National testing announcement

NSW Teachers Federation response

The NSW Teachers Federation notes the announcement by state and territory Education Ministers that common national tests in literacy, numeracy and science will be conducted in May next year.

Angelo Gavrielatos, Federation Deputy President, said:

"The best form of student assessment is closely linked to the purposes of the curriculum and integrated with curriculum and classroom experience. Apart from providing evidence of student progress and achievement, it also provides important diagnostic evidence that assists teachers in planning for ongoing improvement in student outcomes.

Whilst mass tests can provide information for system accountability, the NSW Teachers Federation believes that this can be achieved through sample testing (as will occur in Science) rather than full census testing, which will occur in Literacy and Numeracy.

Mass tests are a snapshot of limited learning at one point in time and are best used as a random sample over a large population to determine program effectiveness. Mass census testing is unnecessary, expensive and often counter productive. International research shows that high stakes mass testing has encouraged developmentally inappropriate teaching and learning practices, narrowing expectations and student outcomes.

Sample testing can provide the system wide information required to support planning and resource allocation and enable governments and education systems to fulfill their responsibility to provide funding for programs in areas identified as in need .

The NSW Teachers Federation understands that the use and reporting of the results of these tests will follow the current protocols. That is to say, states and territories will run, mark and report on the tests, and they will own the data which will stay with the states and territories. Aggregated state and territory wide data will be provided for national reporting, with disaggregation for particular groups as at present. This is a welcome decision.

The NSW Teachers Federation would warn against those who will use this change to further advocate for publishing comparisons of schools through league tables and suchlike.

There is emerging a growing body of evidence that the high stakes testing regimes introduced in both the UK and the USA are having a severely deleterious impact on the education of students in those countries. At the same time, analysis of the results of the OECD PISA tests is showing that most of the higher achieving countries do not use high stakes testing and place a high degree of confidence in teacher professional judgment in the delivery of curriculum

It would be foolish for Australia to ignore the experiences of other countries and go down a failed path at the very time those countries which have tried it are realising how flawed it is."

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Last Modified: 25 Jul 2007