Australian Education Issues

On May 8, the World Socialist Web Site received an angry email from a supporter of the pseudo-left Socialist Alliance group, attacking an article that appeared on the WSWS under the headline “Australian teacher unions call off NAPLAN boycott”.

Socialist Alliance supporter LW was incensed by the WSWS report, firing off the following response: “Socialist Alliance does not support Naplan [sic]. Check out the badge boards. See Check [sic] the petitions we crclate [sic]. We will be there on Tuesday at the Demo. The badges say Naplan [sic] Sucks. Your lies about Sooialist [sic] Alliance suck too!”

LW’s email reveals extreme sensitivity over the Socialist Equality Party’s exposure of the trade unions and the ex-radical organisations that support them.

The following resolution was passed unanimously at SEP public meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on May 4 and 5, respectively. We urge teachers, parents and students to organise meetings to pass this resolution and contact the SEP to discuss how to take forward the fight to defend public education.

1. This public meeting convened by the Socialist Equality Party calls for a national boycott of NAPLAN tests on May 11, 12, 13 by parents, teachers and students. The boycott outlined by the Australian Education Union and the New South Wales Teachers Federation is a boycott in name only. To take forward a struggle in defence of public education, teachers must reject outright the AEU and the Rudd government’s entire “education revolution”, including NAPLAN high-stakes testing and the My School ranking system.

Teachers, parents, students—and all those concerned about the fate of public education—are invited to attend a public meeting being convened by the Socialist Equality Party to discuss the Rudd Labor government’s historic assault on public education.

In January this year, Labor launched its My School web site. The web site ranks schools nationally, based on their performance in standardised literacy and numeracy tests (known as NAPLAN). The purpose of My School is not to provide “transparency and information for mums and dads”, as the Labor government claims. Its real aim is to unleash a divisive struggle between schools.

The Australian Education Union (AEU) national executive on Monday voted to impose a moratorium on the federal government’s National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) exams scheduled for May 11-13. The ban, however, is a hollow threat. The union has already made clear that it accepts the entire framework of Labor’s pro-market education reforms, including the compulsory student tests that are used to rank schools.

Less than an hour later, education minister and deputy prime minister Julia Gillard responded by again declaring that she would call on parents to help administer the NAPLAN tests if teachers proceeded with the national boycott. Gillard also warned that teachers who refuse to supervise the exams face heavy fines under state industrial laws.