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A weak State in a mediocre performing country

By John Ridd - posted Wednesday, 14 April 2010


Laws exist that punish commercial companies if they engage in false advertising. Recently a large electrical goods manufacturer was in trouble because their energy efficiency claims were demonstrably false.

If the Australian and Queensland governments were businesses their claims to be “the clever country” and the “smart State” would result in false advertising charges being brought against them. The truth is that in maths and numerical science Queensland is a weak State in a mediocre performing country.

Draft National Curricula exist for Maths, Science, English and History. It is an opportunity to improve the condition of Maths and Science in Queensland. Detail of the new syllabi may be, and implementation and oversight of it will be, a State issue. Ultimately the syllabi and the assessment systems that finally go to the schools must meet the minimal criteria: defined, validated and reliable. The ideas/concepts/techniques to be learnt must be defined. The outcomes must be reliable and validated by predictable and just methods.

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In trying to do that in the interests of our children the Queensland Department of Education, the Minister, the government, the Opposition - Parliament as a whole - will have an onerous responsibility. They will be friendless. To that end they will need to do two things:

• work to improve the suggested syllabi where possible and try to prevent any weakening of those syllabi that may be proposed by the extremely reactionary but hyper powerful Education Establishment - the Boards of Study (our QSA), Faculties of Education and the QTU; and
• work out the best way to organise, assess and oversee the implementation of the syllabi in Queensland schools. That is entirely within the power and responsibility of the Minister for Education and the Education Department.

The State’s actions need to be in the light of the following facts all based on sound research:

  1. Maths in Australia is weak. Queensland children are even weaker than the Australian average.
     
  2. The performance of more gifted students in Australia is scandalously weaker than those in strong countries. (On the Trends in International Maths and Science Study, TIMSS, 40 per cent of students in Taiwan reached the “Advanced” standard, in Australia 6 per cent and in Queensland 3 per cent.)
     
  3. In Algebra, the “gateway to educational opportunity”, Australian performance is below the global average. (Global 500, Australia 471).
     
  4. ACER data confirms the well known fact that secondary school maths standards in Queensland have declined by two years learning in the last couple of decades.
     
  5. These acute problems exist across the whole State and in all school “types”. Hence the problem must be systemic and the cause must lie within the only group that has power over every school - the Queensland Studies Authority QSA and its lamentable predecessor the Queensland Schools Curriculum Council QSCC.
     
  6. Apart from NAPLAN there has been no proper assessment or collection of validated data up to Year 10 exit in Queensland for a quarter of a century.
     
  7. Currently Science up to Year 10 exit is essentially non numerate, is entirely descriptive and hence is an hopeless preparation for the numerical sciences in Years 11-12. This item, plus the above items 2-4, are the biggest causes of enrolment and performance problems in rigorous Maths and Physics in Years 11-12.
     
  8. All subject syllabi in Queensland are unusable by the average class teacher because they fail to make clear what is to be studied. The teachers’ job is to teach, not syllabus detail construction. That is the job of a central authority and is what they are paid to do. An aside: if a syllabus is not clear then some book or another will de facto become the syllabus; that is an observable fact. The weaker the teacher, the more guidance is needed. Obviously.
     
  9. In Years 9 and 10 for both Maths and Science and in both government and non-government schools allocated times varied in a 2:1 ratio. While learning is not directly proportional to teaching time, it is inconceivable that time allocation has no effect on outcomes. Concern in both Queensland and Tasmania that time is lost to “sports carnivals, excursions and other special events” resulted in Tasmania determining that schools must build an 20 per cent allowance in timetabled time to allow for “interruptions to classroom time”.
     
  10. Literacy and Numeracy are the biggest determinants of final OP, unemployment rates and future incomes. (Numeracy > Literacy). Items (9) and (10) indicate that the State will have to determine and where possible enforce minimum time allocations.
     
  11. There is always a huge range of ability/mental maturity within each annual cohort of maths students. By age 11 achievement levels vary from less than seven-years-old to over 16 years. By Year 8 age there is the complete range of Piagetian development stages.
     
  12. Schools use a variety of methods to deal with pedagogic problems that arise from that variability. A fashionable trend has been to ignore the problem and use mixed ability classes. Other approaches are Grouping, Streaming, Setting and a form of linear programmed learning all “crossed” with Year 10 only; Year 9 only; Years 8, 9 and 10; one semester only; and Years 9 and 10.
     
  13. The National Curriculum de facto advocates mixed ability “at least to Year 9”.

Noting points (2) and (3), Queensland authorities should attempt to ensure that the syllabus provides a challenge for all students.

Once the syllabi are accepted Queensland will have to put structures in place to implement them.

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Without some degree of oversight there will be no evidence that the new syllabus is being followed. There will be reluctance/reactionary behaviour to implementation especially in Years 8 and 9 where currently little new work is done.

In addition to a modicum of oversight there has to be some system of assessment. That system must be transparent so that all students, parents, society at large and parliament itself know how well our children are progressing.

NAPLAN is better than nothing (it was the clarity of the results that exposed how weak we have become). However, NAPLAN would be seriously deficient as the only assessment up to Year 10 exit. Another additional system is needed if the opportunity to rectify the issues in points 1-3 is not to be missed.

Nevertheless NAPLAN testing provides an opportunity to measure value added to individual students’ learning over time. Recently, The Grattan Institute published Measuring what Matters: Student progress (Dr Ben Jensen, 2010). It is a well reasoned argument for a system of measuring value added. It melds well with relevant ideas in the Masters report written for the Queensland Department. I urge a careful look at Jensen.

There is no good answer to the pedagogic problem of ability/maturity spread (point 11). It is a choice between shades of grey. The blackest, the worst, is totally mixed ability. Streaming is (quietly) common in Queensland nowadays. That crude system consists of forming classes on student performances across all subjects and so ignores the fact that many students are much weaker at, say, English than Maths. Streaming is bad for such students (often boys, which is why “top” classes are predominantly female). Grouping within a class is very hard to do. Forty years ago I advocated a form of linear programmed learning. Now I vote for setting which entails timetabling all Maths classes, in Year 8 for example, at the same times in the week. That enables the Maths staff to divide the students according to their ability/maturity in Maths alone. Movement between sets is simple at any time.

Queensland Education department and the Minister need to accept that the terrible performance by our brighter students on TIMSS (point 2) is partly due to the fashion of mixed ability groups. Consequently strong advice will have to be given to the schools. Schools will claim that timetabling makes setting impossible. It used to be possible, so why not now? The key is to make Maths and English priorities (see point 10) and timetable in the “blocks” for those subjects first.

The relatively weak performance by boys is as serious an issue now as the weaker performance by girls used to be. As Pitman and Matters put it years ago: “When the boys beat the girls we changed the system. Now the girls beat the boys we expect the boys to change themselves.” There is no doubt that many boys, especially from lower socio economic backgrounds are relatively better at Maths than English. The increase in verbalisation of Maths and Science again discriminates against boys and the poor (as do “assignments”). It is important that in the future Queensland ensures that for all existing and new syllabi “assessment procedures in maths and sciences must, as a first requirement, provide information about students’ knowledge, skills and achievement on the subject, and not be a de facto examination of students’ English comprehension and expression”. (Commonwealth House of Reps Inquiry, Boys: getting it right, 2002). Obvious of course.

The Science syllabus is much poorer than the Maths one. The “content” is unclear and a vast rewrite is needed; the objective of which must be to indicate far more precisely what they intend should be taught.

There is almost no indication of, let alone statement of, the numerical aspects of Science.

Science, even more than Maths is afflicted with a constant stream of “assignments”. Even ignoring the inevitable widespread cheating, assignments are also socially discriminatory against students from weaker socio economic groups and are sexist.

As for Maths there is a serious problem with the lack of scientifically knowledgeable teachers at both Primary and Secondary level. That makes the necessity for a well defined syllabus all the more urgent. This National Science syllabus lacks adequate definition (but it is much better than QSA Year 11-12 syllabi!).

Given more detailed subject syllabi based on the skeletal National curricula, reliable oversight and assessments, major improvements to Maths and Science education in Queensland can occur.

But who or what will do the implementation, oversight and assessment? That is the biggest decision that the Minister, the Department and Parliament must make.

The problem is that the Queensland Studies Authority is a major part of the Education Establishment that has unarguably degraded standards (by two years learning remember!)

QSA syllabi meet none of the criteria suggested earlier: defined, validated and reliable. In addition to the lack of definition mentioned earlier, no student or parent has any idea what a piece of work is “worth”. There is no clear method to arrive at the final achievement level; there are no apparent “rules of the game”.

QSA have never done any assessment worth the name in Years 1 to 10. Their predecessor the QSCC never did any assessment whatsoever (see point 6). The fact is that there is no skill base at all within QSA relevant to Years 1 to 10 assessments.

There is general acceptance that the condition of education in Queensland is now poor. That acceptance arose because hard, verifiable data became known to more people. Consequent to that realisation there is strong general pressure for future information to be clearly stated; for methods to reach conclusions (e.g. assessments) to be explicit, numerate, expressed in suitable language and understandable to all without difficulty.

In these newish circumstances the approach of QSA, QTU and education faculties, who fancy themselves as progressive, avant-garde, looks and is passé: totally irrelevant to today. But they are a monstrously powerful and dangerous impediment to progress.

Unless the QSA has a “road to Damascus” experience, any implementation, oversight and assessment must not be entrusted to them. They and QSCC caused the problem and cannot possibly be part of the solution.

Only Parliament can stop QSA ruining the National Curriculum. The Premier, the leader of the Opposition, the Minister, the shadow Minister and all members of Parliament need to co-operate now.

Parliament could set up a new organisation for the purpose of implementation, oversight/assessment, but that would be expensive unless QSA were concurrently justly dismissed for gross incompetence.

Perhaps a Regulation could be inserted into the relevant Act to (a) set up a Moderation Committee answerable to Parliament alone; (b) change the name of QSA to include the word “Assessment” (as in some other States); (c) state that all syllabi/assessments now and in the future must meet the triple criteria: defined, reliable, validated; and (d) emphasise that those syllabi and assessments must be clear, readable and understandable to students, parents and to Parliament.

This is all far above the hurly burly of partisan politics. Parliament is our students’ last hope: it should act.

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About the Author

John Ridd taught and lectured in maths and physics in UK, Nigeria and Queensland. He co-authored a series of maths textbooks and after retirement worked for and was awarded a PhD, the topic being 'participation in rigorous maths and science.'

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