The global neoliberal context and the emergence of new forms of 'governance by numbers' is now recognized as a ubiquitous educational phenomenon. In this context, large-scale assessments such as are used to justify marketised ideals of education that rely on comparison by numbers. In Australia, one of the key arguments for large scale standardised…

There has been a major and growing international focus on improving the quality of teaching for decades. In Australia, there have been numerous key national initiatives introduced since 2007 with the aim of improving school, teacher and student performance. These include national testing and reporting of student achievement, national professional…