The hidden crisis in ACT schools

There is a new push for an inquiry to fix the “systemic problem” of student underperformance in capital.

While the average results of NAPLAN tests from across the ACT tend to be above those from other Australian jurisdictions, the report argues this is a misleading indicator and does not compare apples with apples. File picture: iStock

A new study has thrown a light on a hidden crisis within the ACT school system, leading to a new push for an inquiry to fix the “systemic problem” of student underperformance in the nation’s capital.

The report, commissioned by The Australia Institute, was authored by Australian National University academics Andrew Macintosh and Deb Wilkinson who propose a voluntary trial of “direct instruction” teaching methods to try and rectify the trend.

Using data obtained from the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), the detailed 44 page study shows that ACT government schools have been outperformed by “similar” government schools in other states and territories.

While the average results of NAPLAN tests from across the ACT tend to be above those from other Australian jurisdictions, the report argues this is a misleading indicator and does not compare apples with apples.

“The ACT’s high average NAPLAN results have masked underperformance,” it says. “As a whole, high SES (socio-economic status) ACT primary schools have tended to perform below the level of their statistically similar schools groups (SSSG).”

The report compares the NAPLAN performance of 24 high SES primary schools in the ACT between 2008 to 2016 to so-called “similar schools” from other jurisdictions over the same period.

NAPLAN is divided into five categories including reading, writing, spelling, grammar as well as numeracy with the study focusing only on the results from years 3 and 5. It then compares the 90 mean results for each of the ACT schools over the period 2008-2016 against the mean performance of similar “comparator schools” in other jurisdictions.

The results show that ACT schools are lagging behind, with government schools faring particularly badly.

“70 per cent of the results from the ACT schools were below the average results from the comparator schools. And in 41 per cent of cases they were significantly or substantially below the average results from the comparator schools,” Professor Macintosh told The Australian. “We have a much higher proportion of kids performing at or below the national minimum standard than you would expect from high socio-economic status schools.”

According to the study, only 29 per cent of the mean NAPLAN results from the ACT schools were above the corresponding mean of similar schools in other jurisdictions with the report saying the underperformance was “mostly attributable to government schools.”

The analysis finds that 46 per cent of the mean NAPLAN results from government schools in the ACT were “significantly or substantially” below the corresponding mean from statistically similar schools groups (SSSG) in other jurisdictions.

“Government school results for low performing students were particularly alarming,” the report says. “The average proportion of students from the sample government schools that performed below the national minimum standard was 80 per cent higher than the SSSG average.”

It also notes that “a large proportion” of the ACT government school results that did perform above the corresponding SSSG mean came from “two schools with gifted streams.”

The report pushes for an inquiry to determine “why ACT government schools appear to be

underperforming in NAPLAN tests” and also proposes a voluntary trial of the “direct instruction” teaching method.

Direct instruction is a teaching method with a strict academic focus in which teachers take greater responsibility to ensure students make progress as opposed to “discovery based learning” models in which students take greater responsibility for their advancement.