The federal government’s school ranking system: just go to www.myschool.edu.au and input the name of your school…

Nick Williams’s letter to The Echo of January 28 was timely – printed on the same day that Ms Julia Gillard spread her cur­ious website in her ever-persistent desire to dismantle the public school system. Watch for her next trick.
I am told that the poorer performing schools have a red flag so that we can blow raspberries at anyone associated with them, and, if our kids go there, shift them.

National testing (NAPLAN) was introduced in 2008 in a Ruddy-blush with obvious ‘malice-before-thought’. The introduction of fear-driven testing was encouraged by a lawyer from New York, who instructed Gillard not to brook any adverse comment from teachers or the public. Naomi Wolff calls this a ‘fascist shift’, but let’s not go there.
Then the normally timid, passive, pussy-footed teachers dared to vote unanimously on a professional [non-industrial] issue, prompted by their normal concerns for kids and their curriculum. This alone is a miracle as it has never happened before in our history. Another miracle will be required for them to stick to their resolve. There will be pressure.
Primary school timetables are about to be reorganised, but one can wager that she-who-must-be-obeyed will not tell schools which subjects to throw out and which to steal time from.

This is possible in a primary school where the three Rs – Repetition, Repetition, Repetition – can be conducted during the time presently given to languages other than English, music, art, physical education and the other more vulnerable learnings.
If you want your children to like learning things, don’t set your hopes too high. Bang, crash methods are the quickest, even if the kids come to hate the subject. They’ll do better on the test. Schools just have to try. Their reputation is at stake. Who wants a red flag?
It will be more difficult in secondary schools since the allocation of time is so fixed. Something has to be done to increase time allocations. After all, the more one practises a task, be it hitting golf balls, kicking goals, or swimming faster, the better one gets.
This year should not be a good year for teaching. Controlled by a domineering minister, aided and abetted herself by folk who know little to nothing about what happens in schools, she will try to have her way. May, when the national literacy and numeracy tests are scheduled to take place, should be a tumultuous month. Will teachers stick to their guns, or will they be controlled in some fashion that we may never learn about?

Gillard already has the Primary Principals Association where she wants them. Some, who are on her committee, are also members of the professional Australian Primary Principals Association, much like having a developer on a shire council. Principals’ professionalism is about to be truly tested.
As Nick Williams says, the league tables are fundamentally flawed. Prismatically rotten, no matter which direction one looks at them, they have already been used to demonise schools and some schools have felt extreme shame at having been red-flagged.
‘League tables neglect unique school achievements, inter alia, brilliant creative arts activities, innovative remedial learning and welfare systems, or a fantastic sport program’, as Nick says.

One can be sure that movements are being made to make sure that subject associations don’t say anything about their areas of expertise. It could happen if professionalism at all levels of schooling is revisited, but, again, don’t hold your breath.
Parents’ associations are upset. Save Our Schools, Canberra, suggests ‘…the government has been totally hypocritical and intransigent on reporting school results. It made false promises. It has refused to acknowledge the harm done by unfair and simplistic comparisons between schools.

‘Parents should join with teachers in boycotting the national literacy and numeracy tests next May by withdrawing their students from the tests.’ (SOS media release, January 29.)
Some hope! Mary McKillop, where are you when we need you?

Phil Cullen, who lives at Banora Point, was a primary school teacher/principal for 23 years. He is a former Director of Primary Education, Queensland, former President, Gold Medallist and Fellow of Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL), and Fellow of the Australian College of Education (ACE). Mr Cullen is also the co-author, with Dr Keith Tronc, of Quality Education and School and Community, co-author with Prof W. Bassett and Lloyd Logan of Australian Primary Schools and their Principals and sole author of Back to Drastics.