A researcher has called on the ACT government to investigate systemic underperformance in student NAPLAN results, saying the controversial national test remains the best tool to measure any intervention into the problem.
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Speaking before an ACT inquiry into standardised testing this month, policy analyst and law professor Andrew Macintosh at the Australian National University said the ACT education directorate had known about Canberra's comparatively poor academic performance for more than two years but failed to act.
His analysis, published last month with co-author Debra Wilkinson, found Canberra students were up to 16 months behind their peers from similar socioeconomic groups in some categories, with the worse results emerging in high school.
Between 50 and 75 per cent of secondary students were at least six months behind those from similar backgrounds in writing and numeracy.
In reading, however, ACT students consistently performed better than in other categories, suggesting to Dr Macintosh the problem was not a skewing of the data due to Canberra's transient nature or unique socioeconomic spread as had been suggested previously by the directorate.
"If the problem was simply with [the socioeconomic breakdown] you'd expect there to be a consistent pattern," he said.
With no data available on the teaching methods being used in ACT schools, Dr Macintosh called on the government to investigate the results and run trials for possible interventions, such as the direct instruction method which he said consistently improved results when used around the world.
"We don't know what's going on in our schools," he said.
While academic underperformance was not as acute in the non-government sector, Dr Macintosh said the problem was still there.
NAPLAN remained a ready-made and cost-effective platform to test the effectiveness of any interventions rolled out, he said.
"In [other sectors] we beg for data systems like this [so] when I see something as powerful as this being threatened by people who say they want to get rid of it, it greatly aggrieves me.
"[NAPLAN] allows externals...to evaluate school performance and hold people accountable...[schools are] a government service at the end of the day."
While he did not support league tables that were not fairly weighted for socio-economic status, Dr Macintosh said abandoning NAPLAN and the publishing of its data could also derail any attempts to lift academic performance.
Dr Macintosh said the ANU team had spent two years discussing an earlier 2015 report, which also revealed underperformance in the ACT, with the education directorate, but, three years on, nothing had been done about the problem.
Based on early data from this year's NAPLAN, he said the results had not changed for the better.
ACT education minister Yvette Berry did not respond directly to the ANU's work when approached for comment, but said the directorate was implementing recommendations from the Auditor-General's report last year, which also found ACT students were falling behind relative to their socioeconomic status.
"Much of the work that has been done in the past two years, including [the] Future of Education [strategy], responds to the findings of these reports," she said.
"[We] continue to explore and commission work to help our ongoing efforts to continue to improve our school’s performance."
Writing and numeracy had already been identified as key areas for improvement by the directorate, according to the auditor-general's report.
"Performance has improved in some other Australian jurisdictions and the ACT is no longer as far in front as in previous years," Ms Berry said of NAPLAN results.
"However, ACT students continue to perform well."
President of the ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations Kirsty McGovern-Hooley told the inquiry many parents supported a review of NAPLAN, but standardised testing still had a place in schools.
She also pointed to an apparent "systemic problem" of inconsistency between schools, compounded now that Canberra's population boom had restricted most families to their local public school.
"In the past...you've been able to pick and choose schools...but that's not necessarily possible anymore and that's really starting to impact now."
Resources for specialist teachers, such as those skilled in language or art, were particular points of difference, she said.
"Only around a quarter of ACT schools have a teacher librarian employed at this point in time."
The inquiry continues.
