ACT teachers should embrace measures which encourage expertise in schools and not be content with superior NAPLAN scores, according to an international education expert.
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University of Melbourne professor of education John Hattie said Australian schools generally needed to focus on growth rather than raw scores.
"We have more cruising kids in cruising schools than any other country," he said.
"You're not getting enough growth in the ACT relative to what kids come into the schools."
ACT students' raw NAPLAN scores released this year were well above the national average, but were in the middle of the field - behind those in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland - in terms of growth from the year before.
Professor Hattie, who has advised New Zealand, United States and Australian governments on education reforms, told an audience of educators at the Australian National University on Friday that high-achieving teachers were "all around us" and were essential to improving students' performance.
"Too often in education we are reluctant to embrace excellence, we think experience is equivalent to excellence, but it's not," he said.
The federal government accepted a range of review recommendations in February aimed at improving teacher quality, including requiring graduating teachers to show they are in the top 30 per cent of Australian adults for numeracy and literacy.
Professor Hattie, the new chairman of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, said in the last decade there were twice as many new positions for non-teaching school staff as there were for teachers in the US and Britain, a trend that should be avoided.
"We are starting to house our schools with more and more non-experts - it's expertise that makes the difference," he said.
Australian Council for Educational Leaders chief executive Aasha Murthy said expertise was as important as passion.
"Of course teaching is not a business. However, it has to be outcome driven - you can't continue to do a job just because you love it, you have to be good at it," she said.
A list of 20 ACT schools were highlighted in February for their strong growth in the NAPLAN results compared to the previous year.
