The classroom - where teachers and pupils get together

Q. Are you blaming principals?

A. Yes, to a large degree. They are too timid. They should have told Ms Gillard, who has been unreasonably dictatorial in all this, that they will not supervise such testing on ethical and professional grounds. They are surely in breach of standards of ethical administrative behaviour because their silence contributes to such heresy (the belief that fear is the prime motivator of learning).

Please let me temper this view by saying that Australia, as a government inspired social unit, is very good at controlling dissent of all kinds. Remember the Iraq invasion and our tacit approval of it? Afghanistan? Gunns? A conspiracy theorist could write a worthwhile Jack Ryan novel about such control. The press is most supportive of such control. Educationally, The Cambridge Review and Death and Life ... were, for instance, more than worthy of large-type front page coverage in all Australian print media. They represented invaluable advice for a country that does not know what it is doing. Lara Bingle got the space.

Q. What do you see is the future?

A. I weep. In the last election, I voted Labor because of the fear that the Coalition would introduce the Nelson/Coaliton proposals for blanket testing. Big mistake. Labor turned copy-cat.

I suspect that many thousands of teachers made the same mistake. We do not have anywhere to go now. Greens? If this party produced a worthwhile policy that says that it will forward all tests to schools for local use only, start children at the same age and have the same number of years for primary and secondary schooling it could be on a winner. It prefers to stick, it seems, to its Mother Hubbard non-visionary platform.

No, Australia cannot claim any cleverness; and its standards in testable subjects should rise a little for a year or so, then flatten, then sink. Other subjects? Who cares?