NAPLAN does not educate our children
Monday, 4 April 2011
NAPLAN is being pronounced by Australian policy-makers and politicians as the diagnostic tool that will save our schools, and by extension, develop our students into exceptional learners. In concert with the myschool website, schools and education departments will somehow deliver resources to those students who need help most – and they claim it can only be done by using this standardised test!
These claims, however, remain generally untested. Based on data from other countries that use standardised testing, caution is warranted. There are several things NAPLAN will not do, and these things matter. Our politicians don’t seem to be aware of these faults with the ongoing push for more and more standardised testing in our children’s lives. Here are a few things NAPLAN will not do for your children.
NAPLAN won't make a difference to your kids’ employment prospects. In a recent U.S workplace report, employers stated they seek teamwork, ethics and social responsibility, professionalism, and oral communication as valued skills in prospective employees. NAPLAN does not measure, test, or diagnose these skills.
NAPLAN won't improve your child’s performance in tertiary learning. At university your child won’t see the questions in advance, nor will answers be force-fed as they are in school. At university you're expected to think critically, learn independently, inquire, and generate answers to real problems. NAPLAN does not measure, test, or diagnose these skills.
NAPLAN won't improve your child’s literacy – despite claims to the contrary. Teaching children to colour in bubbles does not teach kids to do anything but shade bubbles. Children become literate and engaged in learning when reading is for reading's sake and writing is meaningful to the person doing the writing. NAPLAN reading and writing offers little intrinsic meaning to anyone, particularly the student.
NAPLAN provides nothing in terms of education for life skills. Children’s NAPLAN scores will not develop them into good mothers and fathers or husbands and wives. These are the most important roles in life, and they require confidence, cooperation, and compassion. Standardised tests produce stress and anxiety and promote competition. Children in Australian schools are experiencing headaches, stress, depression, stomach aches, and fatigue in growing numbers. The percentage of children being medicated is increasing at alarming rates.
NAPLAN will not tell us anything about student achievement. Answers are graded by a computer. Written answers are graded by ‘independent examiners’ who subjectively review hundreds of responses per shift. NAPLAN tells us nothing about teacher effectiveness. Great teachers create a positive environment, promote curiosity and love of learning, participation, cooperation, and leadership. NAPLAN does not tell us about these things.
NAPLAN won't improve your child's education. Standardised tests do not improve student achievement. To the contrary, curriculum is narrowing. Many schools are reducing time on music, sports, and art. In some schools, children have been kept in class to ‘practice’ testing rather than attending alternative activities – such as lunch!
NAPLAN will not create a positive and respectful school climate. Income is highly related to NAPLAN scores. It is particularly damaging to children with disabilities, children whose first language is not English, and children from low-income families. NAPLAN tells us even less about school quality. Scores on a high-stakes standardised test tell us nothing about the social cohesion, morale of teachers and students, bullying, extra-curricular successes in sports, music, the arts, and so on.
NAPLAN won’t help relationships between parents, students, and teachers. Instead, particularly if NAPLAN is linked with proposed merit-pay for teachers (which is presently endorsed by both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader), NAPLAN will punish teachers, lead to increased pressure on students, and will promote hostility between administrators and parents.
NAPLAN (and standardised testing generally) runs precisely against research on what makes for quality learning, and the very core of academic engagement. It also fails equitable opportunity, and ignores developmental differences in children.
Our children need teachers and parents who provide opportunities for curiosity, exploration, and mastery. They need less pressure, less high-stakes, and more opportunities to grow and learn at their own pace with appropriate support. Our children need exposure to a wide range of options, activities, and arts. NAPLAN threatens these opportunities.
This May my three oldest daughters will be sent to school with a refusal note the day before NAPLAN testing begins. Our school principal recognises, accepts, and respects our parental authority and the associated decision. NAPLAN, particularly when run in concert with myschool.com.au, turns school into contest, and the losers are not just our kids, but our parents, teachers, and our future.
5 comments:
As a teacher who has no choice but to administer NAPLAN I generally agree with your analysis. The data gathered by NAPLAN testing has some value to teachers in terms of looking for class and school trends in data. For example, are all my students low in a particular area - or high? This can be indicative of an area of teaching that needs to improve or be used as an example of positive learning.
In terms of individual students, however, NAPLAN is next to useless. Individual student data has a short useful shelf life. NAPLAN data takes so long to come back to a teacher that it has lost any potential value it had in regards to individuals. At any rate - it is a poor teacher that has to rely on NAPLAN to tell them what students in their care can and cannot do. As a means of assessing student understanding of what they are learning it is a blunt instrument. There are far more detailed, accurate and timely measures available. I would encourage parents to speak to their child's teacher about what assessment is used on a more regular basis.
What a fantastic response. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
This recent article highlights the impact that high-stakes testing is having... not on our children, but on their teachers!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/teachers-crushed-by-expectations-20110416-1dike.html
Again the argument stands that NAPLAN is doing more harm than good. If teachers are anxious and stressed about how they'll be judged how are they supposed to teach our children in a positive learning environment?
Should teachers be kept to account? Of course!
Is NAPLAN and other high-stakes, standardised testing the way to hold teachers to account? Not remotely.
As I parent I would have to disagree with your comments. The school reports are difficult to read and do not let a parent know how they are really going. The Naplan tests indicate clearly how well or not well your child is doing literacy and numeracy wise - which is the basis of all education. Proof in the pudding - recently my daughter and I attended an interview for high school entry. The principal was more impressed on how well she scored in the Naplan tests. The result of her tests are far more encouraging for her than the school reports that tell us very little. It is my understanding that the Naplan tests are used in conjuction with other assessment methods - not as a stand alone instrument. As far as speaking to the teacher, experience shows that most teachers don't like or don't understand other reporting methods used.I'm with other parents in saying it needs to stay.It is the rest of the reporting given to parents that needs to improve
In response to that last comment, I don't know who is teaching your children but if you talk to any conscientious, good teacher they will tell you that a couple of hours of testing with an incredibly narrow assessment tool in an entire year of learning doesn't even go close to assessing the child's real ability, net alone where they have come from and how they are progressing or 95% of the other important outcomes of education. Not to mention if the child is sick on the day or having a bad day or they haven't spent the last four weeks practising test methods rather than learning literacy and numeracy than the class across the way or in another school. This is just naming a few, but the whole process is fraught with confounding that makes the number that is spat out at the conclusion next to useless. How any real educational decisions can be made on the back of such a tool is beyond me. A conscientious teacher will tell you that “I know how my students are doing and NAPLAN so often misses the mark.” One more issue, assessment is best used to understand where a student is in their learning so as future teaching can be directed toward the deficits, this is what’s called ‘assessment for learning’. Whereas summative high stakes assessment is rarely used for this and falls under the banner of what’s called ‘assessment of learning’. It was found that bureaucrats are more concerned with the later and want some numbers or letters generated at the end with very little focus of what happens in the middle. It is well demonstrated that less of the summative, high stakes assessment and more of the formative assessment as you go, with relevant direction to student and parents on what needs to be improved, improves learning outcomes significantly. In the later where the term assessment is used it is a generic term used to not only denote our conventional assessment but teacher observation that occurs throughout the entire year. NAPLAN is a crude assessment tool and is a very blunt instrument trying to determine the intricacies of a complex process. Now what is needed in this situation is that the P&C need to convey that message to the school if reporting is such a universal problem. In addition I am surprised that this high school principle is that narrow minded to evaluate an entire student on a few short hours of testing. There are probably some positives about NAPLAN (although I'm finding it hard to think of any right now, but I'm sure there is) but the negatives overwhelmingly out weigh the positives.
Post a Comment