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New NAPLAN Scoring Developed By Expert Teachers

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In the May-June Senate Estimates, I asked David de Carvalho, CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) why the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) will no longer report progress through the NAPLAN ban system so that parents can see how their child is progressing relative to others?

In light of the latest disappointing NAPLAN results, which shows one in three children failing literacy and numeracy, I thought you’d be interested to hear his response.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again. Why will NAPLAN no longer report progress through the NAPLAN bands so parents know how their child is progressing relative to other children?

Mr de Carvalho: Ministers decided on 10 February this year to move to a much better reporting system, which actually provides more meaningful information for parents. They will now be getting information that indicates where they are in terms of proficiency standards, which were agreed would be introduced as part of the national school reform agreement. The bands, if you go back to 2008, when they were set up, are essentially a statistical construct. We had a scale of around 1,000 points. The mean we set at 500. It was essentially divided into 10 bands. That number was relatively arbitrary. It could have been more. It could have been less. It’s a kind of a goldilocks number, if you like—a nice round number. The cut points in the bands themselves, unlike the new system, which we are introducing, didn’t have inherent educational value other than simply to be kind of marker points on a scale. It’s bit like telling a parent about their child’s height. They’ve moved from the zero to 20-centimetre band into the 21- to 40-centimetre band. Or, with weight, they’ve moved from the zero to 10-kilogram band into the 11- to 20-kilogram band. What parents really want to know is: is my child actually progressing at the normal rate or do they need additional support? These new standards—

Senator Henderson: I would disagree with that, actually.

Mr de Carvalho: The teacher view has been used to say, ‘What questions should children be able to answer to meet a challenging and reasonable expectation?’ We’ve used professional teacher judgement as opposed to a statistical or arithmetical division to identify the standard expected. That’s the one that we road-tested with parents. We asked them, ‘Would you prefer to see an individual student report with the numerical bands or this more meaningful information?’ They were quite unequivocal about it. They preferred the latter. It’s also not correct to say that parents won’t see their progress. Each individual student report has never reported progress. You need to keep the previous reports. Even if you are in year 3 and then year 5 under the new system, you may increase your NAPLAN score, say, from 250 to 300. You may still be reported in year 5 as strong whereas you were also strong in year 3 but the descriptors associated with ‘strong’ will indicate a higher level of capability. Parents will still be able to see that their child has progressed into a higher skill set. There will be more detailed information, more meaningful information, for parents through the new system.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for that. There are things in there that sound attractive, but I don’t understand it well enough. Perhaps you could tell me what is wrong with this description. Instead of providing a reading score in band 3, 4, 5 or 6, giving parents an idea of exactly where their child is in terms of progression, all of those bands will be replaced by the word ‘developing’. ACARA has said parents found the bands confusing. Isn’t that just an indictment on your failure to explain the more accurate band reports? Could you go into more detail? Tell me what is wrong with that.

Mr de Carvalho: I will go back to the point I was trying to make at the start. Those bands were simply arithmetically derived.

Senator Roberts: So a child was placed in there numerically?

Mr de Carvalho: There is a scale of, say, zero to 1,000. You set the mean at 500 and then you have your statistical categories, your differentials, set just by picking 100 or 200 or whatever the scale is to deliver 10 categories. But what we’re doing this time is using teacher professional judgement. We’ve consulted professional expert teachers about where on the scale they expect children to be based on what they’ve learned in previous years. We have asked which questions they should be able to answer to be able to say, ‘Yes, they’re meeting expectations.’ That was not the case under the previous 10-band regime. Parents will be able to see at a glance. What is really important about the new system is that particularly those children who are genuinely struggling will be identified as needing additional support. That is crucial, because under the old system, we had a category called the national minimum standard. It was broadly recognised that the national minimum standard was set too low. There was a relatively small percentage of children below the national minimum standard. It wasn’t really a call to action. Now we will have more students identified in that bottom category and it will be clear through the name of the category or the name of the level that those children need additional support. It will be a prompt to parents to have a discussion with their teachers about what needs to be done. I think that is a  real, important change.

Senator Roberts: So the parent will be able to see the areas in which the child is deficient or strong?

Mr de Carvalho: The descriptors will also be part of the individual student report. It is a paper based report, and you can only put so many words on a paper based report. There will be high-level descriptions for each domain—that is, reading, writing, numeracy, spelling and grammar—and what it means if you are in each of those levels. If you want more fine-grained information, you will be able to go to the ACARA website and get more and more fine-grained information. With that, teachers will be able to have good conversations with parents about what needs to be done.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. It looks like there is more understanding to be gained on my part.

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Labor/Greens reject mandatory sentencing for Paedophiles

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Labor, Greens, Centre Alliance and Jacqui Lambie last night voted down a Bill for mandatory sentencing for paedophiles. One Nation voted strongly in support of this Bill.

Transcript

Thank you, Mr. Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I don’t serve just voters, I serve everyone who is a resident of Queensland and Australia. And that especially includes those who don’t vote because they’re too young.

I won’t go over the statistics, the gory details because they are horrific. Other speakers have done this from both sides of the chamber but I do serve the young. And why do I serve the young? Because the abuse of children is not only the most heinous crime.

It is also the destruction of our nation’s future. As I see it, the child, especially the young child up to about six is the embodiment of our universe. It is the ultimate expression of our universe. The lovely eyes of a child, and what is going on in the heart of that child from zero to six are the critical years.

According to Maria Montessori, he has done more work than anyone else ever on the development and behaviour of humans. And she says that zero to six are the critical years for the development of intellect and character. And some mongrel comes in and steals that person’s development, that young child’s development.

And I did look at yesterday and the day before, when I was in the Hunter Valley with Stuart Bonds, and we were helping some people who are victims at adult of corporate crimes, group crimes. And Stuart and his wife Sini have a lovely daughter called Penny.

And Penny is an absolute delight. Eye shining, heart pumping, asking questions. She’s only two and a half, but speaks like a four year old, speaks like an adult in many ways, full sentences. And I was just marvelling at that lovely little human, the embodiment of her universe, combined with the human spirit.

As Tom Peters said the renowned management expert, he said many years ago, and I’ll always remember this. “The height of our civilization is the four year old.” There’s developing, but they haven’t been corrupted by our society yet. And yet children need to be protected.

They’re naive, worse than that or more important than that, they’re innocent. And they can be preyed upon. They’re weak and vulnerable in many ways, despite that sparkle and that energy. And when somebody molests a young child, they’re doing enormous damage, lasting damage, terrible damage.

They’re not doing it just to the child because the child’s pain, plays out for the rest of her or his life. That is terrible. But then what happens to that pain? Is it sometimes gets transferred to other people when that child becomes an adult.

And so on the handing down of that pain, a lifetime of pain, a cost in sorting out that person’s problem sometimes later on the costs that are borne by our society, the cost that can be born by other individuals. And that is a huge cost to our society. So every way we look at this, this bill must go forward.

We know that sentences on paedophiles are not tough enough. We know that judges are being weak and society is not dealing with this vital issue anywhere near adequately. We must have much more serious sentencing because judges have shown they have been weak.

Now we’ve had questions about this bill, Senator Hanson and I have listened intensely to the Labour Shadow Minister for the Shadow Attorney General. And he made some good points, provided us with some data.

We then went to the Attorney General and listened to the Attorney General, reassured us on those points, reassured us on the checks and balances in this bill, because these are the worst of criminals, but they still need to be treated fairly and within the law.

This bill, as it is now sends a powerful message to the scum of our society, the absolute scum and dregs of our society. We must be tough on those who hurt the weak, who hurt the vulnerable, who hurt our kids. Our kids are the future. Our kids deserve to be free from this scum.

We are voting in favour of this bill because of our kids and I commend this bill to the Senate.

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