Australia Institute calls for public inquiry to explain poor NAPLAN results in Canberra

Australia/ July 21, 17/ By: Hannah Walmsley/ Source: http://www.abc.net.au

Un nuevo informe que evalúa los resultados del NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) en el ACT (Australian Capital Territory) afirma que el estatus socio-económico de los padres de Camberra explica el rendimiento por encima del promedio, no las escuelas.

A new report assessing NAPLAN results in the ACT claims the socio-economic status of Canberra parents explains above-average performance, not the schools.

The territory has almost always achieved NAPLAN scores higher than the national average.

But the Australia Institute said government reporting had previously failed to highlight that the ACT had a significantly higher socio-economic average than the rest of the country.

When we compare our high socio-economic schools with high socio-economic schools in other states, the report said, we are falling behind.

Apples for apples

The report compared the NAPLAN results of 24 high socio-economic public and private primary schools in the ACT between 2008 and 2016.

«These are schools that are very similar in terms of their socio-economic make-up,» report author and ANU professor Andrew Macintosh said.

Education Minister Yvette Berry had previously said other states were simply starting to perform better.

«The ACT Government is proud of its high investment, more than other states and territory, in its school system,» she said.

Professor Macintosh said the ACT Government needed to stop making excuses for underperformance.

«We’re asking the ACT Government to undertake a public enquiry to find out exactly what is going on in our schools,» he told ABC Radio Canberra.

«We think that we’re not currently employing best practice, but we can’t categorically say it’s teaching methods.

«We’re also calling for a voluntary trial to demonstrate that these teaching methods actually work.»

The average proportion of students from the sample ACT Government schools that performed below the national minimum standard was 80 per cent higher than the average from statistically similar schools.

«The data across the board shows quite clearly that there is a significant problem in our schools,» Professor Macintosh said.

«We have a highly educated population, some of the best researchers in the country and almost everything you’d want to see in order to produce the top performing schools.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-21/australia-institute-calls-for-public-inquiry-to-explain-naplan/8730798