Gonski failed on maths teaching, says new report

Australian students’ falling maths scores could be reversed by focusing on teacher effectiveness instead of dedicating resources to increasing teacher-to-student ratios, a new report says.

Australia’s maths performance is faltering compared to peer countries such as Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Students’ falling maths scores can be stemmed and reversed by focusing on teacher effectiveness instead of dedicating resources to measures such as increasing teacher-to-student ratios or lifting funding for disadvantaged groups, a new report claims.

“There has been limited interaction with the science of learning with key domains, particularly mathematics and mathematical cognition and learning,” according to the report from the Centre for Independent Studies.

Siobhan Merlo, author of The Science of Maths and how to Apply it, said she hoped the report “gives teachers the tools that they need to understand how learning works and what the implications are for the way they teach”.

She contrasted Australia’s faltering performance in international scores compared to peer countries such as Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan.

“I feel like in Australia … we have instructional casualties,” she said, adding the reasons were “multifaceted” including the country was not producing enough maths teachers.

“Teachers generally don’t go into maths teaching as much as they go into other subjects, so we definitely don’t have enough maths teachers. We have a lot of out-of-subject teachers teaching maths in Australia.”

She said focusing on measures such as teacher-to-student ratios and directing funding to disadvantaged students – measures of the kind that had been proposed in the Gonski review – had not worked.

“If these things they did target had worked, we wouldn’t see the results we’ve got now,” she said. “Despite this funding and despite these best efforts, we’re seeing that decline or stagnation. Teacher effectiveness has not been properly addressed in the Gonski review.”

On the topic of teaching effectiveness, Dr Merlo’s report advocates for thinking about it in a “measurable-effectiveness focused” way.

This school of thought focuses on “explicit instruction and developing mathematical competency”, the report states.

“Engagement happens via building competency and setting students up for success, not via relaxing requirements on correctness of answers or refraining from using timed tests.”