Teaching to the test a poor substitute for the real thing

Media headlines on introducing Queensland students to mandatory NAPLAN practice tests – or “cheat sheets”, as one prominent and emotive headline proclaimed - have demonstrated the populist power in such politically motivated announcements.

They have also shown that our fears were well-founded that “teaching to the test” will become the expected educational practice.

On the surface, practising tests makes sense. But the main point continues to be missed. A teachers’ job is to teach students to learn, not just to pass tests. There’s a big difference.

There is evidence that practising IQ tests can improve scores. There is no evidence that the individual becomes any more intelligent.

Teachers know perfectly well which children need more support and when – but the support is just not available to either the teacher or the student. They must struggle on as best they can.

The QTU also remains opposed to the publication of the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN] results on individual school websites or in any other public fashion.

The current national tests :

• test an as-yet non-existent national curriculum
• are administered to children who have had different levels of formal schooling
• have limited value as a diagnostic tool
• are not the ultimate measure of educational “quality”.

While previous data for year three, five and seven tests was published on school websites, those tests were at least consistent with the Queensland curriuculum. The 2008 NAPLAN tests cannot be compared with what was there previously. In fact any educator in schools knows full well that these tests are educationally invalid and for that reason alone they are useless results for schools to use in any meaningful fashion.

The whole process has been a political response to a longer term issue - the chronic underfunding of public schools. We can test students as much as we like, but without decent funding for much needed resources we will not improve student results. The current federal minister doesn’t appear to understand the mistakes made by her predecessors and continues to focus on the failed UK and USA systems. While the politicians ponder, the students flounder.

The Queensland state minister is continuing this absurdity by expecting that by publishing the NAPLAN results his political problems will go away.

This latest kneejerk political response does no more than provide a political solution with no thought given to the educational needs of students. The Queensland Government continues to fund education at the second lowest level of all the Australian states, so it should be no shock to us when the results indicate Queensland students are also second last. This latest move is stupid, educationally unsound and will not inform any parent or student as to the capabilities or otherwise of their local school.

The QTU believes that school administrators, teachers, parents and students are being used as pawns in a political game that has no place in the classrooms of this state. Nothing more, nothing less.

Steve Ryan
President