Australia Association for Research in Education
evidence-based policy
What we must do now to rescue Australian schools
We expect education to be a catalyst for more equitable and inclusive societies yet too often governments and systems deploy one-stop solutions without detailed plans for how exactly improvements will be achieved or at what costs. The Building Education Systems for Equity and Inclusion report comes from an Academy of Social Sciences of Australia workshop …
Why is there so much talk about teachers right now? Because we are afraid of them
The federal minister for education Jason Clare convened a roundtable to solve the teacher shortage on the eve of the new government’s Job Summit. Items on the agenda? It wasn’t hard to go past working conditions, status, and a growing, chronic teacher shortage as the impetus for history-making industrial action and considerable media coverage. Concerns about …
One provocative question: what on earth does evidence-based really mean?
This post was written before Alan Tudge took leave from his position as the Minister for Education. But he’s not the only one to bang on about ‘evidence’ without really being clear what he means. There can be little argument in wanting university Schools of Education to impart to their students, knowledge premised on systematically-acquired …
The White Paper: old, tired and lacking evidence
In the months before the pandemic gripped the world, the NSW Productivity Commission released a presciently titled discussion paper, Kickstarting the Productivity Conversation. Its recently released followup White Paper sets out its plan for rebooting the economy. Lifting school results is part of the plan. The Commission acknowledges the ‘pandemic has shown how quickly schools, …
The evidence says teachers need more time and more money. Why is the government ignoring it?
Governments must stop telling teachers to scale up practice by copying strategies developed for another school’s context. The latest change in NSW education policy again confuses teacher learning from their own evidence-based practice with guidance from practice developed elsewhere. Scaling up won’t work for improved learning outcomes. Here’s why. The context of our schools is …
The government knows how to help teachers. And it’s not more reform.
A decade after LSLD was implemented, it became evident there were no improved educational outcomes across the State’s schools. …
QandA:‘what works’ in ed with Bob Lingard, Jessica Gerrard, Adrian Piccoli, Rob Randall,Glenn Savage (chair)
See the full video here Evidence, expertise and influence are increasingly contested in the making of Australian schooling policy. More than ever, policy makers, researchers and practitioners are being asked to defend the evidence they use, justify why the voices of some experts are given preference over others, and be critically aware of the networks …
Here’s what is going wrong with ‘evidence-based’ policies and practices in schools in Australia
An academic‘s job is, quite often, to name what others might not see. Scholars of school reform in …