Oh how the turntables: QLD’s massive NAPLAN improvement overshadows poor national student progress

<h2>While Victoria&&num;8217&semi;s advantaged students and NSW&&num;8217&semi;s disadvantaged students lack progression&comma; ACT was the worst performer in the Grattan Institute&&num;8217&semi;s latest  measure of student progress&period; <&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>A new national report card on NAPLAN school results reveals big differences between the states on the rate of progress students make over the course of their schooling&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Grattan Institute report&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;grattan&period;edu&period;au&sol;report&sol;measuring-student-progress&sol;"><em>Measuring student progress<&sol;em><&sol;a>&comma; shows Queensland is the star performer in primary school&period; Queensland primary students make two months more progress in reading than the national average between Year 3 and Year 5&comma; and about one month more progress in numeracy over the same two years&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3 style&equals;"text-align&colon; right&semi;">NSW stretches advantaged secondary students&comma; <br &sol;>&NewLine;but is not so good at supporting <br &sol;>&NewLine;disadvantaged secondary students&period;<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>Victoria is the reverse&colon; students in disadvantaged Victorian schools make four months more progress than the national average from Year 7 to Year 9&comma; but the state does not do as well in stretching advantaged students&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Contrary to popular perception&comma; Tasmanian and Northern Territory schools are not under-performers&period; The report shows that their students progress broadly in line with students in schools of similar socio-economic advantage in other states&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>South Australia’s primary students make <br &sol;>&NewLine;slightly less progress than the national average <&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p>Western Australia’s make progress roughly on par with the national average&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The ACT is the worst performer on the Grattan Institute’s measure of student progress&comma; which takes account of the fact that some states and territories have more advantaged students than others&period; On this like-for-like basis&comma; students in the ACT make two to three months less progress than the national average in both primary school &lpar;between Year 3 and Year 5&rpar; and secondary school &lpar;between Year 7 and Year 9&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The report challenges the idea that students in Australia’s high-achieving schools are &OpenCurlyQuote;cruising’&period; In fact&comma; students in low-achieving schools make only half the progress in numeracy from Year 7 to Year 9 as students in high-achieving schools&comma; and 30 per cent less progress in reading&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This finding should ring alarm bells in cabinet rooms and education departments across Australia&comma;” Grattan Institute School Education Program Director Peter Goss says&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;If governments are serious about delivering on the Gonski vision of &OpenCurlyQuote;at least one year’s growth in learning for every student every year’&comma; then disadvantaged schools must be a big priority&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The report finds that whether a student attends a government&comma; Catholic or independent school has little impact on how fast they progress in NAPLAN&period; Low rates of progress in regional and rural schools are mainly explained by their high levels of disadvantaged students&period; And whether a student goes to a big or small school has little relationship to how well they will learn&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The Grattan report card provides new insight on what’s happening in schools and contains important lessons for education policy makers&comma;” Dr Goss says&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Governments should investigate why students make more progress in some states than others&comma; with the goal of identifying the teacher practices and school policies that produce the best results for our children&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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Rosie Clarke

Rosie is the managing editor here at Multimedia Pty Ltd, working across School News New Zealand and School News Australia. She has spent 10+ years in B2B journalism, and has spent some time over the last couple of years teaching as a sessional academic. Feel free to contact her at any time with editorial or magazine content enquiries.

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