Australia: Labor’s war on public education

[Hannah Bell]

Less than one month after the Rudd government’s My School web site was launched, ushering in school league tables and a punitive regime of high-stakes testing, Education Minister Julia Gillard unveiled a further raft of pro-market education reforms. Gillard’s address to the National Press Club on February 24 pledged a new wave of attacks by Labor on public education.

The measures outlined in Gillard’s speech, including a uniform national curriculum, teacher performance guidelines, student ID numbers, the return of school inspectors, and the “reform” of teacher training, constitute a declaration of war on the teaching profession... Her speech was immediately welcomed in corporate and media circles...

The media and political establishment has closed ranks behind Gillard’s education reforms because they are the spearhead for a major new offensive being demanded by business against every section of the working class. On March 3, Labor announced plans for My University and My Hospital that will publicly rank health and tertiary education providers on the basis of “efficient service delivery”. Like My School, the hospital and university web sites will be used to slash costs and target the jobs and conditions of public sector employees.

Significantly, in the United States, the Obama administration is using school report cards and crude teacher performance measures to sack teaching staffs and close schools in a manner similar to Reagan’s infamous firing of the PATCO air-traffic controllers in 1981. Obama is seizing on the global financial crisis to effect a major restructuring of class relations in the interests of the financial oligarchy.

Similar measures are being brought forward in every country, including Australia...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/teac-m08.shtml