Member for Burnett, Stephen Bennett MP and member of the Parliamentary Education Committee that reviewed school assessment methods says he has heard much damning evidence about the methodologies that the QSA forces on to schools.
The review has exposed serious problems, following a seven-month inquiry into school assessment methods.
Legislation introduced to Parliament this week could become one of the Government’s most far-reaching legacies.
The new laws would see the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) replaced by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) in mid-2014.
“The QSA for example banned teachers from adding marks to give the final grade instead insisting upon using a “holistic judgment” of a mix of letter grades.
“It has turned physics, chemistry and to some extent mathematics into de facto English subjects by over-using long writing tasks instead of the traditional emphasis on calculations and problem solving. They have fundamentally altered the nature of these subjects.
The result is that it’s perfectly normal for a Year 5 student to get a maths question completely correct and only be awarded a C grade for the question.
Report cards don’t give percentages and usually convey little useful information to parents.
I wonder if any parent understands how their children are being assessed. This has been a colossal con-job by the QSA because the national curriculum never prescribed its methodologies and no other state uses them.”
This has finally been recognised. A government briefing document for the new QCAA legislation says schools will be at liberty to use whichever method they choose to assess the national curriculum.
Many students, parents, academics and teachers will be relieved to see the demise of the QSA because it has been unaccountable to Parliament, parents and students for far too long.
As the tide has turned in Queensland education, in 2014 many schools will probably return to the conventional assessment methods (adding marks and reporting percentages) and reduce the importance of extended experimental investigations.
Teachers and schools no longer live in fear of QSA’s controlling grip, and for that we must be thankful.