Diane Ravitch is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education and also a former advocate of the Bush Administration's "No Child Left Behind" Act, which is the template for NAPLAN.

She is no longer a supporter of such "innovation" and has written a book outlining the failure of No Child Left Behind, stating as one of her biggest concerns, the law requiring standardised testing.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124209100

It is also interesting to note that many department stores are now advertising "NAPLAN Style Testing Kits" so that parents can further pressure their children as a precursor to the actual tests.

I've mentioned before that as a home educator I was able to choose simply not to register my child for the tests. In our situation "learning" is not a competitive proposition - it's something that unfolds naturally and spontaneously in the normal course of each day.

Thanks Phil and Poirot,
I enjoyed both postings.

Poirot is right. Dianne Ravitch has done a 180 degree U-ey turn in educational ideology. She used to be the poster girl for The Australian's team of neo-con educational commentators (Kevin Donnelly, Justine Ferrari, Janet Albrechtsen, et al), but since her conversion they don't mention her much any more. I was hoping she would convert them too. Not much hope of that I suppose.
Cambo

Test the student and the teacher is also being tested.

There has been no opposition from teachers regards the billions of dollars of taxpayer funding given to US companies to install US computers and US software in Australian schools.

There was no opposition from teachers in QLD when the teachers themselves wanted US only software placed on their laptops.

There has been no opposition from teachers regards the amount of US texbooks now in schools and universities.

But there is opposition to US style testing of students in Australian schools.

Something is odd, and I would think that the teachers are afraid that they themselves will also be tested.

Apologies for the confusion under the GERM section. It was meant to be in columns with the beliefs of GERM advocates {Australia etc.] on the left and the contrasting Finnish belief on the right. Please let me try it this way.
GERM advocates believe...
1.Testing core subjects only.
2.Standardisation.
3."Race to the Top" [i.e. competition between schools & states]
4. Ranting Reform Ideas.
Adopting education reform ideas from the corporate world and the scientific movement. Hiring private sector experts as leaders.

Finland's beliefs are...
1. Broad and Creative Learning.
2. Customizing.
3. Slow Learning.
4. Owning a dream.
Building a shared educational vision of what a good educaton system, schools and teachers look like. Appointing educational professionals to leadership positions.
Thank you
Flip

A great start to the new year, Phil. This idea can be considerably expanded, along the 'Dag's Dictionary' concept successfully run by Richard Glover on ABC702, Sydney.

Somethimes we miss the potential in dismantling silly ideas by simply making fun of them. I've done this at various times, with mixed results - but it has always made me feel better.

But with the Gillard governments foray into education the possibilities are endless. Thanks for making a start.

Thank you, Chris. I do agree with you. There are so many articles, comments and, probably, jokes about the whole stupid [recognising title of your great book] notion of blanket tests and its evil effects, that they should be shared more by those who care about kids at school.
I have recently started to send out items that, I think, colleagues and friends might enjoy. The last was from an old-time journo: "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is the aim in the U.S., whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else...Their purpose, in brief, is to make docile and patriotic citizens, to pile up majorities and to make John Doe and Richard Doe as nearly alike, in their everyday reactions and ways of thinking as possible."[Mencken]
I don't mind adding names to the list of addressees.

Filip,

Thanks for the Mencken quote.
On the subject of production line education with the purpose of turning out standardised docile individuals, you might like these quotes from Alvin Toffler.
On mass education and its overt and covert curriculums:
"Mass education was the ingenious machine constructed by industrialisation to produce the kind of adults it needed....This system did not emerge instantly. Even today it retains throwback elements from pre-industrial society. Yet, the whole idea of assembling masses of students(raw material) to be processed by teachers (workers) in a centrally located school(factory) was a stroke of genius. The whole administrative hierarchy of education as it grew up followed the model of industrial bureaucracy. The very organisation of knowledge into permanent disciplines was grounded on industrial assumptions. Children marched from place to place and sat in assigned stations. Bells rang to announce changes of time.
The inner life of school thus became an anticipatory mirror, a perfect introduction to industrial society. ...It consisted - and still does in most industrial nations - of three courses: one in punctuality, one in obedience and one in rote repetitive work."

In my opinion the whole teaching; is not correct.
Some kids will go on to further education, and some are not interested.
There needs to be a split between the wis kids and the hands on kids.
The wis kids need all that education can provide.
The hands on kids need to be taught down to earth life skills at an early age.
What is the good in persisting with someone that is out of their depth and does not want to be there.
Some are born to use their hands, and some are born to be university material.
All kids will like school if they are being taught what they are interested in.
These 19 yo apprentices have gone through torture seeing out yr 12, and would be much more comfortable going into apprenticeship at age 15 , with 5 year term, and no fast lane

Filip, Poirot

I am somewhat amused by your comments.

As was discussed in another forum, it appears widespread practice for teachers in Australia to use the same exam paper year after year, and also write the same comments about students in their report cards.

In fact, different teachers can write the same comments (with exactly the same words) about the same student.

This is total standardisation, but this practice must be known by most or all teachers, with no comment from them.

However they now complain about US testing systems, and they make their complaints after spending billions of Australian taxpayer dollars on software, hardware and books from the US.

Something is very suspicious.

Last week I ventured into that last bastion of grumpy service, Australia Post, and saw an entire rack of NAPLAN testing books for sale.

I should have checked the publisher, wonder if it is one of the Murdoch empire publishers?

The teacher unions are failing, totally, to counter all this rubbish. The AEU, instead of taking a lead position, can only muster a feeble 'wet lettuce' comment every now and then.

Adding to the Mencken quote,it was Hobbes who saw the need for the Sovereign be "unchallengeable in definitional matters", which is why "the Sovereign ultimately must control the language (definitions of what is), and explains his repeated stress on the importance of education (and sovereign control over its institutions) rather than the straightforward coercion as the essential element in a successful Sovereign's rule" (Williams, M 2006 'The Hobbesian theory of international relations', in Classical Theory in International Relations, Ed. Jahn Beate, p.258. See Hobbes 'De Cive', pp.262-263.

Education has always been about 'control'.