NAPLAN – More harm than good?

If you’ve ever thought that the NAPLAN tests were causing more harm than good, you’re not alone. The Perelman Report, commissioned by the NSW Teachers Federation, has revealed this week that the NAPLAN testing regime is possibly contributing to declining performance standards across the nation.

“This historic Perelman Report now provides overwhelming evidence. That the existing NAPLAN testing regime is harming our students and harming our nation,”. NSW Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron said. “The Report shows that NAPLAN is a recipe for mediocrity, reinforcing low level student writing capacities at the expense of higher order performance skills. “NAPLAN encourages teaching to emphasise low standard, formulaic student writing performance that harms student achievement across the spectrum.”

“A computer can’t look at a question and say this student obviously understood that, but just made a stupid error. I’ll give them marks for it,” – Robert Ollis

Founder and Principal of Master Coaching in Penrith, Robert Ollis, believes that what was created to “keep track of schools who are letting the system down” morphed over the years to become a tool to harvest information and rank schools, which is a dangerous development. “It’s the marking of the English paper that’s caused all the controversy,” he told the Weekender.

“The way the system is graded. If you use a word with a lot of letters in it or a complicated word, you get more marks. Irrespective of whether you use it correctly or not. “And for that reason, this test is a farce.” While he believes that testing is a good tool that helps raise standards when utilised properly. The NAPLAN tests have caused numerous problems that ultimately fail the students who want to learn. “I think schools are teaching to the NAPLAN test. And you can’t blame them for that because they’re being judged on it,” he said.

“They’re making sure the worst students are sick on the day of the test… not every school. It’s not a widespread problem, but it is happening.” He believes that the tests occur too frequently, and a computer is not an appropriate tool to grade assessments. “A computer can’t look at a question and say this student obviously understood that, but just made a stupid error. I’ll give them marks for it,” he said. “Computers can’t mark exams in my opinion.”

Source: The Weekender ( Page 12 )