Fighting spirit strong despite end of school test moratorium

Vanguard June 2010 p. 10
Lousia L. and Nick G.

A major battle over league tables and, underpinning them, the negative impact of high stakes' mass testing on students' education, ended with the dismantling of a nationwide public sector moratorium of NAPLAN, the national literacy and numeracy tests, just days before the tests were due to be held.

In the lead-up, the resolute defiance of recommendations and orders around the country by rank and file teachers was inspirational, if uneven. Some teachers wanted to do them, but accepted the union moratorium; a few wanted to do them but not send the papers in; and others were prepared to walk out and be stood down despite unprecedented threats and bullying.

Unlike a strike where a school will close despite a few staying on, only a small minority of teachers at each school could theoretically have run the tests which applied only to Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. This made it more difficult and bitter at some schools.

Gillard's call for parents to scab was a logical conclusion of her tactic, like Howard's, of pitting parents against teachers, rather than bringing them together as anyone who really cared about the interests of children would do. She had begun to believe her own propaganda. It backfired spectacularly, with parent organisations across the country coming out against being used as scabs.

Gillard’s tactical error
In the face of an effective national disruption to this year's NAPLAN tests, Gillard was eventually forced to negotiate.

The proposal for a sub-committee to work with ACARA (the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which runs NAPLAN and the My School website) was put to her by the AEU Federal Executive when it met with her several weeks before the moratorium was lifted. She rejected it out of hand and strutted around the media boasting that she had "not come to negotiate with the AEU". Just two days before the settlement, she was vigorously reiterating that on Adelaide talk-back radio.

This is the same Gillard who has refused to negotiate over the continued existence of the bosses’ attack dog in the construction industry, the ABCC, and who is displaying total indifference to the fate of the courageous Ark Tribe, due to face the courts again in June. It is the same Gillard who intervened on behalf of a peak business body, the Australian Industry Group, to overturn some minor improvements in right of entry provisions agreed between Dunlop Foams and the National Union of Workers. It is the same Gillard who savagely attacked Woodside-Burmah oil workers who went on strike in WA after the company downgraded their accommodation arrangements, threatening them with fines and imprisonment.

When it dawned on her that teachers were prepared to hold the line over the NAPLAN moratorium she had to retreat. Refusing to negotiate was a tactical mistake for her, showing her lack of experience in government. Labor Governments traditionally rely heavily on deception, and the pretence that they are prepared to negotiate is often a key element.

Meanwhile the campaign was gaining ground in most states and territories. With added pressure for negotiations by media outlets that had previously and unconditionally backed her, Gillard indicated that she would accept the AEU proposal for a working party to "improve" the My School website in line with six commitments, the last of which read "an opposition to the misuse of student performance data including simplistic league tables".

This was a significant moral victory for education workers and the first tactical back-down by our would-be Maggie Thatcher. The challenge for the AEU and its allies is to deliver through the sub-committee mechanism, and to prevent this from fizzling out into a merely pyrrhic victory.

For example, Gillard has always professed opposition to “simplistic league tables”. She has said, however, that she will “not interfere in the freedom of the press” to create them. Her commitment is to “opposing” league tables, not “preventing” them. And the ACARA Board, which the sub-committee is to “advise”, is an operational body acting on Ministerial policy generated through the MCEECDYA (a Council comprising State, Territory, Australian Government and New Zealand Ministers with responsibility for the portfolios of school education). It will argue that it does not have the capacity to implement changes that are not supported by MCEECDYA.

The night after the moratorium was lifted Gillard’s real intentions showed in an interview on the ABC's Stateline NSW. The My School website would remain unchanged, she said. This flies in the face of her commitment and of some portrayals of the resolution as a victory for education unions.

Further struggle needed to guarantee victory
Victories carry with them the seeds of defeat, and vice versa. This is a natural law, a dialectical phenomenon. The Eureka Stockade, for example, was a military defeat for the forces of the people, but the following months and years saw it achieve every one of its demands, and more.

In this case the positive elements are already stronger than at Eureka, where there was no commitment to negotiate and where a manhunt and arrests immediately followed the fall of the stockade. As at Eureka, the public has been made aware of at least some of the reasons for the dispute which previously had been hidden. How we frame that in the public arena, especially in the lead up to a very closely contested federal election, is essential to the continuing pressure we need to place on Gillard.

The AEU has forced Gillard to negotiate through the ACARA working party and has won the support of the Independent Education Union and all principals' associations, fragile allies who for various reasons didn't back the moratorium. But there are no guarantees, except that she will try to continue her attacks on behalf of big business to utterly demoralise and defeat teacher unions.

The fighting spirit amongst teachers is still strong. This campaign is not over by a long shot. Rallies and campaign actions will need to be implemented at the first sign of treachery by Gillard. Public education can be defended from market-driven “choice” agendas, and the right of all Australians to a free, high quality local public school protected, only if the public is brought in behind the AEU as it prepares its case for the ACARA sub-committee.