ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the impact of catalyst data. Catalyst data were described by a senior policy maker interviewed in the project as data that encourage various stakeholders to ask questions about performance in the delivery of government services. In this chapter, we look at the national complement in Australia to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and TIMSS and PIRLS, namely the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), introduced by the national Labour government in 2008. NAPLAN test performance data at state system levels were being used by the federal government for accountability purposes across the various educational jurisdictions within Australia's federal political system are analyzed. The development of NAPLAN in Australia is also part of a globalized education policy discourse that argues that standards can only be driven up by such testing. While NAPLAN catalyst data have an undeniable capacity to produce reactions, these can permeate through systems in ways that are difficult to predict.
