VIEU Alert

Dear Member

I am writing to you to outline VIEU's continuing concerns with the Federal Government's My School website and to invite you to participate in the union's public awareness campaign.

Serious concerns
As you will be aware, VIEU has been raising concerns with the Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, about the serious inaccuracies and destructive misuse of the data on its My School website, which has resulted in unfair criticism and ranking of schools' so-called performance in education. While VIEU supports transparency in education, we believe that the My School website is neither accurate nor in the best interests of students and schools. The website uses the extremely narrow data from the NAPLAN tests to compare the performance of schools against each other. Transparency is not achieved by creating a limited and inaccurate picture of schools.

VIEU believes that the site is seriously flawed, and totally unrepresentative of the rounded learning experiences being provided on the ground by educators such as yourself.

To date, Julia Gillard has refused to engage in genuine consultation about the website with those who know the most about education principals, teachers, support staff and their union representatives. Nor has she taken any steps to prevent the creation and publication of league tables.

While VIEU will continue to lobby the federal government, we believe the time has come to communicate directly with parents about the limited use of the My School website.

Where to from here
Over the last few months, the Federal Executive of the Independent Education Union of Australia and VIEU's own Committee of Management have discussed a number of options to highlight to government the depth of concern about the continued distorted focus and form of the My School website. They concluded that placing a moratorium on the NAPLAN test (as our public school colleagues intend to) is not the most suitable option for a sector as diverse as ours. Instead, VIEU has decided to implement a community campaign.

Leading up to the first 2010 NAPLAN test we will be calling on you and your colleagues to help us to speak with parents and the wider community about our concerns, and to send a message to the government.

In the following weeks, your VIEU rep will be asked to speak with you and your colleagues about the activities we would like you to be a part of. I would also invite you to stay tuned to the VIEU website for details www.vieu.org.au

We look forward to working with you on this important issue.