Through measurement to knowledge

Apologists for Queensland students’ weak performance frequently use the fact that Queensland’s students in any given year are about 6 months younger than in other States. Clearly that fact has always been true.  The Tables below from ACER show that Queensland students were once the best in the country – even though they were the youngest. The strength of Secondary Maths up to about 1980 is most noticeable.

The NAPLAN results also showed Queensland as the weakest performer. Those results stimulated the Bligh government to ask ACER to examine the situation. The result was ‘A Shared Challenge’ quoted often in this article. The ACER document exists solely because the NAPLAN data showed up the awful problems.

Summary comments from the authoritative A Shared Challenge are:

‘International studies show that relatively few Australian primary school students reach high standards of mathematics and science achievement. Only three per cent of Queensland Year 4 students reach an ‘advanced’ standard in mathematics, compared with 40 per cent of students in Hong Kong. Only four per cent of Queensland Year 4 students reach an ‘advanced’ standard in science, compared with 36 per cent of students in Singapore. Performances in other countries demonstrate that much higher levels of primary school achievement are possible.’

‘International studies also reveal a long-term decline in the absolute mathematics (and possibly science) achievements of Queensland students. In the mid-1960s, Queensland junior secondary students outperformed students in all other Australian states in mathematics. ….From the late 1970s, there was a significant decline in levels of junior secondary mathematics performance in Queensland.

So, what is to be done? 

Some pointers are available from A Shared Challenge and also from a paper Measuring what Matters: student progress by Dr Ben Jensen of the Grattan Institute.

From ‘A Shared Challenge’ in no special order.  In some cases with comment:

·         ‘All top performing schools recognise that they cannot improve that which they do not measure’.  (Shade of Kamerlingh Onnes! Totally obvious of course)

·         ‘Top performing schools are relentless in their focus on improving the quality of classroom instruction’

·         ‘All of the top performing and rapidly improving systems have curriculum standards which set clear and high expectations of what students should achieve.’