National and International Monitoring of Student Literacy and Numeracy Attainment: The Case for Rigorous Macro and Micro Analysis

Abstract

In her 2024 paper Are Australian students' academic skills declining? Interrogating 25 years of national and international standardised assessment data, Larsen compiled an impressive summary of major international (PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS) and national (NAPLAN) standardised assessments pertaining to literacy and numeracy. On the basis of her analysis of overall means, Larsen makes the case that there has not been a systematic decline in the last 25 years but overlooks the lack of improvement in overall student data over the last decade and does not acknowledge or address the persistence of low performance of 10%–25% of students. Larsen also neglects to reconcile the data patterns she describes against increased education expenditure and does not consider evidence on persisting gaps between equity cohorts (such as students from rural and regional areas and those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds). In this commentary, we focus on literacy data in our critique of Larsen's analysis, in particular her conclusion that concerns about student performance are largely alarmist claims by media, think-tank commentators and/or education ministers. We argue that these omissions represent significant gaps in Larsen's analysis and have important implications for policy analysts, education sectors, schools, and education academics.