NAPLAN: $20bn flop, schools fail to lift most students’ academic results

These kids are doing well, but most students are languishing despite soaring funding.

Ballajura Primary school students Bahara Mohammadi, Stephanie D'Angelo, Dylan Lee, Elijah Miller and Drew Street. Picture: Colin Murty

Critical literacy and numeracy skills of Australian students are languishing, despite government funding for schools soaring by more than $20 billion over a ­decade.

State and territory education ministers are under mounting pressure to explain a lack of improvement in students’ academic results at a time when education funding has hit record levels.

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Preliminary results from the 2019 NAPLAN tests, to be released publicly today, show average national student scores across most age groups and domains have barely budged since testing began more than a decade ago.

They also reveal a stark divide between jurisdictions. Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory show sustained improvements, particularly in primary school, but the ACT, which for years has produced some of the highest average scores nationally, has seen scores decline or stagnate across multiple literacy categories.

While federal Education Minister Dan Tehan was keen yesterday to highlight improvements at primary-school levels, he ­acknowledged there remained “room to improve” across the board.

Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said the results were confirmation that “too many students haven’t mastered the three Rs”. “We can’t ­afford for the next generation to be held back,” she said.

The NAPLAN scores, described as “disappointing” and “alarming”, sparked calls for unproven teaching “fads” to be dumped from classrooms, a ­renewed focus on promoting ­evidence-informed practices to schools and urgent action to ­improve initial teacher education to boost their proficiency.

Of particular concern is that pockets of improvement observed in primary school — including Year 3 reading, spelling and grammar and Year 5 reading, spelling and numeracy — are not sustained in secondary school.

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive David de ­Carvalho pointed to this year’s “pleasing improvement” in writing — an area of national concern in recent years. However, the gain was statistically significant for Year 3 only.

“It is a trend we would like to see continue, given the decline in recent years across all year levels,” Mr de Carvalho said.

Average writing scores for Year 7 and 9 have declined since the writing test was introduced in 2011, while average secondary school scores for reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as numeracy, are unchanged.

The overall lack of progress is despite record funding flows into both government and non-­government school systems since NAPLAN testing began. Combined commonwealth, state and territory funding has climbed from $36.4 billion in 2007-08 to $57.8bn in 2016-17. This year the federal government has budgeted a record $21.4bn for state, Catholic and independent schools.

The commonwealth and the states recently entered new school funding agreements that provide additional federal money in return for each jurisdiction committing to “a sustained ­reform effort that will drive ­improved student outcomes and excellence”.

There is growing community concern that Australian education standards are lagging ­behind international counterparts. The agreement stipulates that jurisdictions should improve NAPLAN performance by reducing the proportion of students in the lower achievement bands and boosting those at the top.

While Victoria topped two-thirds of areas tested in primary school, it and NSW showed no discernible improvement across most categories.

The ACT produced significant declines in Year 5, 7 and 9 writing and modest declines for Year 7 writing and Year 9 writing, grammar and punctuation.

Grattan Institute school education director Peter Goss highlighted the fact some states were showing encouraging improvement — for example, South Australia’s best Year 3 results across several areas and best reading results for Western Australia and Northern Territory.

“The things those states are doing are having an impact,” Dr Goss said. “There just aren’t enough clear signs that our national focus on these vital skills is paying off. There are glimpses, sure, but not enough improvement across the board.”

Australian Catholic Univer­sity senior research fellow Kevin Donnelly said blame rested with state and territory governments and education departments.

“No amount of blame shifting can escape the fact that schools are controlled by the states and territories; they employ the staff and manage the schools,” he said.

ANU law professor Andrew Macintosh, who has been researching ACT’s underperformance in the context of its relatively high socio-educational characteristics, described the result as “shocking”.

“They should be ringing alarm bells for policy makers,” he said.

“We have clearly got something going on in our schools system and its not being addressed.”

ACT Education Minister ­Yvette Berry defended the results as a “good outcome” despite there being “some areas where we know we can improve”. In Victoria, Education Minister James Merlino noted “significant improvements” across Years 3, 5 and 7, but admitted “we have more to do in Year 9 to ensure ­students see the relevance of ­NAPLAN and are better ­engaged”.

“These results don’t reflect what students are capable of and we must investigate options to ensure our Year 9 students are more engaged,” Mr Merlino said.

It is understood the Andrews government, which has joined NSW and Queensland in a review of the divisive test, has been lobbied by principals to examine the option of shifting testing from Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 to 4, 6, 8, and 10.

Dr Donnelly said NAPLAN results would not improve while schools and teachers were being forced to adopt “meaningless fads like whole language, personalised learning, progression points and teachers as ‘guides by the side’”.

“We need to focus on explicit, whole-class teaching, set high ­expectations and reintroduce memorisation and rote learning,” Dr Donnelly said. “We need to prioritise essential, knowledge, understanding and skills associated with key subjects.”

Dr Goss said boosting teacher pay alone was not the solution.

“Simple pay rises won’t change this,” he said.

“Australian school systems need to create new roles for ­expert teachers who can support their colleagues to continually improve teaching practice.

“These are vital roles, and those teachers should be paid much more.”

Ballajura Primary School in northern Perth has high expectations for students in this year’s NAPLAN, given they have shown solid improvements in ­recent testing cycles.

When principal David Wanstall started at the independent public school 13 years ago he found there were some teachers who struggled due to “not understanding their craft”.

He said improving teachers’ skills, as well as introducing ­explicit teaching methods and targeted interventions for students who needed it had contributed to improved results.

“I think we’ve discovered a little secret,” Mr Wanstall said.

“And now lots of schools are trying to replicate that.”

Additional reporting: Tessa Akerman