ABC 24 April 2023 by Pasi Sahlberg
… Another thing that distinguishes Australia from most other countries is our persistence of annual standardised literacy and numeracy tests in primary schools.
Every parent has heard about NAPLAN tests — those tests that measure student achievement in numeracy and literacy during primary and junior high school. While these tests tell something about how education systems are performing in these basic subjects, they fail to provide information about learning in other important aspects.
Many primary school teachers think we don’t need such standardised tests to know how children are learning in school. Instead, we should trust teachers’ judgment in assessing how students learn and whether they make progress at school.
In recent years, external national tests have been gradually lessened or removed from primary schools in many places to facilitate assessments for learning led by teachers — even in the US and East Asian countries that are known for their testing cultures…
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