My School the source of NAPLAN angst

The publication of raw results on the My School website has transformed national testing from a useful diagnostic tool for parents and teachers into a highly stressful ordeal, said the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne.

“I am not surprised by the survey results reported today as they highlight how NAPLAN has been bastardised from something useful into something loathed,” Mr Pyne said.

“It was the Prime Minister’s decision to publish raw results on My School. Since that time there has been a spate of teacher cheating, students have been asked by schools to stay home on testing day and last week we heard parents are withdrawing their children from testing altogether,” he said.

“These actions will skew results and undermine the testing regime. This is a major Labor policy bungle to add to a long list.

A 2010 Senate Inquiry into My School received so many community concerns that even Labor Senators said they could not support the website in its current form.

The Senate Report found: “The potential for this lack of confidence in My School to engulf the entire national literacy and numeracy assessment system, thereby compromising the benefits of NAPLAN tests themselves, is considerable”.

Little has been done to address the serious and wide-ranging concerns since that time and there is still a lack of community confidence in the website. 

“At the last election the Coalition committed to removing the raw test results from My School and only publishing school improvement. This would restore the NAPLAN to a diagnostic tool and also provide some meaningful information for parents,” Mr Pyne said.

November 26, 2012