Teacher effectiveness research now informs the rationale of much Australian education policy aimed at redressing student under-achievement. The approach draws a 'straight line' between teacher practice and student outcomes, 'controlling' for and ultimately dismissive of other possible influences. The paper calls into question this conception of teaching-learning relations, particularly the extent to which teaching practice can be reasonably quantified and improvements in students' academic achievement can be solely attributed to and/or sole responsibility placed on the pedagogic strategies employed by teachers. Drawing on the theoretical resources of Foucault and Bourdieu, the paper argues further that teacher effectiveness research is flawed in both means and ends. It concludes that in its ranking of student and teacher performance, such research actually works against the purposes of education; specifically, authentic teaching and learning.
This paper critically examines shifts in emphasis in Australian education from expectations and belief that teachers not only make a difference to student achievement, but they are the difference. In moving from social class relations accounts to self-managing school accounts, latest shifts (teacher effectiveness accounts) over-emphasize teacher effect(s), distorting issues of student under-achievement.
The performativity policy mindset driving national and international testing highlights issues of equity in access and success according to socio-economic status, geographic location, ethnicity, gender and combinations of these factors. Researchers seek explanations for these inequities in terms encompassing engagement, participation and achievement to identify socially just and ethical practices at system, school and classroom level. The emergence of a theoretical perspective involving redistribution, recognition and participation (Fraser, Fortunes of feminism. From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis, 2013) is evident in a range of studies concerning leadership, professional learning, pre-service teacher education, and pedagogies that focus on equity and social justice in mathematics education. The challenge of ethical and socially just practices at all levels and social groups is in providing access to deep learning in mathematics and success in "knowledge making" (Jorgensen,
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