NAPLAN Motion

​Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the Member for Elwick for bringing the issue of education to this chamber.

I feel it is also worth acknowledging the Member’s previous experience as an educator here in Tasmania.

It offers a rare opportunity for an issue to be raised by a member who has direct experience in the field.

As a parent of children who attend government schools, I am particularly invested in what happens in education.

Like so many in our community, I follow results and reports about NAPLAN closely.

This year, I feel fortunate to be in the position to debate the issue not just as a parent but as the Member for Nelson.

It is a privilege to be able to represent my constituents whether they are parents or carers, students, educators and principals.

Today the Member for Elwick has raised his concerns about NAPLAN and asks us to support the motion that Tasmania joins other states in undertaking a comprehensive review of the program.

Before speaking in more detail on this motion, however, I want to note the fact that it has been brought here, in the upper house, by a member who is not of the government during Private Members Time.

The motion is being brought by a member of the Labor Party, and I would take the opportunity to remind the Labor Party of their own words in this place, just last month, when a motion was brought for debate by the member for Murchison during Private Members Time.

I am going to quote what the Labor Member for Rumney said at that time, and I am going to substitute the words ‘reviewing NAPLAN’ in that quote for the words ‘pill testing’:   And I quote:

“Mr Acting President, the only way to achieve the outcome supporters of pill testing want is for the Government to lead on this issue.  This motion will not make pill testing trials any more or less likely to be introduced in Tasmania.  That power rests solely with the Government.  It will not work if they are backed into a corner.  It will not work if they are forced into a position.  On this they cannot be forced into a position.  Legislative change will not compel the Government to act.  Motions in the parliament will not compel the Government to act.  Not one of us here today can compel the Government to act on this issue.” End of quote

I didn’t agree with what the Member for Rumney said at that time, but if the Labor Party stand by what was said then, I see no reason that the same rationale wouldn’t be applied here with this motion.

And in the same way the Labor members failed to engage in a genuine and considered debate on pill testing, following their argument, we would similarly absent ourselves from considered debate on this motion.

 I highlight this here not to undermine this motion, which I squarely support, but to remind those who moved the motion, that this – what we are doing right now – is our job.

That job is:

• Raising issues of importance, brought to us by our community.
• Engaging in a high standard of good-faith debate.
• Arguing for positions that we believe are good public policy – evidence-informed and in the best interests of the Tasmanian people.

When we shirk the opportunity to do that, or indeed, when we seek to undermine the very value of our chamber to do that, we weaken our democratic process and we let down those who elected us to represent them here.

I hope to never again hear an argument put by a member of this chamber that suggests our time and efforts here are for naught.

Mr President, I would now like to move back to the motion at hand which raises concerns about NAPLAN and asks us to support the motion that Tasmania joins other states in undertaking a comprehensive review of the program

This is a move I support in principle for two reasons:

First, because Tasmania and our unique circumstances should not be ignored when doing this timely review, and second, because comprehensive evaluation is part of good policy-making and there have been enough concerns raised about NAPLAN that this review is warranted.

But before I speak to these concerns, I think it worth pointing out what NAPLAN is intended to do in the first place.

Arguments for NAPLAN

Initially when national standardised testing was first implemented in 2008, policy makers hoped NAPLAN would help provide quality data that could be used by parents, schools, and policy makers to improve our education outcomes in Australia.

Proponents of NAPLAN will point out that it helps provide consistency in what students learn and it helps identify strengths and needs of students and therefore help improve resource allocation.

NAPLAN also helps measure and compare school performance which feeds into the government’s MySchool Website.

A further and compelling argument made about NAPLAN is that it can help identify schools which are maximising student learning.

Theoretically, we can then learn what is making that school so successful and apply it in other schools.

Achieving this, however, can be more challenging than it sounds, given there are so many factors at play which make every cohort and school different.

 

NAPLAN clearly has potential merits, but intent is always moderated by design and implementation.

Which is likely why we have seen a number of well-publicised issues with the policy’s rollout.

 

Concerns with NAPLAN

These are issues which I would like to mention and add my voice to, speaking both as a member of this parliament and as a parent of children who have sat many NAPLAN tests.

One issue that concerns me involves the pressure felt by students around NAPLAN time.

It seems every year, there are more and more reports telling of stress amongst students sitting NAPLAN tests.

Tests are no doubt a part of life.

It’s hard to go through life without having to sit one, whether it’s to get your license, gain a trade or pass an exam.

It is perhaps understandable therefore that some hold the view that students should simply learn to deal with it.

This I believe risks understating the importance and impact that anxiety and stress has on children and young people.

In supporting this motion, I am not calling for an end to NAPLAN or testing altogether.

What I am asking is this: can we conduct a review which will look at finding ways of improving standardised testing that accounts for rising stress amongst students?

Particularly when we are testing students as young as eight years old.

 Technology concerns are regularly raised.  With the shift to online testing this year, we saw widespread chaos in its rollout.

Technical issues affected so many schools.

I understand educators and students weren’t able to access the test on time and then, once students had been able to access the test, there were serious issues that meant students being dropped out for several minutes or having work lost.

Following this year’s move to online testing, the federal government claimed that ‘97% of online tests were unaffected’. [1]

That may be so in other states, however we know from reports at the time that technology issues caused havoc for Tasmanian schools this year.

This clearly had an impact not on just our students and educators but also on the quality of results.

Something that concerns me even more is that even before NAPLAN tests come around each May, we know that classroom time is spent on preparing for, or teaching to the test.

This takes away time, not just from the curriculum but also other learning areas, and also means the data we collect isn’t necessarily a well-rounded reflection of our students’ abilities, and we have potentially taken away valuable teaching time for other important aspects of the curriculum.

The fact this happens is understandable given growing pressure on principals, senior leaders and teachers to perform.

Educational experts make the point that this pressure is only made worse by the competitive nature of the MySchool Website.

This unfortunately appears to be contributing to students being taken out of testing for fear of performing poorly in the test.

Which goes against all advice about advocating for greater inclusion in our schools.

There is clearly already pressure on schools to perform.

 

In our system in Tasmania, unless you attend a District School, students are most likely to start at a new school in grade seven.

This means that those students will set tests after having only recently started high school and often in a totally new environment.

On top of this, students will have had only a small amount of time with their new teachers.

With NAPLAN testing occurring in grade 7, I do wonder how accurately the MySchool data reflects the work of that school.

 

Let’s not forget that teachers at these schools already test students in order to determine student achievement. 

Yes, for administrators, NAPLAN helps provide a snapshot indication of how education is delivered in this country.

But I am prompted to ask to what degree it materially helps our teachers and students?

Often NAPLAN results aren’t released until several months after the test.

In that time, teachers and students will have moved on making it difficult to work with the data collected.

The data itself is also weakened by the fact that it focuses on attainment rather than growth.

The first priority of the latest Gonski report, emphasises the need to shift from attainment to growth.

This simple idea recognises that we are all different, learn differently, and progress at different rates.

In order to achieve this shift, the report states quote ‘teachers must be given practical support by creating an online, formative assessment tool to help diagnose a student’s current level of knowledge, skill and understanding, to identify the next steps in learning to achieve the next stage in growth, and to track student progress over time against a typical development trajectory’[2].

 

NAPLAN as a summative assessment tool focussed on attainment unfortunately does not fit within this recommendation. 

Moving beyond the division of education

This is an important point, because I worry that we are failing to listen to the evidence on this issue.

A second key recommendation from Gonski 2.0, highlights the need for Australia to establish a national research and evidence institute focused on improving education delivery.

The UK is leading the way in this and Australia should follow.

In the UK they have the Education Endowment Fund.

This institute funds and collates independent research into education policies from across the UK and measures them against three simple criteria.

How much does a policy cost?

How much impact does it have?

And what is the strength of the evidence?

An institute like this in Australia, which is dedicated to bottom-up research, could provide independent analysis on what really works in schools.

By adapting this research into practical advice for educators, we may actually be able to fulfil the vision of NAPLAN which sees school learn from other successful schools.

Indeed, at a local level, I wonder at the potential for our Peter Underwood Centre at UTAS to more actively perform this function.

Education in Australia has unfortunately been a policy area which has been used for political point scoring and division.

Working towards improved evidence-based policy and practice is a step forward in not only taking the politics out of education, but ultimately improving how we educate our children.

Arguments for supporting motion

The Motion we are here discussing today is potentially a step in that direction.

It is not calling upon the government to throw out NAPLAN altogether.

Instead, it calls upon the government to join a review.

This would mean Tasmania joining QLD, NSW and Victoria in implementing a comprehensive review of NAPAN.

As I have said, I support this as it would give Tasmania a voice at the table to ensure that we as a smaller and unique state have our experiences and concerns heard and listened to.

I support it also because I feel there have now been enough concerns raised by a variety of stakeholders that a thorough evaluation is due.

The federal government, however, disagrees, and has ruled out ‘a full review of NAPLAN’.[3]

It concerns me that a government can be so against a process which ultimately is aimed at improving a policy.

This has led this push for a breakaway review and this is something that I believe Tasmania should consider being involved in.

[1] https://ministers.education.gov.au/tehan/naplan-review

[2] https://www.appa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20180430-Through-Growth-to-Achievement_Text.pdf

[3] https://ministers.education.gov.au/tehan/naplan-review

More parliamentary speeches by Hon Meg Webb MLC