Draft AITSL Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the National Education Evidence Base The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership The mission of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) is to improve to quality of teaching and school leadership in Australia to have the maximum impact on student learning. AITSL is a Commonwealth company with an independent, expert Board. Its sole owner is the Australian Government Minister for Education and Training. AITSL’s interest in this inquiry Consistent with its remit, AITSL is primarily interested in using data to improve the quality and impact of teaching and school leadership in Australian schools. At the national level, data on the teaching workforce is most relevant to this aim. However, this data will be more useful if it is linked to other data, particularly on the outcomes of education. At the level of the school and the individual teacher, it is important that teachers have the capacity to use data to understand and improve the impact of their teaching. National data, such as NAPLAN data, can assist here, but in many ways data that is specific to the curriculum being taught at a particular time, and available quickly, is more useful. School and classroom level data Understanding the impact of teaching by assessing student learning is one of the fundamental components of effective teaching, and happens in classrooms across Australia every day. Improving teacher practice in this area was identified as a priority by the Teacher Educaiton Ministerial Advisory Group. There is scope to provide teachers with more reliable, consistent and benchmarked data on student progress. In New Zealand, the e-asTTle system allows teachers to construct and administer assessment tasks that are valid and reliable measures of the content being taught, drawing on a large bank of psychometrically validated items. Once students take the tests, the results are available immediately, and provide guidance on what students are ready to learn next, including links to teaching resources. Importantly, the tool is designed to provide teachers with information to improve their teaching, not to focus on assessing students. The tool provides data that can be aggregated to the school level, and used nationally to analyse trends. This type of tool has a great deal of potential to improve the quality of teaching in Australia. More generally, it is important that any approach to a national education evidence base concentrates on
Draft AITSL Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the National Education Evidence Base The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership The mission of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) is to improve to quality of teaching and school leadership in Australia to have the maximum impact on student learning. AITSL is a Commonwealth company with an independent, expert Board. Its sole owner is the Australian Government Minister for Education and Training. AITSL’s interest in this inquiry Consistent with its remit, AITSL is primarily interested in using data to improve the quality and impact of teaching and school leadership in Australian schools. At the national level, data on the teaching workforce is most relevant to this aim. However, this data will be more useful if it is linked to other data, particularly on the outcomes of education. At the level of the school and the individual teacher, it is important that teachers have the capacity to use data to understand and improve the impact of their teaching. National data, such as NAPLAN data, can assist here, but in many ways data that is specific to the curriculum being taught at a particular time, and available quickly, is more useful. School and classroom level data Understanding the impact of teaching by assessing student learning is one of the fundamental components of effective teaching, and happens in classrooms across Australia every day. Improving teacher practice in this area was identified as a priority by the Teacher Educaiton Ministerial Advisory Group. There is scope to provide teachers with more reliable, consistent and benchmarked data on student progress. In New Zealand, the e-asTTle system allows teachers to construct and administer assessment tasks that are valid and reliable measures of the content being taught, drawing on a large bank of psychometrically validated items. Once students take the tests, the results are available immediately, and provide guidance on what students are ready to learn next, including links to teaching resources. Importantly, the tool is designed to provide teachers with information to improve their teaching, not to focus on assessing students. The tool provides data that can be aggregated to the school level, and used nationally to analyse trends. This type of tool has a great deal of potential to improve the quality of teaching in Australia. More generally, it is important that any approach to a national education evidence base concentrates on
sub005-education-evidence.docx