{"id":1896,"date":"2011-07-02T16:21:10","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T06:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1896"},"modified":"2012-07-16T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T13:27:00","slug":"moral-issues-for-principals","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/?page_id=1896","title":{"rendered":"Moral Issues for Principals."},"content":{"rendered":"
STANDARDISED\u00a0 BLANKET TESTING \u2013 A MORAL ISSUE FOR PRINCIPALS<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n

TESTS<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/strong> Standardised blanket testing on a national scale in schools is a malady that has spread over a number of countries under different names. The United Kingdom and New Zealand share a general term \u2018national testing\u2019<\/strong>; the U.S.A. calls it No Child Left Behind [NCLB<\/strong>] named after its emotional political launch ; Australia calls it\u00a0 National Program LiteracyAnd Numeracy [NAPLAN<\/strong>] introducing the concept of minimalism and\u00a0 political control of the curriculum. Naplan testing is a serious indwelling threat to Australia\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

Its introduction to Australia from New York was a political stunt, pure and simple. High stakes testing has nothing to do with learning nor achievement in any school subject.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Bruce Hammonds, New Zealand schooling guru, accurately describes these tests as\u00a0 \u2018pseudo-scientific incoherent accountability measures<\/strong><\/em>.\u2019 In each country, the politicised use of\u00a0 them has had a profound effect. Legislators in each country mentioned, support\u00a0 the school culture of \u2018drill and grill\u2019 that treats children as test scores.\u00a0 If school children had any say, they would plead for mercy and justice. The legislators, though,\u00a0 continue to \u2018play dumb\u2019 about the dehumanisation of the acts of learning. Because of their disregard, the concept of holistic based learning and development of a love for learning is disappearing, except in countries like Finland, which prohibits blanket testing. Finland respects school children andprovides well-trained professional teaching for them. Australian politicians don\u2019t even give it a thought and should be ashamed. They used to know better. No present-day political party publically cares about the plight of Aussie children. Check their \u2018education\u2019 credos and policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

FEAR<\/span><\/strong> The concept of fear-driven test-oriented schooling is now in vogue, acclaimed and supported by the politically powerful in the U.K., U.S.A., N.Z and Australia and, sadly,
\nappears as if it will last for a few more years. <\/span>There is no reliable evidence in any of these countries that, apart from promoting fear, blanket standardised testing works. Results are unreliable and untrustworthy. There is ample evidence that children fear the tests and their consequences; and that distress and counter-learning habits are increasing.
\nAustralia has a blatant fear-based curriculum. Ask your child\u2019s teacher. \u201cNobody cares\u201d says Treehorn, sadly. <\/span><\/p>\n

{\u201cRecognising that testing jitters are common, one standardised testing package comes with directions on what to do when a student vomits on the test\u00a0 papers.\u201d\u00a0http:\/\/standardisedtests.procon.org<\/a> }<\/span><\/p>\n

USE OF FORCE<\/span><\/span><\/strong>In<\/span> each place, the administration of the tests is forced on the unfortunate, uncomplaining children, mandated to be administered by compliant\u00a0 principals. Nothing was first negotiated with pupils, parents, teachers nor state governments prior to Naplan\u2019s introduction to Australia. Expectations were announced and commands given. It was introduced through deceitful, arrogant, mischievous bullying.\u00a0 This makes for an uncomfortable position for those principals who believe that their position is a responsible one and that their professional task is to care about kids. This leads to a serious consideration of ethics. If any principal believes that they have been dealt a fair hand, that Naplan enhances learning and that it is okay to continue to threaten children to participate in it, they should seek some other job.\u00a0 Really. They don\u2019t know what is going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE POLITICS OF REFORM<\/span><\/strong> We have Job principals – who just work at it – some of whom are Poster principals [Smythe] \u2013 show offs – and we have Professional principals. All behave as one at present, willingly submitting to corporate notions of managerialism [ introduced in the 1990s ]\u00a0 and treating children as if they are warehouse products that can be pushed and shoved into shape with force [ introduced in 2009 ]. The primary principal\u2019s national association in Australia supports Naplan and, therefore, this style of schooling!! Scary. Unwilling to resile from its early support for Julia Gillard\u2019s introduction of the hard-data system, many members are now in a cleft stick.\u00a0 They have been eichmannised or they believe in the imported \u2018State Theory of Learning\u2019 or they have just succumbed.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t believe in fear-driven, blame-and-shame testing, they have yet to proclaim it above a whisper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Australian principals and their groups have remained resoundingly silent on issues affecting \u2018Naplan in the classroom\u2019. This hurts lots of old dogs like myself with limited years available.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was Martin Luther King Jnr., who said, <\/strong><\/span>\u201cIn the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.\u201d <\/strong>You\u2019ve sure got it right, Reverend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost everywhere, principals are the victims or products or supporters of stalinism; that is they tolerate overt centralised, totalitarian, coercive leadership; … or of fascism: that is,approving a totalitarian and authoritarian political mentality, with uncompromising, strong leadership [ \u201c I will reform education !<\/strong>\u201d ] that mandates for\u00a0 punishment and economicclass differences. Whatever it is that controls such attitudes, it is not related to respect for nor love of children, nor professional concern for their progress, nor personal professional pride. None of the\u00a0 mentioned countries seems to have sufficient principals with gumption or a professional, democratic attitude towards the country\u2019s\u00a0 most precious citizens. That\u2019s for sure.\u00a0 Is injustice to children so hard to recognise?<\/span><\/p>\n

The NAESP, the largest primary\/elementary school principal\u2019s association in the USA, could take the ethical high-ground, stand up for children now; and such an action would spell the end of hard-data testing around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

TIME FOR MORAL COURAGE<\/span><\/strong>There is despair that many principals have gone \u201c….beyond acquiescence to active participation and become the willing executioners of our ideals.\u201d [Kelvin Smythe] He was referring to the appointment of 50 New Zealand S.A.P.s [ Student Achieve ment Practitioners] whose counterparts exist in other places, willing toaccept pieces of silver to straighten out those schools whose scores are not acceptable to the <\/span>controllers. There are other \u2018principals\u2019 as well, offering advice to the overlords on how test compilation and scores can be improved, writing booklets that advise on how to practice for tests, preparing tests, counting the bubbles on the examination papers and marking the efforts of the children who have endured the test.\u00a0 Blood money. <\/span><\/p>\n

The term \u2018quisling principal\u2019 seems a tough description when it is applied to those for whom one once had great respect; but that is the present state of schooling. One presumes that the aforementioned need the money. Our non-schooling measurement storm troopers, busy with their calculators, don\u2019t care, as long as they have recruits. They live in a different
\nworld from the classroom.\u00a0\u00a0 Naplan, NCLB and \u2018national testing\u2019 has split the schooling community in a way that has never occurred in the history of schooling. <\/strong>As far as Australia is concerned, she<\/strong> knew that it would happen. She<\/strong> said so at the outset. She<\/strong> arrogantly continues to encourage internecine blood-letting. She <\/strong>will have her way. <\/span><\/p>\n

A few true-professional, child-oriented, curriculum-savvy Principals [capital P] in Australia have stood up for their children and their schools; and the parents of the school children have joined them. Since these are perilous times for school children, the names of these Principals and the names of their schools should be writ large in the history of schooling. They need more support from other professionals, their learned societies and their organisations; while observers like we wrinkled practitioners all await next May when the children in Naplan schools in Years 3,5,7,9 are assailed again with the evil purulence. Will there be increased numbers of conscientious objectors before then;\u00a0 those with the moral courage to
\nsupport their pupils and shake the shackles?\u00a0 Ethically-concerned but worried principals who see the times as demonian, but hope<\/span> to survive quietly until \u2018it\u2019 all passes are probably in the majority. What will they do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Dante cautions them : \u201dThe hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STANDARDISED\u00a0 BLANKET TESTING \u2013 A MORAL ISSUE FOR PRINCIPALS TESTS Standardised blanket testing on a national scale in schools is a malady that has spread over a number of countries under different names. The United Kingdom and New Zealand share a general term \u2018national testing\u2019; the U.S.A. calls it No Child Left Behind [NCLB] named … Continue reading Moral Issues for Principals.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1896","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1896"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1956,"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1896\/revisions\/1956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primaryschooling.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}