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A national curriculum requires national teaching standards In this opinion article, originally published in the The Advertiser, Dr Lawrence Ingvarson, ACER Principal Research Fellow, argues that the real educational challenge in implementing Australia’s national curriculum is capacity building in every teacher and setting strong and clear standards to articulate what teachers need to know and be able to do to bring the curriculum vision to life. The content of the national curriculum statements about English, history, mathematics and science released this month, while not particularly new, is inspiring. They also illustrate the complexity of what we expect our teachers to know and be able to do. There has never been a problem writing inspiring reasons for teaching these subjects. Such statements abound, nationally and internationally. Yet research shows that curriculum statements, in themselves, rarely lead teachers to make significant changes in the quality of their teaching. The real educational challenge in implementing Australia’s National Curriculum is capacity building in every teacher and setting strong and clear standards to articulate what teachers need to know and be able to do to bring the curriculum vision to life. Implementation of the national curriculum will be more successful if complementary roles are developed between the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and the new body responsible for teaching and teacher education standards, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). The success of each will depend in large part on the success of the other. It may surprise some that current subject matter standards for beginning primary teachers are generic and go no deeper than saying they “should know the content they will be expected to teach”. What teachers should know after four years of training about, for example, how students learn to read or write, or what they should know about mathematics, science or history is not spelled out further in the current standards for beginning primary teachers and as a guide to teacher educators. Consequently, there is great diversity across universities in the opportunities student teachers have to learn about the literacy, mathematics, science and history they will be expected to teach. We should be long past tolerating this situation. We need better methods for assessing whether graduates meet these performance standards. This should be a central task for AITSL. A good start would be to develop assessments based on testing the ability of graduates to teach the subject-matter knowledge in the national curriculum. And these methods should provide the main basis for establishing a rigorous, consistent national system for accrediting, or disaccrediting, teacher education programs, like the Australian Medical Council. Successful implementation of the national curriculum will also depend on developing a more effective professional learning system for practicing teachers. This will require standards that make clear what teachers should get better at with experience and a pay schedule that provides more powerful incentives to reach high standards. These standards must not be vague and generic. It makes little sense to have distinct curricula for English, history, mathematics and science but common generic standards for those who teach these subjects. The new AITSL is responsible for developing a national system for providing a portable certification to teachers who reach high performance standards. AITSL should operate the certification system nationally to ensure the assessments of teacher performance are conducted in a consistent, fair and rigorous manner. It should not be left to each employing authority or state jurisdiction to develop its own methods for conducting the assessments. We tried this with the Advanced Skills idea nearly 20 years ago and it failed dismally. Most professions have a single national body for providing advanced certification. Why should teaching be different? Certification should be provided in the range of specialist fields that make up the teaching profession, such as Early Childhood/ Junior Primary teaching, Upper Primary and secondary subject specialisms such as English, history, mathematics and science, not just one. If salary incentives for achieving certification are strong, teachers will look for the kind of professional learning that helps them meet the performance standards. This is the best way to build capacity to implement the vision contained in each part of the national curriculum. National certification should also be made a necessary condition for promotion to school leadership positions. This would strengthen incentives for professional learning and leadership capacity in schools surrounding the National Curriculum. Successful implementation of the national curriculum will depend not only on capacity but a sense of ownership among teachers for its vision. AITSL has an excellent opportunity to do this by building a national certification system based on the professional standards for highly accomplished teachers that have been developed already by the English, history, mathematics and science teacher associations. An edited version of this article was published in the opinion pages of Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper. (‘Teachers need to lift game,’ by Lawrence Ingvarson, The Advertiser, 9 March 2010, page 67). « Back to eNews
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In this opinion article, originally published in the The Advertiser, Dr Lawrence Ingvarson, ACER Principal Research Fellow, argues that the real educational challenge in implementing Australia’s national curriculum is capacity building in every teacher and setting strong and clear standards to articulate what teachers need to know and be able to do to bring the curriculum vision to life.

The content of the national curriculum statements about English, history, mathematics and science released this month, while not particularly new, is inspiring. They also illustrate the complexity of what we expect our teachers to know and be able to do.

There has never been a problem writing inspiring reasons for teaching these subjects. Such statements abound, nationally and internationally. Yet research shows that curriculum statements, in themselves, rarely lead teachers to make significant changes in the quality of their teaching.

The real educational challenge in implementing Australia’s National Curriculum is capacity building in every teacher and setting strong and clear standards to articulate what teachers need to know and be able to do to bring the curriculum vision to life. Implementation of the national curriculum will be more successful if complementary roles are developed between the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and the new body responsible for teaching and teacher education standards, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). The success of each will depend in large part on the success of the other. It may surprise some that current subject matter standards for beginning primary teachers are generic and go no deeper than saying they “should know the content they will be expected to teach”.

What teachers should know after four years of training about, for example, how students learn to read or write, or what they should know about mathematics, science or history is not spelled out further in the current standards for beginning primary teachers and as a guide to teacher educators.

Consequently, there is great diversity across universities in the opportunities student teachers have to learn about the literacy, mathematics, science and history they will be expected to teach. We should be long past tolerating this situation.

We need better methods for assessing whether graduates meet these performance standards. This should be a central task for AITSL. A good start would be to develop assessments based on testing the ability of graduates to teach the subject-matter knowledge in the national curriculum. And these methods should provide the main basis for establishing a rigorous, consistent national system for accrediting, or disaccrediting, teacher education programs, like the Australian Medical Council.

Successful implementation of the national curriculum will also depend on developing a more effective professional learning system for practicing teachers. This will require standards that make clear what teachers should get better at with experience and a pay schedule that provides more powerful incentives to reach high standards.

These standards must not be vague and generic. It makes little sense to have distinct curricula for English, history, mathematics and science but common generic standards for those who teach these subjects. The new AITSL is responsible for developing a national system for providing a portable certification to teachers who reach high performance standards. AITSL should operate the certification system nationally to ensure the assessments of teacher performance are conducted in a consistent, fair and rigorous manner. It should not be left to each employing authority or state jurisdiction to develop its own methods for conducting the assessments. We tried this with the Advanced Skills idea nearly 20 years ago and it failed dismally. Most professions have a single national body for providing advanced certification. Why should teaching be different?

Certification should be provided in the range of specialist fields that make up the teaching profession, such as Early Childhood/ Junior Primary teaching, Upper Primary and secondary subject specialisms such as English, history, mathematics and science, not just one. If salary incentives for achieving certification are strong, teachers will look for the kind of professional learning that helps them meet the performance standards. This is the best way to build capacity to implement the vision contained in each part of the national curriculum.

National certification should also be made a necessary condition for promotion to school leadership positions. This would strengthen incentives for professional learning and leadership capacity in schools surrounding the National Curriculum.

Successful implementation of the national curriculum will depend not only on capacity but a sense of ownership among teachers for its vision. AITSL has an excellent opportunity to do this by building a national certification system based on the professional standards for highly accomplished teachers that have been developed already by the English, history, mathematics and science teacher associations.

An edited version of this article was published in the opinion pages of Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper. (‘Teachers need to lift game,’ by Lawrence Ingvarson, The Advertiser, 9 March 2010, page 67).

A national curriculum requires national teaching standards

An edited version of this article was published in the opinion pages of Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper. (‘Teachers need to lift game,’ by Lawrence Ingvarson, The Advertiser, 9 March 2010, page 67).