Here we go again.

Math Scores Slide to a 20-Year Low on ACT, Education Week breathlessly reported in October.

ACT Scores Show Drop in College Readiness, Especially in Math, blasted the headline in the Wall Street Journal.

ACT Math Scores Sliding, reported Capitol Hill insider publication Politico because, of course, student test scores are as political as the president’s tweets.

Among the more overused and mis-attributed quotes in all of journalism is the old saw that proclaims the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Unfortunately, that describes our national obsession over standardized test scores. Our obsession over these scores is so deeply ingrained in our culture, our politics and our education policy that it makes it almost impossible for educators to actually increase the scores for which they are held accountable.

Yes, the scores are down. One-tenth of one point over a 20-year period. Education Week reports “the average math score for the graduating class of 2018 was 20.5, marking a steady decline from 20.9 five years ago, and virtually no progress since 1998, when it was 20.6.”

I’m not a psychometrician, nor am I a data researcher, so I’m

Australian Education Union SA president Andrew Gohl told parliament’s COVID-19 Response Committee that he was currently “haggling with bureaucrats” in the Education Department to finalize the definition of a “vulnerable” worker ahead of the start of Term 1 on Wednesday.

He said the department was also yet to finalize whether teachers who were deemed vulnerable would be entitled to additional leave or changed working arrangements.

Gohl described the situation as “infuriating”, saying the Education Department wanted to come up with its own definition of what constitutes a vulnerable worker despite SA Health and the federal government already providing guidelines.

“Notwithstanding the fact that the federal health website is really clear about what vulnerable workers are, that the SA Health website is really clear about what vulnerable workers are, we are at the moment haggling with bureaucrats to come up with a definition of what is vulnerable worker is,” he told the committee this morning.

“It’s infuriating to have to deal with such different levels of advice… around just simply trying to make people have a safe working environment.

“That’s all this is – it’s about making workplaces safe for children and those who educate them.”

SA Health defines vulnerable people