Quite a silly article really and it completely missed the main issue with standardised testing.

If you introduce a standardised testing procedure with rewards or punishments for performance in schools, what you are going to get is teachers spending a large part of the year training their charges to complete the test. This will result in the development of children who will be really good at memorising the answers to a NAPLAN test, but not a whole lot more.

If that is what you want out of your education system, so be it.

"Since when was Finland, barely off the Soviet teat..."

I can see that you would have excelled on the NAPLAN test. A pity about the rest of your education though.

Thanks AlanB, ttbn and Has been. I did enjoy your comments. "This character', ttbn, started teaching in 1946, did the whole circuit; was the most test-fixated principal of larger schools that you ever saw. Weekly tests, monthly tests, terms tests, the lot. What a 'peanut', I was, ttbn. I decided,[in 1968, it was] that I didn't join a caring profession to be nasty to children. I hope you all get better soon.

I think that the underlying problem is 'factory schooling'. If we seek an innovative society we need to explore new models of learning. For this I suggest that we get away from the factory approach and consider group child teaching - home schooling - mentoring ... and who knows what else.

By the way the tests are biannual (every two years) so the days lost per year is, one and a half. Not as the article suggests 3 days a year. Test fail :)

My kids were largely/partly home schooled. Both have PhD's from real universities and for better or worse are not steady job orientated ... but they are flexible, smart and creative ... and mostly happy.

Naplan is fear based testing?

What a pile of dung.

Xdope,

OK, so you've gone batty in your old age. You would have produced much better students when you were teaching than those churned out now. It is very sad to see older people trying to be hip, and embracing the madness of the young. You have misused and abused your experience.

I think what your referring to is either Dumbing Down which I understand is otherwise known in the US as Common Core.