Big Nana

'... I can say with experience that literacy and numeracy in this country has dramatically declined since educators decided to stop hurting the feelings of children and parents by eliminating rigid end of term exams and abandoning the proven method of reporting accurate marks for those exams and each child's place in the class.'

I'm not so sure about that. I worked as a stenographer in the public service during school and holiday breaks in the late 70s/early 80s (the last-gasp days of the competitive education system). I can't speak for numeracy, but I remember being appalled at the lack of literacy in the letters I had to 'decipher'. My older sisters, who had also worked as stenographers and secretaries in the 60s and 70s expressed the same outrage.

It's just a theory on my part, but I suspect that a lot of the much-hyped 'decline' in literacy is really because, in the old days, poor literacy was disguised by the invisible hand of stenographers and secretaries (virtually all of whom were women) correcting men's mistakes. Since the 80s, the stenographer/secretary role has all but vanished. The custom now is for all employees to write their own correspondence and reports. And it shows. Having said that, it's almost impossible to tell whether literacy and numeracy have actually declined in recent decades, as comparable past records are unavailable.

For my part, I throw my hat into the educative belief system that academic comparison is extremely damaging to children's self-esteem. Unlike you, I believe that placing children in a ruthless hierachy of academic achievement leaves them scarred and frustrated. As a parent, I was less interested in my children's academic achievement and more interested in whether they were enjoying school and benefiting from the things they were learning.

There is a saying "you cannot control what you don't measure"

Naplan tests children for a few hours every 2yrs to check how their education is progressing. I cannot comprehend how anyone in their right minds can claim that this damages the children.

The only possible answer is that the activists against Naplan want to cover up the results that point to poor teaching. Notably the worst results are in union control public schools.