I'm too long retired to be able to make an informed, up-to-date comment on this representation of schooling under NAPLAN but I can still spot a classic red herring when I see one being lugged in. Saying that "The tests themselves don’t teach" is as pertinent as other point-missing aphorisms like "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" (The Model T Ford was not actually broke but every time I drive my comfortable car I'm glad they "fixed" it!) and "Paths are made by walking" (especially if you are talking about goats and sheep).

Tests that don't teach are culpable to the same extent as brain scans that don't cure tumors and road maps that don't actually transport you to where you want to go. So let's abolish all tests, all medical diagnostic procedures and all navigational aids.

A concern not mentioned here is the implication of the test fetish in senior government appointments in education. The head of our national curriculum authority as well as the head of our chief educational research institute have their main qualification, expertise and experience in testing. ACER relies heavily on selling tests just to exist. Yet these people are expected to give unbiased advice on the merits of testing.

No matter how smart or intelligent people are, if they're without an ounce of wisdom they're merely a costly burden.
Just look at the ALP & the Greens.

“Australia will do what the emperor wants....unless parents say something about it.”

Phil Cullen,

What the majority of parents had to say they said when they gave their Vote to politicians, unconditionally.

The few ones who really love their children do not pack them into a uniform, and deliver them to a mustering yard for the best part of the day to be formed, indoctrinated, by people at the sold of either State of Church.

It is this nightmare that Ivan Illich wanted to avoid when he wrote ‘Deschooling Society’.

The careful parent finds the way of bypassing the ‘compulsory’ in the law, by taking advantage of a provision allowing independent parental schools.

Thanks GlenC for your sententious references to smelly fish, medicine and mechanics that you made about one short gnome. I do hope that a spelling error did not add to the distraction from the context, as well. The treatment of school pupils is a socio-political issue that has nothing to do with fishing. It needs more serious consideraton.
Brian Cambourne draws our attention to Campbell's Law and quotes from Berliner and Nichols :" Campbell's law stipulates that 'the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruptive influences and the more apt it will be to distort the social processes associated it was intended to monitor. Campbell warned us of the inevitable problems associated with undue weight and emphasis on a single indicator for monitoring complex social phenomena.In effect, he warned us about the high-stakes testing program that is part and parclel of NCLB." [= NAPLAN]

Cambourne suggests that Campbell's Law is "high stakes testing's kryptonite". I do hope that it kicks in soon, don't you?

Education Departments in western democracies today appear to be infested with long haired men and short haired women who have adopted the rather odd idea, that children should never compete with one another intellectually, or be tested upon how much they have learned, or be graded according to their intellects and capacity for hard work.

This is Socialism doing everything it can to make certain that its holy writ that 'all are equal" is not proven wrong by hard statistics. But somewhere down the line of every child's development, there has to be a point where employers and educators can assess that young person's intellect, drive, and personality.

This is why here in NSW, the Higher School Certificate is not wholly recognised by Universities as indicating suitability for higher education, and some universities and faculties are setting their own exams to weed out those who had never ben properly assessed by the examinations carried out by the NSW education department. Prior to this happening, some universities were being lumbered with students who may have been well educated with Socialist social theory, and who may have been environmentally aware, they just could not read, write, spell, or do bloody sums.

The biggest problem with the Socialist teaching model is parents. Most parents really want to know just how well their children are doing and they are not satisfied with report cards which are clearly designed to conceal whether their children are doing well or not.

Educators had better get it through theirn heads that they are public servants, who's job it is to serve the public. They are not there to dicatate to parents about how their children should be educated. Nor should they use their position to try and create a new Aquarian Age by claiming that the testing and grading of children is contrary to their Alice in Wonderland worldview

So true LEGO.

My wife & I started & ran the P&C textbook hire scheme, at our local high school, which added about $175,000 to the school budget, while saving the parents money.

We saw the worst of it, along with some good. We had well paid heads of department, who had to be damn near whipped into action, to get a list of their text books, required for the next year, in time to have them available when needed.

At least it meant that our "requests" for our kids to be spared the worst of the teachers, had enough weight to be effective. It also meant that the P&C had enough clout that when we, [the P&C] suggested to the head, that some silly little girl teacher, fresh from the city, should not be telling farmers kids that, "anyone who cuts down a tree is a criminal, & should be punished", should be pulled into line, it happened.

With all too many teachers, the only effective teaching they do, is for the core skills test. I wonder if this could be because it reflects more on the teacher than the pupil, when the kids do badly, & the results can't be hidden by in class assessment?

Filip
I did explain why I felt unqualified to assess Phil Cullen's arguments before NOT proceeding to comment on them. Perhaps you didn't notice. And I'm not sure whether you intended "sententious references" as an insult but I will plead guilty to assigning one of Phil's comments, and two substitutes for evidence favoured by 1970s colleagues infected by Brian Cambourne's curriculum of the warm inner glow — "If it ain't broke… " and "Paths are made by walking" — to the category of overly moralising. Is that what you meant?
But I can assure you that in those days I had to lead the fight against the State Education Department that wanted to have accepted as Australia wide assessment policy a statement that said that under no circumstances could any test ever be regarded as acceptable unless it taught the students while they were being tested.
By the way, I suppose you do understand that whenever a selection from a pool of candidates has to be made, it is logically impossible to avoid reducing every candidate to a single overall score. You do it every time you decide who shall be allowed into a university, which personal assistant you will employ, whom you will marry and even which holiday destination you will choose. The instant you can write down the names of the contenders in your order of preference, you have scaled all of their component attributes down to a single, global index. You might not be able to make any coherent comments about how you did this — about the scaling assumptions and component weightings you relied upon — but scale them you did.
Of course Campbell's Law is a timely caution and of course administrators (especially politically driven ones) often ignore it — or, more likely, contrive to remain ignorant of it. But if the problem is that teachers only teach what the tests test, surely the smart thing to do is to ensure that the tests only test what we want the kids to learn. And that's not impossible. It's just very hard

Hello Glen C. This is Filip aka Phil Cullen. I thought it was obvious. Heaven forbid that I intended an insult. I used the word 'sententious' in the sense that you judged a short statement by using a series of known short statements, none of which applied to the issue of absurdity. I presumed that you had used a jugmental stance just for the purpose of being critical.I was cerainly off-put that you distracted attention from the purpose of the article.
Yes. Testing is part of the issue. Granted. The differences between testing, assessment, appraisal and evaluation as well as their relationship would take a fair bit of discussion. Apropos, I should have said "Blanket tests themselves don't teach".
I am amazed that an Educ'n Department would suggest that no test was acceptable 'unless it taught the students while they were being tested." I just can't see a group of kids lined up in a big hall, quiet as mice, heads down, filling in bubbles in a pressure built atmosphere, learning too much. Yes, shared evaluation is part of the learning process. Cold testing only damages it. Okay?
You are correct that, in the selection of candidates for a position, a scaling mechanism is handy. That's another kettle of fish [non-herring]. However, managerial guru Halpin tells the story of the executive who went thorugh all the correct procedures prior to interview for a secretary; and picked the one with the prettiest legs.

Dodo. You have hit the nail on the head. Plumbers are running the garage. From a political point of view, it was necessary. Brendan, then Kevin, then Julia wanted to suck up to the big end of town and wanted to huff and puff about what they would to schools to fix the appalling standards. This happens every now and then. It's just so repetitive, so sterile.
NAPLAN blanket testing in Australia was so unnecessary.
For those who take notice of tests and compare them with other countries, Australia was up there in the 2009 PISA elite group in Math, Science and Reading, while the USA was way down below. What did Julia do? She copied a school district in the USA just to ride her stern command to death. She started the Klein system of schooling which relies heavily of fear-based testing. She appointed Barry McGaw of ACER, nice bloke, great measurer, but very short on school experience. When my car needs repair, I don't take it to a plumber.
Poor Barry is stuck with the Frankenstein effect. A monster is loose.

I agree with testing; given, its lack allowed a whole generation to grow up and leave school still illiterate! No ifs, buts or maybes! There are some in our schools today, who fear performance based testing; as it will show up and expose those, who are patently incompetent and ought to seek another career.
Schooling is supposed to set our kids up and allow them to realise their full potential or realise their fondest dreams!
When the system fails them in either regard; the system, and the protected incompetents, wherever we find them, must be changed or expunged!
Examinations are merely a useful tool in measuring the success or otherwise of various students; or, belief based teaching methods, which all too unfortunately have let too many kids down; and indeed, impacted very negatively on their whole of life prospects and future opportunities!
Testing should be done much more frequently and routinely; to firstly eliminate the seemingly teacher generated; unreasonable fear factor; and secondly, to allow it to be merely used as useful tool or teacher aid; in measuring any particular student's personal progress; and indeed, where they may well need special tutorship; or additional help; and nothing more.
School has to be about kids, not those few incompetents who, it would seem; tend to hide behind complexity; or, tried and found wanting experimental teaching methods! Rhrosty.

Any half way decent teacher knows that testing a class of children regularly on the syllabus is extremely useful in exposing gaps in the child's knowledge and understanding of a subject, and if acted upon can greatly improve the outcomes for that child. In maths where understanding is built in layers this is even more important, where gaps will handicap a child from learning further.

If any teacher only teaches to the Naplan test then they are idiots that should not be allowed to teach.

Independent schools generally test children at least once a term and many provide support to help with the gaps that have been identified. It is no wonder they produce far better results.

Filip.
Do'h! I hate myself for not having noticed the obvious connection with your real name. I must have been in one of my literal periods when I only note names as useful handles, not thinking to appraise them! And because you've been so upfront (thank you), I should stress that no Dept of Ed ever officially proposed proscribing all tests that did not teach; it was a proposal in an Australia-wide working group paper — ACAP if that rings any bells — from a very high powered individual within his state organisation, sadly long since dead, who the rest of us thought quite capable of persuading his state to adopt his view if he could get it past us. Geoff Masters was probably the ACER rep at the time.
You might be surprised to know that I was the bloke who sketched out, and passionately argued for, the adoption of a fuzzy standards based pupil profile in which students' work would be compared by teachers with a graduated set of annotated exemplars supported by "indicators" that were no more than behaviours pupils could typically be expected to exhibit (but might not) as they approached key rungs on a K-12 ladder, and who lost control when new state leaders invented CURASS, took over the whole assessment show, turned the indicators into compulsory, atomised outcomes, each in its unique cell in a stage-based matrix, dispensed with the annotated exemplars, and claimed to have objectified assessment. And only later realised that when you drill down on achievement to that level of atomised detail, and rely only on that, you literally needs thousands of "outcomes" to comprise even a partial account of the complex entity that is what a child learns in a year.
But this is turning OLO into a "remember when" session between one old fart whose day has passed and (… please supply your own category); and that's not its purpose. You keep writing and I'll keep being rude when I think you overstate a detail.
Glen Coulton

its all explain in how they dumbed down the usa education system
but the search didnt reveal it
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+they+dumbed+down+education&btnG=Search&oq=how+they+dumbed+down+education&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=1517050l1527862l0l1530407l30l27l0l12l0l0l1315l1884l5-1.0.1l2l0

ok new search term
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+they+dumbed+down+education+in+usa&btnG=Search&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=1517050l1527862l0l1530407l30l27l0l12l0l0l1315l1884l5-1.0.1l2l0&oq=how+they+dumbed+down+education+in+usa&aq=f&aqi=&aql=

ok maybe an overvieuw
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm

might be here
[its the books source material]
key info...[if only we had reporters doing their reportage]
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/pdf_downloads.html

oh well
thats my short attention span
just like i was taught to do

in the dumbing down system
hyjacked by coorperate intrests
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+they+dumbed+down+education+in+usa&btnG=Search&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=1517050l1527862l0l1530407l30l27l0l12l0l0l1315l1884l5-1.0.1l2l0&oq=how+they+dumbed+down+education+in+usa&aq=f&aqi=&aql=

even using the un
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Djjer4fTUA-I&sa=U&ei=MEUCT7W8GIifiQfq3vS4AQ&ved=0CCYQtwIwBg&sig2=DUOT4vZyig6FnwesL4t-0g&usg=AFQjCNEwZTyjjf6EQnNkN2aRbpIntNK3JQ

My Glen C you do know some big words, don't you? Like to show them off a bit too, don't you? Is that an ego thing, or do you think you can hide behind a heap of gobbledygook? All that "in" speak can only be to sound important, while saying nothing that could be held against you. Just reading your post highlights the problems we face in education.

What comes out of our schools today is basically worthless, & getting worse. This will continue while we have in class assessment, & assessment by assignment. The latter allows too much input by "helpers", & the former is only a ploy to allow incompetent teachers hide how badly their pupils are doing.

Little tests at the end of a segment only mean the subject can be forgotten for ever. What we need is a return to one externally set & marked yearly exam, to find out which pupils have learnt anything.

Kids will only be able to reproduce something studied 9 months ago if they understood it at the time. What we need to know is what they have understood, not what they, [or a mum/dad/tutor], could produce in an assignment.

This would also weed out those who can't perform under pressure. These are useless in the real world, & could be guided into the public service, probably in the education system.

As a parent I have a right to know what my kids are actually learning, & as an employer I have a right to accurate school reports to evaluate kids from different schools.

I like Phil Cullen's take on schools, and his observations that, in effect, Gillard is criminally negligent in her ridiculous 'education revolution' nonsense.

She has, I am trying to be generous here, taken her own stratospheric flight through Unley public school as a journey that every child was capable of, and she has failed to take into account any variations within families, children and school teachers as she has dumped utter crap onto our school system, from testing to chaplains, from poorly designed buildings to giving principals more power.

The last of my daughters left school in November, thank the gods. A more miserable and rule driven POW camp could not be found anywhere (except in every other Qld public school of course).

It's not just NAPLAN testing, after all, in high school that only happens in Y9, but all my daughters suffered about 10 months of QCS testing and practice too, every week, from November til Aug-Sept when the final test is taken.

Talk about fixing the odds!

Why should a university take these tests to show anything, when teachers spend countless hours, with no feedback to students or parents, on this exercise?

Which is designed to make the school principal look good, and promote their career path within a moribund state education department.

Of course, university training of teachers is less then useless these days. Very rarely do students get a new teacher worth a cracker, and the notion of mentoring new staff into a school and a career is non existent.

And now we find unqualified school chaplains are 'assisting' teachers in helping the ill-equipped to deal with education (or what passes for education today), a major plank in both Gillard's education revolution and Bligh's continued support for a school system that is less able to operate than the Bundaberg Hospital (or the rest of Q Health so it seems).

The intrusion of low grade politics into the classroom has never been more visible than under Gillard and Bligh, on a par with Joh and his Creation Science supporting education minister, during Phil's time here in Qld.

I want to say thank you to "one under god" for providing access to such useful and provocative readings. I'm familiar with Gatto, but had neglected him of late. The opportunity that OLO provides to: "Light up the darkness, keep the faith and give the bastards the business."[Gatto] is first rate. There's a little heat in the kitchen at times, but there is sincerity in the remarks, as a rule.
My main passion in life is concern for school kids. I really would like Aussie kids to learn as much as they can and enjoy it; to develop, with their teacher's help their unique styles of learning; and to like schooling so much that they keep at learning, learning, learning unil they cark it. I don't like the totalitarian control of schooling as introduced in 2009 - a complete change to the system, unrequested, unwarranted and damaging to children's development.
Thanks to all contributors. Phil Cullen

My observations as a teacher are that students leaving secondary school are generally highly articulate and most demonstrate very good levels of literacy - it seems to be steadily improving. I cannot comment about levels of numeracy. This improvement in literacy suggests that something is 'right' with the system.

There is nothing wrong with measuring standards but to teach to the test demeans students, wastes teacher time and resources and skews the results of tests.

I've seen schools use the results of NAPLAN as a selling point for the parents of prospective students. It's mostly about bums on seats because that is the source of funding.

We've lost our way.

Malingerer, I am searching for the source of this but my wife made a comment yesterday, possibly drawn for ABC RN, that something like 46% of young people were so functionally illiterate they could barely make sense of a newspaper article.

(Aha, yesterdays ABC RN with Wally Alid (apologies for spelling?) in a morning chat with 'someone').

Putting aside the abysmal standards of journalism these days, that is pretty scary.

On a par with the 'facts' (he offers no evidence in the book, so I am taking this at face value) offered by Joe Bageant, a US author from the redneck regions of the USA (as he describes himself) in the book 'Deer hunting with Jesus' were he has something like 45 million who cannot read or write.

This is where Gillard draws her 'inspiration' from, a clapped out third world nation of God fearing rednecks who cannot read or write 'proper'.

I'd say that although the young people I meet through my children are indeed highly articulate, some far more so than their school teachers, and more thoughtful too at times, that does not represent the large, perhaps increasing, mob who have no interest in schools, little prospect of a life time of work, and doubtful values with an inability to critique their predicament or the society that has so proudly produced them.

Sadly, schools are increasingly dependent on the value of the principal, and sadly, it seems school principals are increasingly good at understanding the code words required to improve themselves but with little concept of 'education' or how to run a staffroom that encourages 'learning'.

Of course, parents play a big role here and by never requiring much from schools they have allowed machinemen to take over, encouraged by lazy point-scoring politicians who insist on meddling not resolving- as can be seen in the rush to private jails, crime bidding wars at election time and ever increasing moves to defund public education as the cheaper option to buying more votes than demanding some modicum of professionalism within teaching.