Anne Susskind questions what effect Naplan is having on children in her article in The Guardian (22.11.16):
‘When Naplan started in 2008, it was voluntary and parents were assured that it would be used only as a diagnostic tool, a convenient mass instrument to determine educational achievement and help students in need. That was the premise, the promise.
‘But the worst always seems to transpire in education, especially in the age of the internet, as we lurch backwards, anchors gone. Normalisation of the awful, the frog in the boiling water, and before we know it, this will be another tool wielded by floundering politicians. Another tool to classify, another lowest common denominator marker in the unfair race in which some schools and students already start out with such obvious advantages.’
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