Like you I had great hopes for Labour when they were electecd. Like you I feared the Nelson-Bishop education agenda, especially after the charade of the " National Inquiry in to Literacy". Like you I was appalled at the lack of evidence based policy Gillard put in place once elected. I used to be a rusted-on labour supporter , but her extreme arrogance with respect to education has convinced me to vote green in future.
My dear old dad, long since dead would be horrified that I've made this decision, but until Gillard shows some humility with respect to education, teachers, and those with the expertise to offer advice for policy. I'm lost to the labour cause.
Cambo

Dear Phil
I think NAPLAN is the least thing worth worrying about when it comes to education. I found this report in the Sunday Mail truly frightening.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/sunday-mail/fears-that-boys-arent-ready-for-prep-at-age-5/story-e6frep2f-1225849217746
I started Prep school, like most kids in the early fifties, the year after I turned four years of age. Class sizes were 35 plus and there were no teacher aides. From about Grade 3 onwards students were examined internally and externally for Scholarship, Junior and Senior. Curricula were very narrow in scope but subjects were covered in depth.
What a change over sixty years.

The only things that I agree with in this article is about the folly in doing away with inspectors in 1991, all children starting at the same age and having the same number of years in primary and secondary schools.

As a person with 40 years teaching in secondary schools (and as a principal and a vice president of ASPA), I am in favour of a fixed core curriculum, high stakes testing and exams. I have never been able to understand so many of my colleagues who were against such things.

As for voting Labor and thinking that would help education, my experience was that we did so much better under Liberal governments.

This bloke might be one of the authors of most of our problems, with his history.

The only reason to eliminate testing is to hide the failure of the system in general, & individual teachers in particular.

One has to wonder what these people think they are there for. The first thing to do is get rid of those who blather on about rounded human beings. This bloke sounds like one of them.

What parents want, [& how do we get these dills to realise they are our employees], is kids given an education that allows them to become a PRODUCTIVE member of society. Well rounded dole bludgers, or acidemics need not apply. We have far too many of those now.

What the kids need is to be able get a job. To do that, they need the "3 R", & a piece of paper saying they have them, & at what level they have them. I got so sick of the useless rubbish given out by schools, hiding the fact that the kids have no idea of the real world.

The fact that Julia is sitting on the airy fairy education loby, is about the only good thing to have got past that dill Rudd, since they were elected.

Hasbeen

Excellent article!

From nearly 40 years of teaching experience and from the dtudy of education, It has long been clear to me that standardized tests only test the ability to to the tests.

The standardized testing-centric US and UK schooling systems have demonstrably failed most people decade after decade even in the societies that designed them. I suspect the outstanding people and institutions in those countries reach their high standards in spite of the systems and because of the resources available at the elite level.

Australia overcame the cultural cringe in literature, drama and the arts some time ago, but we are well and truly stuck in it when it comes to much of economics, politics and educational policy as imposed by politicians and many administrators.

I have never understood why people vote politicians to administer our affairs.

In the secrecy of the ballot box, I always vote for me. Why should I vote for someone who is as ignorant at administering as I am?

I am not that ignorant either. As a boy I was in charge of my family’s chuck-house and, by golly, wasn’t my mum happy with the way I run it.?

Now, take the woman who wants lots of exams from the kids; did she pass any exams herself to get to be ministering?

I bet she didn’t. Yet we put her there and we are keeping her there.

Guess who else we are keeping on loaf at a good pension for the rest of her life?

One ex Victorian minister who has thrown one thousand three hundred and fifty Millions on a ticketing system for the Melbourne public transport set up, system that won’t work until hundred more millions are spent on it, if it will work at all?

What can one inexperienced politician do when dealing with highly trained and astute corporations’ operatives, but loose our money?

Think when is not only our money but also the lives of us at their mercy.

We sure need a change