Send a Message To Your Local MP This will also be CCed to Julia Gillard

To my local MP, I am writing to ask you to take steps to protect school students from the damaging misuse of national test data. For over 12 months parents, teachers and principals have been asking the Federal Government to ensure that this data cannot be used to brand schools and students as failures in school league tables and to create invalid and misleading "information" for parents. But nothing has been done. The consequences of this inaction are significant and ongoing. The My School website currently presents information on schools in a way that is inaccurate and incomplete. Misleading comparisons of schools were created which don't even take into account school funding and resources. Worse still newspapers were allowed to take test data from the site and inappropriately rank schools in league tables. No matter how much progress schools had made with their students, the ones with low average student results were judged as failures. Do you have any idea how damaging it is for students and school communities to have their school publicly branded as a failure? The Australian Education Union has been trying since January to get a meeting with Minister Gillard to discuss ways to improve the My School website and stop league tables. But she refuses to listen to the profession or to meet. As a constituent I would like you to write to Ms Gillard on my behalf and urge her to meet with the AEU to try and resolve this matter before May when the next round of national testing is due to be undertaken. The AEU has stated that the national tests, NAPLAN, can proceed uninterrupted provided these serious matters of educational concern are addressed. I would also be interested to hear your views on this important educational issue and in particular whether you believe students should be protected from damage caused by league tables and the misuse of student data. Yours Sincerely,