The Honourable Peter Garrett MA, our federal Minister for School Education, came out last week and said that schools should not be teaching to the NAPLAN tests (see article). I am an English teacher and have two Year 9 English classes, at the beginning of the year we were given a directive by the principal to focus on teaching for NAPLAN. Riley is in Year 3 and has been learning how to write persuasive texts since term 3 last year. I am pretty sure that my example and Riley's example are not the only two in Australia.
My problem with NAPLAN is that it is a very narrow indicator of learning and yet it is the only national indicator. It does not measure so many things that I am not going to waste my time listing them, so in my mind it should not be used as a national measure. Garrett also stated that it is used to target areas of weakness so funds can be made available to address these areas of need. If a test only looks at literacy and numeracy, how can it identify any areas of need unless they are in theses areas I wonder?
Peter Garrett also states that the results should not be used to compare and rank schools against each other, but the My Schools website makes that all the more possible with NAPLAN results being the main focus of the site. What parent, if given the choice between a high ranking school and its poor performing neightbour, would choose the later?
As well as learning persuasive writing techniques and structure since Grade 2, Riley's teacher has been telling us from that time that she would strongly discourage Riley from sitting the tests. I wholeheartedly agree with her on this, but my reasons are that for a dyslexic child to sit these tests it would be soul destroying, her reasons are to do with how his results would look on the My Schools website. It is not just Riley's school that does this, it is quite a regular occurance in schools, mainly private, but also government schools in affluent areas. A friend, whose son also has dyslexia was told that he would not be sitting NAPLAN, they weren't even given the choice!
Riley's teacher suggested that we keep him home for those days. Hello! We both have full-time jobs and he is in a multi-age classroom, half of the kids won't be sitting the tests.
We had to fill out an exemption form for him a few weeks ago. The school were so keen to get it back that we got an email from the acting principal and my husband got a phone call at his work about it. I wish I hadn't filled the exemption out now because what I want to instruct Riley and every other dyslexic child to do is to write across the paper, "I can't do this test because I am dyslexic and it discriminates against me".
How can a test like this one be used to identify areas of need and "where to target investment" if the kids who might highlight these areas of need are discouraged from sitting the test?
I also know that when my Year 9's sit the NAPLAN in a few weeks, most of them will be able to write a persuasive text above minumum benchmark standards, but that does not mean they are proficient in writing, just that they have had so much practice at this particular writing skill.
I think more meaningful data would probably be collected by analysing who doesn't sit NAPLAN. I suspect this might give a more accurate indication of 'under-performing' areas and areas with greater needs, while NAPLAN scores in many schools will reflect the quality of training students have received rather than genuine learning.
ReplyDeleteThis whole issue reminds of my developmental psych classes at uni where we covered IQ testing. What does an IQ test measure? It measures the score you can get on an IQ test! Without context any form of standardised testing is ultimately meaningless.
So true Brilliana, now how do we get the governemnt to see this logic?
DeleteGovernment? Logic? Bahahahaha! You kill me! ;-)
DeleteThank you for writing this post! It's made me cry (in a good way). You've said the things that need to be said.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cassandra.
DeleteI don't know too much about NAPLAN but my neighbour is a teacher and from what she tells me, it's not a true indicator. And to suggest that you have Riley at home ? Let's get realistic! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and making me aware of the issues.
ReplyDeleteConsidering you devote significant effort to complaining about Riley's school and you obviously have so little respect for the school and it's teachers as expressed in this blog, why is he still attending? I would have thought that being a school teacher yourself, you would have found a school much more aligned to your beliefs and pedagogy than one that would, from your account, completely disregard the needs of you child to present a better profile on the My School's website.
ReplyDelete