation in teaching to learners with diverse abilities. What I hope I
have conveyed however is that NAPLAN is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; it masks a raft of political
agendas that seem to have no real consequence for our education system as a whole or
specifically those needing the most help within it.
(454)

Bibliography

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting

Authority,http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp, 2009

Maralyn
Parker
,http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/nap
lan_results_what_does_it_all_mean/, Friday, September 12, 2008 at 02:50pm

Steve Ryan QTU President, http://www.qtu.asn.au/66.html. 19 December 2008

Louis Volante, http://www.minniscomms.com.au/educationtoday/articles.php?articleid=150,

Issue: 8 August 2008, [also in downloadable PDF]

Kevin Donnelly, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26057662-27197,00.html,

September 11, 2009 12:00am

Tanya Chilcott, http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25905940-5016679,00.html,

August 10, 2009 12:00am

Reference

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/reso-a28.shtml

http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin490.shtml

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?
_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED301587&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=n
o&accno=ED301587, [also in downloadable PDF]

Unit guides and Readings