Assessment in Education, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2003
Assessing Multiliteracies and the New Basics MARY K ALANTZIS ALANTZIS Faculty of Education, Language and Community Services, RMIT, PO Box 71, Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia
BILL COPE Centre for Workplace Communication and Culture, 73 The Esplanade, Altona, VIC 3018, Australia
ANDREW HARVEY Australian Council of Deans of Education, c/o RMIT, PO Box 71, Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia
This This paper paper addre address sses es the the skil skills ls and and charac characte teri rist stic icss requi required red of succe success ssfu ful l learners, workers and citizens in the knowledge economy. The authors trace the shifting commerci commercial, al, technol technologi ogical cal and cultura culturall conditi conditions ons charact characteris eristic tic of this this economy economy,, and highl highlig ight ht the the key key qual qualit itie iess now requi required red for for indi indivi vidu dual al succe success ss.. Effe Effect ctiv ivee learn learners ers will will incre increas asin ingl gly y need need to be auto autonom nomou ouss and and self self-d -dir irect ected, ed, flexib flexible le,, colla collabor borat ativ ive, e, of open open sens sensib ibil ilit ity, y, broadl broadly y know knowle ledge dgeabl able, e, and and able able to work work produ product ctiv ivel ely y with with lingu linguis isti ticc and and cultural diversity. While still prevalent, it is held that standardised testing and a ‘back to basics’ approach to curriculum are unable to promote and measure effectively these skills and and sens sensib ibil ilit itie ies. s. Inst Instea ead, d, a broad broader er and and more more creat creativ ivee appro approach ach to curri curricu culu lum m and and assessment is recommended. A ‘new basics’ is argued for at the level of curriculum, with correlative assessment techniques such as analysis of portfolios, performance, projects and group work. ABSTRACT
Introduction
At a time when they are perhaps least desirable, standardised basics skills testing regimes are increasing [1]. The quest for accountability and commensurability has focuse focused d global global att attent ention ion on produc producing ing educati education on outcom outcomes es which which are simple simple to inte interp rpre ret, t, tang tangib ible le and and tran transp spar arent ent,, and and easil easily y compar comparab able le.. This This is done done in the the interests of individual learners, who are seen to benefit from a culture of competition, and from the accretion of knowledge committed to their individual memories. It is also done in the name of those whose delivery and rationalisation of education resources is aided by figures that are comparable and easily interpreted. Finally, the
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demand extensive information about the progress of their children. According to the prevailing wisdom, regular, universal, standardised testing provides accountability to the system, easily digestible information to parents, and regularly updated knowledge of the progress and relative competencies of individual students (Bush, 2001; Honeywood, 2002). The effects of this outlook extend beyond assessment techniques to the curriculum taught. Indeed, the increase in standardised testing reflects, and further promotes, curriculum models which are focused around the so-called basics of numeracy and literacy. Dominant extant assessment regimes are reinforcing these old basics, but the very concepts of numeracy and literacy, and the skills required by students, are themselves changing dramatically in the new economy (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 2001; Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; Luke, 2000). Assessment techniques therefore need to be altered, in many cases quite radically, to promote new learning and to measure more accurately the skills required for success in the twenty-first century. Outlining these required skills is important, and can only be done by situating education in the context of the new economy. The following section addresses this context, arguing that a ‘new basics’ is emerging, demanding skills and competencies that cannot be measured by testing regimes focused on the old basics of literacy and numeracy. Particular attention is given here to the possible reconceptualisation of ‘literacy’ and its ramifications for assessment techniques. A complex, diverse society, in which knowledge has become the engine of national development and selffulfilment, requires a much more multifaceted approach to tracking and reporting the educational achievements of individuals and educational institutions. Finally, alternatives to current assessment procedures are canvassed, and it is argued that a diverse range of techniques is necessary to measure the broad skills and attributes required in the new economy. Moreover, instead of an individualised learning outputs approach to educational performance measurement, this paper advocates a systemic process of benchmarking learning inputs—measuring teaching skills, school resources, community resources. It is the authors’ contention that this is the most reliable and more usefully predictive measure of educational performance. Knowledge and Learners in the New Economy
Framers of both curriculum and assessment must be cognisant of the important changes in contemporary economic, cultural and civic circumstances. The Australian Council of Deans of Education (2001) has argued that knowledge today is distinguished by three characteristics: it is highly situated; rapidly changing; and more diverse than ever before. To claim that knowledge is highly situated is to highlight its increasingly particularist nature: knowledge today is very specifically linked into an area of specialist knowledge, or a particular technology, or a particular subcultural interest, or a particular community group (Gee, 2000). This sheer range of alternatives and life-wide settings severely limits the effectiveness of any curricu-
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techniques which seek only to measure knowledge within this narrow context (Lo Bianco, 2000). Similarly, knowledge is rapidly changing, and changing at such a rapid rate that any facts or truths learnt in schools today are likely to be redundant or contested tomorrow, no matter how immediately relevant they may seem (Gee et al ., 1996). In this context, the key questions are what kinds of learning will be durable, and how can we measure these? Finally, contemporary knowledge is diverse, increasingly determined by the peculiarities of a particular social and cultural context (Nakata, 2000). As we shall see, this finding has implications especially evident in areas such as literacy. Several conclusions can be drawn from this understanding of knowledge in the new economy. In particular, we can identify key attributes of successful learners, and from this imagine a model of effective curriculum and assessment. Excellent learners will be autonomous and self-directed—designers of their own learning experiences, in collaboration with others as well as by themselves (Gee, 2000). They will need to be flexible, possessing problem-solving skills, multiple strategies for tackling a task, and a flexible solutions-orientation to knowledge (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). Importantly, good learners will also be collaborative, recognising that knowledge is increasingly created collaboratively, whether in work teams, in scientific research laboratories or through community development. They will themselves be good teachers and communicators, and of open sensibility, able to work productively with linguistic and cultural diversity (Australian Council of Deans of Education 2001; Gee, 2000). Effective learners will be intelligent in more than one way, that is, their intelligence may in turn be communicative, numerate, technical or process-oriented, or it may be emotional, analytical, creative or critical (Gonczi, 2002). Finally, good learners will be broadly knowledgeable, and in particular able to engage with the different interpretative frameworks and contexts of specific information.
Learners and Multiliteracies
These broad findings can perhaps be better analysed within the specific context of ‘literacy’. In terms of curriculum, it is clear that the old basics of literacy and numeracy need quite radical redefinition, and the authors have argued that it may in fact be more appropriate to speak of new content as ‘Multiliteracies’, a term originally coined by the New London Group (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). Within this paper, ‘Multiliteracies’ is considered as microcosmic of the broader notion of a new basics, in which both the traditional content of, and the traditional orientations to, knowledge have been substantially revised. There are features of our changing communications environment which suggest that Multiliteracies may gain increasing currency in institutionalised learning environments (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). One major development is the growing significance of cultural and linguistic diversity and the emergence of multiple Englishes—not only the different national variants of English,
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etc); sub-culturally and ethnically defined accents, registers and dialects; and interlanguages (Lo Bianco, 2000). Immigration, multiculturalism and global economic integration and communications technologies make these matters of increasing practical importance. Paradoxically, the globalisation of communications and labour markets make differences in communication patterns and forms a more critical local issue. Not only do local diversities/global proximities mean that communication is increasingly a matter of negotiating discourse differences. The new technologies of the ‘virtual’ also allow the creation of ever-more dispersed and differentiated discourse communities (ethnic-diasporic, professional, of interest/affect), as well as requiring the constant crossing of borders, be that in neighbourhood living, or niche marketing, or processes of citizen-participation, to note some major areas requiring new communicative competence in an era of cultural pluralism. In this environment, the question of the ‘basics’ of learning needs to be re-examined (Kalantzis & Cope, 1999). ‘Literacy’ itself needs to be conceived of more broadly than the coding of oral to written language, to include what we have termed ‘Multiliteracies’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996). Multiliteracies and Communications Technologies
Within the literacy paradigm, then, the qualities that will be required by effective learners in future are clearly evident. The diversification of the communications environment demands that effective learners will be flexible, autonomous, and able to work with cultural and linguistic diversity. Moreover, the need for collaboration, and for problem-solving skills, is further evidenced by a second major change to the way we must conceive of literacy. This is the nature of new communications technologies. Meaning is made in ways that are increasingly multimodal—in which writtenlinguistic modes of meaning interface with visual, aural, gestural and spatial patterns of meaning (Gilster, 1997; Mitchell, 1995). Moreover, our recent ‘Creator to Consumer’ research (Cope & Freeman, 2001; Cope & Mason, 2001) indicates that the most recent digital technologies for the creation and dissemination of text require explicit metalanguages along the general lines of the multimodal functional grammar which has developed as a component of the Multiliteracies research, including a capacity to deal with cultural and linguistic differences within and between languages (Cope & Gollings, 2001). Within the Multiliteracies paradigm, analysing the structure and social uses of the emerging digital technologies is critical. Most importantly, the new technologies, and more broadly the changing social worlds of work and citizenship, require a new educational response. The imagery of the old technology and the old world of work is clear and familiar—the factories with smokestacks piercing the horizon which we used to see as signs of progress. Behind the factory walls was the heavy plant which added up to the fixed assets of industrial capitalism. Geared for long-run mass production of manufactured things, human beings became mere appendages to the machine. Indeed, the logic of the production
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smaller functions—screwing this particular bolt onto the manufactured object as it went past on the conveyor belt. This was the human degradation of the modern factory. It was also its genius, to arrange technology in such as way as to be able to manufacture items of unprecedented technological sophistication (such as Marconi’s radio set, or Henry Ford’s motor car), using an unskilled workforce (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997). The Basics of Old Learning
Old education systems fitted very neatly into this old world of work. The state determined the syllabus, the textbooks followed the syllabus, the teachers followed the textbooks, and the students followed the textbooks, hopefully, in order to pass the tests. Henry Ford know what was best for his customers—‘any colour you like, so long as it’s black’—and the state knew what was best for children. And, in a way, teachers became a bit like production line workers, slaves to the syllabus, the textbooks and the examination system. The curriculum was packed with information in the form of quite definite facts—‘facts’ about history, facts about science and language facts in the form of ‘proper grammar’ and correct spelling. Together, this was supposed to add up to useful-knowledge-for-life. Many of these facts have proven to be less durable than the curriculum of that time seemed to have been promising. Nevertheless, there was one important lesson which ‘good’ students took into the old workplace. From all the sitting up straight and listening to the teacher, from all the rigid classroom discipline, from all the knowledge imparted to them and uncritically ingested, they learnt to accept received authority and to do exactly as they were told (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 2001). The ‘basics’ of old learning were encapsulated in the ‘three Rs’—reading, writing and arithmetic. The process was learning by rote and knowing the ‘correct answers’. ‘Discipline’ was demonstrated in tests as the successful acquisition of received facts and the regurgitation of rigidly defined truths. This kind of education certainly produced people who had learnt things, but things which were too often narrow, decontextualised, abstract and fragmented into subject areas artificially created by the education system. More than anything, it produced compliant learners, people who would accept what was presented to them as correct, and who passively learnt off by heart knowledge which could not easily be applied in different and new contexts. They may have been superficially knowledgeable (Latin declensions, or the grammar of adverbial clauses, or the rivers of national geography, or the dates of European history), but they did not have knowledge of sufficient depth for a life of change and diversity. It was a knowledge that was appropriate for a time that imagined itself as ordered and controllable (Cope & Kalantzis, 1993). Technologies and Diversity in the New Economy
If the predominant image of the old economy was the factory and the smokestack, the image of the so-called ‘new economy’ is the worker sitting in front of a computer
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economy’. Actually, despite the hype, we don’t just live on knowledge, as if the economy has suddenly abandoned making things for trading in information and symbols. We cannot live on symbols alone. But symbols are nevertheless everywhere. They are at the heart of new technologies, and especially the technologies of digital convergence—in the areas of communications, automated manufacturing, e-commerce and the media. Even in the manufacturing sector where people still energetically make things, they now make them using screen-based interfaces, and these are linguistically, visually and symbolically driven. The production line is still there, but now robots are screwing on the bolts. These technologies, moreover, are constantly shifting. The new technologies are software rather than hardware intensive, as well as flexible and open to multiple uses. Software replacements are made far more frequently than was the case for plant replacement in the old economy. This means that technical knowledge has a shorter and shorter shelf-life. Up-skilling needs to occur continuously. Indeed, contrary to the old economy process of de-skilling, you need to be multiskilled, to be more flexible, more able to undertake a range of tasks, and able to shift from one task to another as needs be. The key competitive advantage for an organisation, even the value of that organisation, is no longer grounded in the value of its fixed assets and plant, or at least not in that alone, but in the skills and knowledge of its workforce. Indeed, technology is now very much a relationship between tools and the knowledge of these tools in people’s heads. Wealth increasingly has a human-skills rather than a fixed-capital basis. Meanwhile, diversity is everywhere in the new economy organisation, and working with culture in fact means working with diversity. Instead of Henry Ford’s assertion in which individual customer needs are irrelevant because customers are all the same, organisations now want to be close to customers, to find out what they really want, and to service their needs in a way which works for them. Taking customer service seriously inevitably means discovering that people are different, according to various combinations of age, ethnic background, geographical location, sexual orientation, interest, fashion, fad or fetish. ‘Serving niche markets’, this is called, and systems of ‘mass customisation’ are created at the point where ‘high tech’ meets ‘soft touch’—such as the e-commerce systems or hotel registration procedures which build up the profile of a customer, and their precise needs and interests. Then, there’s the diversity within the organisation. Teams work with high levels of interpersonal contact, and work best, not when the members are forced to share the same values, but when differences—of interest, association, network, knowledge, experience, lifestyle and languages spoken—are respected and used as a source of creativity, or as a link into the myriad of niches in the world in which the organisation has to operate. This world of diversity exists both at the local level of increasingly multicultural societies, and at the global level where distant and different markets, products and organisations become, in a practical sense, closer and closer (Cope & Kalantzis, 1997). We are in the midst of a technology revolution, moreover, which not only changes the way we work but also the way we participate as citizens. From the old world of
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one of the media, television. Instead of the pressures to conformity, pressures to shape your person in the image of the mass media when everybody watched the old ‘national networks’, we now have cable television—fifty channels at first and hundreds more to come. The channels cater, not to the ‘general public’, but to ever-more finely defined communities: the services in different languages, the particular sporting interests, the genres of movie. Add to this video and DVD, and the choice is extended by genre and by language to hundreds of thousands of titles. Soon there will be on-demand TV streamed though the internet. And to take the internet of today, the millions of sites reflect any interest or style you want to name, nurturing a myriad of ever-more finely differentiated communities. Then there’s the phenomenon of ‘pointcasting’, where the user customises the information feed they want—requesting information to be streamed to them only about a particular sporting team, a particular business sector, a particular country of origin. As a part of this process, the viewer becomes a user; transmission is replaced by user-selectivity; and instead of being passive receptors of mass culture we become active creators of information and sensibilities which precisely suit the nuances of who we are and the image in which we want to fashion ourselves. In fact, digital convergence turns the whole media relationship around the other way—the digital image of a baby which can be broadcast to the world through the internet, or the digital movie which you can edit on your computer, burn on a CD or broadcast from your home page. There is simply more scope to be yourself in this technology environment, and to be yourself in a way which is different. The technology convergence comes with cultural divergence, and who knows which is the greater influence in the development of the other? The only thing that is clear is that technology is one of the keys to these new kinds of self-expression and community building. It is part of a process of creating new persons—persons of self-made identity instead of received identity, and diverse identities rather than a singular national identity. In this context, senses of belonging will arise from a common commitment to openness and inclusivity. The New Economy and Education
So what do all these changes in technology, work and community mean for education? The essence of old basics was encapsulated simply in the subject areas of the ‘three Rs’: reading, writing and arithmetic. Actually, the very idea of the basics indicated something about the nature of knowledge: it was a kind of shopping list of things-to-be-known—through drilling the ‘times tables’, memorising spelling lists, learning the parts of speech and correct grammar. This is not to say that multiplication or understanding the processes of written communication are without educational worth. The real problem was with the orientation to knowledge: first, the assumption that this kind of knowledge was a sufficient foundation; second, that knowledge involved clearly right and wrong answers (and if you were in any doubt about this, the test results would set you straight); and third, that knowledge was about being told by authority and that it was best to accept the correctness of
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of knowledge, then it is a lesson which is less appropriate in a world which puts a premium on creativity, problem-solving and the active contribution of every person in a workplace or community setting. The fancier contemporary words for these old ‘basics’ are literacy and numeracy. And of course, mathematics, reading and writing are today as important as ever, perhaps even more important. However, literacy and numeracy can either stand as substitute words for the old basics, or they can mean something new, something appropriate to the new learning. When they are merely substitute words for the old basics, they are mostly no more than statements of nostalgic regret for a world which is disappearing, or else they reflect our incapacity as adults to imagine anything different from, or better than, our own experiences as children at school. ‘Let’s get back to the basics’, people say, and the operative words are ‘get back’.
The New Basics
When we use the term ‘new basics’ we are indicating a very different approach to knowledge. Mathematics is not a set of correct answers but a method of reasoning, a way of figuring out a certain kind of system and structure in the world. Nor is literacy a matter of correct usage (the word and sentence-bound rules of spelling and grammar). Rather, it is a way of communicating. Indeed, the new communications environment is one in which the old rules of literacy need to be supplemented. Although spelling remains important, it is now something for spell-checking programs, and email messages do not have to be grammatical in a formal sense (although they have new and quirky conventions where we have learn-as-we-go—abbreviations, friendly informalities and cryptic ‘in’ expressions). And many texts involve complex relationships between visuals, space and text: the tens of thousands of words in a supermarket; the written text around the screen on the news, sports or business programme on the television; the text of an automated teller machine (ATM); websites built on visual icons and active hypertext links; the subtle relationships of images and text in glossy magazines. Texts are now designed in a highly visual sense, and meaning is carried as much visually as it is by words and sentences. This means that the old basics, which attempt for whatever reason to teach adverbial clauses of time or the cases around the verb ‘to be’, need to be supplemented by learning about the visual design of texts (such as fonts and point sizes—concepts which only typesetters knew in the past). It also means that the old discipline division between language and art is not as relevant as it once was. Nor is literacy any longer only about learning so called ‘proper usage’. Rather, it is also about the myriad of different uses in different contexts: this particular email (personal, to a friend), as against that (applying for a job); this particular kind of desktop publishing presentation (a newsletter for your sports group), as against that (a page of advertising); and different uses of English as a global language (in different English speaking countries, by non-native speakers, by different subcultural groups). The capabilities of literacy involve not only knowledge of grammatical
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text design which may include word processing, desktop publishing and image manipulation. The New Basics and Learning
More than new contents like these, however, the new basics are also about new kinds of learning. Literacy, for instance, is not only about rules and their correct application. It is about being faced with an unfamiliar kind of text and being able to search for clues about its meaning without immediately feeling alienated and excluded from it. It is also about understanding how this text works in order to participate in its meanings (its own particular ‘rules’), and about working out the particular context and purposes of the text (for herein you will find more clues to its meaning to the communicator and to you). Finally, literacy is about actively communicating in an unfamiliar context and learning from your successes and mistakes. Education always creates ‘kinds of persons’. The old basics were about that: people who learnt rules and obeyed them; people who would take answers to the world rather than regard the world as many problems-to-be-solved; and people who carried correct things in their heads rather than flexible and collaborative learners. The new basics are clearly things which set out to shape new ‘kinds of persons’, persons better adapted to the kind of world we live in now and the world of the near future. The pedagogical consequences of diversity, and of the emerging digital technologies, are numerous and substantial. At one level, the capabilities of literacy are about effective communication in diverse settings, and using tools of text design which may include word processing, desktop publishing and image manipulation. More than new contents like these, however, the new basics are also about new kinds of learning. Literacy, for instance, is not about rules and their correct application. It is about being faced with an unfamiliar kind of text and searching for clues about its meaning without immediately feeling alienated and excluded from it; it is about figuring out how this text works in order to participate in its meanings (its own particular ‘rules’); it is about working out the particular context and purposes of the text (for herein you will find more clues to its meaning to the communicator and to you); and it is about actively communicating in an unfamiliar context and learning from your successes and mistakes (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000). The need for flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, problem-solving skills, broad knowledgeability, and diverse intelligence are all underlined by changes to the traditional area of literacy. Yet the trend to Multiliteracies is simply a very visible example of broader trends within the new economy, which suggest the need for new orientations to knowledge. Learning will increasingly be about creating a kind of person, with kinds of dispositions and orientations to the world, and not just persons who are in command of a body of knowledge. These persons will be able to navigate change and diversity, learn-as-they-go, solve problems, collaborate and be flexible and creative. Promoting these qualities, however, requires significant change to both
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The New Learning and Assessment
Traditional assessment techniques are inadequate to measure the kind of skills and sensibilities required in the new economy. Standardised testing is problematic for a number of related reasons. It is, in the first instance, inherently individualised when real-world learning is increasingly collaborative and knowledge is seen to be possessed by groups and organisations, relying on the information and recording systems which constitute corporate memory rather than the memories of particular individuals (Gee, 2000). Standardised testing relies on memory when knowledge is increasingly supported by ever-present props (books to look up, people to ask, help menus and internet links). Perhaps most critically, this kind of testing measures certain limited kinds of intelligence, and to be precise, these are just those kinds of intelligence which thrive on what tests measure. Tests are an excellent measure of a person’s ability to do tests, and not much else. New learning certainly requires assessment, in order to inform students, parents and prospective employers of the knowledge learnt by a person. However, new assessment techniques mean redefining what is meant by terms such as competence, ability, capacity and intelligence. Indeed, they even involve changing the measure, from the replicated sameness of outcome anticipated by standardised testing, to similar or comparable outcomes amongst learners whose life experiences, interests and thinking styles are invariably very different. Standardised testing measures whether its one-size content knowledge has fitted all (which it never can, and in fact measures the similarity of some students to the single set of assumptions about knowledge and thinking). New learning, by contrast, is taking students in the direction of comparable levels of personal autonomy, self determination and access to social resources in the worlds of work, citizenship and personal life. There are a number of assessment techniques which will become increasingly relevant to measuring the attributes of persons who will be most effective in the new economy and most valuable as citizens. Project assessment, based on in-depth tasks that involve task plan, complex collation of material and presentation, would measure broad knowledgeability and a flexible solutions orientation to knowledge. It would also enable some measurement of multiple intelligences, be they communicative, analytical or creative. Performance assessment , based on the planning, doing and completion of a task, would measure a wide range of skills, including organisation and problem-solving. Group assessment , of the collective work of a whole learning group, or of the collaborative capacities of individual group members, would be an important means of measuring the collaborative skills so important in the new economy. Finally, portfolio assessment , through documenting the body of works undertaken, unique life experiences and other learning achievements, would enable open sensibilities to be measured as well as the individual strengths of diverse individuals. Beyond these assessment programmes, it is necessary to conduct further research into useful capacities which the current testing regime fails to test. Moreover, instead of focusing on individualised learning outputs, resources need to be shifted to
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resources, and community resources is an important and oft-neglected one, but the case for greater professional development and more equitable distribution of resources is advantaged by enhanced information in these areas (Commission of the European Communities, 2000). Quality teaching remains acknowledged as perhaps the most important factor in students’ learning (Istance, 2001; Ramsey, 2000), and an over-emphasis on standardised, regular testing remains a costly, and often counter-productive, imposition on our educators.
Conclusion
The inadequacies of dominant current assessment regimes can only be viewed fully in the context of dramatic changes to our economic, cultural and civic circumstances. Whatever the original justification for regular, universal, standardised testing, its ability to measure the skills and sensibilities required in the twenty-first century is limited. This paper has argued that a new basics is emerging, and with it a need for skills and attributes far broader and more diverse than those previously thought necessary to effective learning. Through the prism of Multiliteracies, it has been argued that learners increasingly need to work with change and diversity, and to be both autonomous and collaborative in their approach. Indeed, the broad knowledgeability, flexibility, problem-solving ability, and open sensibility required by successful learners today simply cannot be measured by assessment techniques which focus overly on standardisation, universality and regularity. Instead, a broad range of assessment strategies, focused on the performance of tasks, the planning and completion of projects, group work and the presentation of portfolio work, would better reflect these required skills. The pursuit and implementation of more diverse assessment strategies would reduce the substantial amount of time and money wasted on the anachronistic and myopic practice of standardised, narrowly empirical testing. Perhaps more importantly, the adoption of broader assessment practices would have significant pedagogical implications, and would serve to reflect more accurately, and to promote further, the skills and orientations to knowledge required by successful learners in the new economy. NOTE [1]
In Australia, for example, all state education ministers have recently introduced annual statewide year 7 literacy and numeracy tests, though Victoria provides sample testing only (Honeywood, 2002). In the USA, the position of President Bush is clear: ‘Children must be tested every year in reading and math, every single year’ (Bush, 2001).
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