ACARA has today given a concise description of the value of the NAPLAN Tests. Critics of NAPLAN and those opposing participation in the May NAPLAN tests should read this carefully and reconsider their position.
"Pencils Down: NAPLAN 2012 Concludes
ACARA
is pleased to acknowledge the successful conclusion of this year’s
NAPLAN tests and would like to thank the thousands of principals and
teachers who helped to administer tests at nearly 10,000 schools to over
one million students right across Australia.
The
results of these tests provide policy makers, schools, teachers and
parents with important information to help them understand and improve
student performance.
While we await the
availability of individual student reports later this year, ACARA would
like to set the record straight about NAPLAN and especially some
misconceptions about the testing program.
NAPLAN
involves just a few hours over a few days at four points across a
child’s schooling. It is designed to give a snapshot of student
performance in key areas of literacy and numeracy – the sort of skills
that are necessary not just for school but for life. When taken in
aggregate, the results do provide a good picture of how students across
the nation, as a whole, are performing. We also know that the individual
student reports, set in the context of the local school and the nation,
are valued by parents. The NAPLAN results are just one of a number of
sources of information used by teachers to measure student progress but
they help to place school reports and assessments in a broader context.
ACARA
expects all students, with certain clearly spelled-out exceptions, to
sit the NAPLAN tests. Not doing the tests denies students, parents and
schools information from which they might usefully learn. ACARA
continues to make the point that research shows that the best way for
students to develop their literacy and numeracy skills is through a rich
curriculum, not through any narrow “teaching to the test”.
ACARA
agrees that some organisations use NAPLAN in ways that are meaningless
or even harmful. Those who use NAPLAN results to publish simplistic
league tables do themselves and the community a disservice. Such tables
offer nothing worthwhile because the user cannot tell whether
differences between schools are due to what the schools do or whom the
schools enrol, nor do they include crucial statistical information such
as confidence intervals."
