Submissions

To the Australian Curriculum

• ...

To the Review of Funding for Schooling

• Designing a Funding Model Paper (March 2010)

• Terms of Reference Consultation Paper (May 2010)

• Four Considerations Paper (July 2010)

• Emerging Issues Paper (December 2010)

• Commissioned Research Paper (September 2011)

To the Productivity Commission

• Submission to Productivity Commission Education and Training Workforce: Schools (August 2011)

Conclusion (in part):

"The instruments used by governments to improve schooling have been drawn from economics: the key instruments are reliant on NAPLAN assessments. When challenged it is common for ministers and officials to state that they are aware that literacy and numeracy assessment results constitute only one, limited indicator of the performance of a student, school, system, state or country; yet that caveat is quickly brushed aside because of the need to include some measure of schooling in a quantitative model of the process of schooling. One of the reasons why policy makers are surprised by the resistance of many teachers and principals to reforms based implicitly on economic modeling is because at the ‘chalk face’ the people who governments really count on to make things happen simply don’t accept the assumptions built into such models. APPA therefore urges the Productivity Commission to recognise the plurality of legitimate perspectives with which to examine primary schooling and the challenges they face. With regard to the particular issue of the education workforce, the Commission is urged to take on board the maxim that, contrary to much of the public commentary these days, teachers should be seen as part of the solution, not the problem."