identify and critically evaluate the principles and strategies with reference to the broader context for reporting student achievement

Assignment Instructions

Please analyse an article about NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) results.
Through your analysis, you’re required to:
• identify and critically evaluate the principles and strategies with reference to the broader context for reporting student achievement
• explain the purposeful uses of these reporting practices and their limitations
• examine the assessment practices related to these.
Please note that your task is not to simply analyse NAPLAN, or to summarise the article. You are to analyse the article written about NAPLAN. Consider the assumptions made about student learning, teaching, assessment, reporting and NAPLAN within the article.
Academic references are required to support your discussion. This includes use of the course materials, text, readings and outside sources.

The article:

2016 NAPLAN results not good enough, says federal education minister Simon Birmingham
Rachel Browne and Henrietta Cook
Published: August 3, 2016 – 8:50AM
The performance of Australian students in literacy and numeracy has flatlined for the past three years despite a significant boost in education funding over the same period.
Preliminary data from this year’s NAPLAN tests reveal negligible improvement, with federal education minister Simon Birmingham calling for a fresh approach to teaching young people.
‘We need to focus on evidence-based measures that will get results for our students because today’s results once again show that, despite significant funding growth, we are not getting sufficient improvements in student outcomes,’ he said.
The 2016 results show reading scores have increased by 0.4 per cent since 2013, writing scores have declined by 0.2 per cent and numeracy scores have risen by 1.26 per cent. Over the same time period, federal school funding has increased by 23.7 per cent.
Victorian students achieved the best writing results in the country across all year levels. They also performed strongly in numeracy, topping the country in years 3, 5 and 7 and finishing second in year 9. But their achievements were not statistically different from 2015.
Long-term data shows students have made overall gains since NAPLAN testing was introduced in 2008, but the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive Robert Randall said the recent stagnation in results was a concern.
‘Plateauing results are not what we should expect or assume from our education systems,’ he said.
‘Literacy and numeracy are the foundations of learning in and beyond school. Literacy and numeracy achievement needs to improve to ensure the wellbeing of individual students and the country as a whole.’
‘It takes three to five years for change in practice to clearly show up in a change in learning,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it can take up to seven years to turn a school around.’
Victorian education minister James Merlino said that while Victoria continued to be one of the highest-performing states in Australia, there was room to improve.
The state government has set an ambitious target to ensure that 25 per cent more Year 5 students reach the highest levels of achievement in reading and maths in the next five years. It wants to see similar progress among Year 9 students over the next decade. ‘These are ambitious targets but we are confident of meeting them, which is why we’ve made the largest ever investment in needs based funding of $566 million for Victorian government schools and are introducing programs to help our disadvantaged kids succeed in their education,’ he said.

Criteria to meet:
A high level of engagement with learning materials, including the set text, is demonstrated through the depth of knowledge of assessment and reporting principles and strategies. The analysis is detailed and draws on a wide variety of relevant and scholarly literature to communicate the broader contexts in which these principles and strategies reside.

High-level ability to critically evaluate the use of reporting strategies/
principles. Understanding of how this reflects current/best practice is clearly articulated, and supported with quality evidence.

The essay is logically structured, with formal academic language, mostly adhering to grammatical conventions. Care and attention to the planning, editing, and proofreading of the essay is evident.