The quality teaching movement in Australia encounters difficult terrain: A personal perspective

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 standards for teachers, a national curriculum, national accreditation of teacher education courses and a national framework for teacher development and performance. However, there are growing concerns over Australia's performance on international measures of student achievement and growing criticism of teacher education, teachers and schools from various sectors. Educators themselves, however, have largely been silent. Various simplistic solutions to the perceived problem of teacher quality have been promulgated, yet these have not been successful elsewhere. The paper calls for educators to find their voices in this current debate and to argue from a position of evidence to counter the misinformed and misguided views that currently predominate and influence government policy.