A new report has concluded that ten years of NAPLAN have done nothing to improve Australian students’ numeracy standards. In other stunning news, a century of climate scientists measuring that it’s getting kinda hot apparently hasn’t solved global warming.
Jack Buckley, The Commissioner – U.S. Dep of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, was thinking the same thing,
“People like to take international results … and focus on high performers and pick out areas of policy that support the policies that they support … I never expect tests like these to tell us what works in education. That’s like taking a thermometer to explain why it’s cold outside.”
Thanks, George. I was actually making a different point. My point was that even assuming NAPLAN/whatever is measuring something real and something relevant, the mere act of measuring won’t alter the thing being measured.
The testing will continue. But it is complete idiocy to imagine anything will improve maths ed outcomes until governments recognise that the educational experts upon which they have been relying are technology-fetishising constructivist quacks.
Not all of them are technology-fetishising, but yes, the quacks do seem to dominate.
I’m not sure if it was Winston Churchill, but a great quote nonetheless: Statistics are too often used the way a drunk uses a lamp-post – for support rather than illumination.
I don’t believe you. Can you name one with political clout that isn’t?
In the sense that political clout is measured by time in the media, no.
There are a few, mostly older, “experts” that are not blindly declaring that technology will solve all our educational problems. They remain quacks, however, by declaring that the work of researchers such as Hattie is beyond dispute.
There was one educator I knew, published research author (UK) who took an anti-Hattie line. He didn’t have a happy ending to his career.