ABSTRACT
In Australia, National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) performance is reported through statistical categories. This chapter demonstrates the problem of an education statistical category so broad in its definition that it constructs an absurd logic about student achievement in standardised testing. The intention of this chapter is to examine and present dis-aggregated LBOTE data in order to unpack the hidden things in the category. It also presents a case of which describes the upstream stages of quantification in which one explore the deficiencies of existing counting processes, and present alternative possible compositions of variables, based on educationally relevant phenomena. The primacy of statistical data in educational policy making is now the focus of considerable research and their importance in the construction and implementation of education policy is such that inappropriate statistical measures are often portrayed as technical issues, able to be resolved.
