The slow but steady road to better learning in our classrooms
Author: Ben Jensesn
Published in The Australian newspaper, 24 August 2024
Last week the latest NAPLAN results showed that about one in three Australian students are failing to meet national literacy and numeracy benchmarks. It’s a story we have read many times before, in the annual national outcry over poor performance when NAPLAN results come out.
Yet while the results make grim reading, the good news is that we can change direction and reverse years of decline. Some important changes are already underway.
Critically, many political and system leaders across the country are now advocates of the science of reading, explicit instruction, and core elements of what is known as the science of learning, all of which are vital to student improvement, according to research. Leaders in many states are setting out clearly the instruction required to teach students how to read, and the foundational elements of effective instruction across all subjects. Not that long ago, state education systems were locked in the reading wars, and vague statements about effective practice were the best we could hope for from their leaders. Ambiguity about what is best for students is easier politically but terrible for change. It is fantastic that in recent years, more and more systems have taken a stand on the science of reading and explicit teaching and have made it clear to say considerable improvement is needed. Politicians and system leaders in states such as NSW, Queensland and Tasmania and Catholic systems in Melbourne and Canberra have been much more explicit about what constitutes good practice. Victoria was for many years a prominent hold-out on the science of reading. Minister after minister refused to take a stand, merely repeating the line that “phonics are being taught in our schools”. It played OK in the media but said nothing about good teaching; a bit of phonics taught here and there is not enough to teach kids how to read. Education Minister Ben Carroll changed all that when in June he made it clear that systematic phonics and explicit teaching were the best way to teach students and that Victorian schools were to follow this evidence. His life and tenure as Education Minister would have been much easier if he had kept quiet and toed the line that phonics are being taught in schools. But he took a stand on what is right for kids. Less obviously than the actions of Carroll and other state leaders, Federal Minister Jason Clare has also shown important leadership in making subtle but important changes in the education narrative.
In his review of funding and the state of the school system, and in his general pronouncements, Clare has focussed on education inequality, often highlighting that the inequality gap widens as children progress through school. While the gap between Year 3 students from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds is equivalent to two years of schooling, “that gap grows with every year of school. By the time they get to Year 9 that gap is five years,” Clare has said. When discussing the NAPLAN data released last week, Clare pointed out that only one in five students who are below minimum standards in their early years of schooling improves enough to meet the minimum standard at Year 9. In other words, disadvantaged students are more likely than others to fall behind, and once they do, are unlikely to catch up in Australian schools. In another change in the narrative, Clare has continually said that we have a good rather than a brilliant or great education system. Too many leaders of the education establishment refuse to acknowledge what the data are telling us. What problems they do acknowledge they claim are confined to just a few areas: to disadvantaged students, or to schools in regional areas, for example. This is simply not true. The data show that the problems are magnified in our most disadvantaged schools, but they are across the board. The OECD runs the best-known international student assessment: the PISA tests of 15-year-old students’ mathematics, science and reading abilities around the world. PISA data show declines amongst Australian students of high, medium and low socioeconomic status over the past decade. The most recent testing for maths shows that students in Australia’s major cities perform worse than the overall mean student population in Alberta and Quebec. Most shockingly, these urban Australian students in all socioeconomic categories perform worse than disadvantaged (low socio-economic status) students in Singapore and Hong Kong’s. It is beyond me that people can look at these data and still laud our school performance in our wealthiest cities. Putting aside equity for a moment and focussing on efficiency, the lack of return on investment from our high-fee, non-government schools makes this performance even worse.
Policy development
Clearly, our education policies and strategies have not had the impact we would like. People regularly criticise education policy, and system leaders for following fads and ignoring evidence. In fact, with some notable exceptions, most education policy draws on much of the high-level evidence, yet it regularly fails to impact schools and classrooms. Why? Our school education consultancy, Learning First, has analysed this problem for many years and the answer is not straightforward. Why do similar numeracy strategies have an impact in, say, a high-performing Canadian province but not in classrooms in Australia? Our analysis shows that the most obvious difference between these systems lies in the detail of policies: the extent to which they identify what is and is not working well in schools and classrooms, and the specific improvements needed in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practice. But more detail alone won’t solve the problems. Instead, a lack of detail in a policy or strategy is typically covering up mistakes in how that policy is developed; mistakes in identifying and defining the key components of change needed in schools and classrooms. For example, let’s consider improvement in mathematics performance. First, we must analyse practice in actual classrooms: namely, what curriculum is being taught, how it is being taught (what teaching practices are used) and how student learning is being assessed. Second, we need to compare all that detail – what is being taught and how, and how it is being assessed -- against the research and evidence on best-practice mathematics teaching. Third, we need to identify the improvements required, prioritise the most important ones, and address any barriers to improvement, while also identifying excellent practice that we can build on. This work has to be done for each subject and for each year of education. The problems are different in Grades 1 and 2 than they are in Grades 5 and 6, and they also differ widely between primary and secondary schools. Solutions will also differ by year level and subject. The biggest and most common mistake is to skip all this detailed work and go straight to naming the solution. For example, instead of identifying all the different curricular, pedagogical and assessment problems in mathematics classes, we jump straight to the supposed solutions and announce a bunch of new and often generic actions – new professional development for teachers, or a new program in schools, for example.
Research shows that this problem of going straight to the answer is common across public policy and corporate strategy in many countries, yet it is a particularly damaging obstacle to change in schools and classrooms. Why? Effective education policy reform must change the practice of tens, often hundreds, of thousands of teachers and school leaders. If the policy doesn’t correctly identify and fix the problems these educators are facing, then it is highly unlikely to connect with them and to change their practice. In other words, Jason Clare’s focus on inequality won’t lead to improvements unless we understand how to fix the specific issues faced in each school subject. What curriculum is being taught in disadvantaged schools compared to wealthier schools? What are the differences in pedagogical and assessment practice? These problems will differ by subject and year level: what is needed to improve Year 9 science classes and Grade 3 English classes is unlikely to be the same. Learning First has done considerable work analysing these differences. Teachers and school leaders in disadvantaged and remote schools have been eager to talk to us about the support they need to ensure that the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practice they offer compares with what wealthier students receive. Yet as a nation we do not show enough interest in the specific issues teachers and school leaders is disadvantaged schools face. Once again, the detail in different school years is vital. Research on inequality in reading shows that students who fall behind a minimum level of decoding ability simply won’t improve until that is addressed. Older students who are behind face more challenges when learning how to decode than do younger students, incorporating more aspects of comprehension in decoding instruction and moving at a different pace. Our work shows that many schools in Australia struggle to address these specific issues. And many secondary schools lack the required expertise in how to teach students with primary school level reading and writing abilities. By addressing such specific problems, education policies can connect to classrooms and drive real improvements in learning and equity across schools. A more systematic and detailed approach to policy development will also include data, monitoring, evaluation and development systems to support the specific changes needed in schools. None of this is easy, but it can be achieved – provided that we move away from generic policies and strategies. An effective strategy starts with a clear objective, a rationale for change, something that teachers, school leaders and parents can support. In this regard, some Australian political leaders have made great strides by being honest about the changes needed. That is why the comments of leaders like Carroll and Clare are so important. To fix the problem, we must first of all name it. But unless we change the way we develop education policy, we wont get the change we want in our schools and classrooms, we will all simply keep on talking about the need for change.
