Last week's hand-wringing over the comparability of online NAPLAN tests with paper versions is moot. That is, according to one of the architects of PISA, Professor Doctor Eckhard Klieme. Klieme, a professor of education research (with a background in maths and psychology) ...
More »NAPLAN week draws multifaceted critique
Months before controversial NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes called for NAPLAN to be scrapped last week, change.org user Sparkt started an online petition in this vein. In the interim, a retired MIT professor slammed the tests, calling them "bizarre". Some Australian experts joined him; ...
More »Parents defy expert backlash with pro-NAPLAN statement
While certain experts think NAPLAN bizarre, parents and teachers, plausibly with more skin in the testing game, vociferously support it. Officeholders from the Australian Council of State School Organisations (ACSSO), the Australian Parents Council (APC), and the Isolated Children's Parents' Association of ...
More »NAPLAN National Report: Indigenous, LBOTE students most improved
In August we learned that there were NAPLAN triumphs and concerns: overall, reading and numeracy were up, yet writing had declined. Now, with ACARA's release of the 2017 NAPLAN National Report, long-term demographic trends have come to light. Since 2008, Indigenous ...
More »Opinion: the pressure-cooker lives of Singapore’s teachers
Twelve-hour days and big classes are realities that Singapore's teachers face daily. Such conditions create stressful work environments which impede their capacity to live up to their global reputation for teaching excellence. They are usually too exhausted to be the classroom innovators they ...
More »PIRLS results: Australia whipped by 13 countries, including Russia
It's been five years since the last – and Australia's inaugural – Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) results were released. Now, with the 2016 crop divulged, we've improved, but not by much. Just 16 per cent of the over ...
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