Grattan has just released a sequel to its recent Maths Guarantee report: a guide for primary school principals. It repeats much of their main report, and the criticisms still hold, but Grattan’s main report was good and the new guide is good.
There is no need to go into the details, and it would be distracting to do so. Grattan’s guide has a simple message, and I am a fan of simple messages. Unfortunately, Grattan’s simple message is elaborated over forty-six pages, which is way, way, too long. So, here is Grattan’s simple message to primary school principals, in three lines:
• The Australian Mathematics Curriculum is a shallow and incomprehensible blurgshlup.
• Individual primary school teachers attempting to fill in the cavernous holes are likely to stuff it up and, anyway, will go nuts making the attempt.
• It is thus critically important that each principal takes the responsibility to ensure that all his school’s teachers are on the same page, and the correct page.
Of course Grattan’s framing is more diplomatic, and they include evidence and stuff, and important directions: use, and create if necessary, good materials; teach rather than play games; teach long enough and often enough; ensure kids learn their damn tables; test regularly to see if the little buggers have actually learned anything; and so on. Obviousnesses that have somehow been forgotten, if not outright denied. But the essence of Grattan’s guide is the three points above, and is best expressed loudly and forcefully.
I really wish Grattan were more inclined to headkicking. I have little doubt that Grattan is aware that ACARA is a perverse and perverting nightmare, and that no solid, systemic improvement is attainable without ACARA’s demise, or at least ACARA’s comprehensive sidelining. It is disingenuous and badly misleading for Grattan to remain silent on this. Still, I understand that some have to do the diplomacy thing. Meanwhile, others can do the kicking of heads.
The authors still write “maths” rather than “mathematics”.
Their measure of success is NAPLAN.
Attached are some comments on questions from past papers.
naplan-notes
Terry, are you somehow impyling that NAPLAN may not be the best measure of success?
I think that there is no other publicly available measure of success.
Not saying that it is a good one, just suggesting that there is nothing else available. Am I wrong?
Yeah, but that’s the Robodebt argument: “the only measure we have of week-by-week income is (annual income)/52, so that’s what we’ll use”.
If your only measure is an entirely inadequate measure then it is irresponsible and dishonest to still use that measure. Your professional and moral obligation is to declare that measure is inadequate.
This is exactly where Grattan stuffs up. *Everything* they say and do about education is premised on the idea that there is some basic sense in the status quo. There isn’t, and Grattan is being either really stupid or really dishonest. My bet is that, for strategic reasons, they are being really dishonest. It is a mistake.
Always fun to put ‘what’s the next number’ stuff into the OEIS.
Yes
Is that because NAPLAN is an infrequent, error-strewn swamp of maths-lite numeracy twaddle, or were you thinking of other reasons?
I found errors in earlier NAPLAN tests, but of course I cannot see more recent tests. I note that there has been a declining participation rate in Year 9 Numeracy across Australia; in 2008 the participation rate was 93.4% and in 2024 it was 88.6%; why is it so?
And there is my long-standing objections to the ubiquitous multiple-choice questions.
Really? Have you mentioned this previously?
Yes
Here are some sample entrance examinations at Westminster School in London for students who want to enter 6th form which is usually a two year course. Candidates are told that a machine will do the marking.