Through measurement to knowledge

A further problem in Queensland is the grossly inefficient situation in maths and science in Years 11/12. A huge fraction of the time, effectively whole school terms, is spent on ‘Extended Experimental Investigations’ and ‘Extended response Tasks’ or assignments. The students spend much time learning very little about not much.

The thinking and attitudes about measurement and data that led the Queensland Studies Authority’s (QSA) to produce and impose non numerical assessment systems on all schools is the absolute opposite of Kammerlingh Onnes’s, and to the modern ideas propounded by ACER and implied in Jensen's value adding thinking.

What are the causes of the awful state of maths and numerical sciences in Queensland (and elsewhere)?

It is not the type of school because the problems are across all school types. Also the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth LSAYR 22 (2001) showed that individual schools have a far greater influence on ENTER (OP) than school type. The biggest determinants are Year 9 numeracy and Year 9 literacy in that order.

It is not physical conditions.  In the seventies our Queensland SHS had no lights or fans in the classrooms and class sizes were much larger than nowadays.  But look at the results we produced. That high standard was across all school types - State or religious foundations.

The causes of trouble are:

·The pitiful knowledge levels of many teachers. That must be due to reprehensible incompetence within university Education Faculties.

·Extreme syllabus weakening, failure to ‘set clear and high expectations of what students should achieve’ and a decline in subject emphasis were and remain the problem. That is the product of the QSA’s subject syllabi and fanciful assessment structures.

Only Parliament can institute the drastic changes needed to syllabi, assessment systems, teacher training and school attitudes because the Queensland Studies Authority and Education Faculties think everything is fine and most certainly will not, can not make the sorts of changes required.

So, what should the new Queensland Government and Opposition do both now in the campaign and after the election?

Four things are worth consideration and action:

· Accept the ACER recommendation that all aspiring Primary teachers must be able to demonstrate a reasonable level of knowledge in Maths, Science and English. That must be by a formal test set externally (not by QSA) and supervised in a manner not less rigorous than for the Core Skills Test.  Suggested minimal achievement should be at NAPLAN year 9/10 standard and 85% pass level.

· Accept and put into action as soon as possible, certainly this year, Jensen’s recommendation that ‘The current measures of school performance published in ‘My school’ website should be replaced with value added measures of school performance, given their greater accuracy and fairness to schools serving poorer communities’. That could be done with or without Commonwealth involvement.

· Insert, forthwith, in the Queensland Studies Authority Act 2002 a Regulation that stipulates that all subject syllabi must ‘set clear and high expectations of what students are expected to achieve’. Furthermore all assessments systems must be clear and understandable to students, parents and parliamentarians, they must ensure that no group of students is systematically unfairly disadvantaged.

· Form a permanent standing committee of Parliament for School Education. The brief should, inter alia,examine subject syllabi and assessment systems.