NAPLAN testing 'will ruin Australia'

Visiting Professor David Berliner doesn't mince words when it comes to education.

The internationally renowned education expert has spent the past six weeks with the University of Tasmania from the Arizona State University where he is the Regents' Professor Emeritus of Education.

The recently ``retired'' Professor Berliner said testing has ruined the US and it will do the same in Australia.

``It's not that you don't want to test,'' he said.

``You do want information so you can benchmark how come this school and this school look alike, but this one's doing better and this one is not, that's a fair question.

``But the minute you make it public, then the teachers get nervous, they get shamed and blamed.

``So now what they do with the curriculum is they throw the arts out, we have one school (in the US) where lunch is seven minutes because the kids had to work hard to keep the scores up . . . this is stupid, it's crazy.''

He said there was very little good in testing, except on an individual level.

Professor Berliner said Tasmania's low NAPLAN results compared with other states was probably affected by the number of children living in rural areas and the possible subsequent lack of resources those schools have.

``You're doing fine, you're not doing bad, from everything I know about Tasmania, it's a pretty good place to live for kids,'' he said.

``From what I can see it's a middle class culture and that's what you want to have and education is part of that.''

Professor Berliner said recent comparisons to Asia should not be made as Australia, like the US, has a different culture and so children are brought up differently; Australia has a culture of sport, yet in China it may be on study.Professor Berliner said in the international scheme of things, a child from a middle class background in a middle class Australian school is doing really well.

He said the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment test results showed Australian kids were well above the OECD average.

However, the gap between children from low socio-economic backgrounds in low socio-economic areas and children at the other end of the scale is huge, Professor Berliner said.

He said rural, Indigenous and new immigrant children were the areas that had to be tackled by the government.

``Your problem is not schooling, it's not the curriculum, it's not the teachers, it's not the funding; you can address those if you want, but your issue is poverty kids in schools that serve poverty kids, it has a big affect and they affect each other,'' Professor Berliner said.