Australian Teachers Vote Unanimously to Boycott Test and Punish Plan

Here is a lesson in applied professional ethics that the prosti-suits who run the NEA and AFT need to learn from:

Teachers have voted unanimously for a national ban on national literacy and numeracy tests in public schools in protest against the federal government's My School website.

The Australian Education Union federal executive said today that teachers would not supervise the national tests scheduled for next month unless the federal government addressed teacher concerns about use of the data on the website.

The union's federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said teachers would not administer the tests until the federal government stopped the results being used to "publicly brand students and schools as failures in league tables".

"That is damaging for students and school communities," he said.

"No other test, student assessment or report will be affected by this decision.

"The primary concern of teachers is the fact that nothing has been done to stop test data being taken from the My School website to create damaging league tables in which schools are ranked on test results alone.

"We also have serious concerns that the NAPLAN results are being used on the My School website in a way that is misleading for parents."

The federal government has made it clear that it will not cave in to the union's demands.

The Federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, suggested parents help supervise the NAPLAN tests if teachers proceeded with their ban.

However, the parents and citizens association said it would not co-operate with that plan. . . . .