"What intensifies the conflict is that both sides actually agree on a core point - that NAPLAN provides valuable information. In fact, Gillard and teacher unions present a similar argument that the national tests are not to be taken lightly."
So what valuable information is provided by NAPLAN and to whom?
Should the results be made available only to Governments, their Departments and schools? Even if restricted to these bodies how would this prevent "teaching to the test","the promotion of a professional culture that teaches to a test" and “exacerbat(ing) the tensions between quality teaching and learning."?
I would have thought the incredible number of "hits" on the MySchool website is indicative of public support for publication of the NAPLAN results. But then I guess the general public are pretty stupid.

The single most feared thing for unions is performance measurement.

The Myschool website is the thin edge of the wedge. If they lose this then the next dreaded step is to measure the performance of the teachers.

Next they might even challenge the seniority only based promotions.

This heresy must be blocked at every step.

Yes, the union is terrified that the parents will learn that around 10% of them are totally incompetent, & should be given their marching orders. It is disgusting that they think so little of our kids, that they would rather destroy the educational opportunity of so many of them than get rid of their useless members.

As for teaching to a test, well, that would be a novel experience for all too many of our kids. To actually have a teacher teach them something, would probably take their breath away.

Remember Hawke and the airline pilots?

Remember Hawke and the airline pilots?
Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 29 April 2010 10:52:14 AM

Only vaguely Cheryl please jog my memory .

This crap has a similar past , and the Teachers won , it was a bitter and prolonged battle that ended with Athletics teachers attempting to 'Do' Maths and Parents teaching English and in a few instances Senior Kids in remote places teaching . A large number of Maths teachers resigned to sign up with Commerce .

So why can't Eastern Teachers take on the Dreaded Loony Academics and Dewey Eye'd Political Dreamers in the Eastern States and win. To get an idea how Fruit Cakes can muck up Education , check out this site :

http://www.platowa.com/Breaking_News/2006/2006_05_29.html#Wanted

mmmm, where does one begin?

Teacher appraisal exists, its in two parts. One, annual performance review and,two, end of year results.

Secondly, NAPLAN provides a snapshot of literacy levels in a particular school at a particular point in the year. How does that give an overall understanding of the quality of the teaching, particularly with the notion of 'teaching to the test' and don't think it won't happen.

The number of hits on the website says nothing about support.

The process of league tables and linking funding to them has been a disaster everywhere else, do you honestly think it will be different here?

vetti I ask again: what valuable information, if any, does NAPLAN provide?
"The number of hits on the website says nothing about support."
So why are there millions of "hits" on the MySchool website if the persons accessing the site do not consider the information is of some value? If the site is not worth supporting then nobody would visit it.

Vetti - I dare say many would disagree with you on the linkage of results and funding being a disaster.
However, I thought the article was about WHY there needed to be a boycott - not, 'the Federal Government is being a big meanie'...

The whole situation has been brewing for many years. The problem here is not Teachers. I have found the teachers at my school to be fantastic and hard working in an under resourced workplace full of pressure. Teachers are politically pressured by the department, hassled by parents and so poorly represented by their union it's not funny. Have you heard the latest teachers federation ad? They actually say that teachers dumb down our kids to get better results on the NAPLANs. What an insult to teachers. The problem is a union that needs breaking so accountability in schools, teaching and education can be introduced and we can take our schools into the 21st century from the 19th. Government needs to face the truth that school are dreadfully under resourced. The guide lines are so tight for integration funding for children with disabilities that teachers are required to handle children that used to be in special ED schools in a main stream class. One of these kids can need hours of one on one every day. I have seen parents desperately changing schools looking for more and finding they can not find it. Politicians have their role to play here and that is they need to stop using education as an election lever. Last week our local member was involved in an interview with a popular radio personality and bagged our school for political gain. Don't worry about "MY SCHOOL" hurting the moral of schools the government, unions and a useless P&C do that all on their own. It's time they all pulled their heads in and worked together.

To repeat, NAPLAN gives a snapshot of the current standard of literacy at that point. This doesn't automatically give a standard of education.

As soon as you link NAPLAN results to funding you get the situation that exists in the UK and USA where people teach to the test, and exactly how that is a great educational outcome escapes me.

The point I am trying to make, is that NAPLAN or league tables will not improve education, more resources, spread more equally will.

Students will be taught to the test when they enter the workforce. To get certificates and licenses to operate equipment, and to even pass an indoctrination to enter some workplaces, THEY WILL BE TAUGHT TO THE TEST.

It will become a sudden surprise for many.

Odd how the schools (under the “guidance” of the teacher’s union) have rejected the Myschool website, but the universities have welcomed a similar website proposed for universities.

The public does not vote for the teachers union, and if the teacher’s union boycotts the Naplan tests, then it will cost the taxpayer a considerable amount of money.

I hope the teacher’s union has that money available to pay it back to the taxpayer.

The Naplan tests are critical in determining the progress of students and education as a whole.

Even the teachers' union is in agreement that the Naplan testing is an important tool in monitoring the progress of children and the school. What they don't want is for the general public to be aware of it.

In trying to cancel the testing, the Teachers' union is targeting the children.

While there are downsides to "teaching to the tests" this only occurs if that is the sole objective. However, there no denying that if the more "holistic" teaching does not help the kids pass the tests, then there is a problem.

Capable teachers, such as at the independent schools do both.

With respect to accountability, the teacher evaluations have no effect on the teacher's pay or promotion through seniority, and there is seldom formal measurement against targets.

The Naplan testing and myschool were instrumental in showing up the plight of aboriginal education, and this has focussed attention and resources to fix the problem. Without this scrutiny it would simply be business as usual.

blairbar, I have been on the site several times just to check it out - and I have no kids. How many of your 'hits' can be counted as just curiosity? It is a known fact that when something on the net is in the news hits, sky rocket.

Secondly, what about other factors that are not covered by the test? What happens if the child has parents are braking up, and fighting all night long. The child gets no sleep and so does poorly in the test. And what of the emotional instability experienced by the child during that time, will they have to move, have they done something to cause it (a big one for every child), will I be able to see mum/dad again if I do have to move, etc. Or what of abuse, or malnutrition, or bullying, or undiagnosed learning disabilities, or - well the list is truly endless. The NAPLAN test, nor any other test takes this into account, privacy and all that (if the teachers even knows at all sometimes). Now some may say 'But how often will that happen?' Well just look at any area, the poorer areas usually have higher crime, domestic violence, malnutrition, drug use rates than richer areas. These factors will ALWAYS have an effect on a student’s performance. In a richer areas you may have only a handful of students in the school who area affected by these issues, but in a poorer area you could have a handful or more in every class!

The fear about the reporting of results online is about that fact that it is a single number, it is not weighted against the socio-economic situation of the school, it is not weighted against practical issues faced by teachers every day. The fear is that it will lead to restriction of desperately needed funding due to factors well outside the teacher control.

Teaching to the test isn't a strong argument. It's just another of those "welcome to the real world" moments. However, there are other problems.

Teachers who have been at a school for a while will do everything possible to stack their class with the students who will get good results. Pray that your children don't end up in one of the other classes.

Teachers will cheat, some more than others. It is easy to manipulate a spelling test by pronouncing a word differently or by having a bank of words on the wall of the classroom. It is easy to bait certain students into either being sent home or refusing to complete the test.

Parents will assume that their children will get the same results as all of the other students at a school. If a school is full of kids from wealthy homes, they will get good average results. This doesn't imply that the children from worse performing schools would get the same results if they changed to that school. The students are different, not the school. In addition, don't assume that you will get your child into a school that gets good results. It is probably already full.

NAPLAN tests two areas of education only, it is not a measure of all things educational and doesn't pretend to be. What is wrong with accountability for under-performing schools? Difficult schools are usually pretty well known in the community, so publishing results hardly seems to be a moment of illumination. Difficult public schools in tough areas need lots of support, even silly league tables can be used to argue in favour of distribution of resources to such schools. I have taught in both difficult and affluent public schools and I can assure you that people in tough schools a) already know they are below the average in literacy and numeracy, b) are doing the best that can be done in circumstances of dysfunctional family breakdown, and c) need a lot of support - publishing their NAPLAN results is not the issue, gearing a school up to help kids in difficult home environments is the real issue.

TAC,
What causes these "difficult home environments" that teachers so often elude to. Its starting to sound like something from an excuse manual.

If there are so many of these "difficult home environments", then teachers have had 200 years to fix such problems, (because the education system has been in Australia for that long).

Or, has the education system indirectly created these "difficult home environments" (remembering that teachers taught the parents).

Good point Vanna. I agree that blaming the parents can be, and has been an excuse for incompetent teachers. The inability of poorer students to read basic English and understand basic Maths surely points to inadequete and inexcusable neglect by education professionals over a pretty long period of time. Incompetent teachers generally don't stick around too long in tough schools, partly because the kids work them over, but mainly because their hearts aren't in it.
The sort of family dysfunction I am talking about would include some of the following scenarios:
Child abuse (both physical and sexual); drug/tobacco/alcohol/gambling-addicted parents; chemically-induced psychosis (especially from the newer designer drugs like ecstasy, but also from bad reactions to marijuana)from drugs introduced to children and adolescents by families; clannish vigilante-ism (ie family groups feuding with other family groups, sometimes breaking out in the school yard); crime (sometimes involving major crime ranging from serious assault to murder); child abuse through neglect eg no breakfast before school, no clean clothing each day, no regular supervision by adults at home at evening and weekends. These are the problems well meaning teachers face in tough schools, and I have personally worked through all the above problems while trying to teach my high school subject. (The murder was not at school though I hasten to add, but a kid's relative was murdered by somebody else who was also known to the family - so it had a pretty big impact on that kid nevertheless).
The old saying is quite true: the apple never falls far from the tree. Education is not the panacea for society's ills, not even benchtesting via NAPLAN and the creation of a National Curriculum as a result.
Schools can, and, as you suggest Vanna, should be expected to, teach their subjects well. If we wish to be saved from ourselves and the consequences of our own actions though, then we (and particularly our kids) need to be saved in some other way, schools can't solve society's problems in 200 zillion years, let alone 200.

TAC
The “difficult home environments” don’t account for all Australian households, and they are probably just a small % in reality, but across Australia there has been a major decline in maths and science, and the latest causality appears to be English.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/broad-effort-to-lift-english-proficiency/story-e6frgcjx-1225859043955

Without a solid foundation in maths, science and English, Australia is going to have a tough time in the future, should our markets for coal and iron ore decline (and there is strong indication that they will).

A favorite line often said by supervisors and managers in more advanced companies is “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions”.

Something perhaps the principals in every school should be displaying on a plaque placed above the door of their office.

Vanna,
You might be surprised that the % of difficult home environments is low, but very consistent across various schools. Difficulties arise in wealthy areas as well as poorer ones.
The AEU's point in relation to NAPLAN boycotting is that the ensuing league tables unfairly isolate underperforming schools, singling them out for retribution. My point is that there are various reasons for underperforming schools, not just incompetent teachers and bad methodology in the English, Maths and Science departments (though these do exist, especially since progressive education models came into vogue in the 70's). More importantly, we already know where the underperformers are - my previous school was shut down because it was an underachiever, well before NAPLAN was invented; though I would argue that the special efforts being made for those kids were a big help for them. Interestingly, the underperfomng school was shut down with the AEU's blessing using internal evidence not available to parents (many of whom wanted the school to stay open). The AEU in my town lacks credibility when it threatens boycotts of NAPLAN because of fear of ID'ing low-flyers and the ensuing persecution of underperforming schools.
Sorry Vanna, I don't have a magic managerial wand for you to solve the world's problems in schooling - but neither does the AEU.

TAC,
Most advanced companies also have a policy of open management, and the personnel are trained to be innovative and solve problems, not to think up excuses.

At a time when the public is demanding more and more open government, the teachers unions wants to hide data. Doesn't fit.

If the NAPLAN tests are banned, there will still be pressure by the public and by governments to get data out to the public, and the public has a right to that data, because they fund so much of the education system (but that does not include funding the AEU).

Vanna,
Reasons are not the same as excuses - business principles of management don't automatically apply in schools where there are living, breathing human beings being educated.
The AEU have decided not to boycott NAPLAN in the ACT as of today; so the melodrama is abating at least in that jursidiction in Australia.
You are right though Vanna, accountability is critically important and the AEU has certainly done itself a dis-service by appearing to be trying to disguise underperforming schools.
The question still remains unanswered though as to the ability of league tables (as developed from testing units like NAPLAN) to quantify intangibles of education. For instance, my year 7 band today was starting to produce good phrasing and breath control to realise a piece of quality music. Where do I record "growing sense of musicianship" and "good feel for music and style" on a league table? Where is a testing unit for something like students developing a feel for substantial music that touches the heart? Is there a bar graph somewhere which records the numbers of hairs that stand up on the back of parents' necks when they hear exciting music played by their own energetic kids? There are a lot of value-added disciplines in education that just don't make it on to pie chart, or a league table, or NAPLAN.