“I don’t think that schools are actually using their funding well,” Professor Graham said. “There’s an over-reliance on using funding for teacher’s aides first of all – that’s almost a default.”
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Professor Graham said schools also “wasted an awful lot of money” on programs with a poor evidence base, such as Reading Eggs, Words Their Way and Levelled Literacy Instruction, and also materials with “zero evidence base” such as wobble chairs, fidget toys and other “snake oil” for children with disabilities and learning difficulties.
She also said principals used too much diagnostic assessment that they then invalidated by having children take the tests too often.