Yet as our school system crumbles under multiple pressures,and as our workforce abandons teaching in droves,there is absolutely no interrogation of the education system in this country. Nearly every single story is about teacher quality. It’s never about system quality.
Has the NSW government addressed system quality in the latest budget? What’s missing is a serious investment in teachers,who are the cornerstone – the foundation – of our education system. The research is clear – the quality of teaching is the single most importantin-school factor impacting student outcomes.
In-school. That’s the key.New research from the University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre demonstrates the quality of teaching is,on average,the same in advantaged schools as it is in mid-range schools. In fact,the only significant difference in quality occurs in our lowest socioeconomic schools where inadequate resources,disadvantage and real student poverty play a significant role in students’ poorer educational outcomes.
The root cause of underperformance in our school system is the inequity in our communities. Given the challenges faced by teachers in some schools,their efforts may already be heroic. Our research shows we need to foreground that teaching is intellectually challenging and rewarding work to attract teachers to our schools. And we need to honour the complexity of teaching and provide proper recognition and meaningful support to keep teachers going.
The sustained attack on teachers by politicians and journalists really took off in the late 2000s and has risen constantly over the past 15 years.Analysis of more than 65,000 articles published in the twelve national and capital daily newspapers between 1996 and 2020 revealed that the density of coverage about teachers exceeds other professions. The issue of “teacher quality” featured significantly over that time,culminating with former federal education minister Stuart Robert calling our public school teachers“duds”,based on zero evidence.
The problem with this focus on “teacher quality” is that it links poor performance on tests like NAPLAN and PISA to teachers themselves,rather than to the system in which they practise. It has been used to justify tighter controls on who enters teaching,denigrate teachers and evade difficult questions of equity and funding.
It inappropriately attributes poor student performance to their teachers rather than addressing the basic structural issues of system quality and systemic inequality.