Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate to Senator Wright that the reports of this survey also highlighted the methodological flaws that were characteristic of this report. It was an opt-in survey, which means the responses were more likely to come from a particular group of people, which would give a distorted view of the effects of the NAPLAN tests. The fact remains that there is nothing in any of the NAPLAN tests which students need to learn above and beyond what is already part of their normal curricula and, of course, we have repeatedly said that there should not be a process of trying to put pressure on students to perform well in their NAPLAN, as their tests are about trying to demonstrate benchmarks from which we can determine whether or not there have been improvements. What we do know is that the NAPLAN tests have shown us that there is considerable evidence to suggest that the expenditure that has been made in schools has—(Time expired)