We’ve set lower bars, not raised the results

It’s the ongoing national dis­appointment. Results haven’t ­consistently improved since NAP­LAN began in 2008, while spending on educa­tion has increased massiv­ely.

And everybody is trying to figure­ out what on earth is going on in our school system.

Average student achievement in Years 3 and 5 has improved since 2008, but there hasn’t been any improvement in Years 7 and 9. Writing results in Years 7 and 9 have gone backwards, which is concerning — although the ­writing test has changed over the years, so take the apparent downward trend with a grain of salt.

Don’t be comforted by the high proportion of students meeting the national minimum standards. On face value, it appears encouraging that more than 90 per cent of students in almost every domain and year level are achieving above the minimum standards.

But this fails the commonsense test — ask employers, universities, or parents if they think virtually all students finish school with decent literacy and numeracy skills.

The truth is the minimum stand­ards are set appallingly low, especially when compared with the international literacy benchmarks. For example, one in five Australian Year 4 students are below the literacy standard in reading, according to the latest international Progress in Reading Literacy Study. But just 4 per cent of Australian Year 3 students are below the NAPLAN minimum standard for reading.

In other words, instead of genuinely improving results, we have entrenched lower expectations of student literacy. We need to set higher expectations if we are going to have our students excel.

It is not for lack of money. From 2008 to 2017, real government funding per student increased by 14 per cent, including an increase of 11 per cent in government schools. Billions more taxpayer dollars are spent on schools due to the Gonski funding ‘‘reforms’’.

Getting better outcomes for students isn’t just a question of how much money is spent but of how it is spent. There have been recent­ calls for increasing teacher pay, so we can attract more high achievers to the profession. But the real underlying issue is the quality of teacher training.

We know teacher education degrees aren’t adequately preparing teachers with essential skills, such as managing the classroom and teaching reading. It’s imper­ative we improve initial teacher education. Otherwise, 10 years from now we’ll still be scratching our heads over why our results haven’t gone up despite even more taxpayer money being thrown at schools. Enough is enough.

Blaise Joseph is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and author of Overcoming the Odds: A study of Australia’s top-performing disadvantaged schools