The following resolution was passed unanimously at SEP public meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on May 4 and 5, respectively. We urge teachers, parents and students to organise meetings to pass this resolution and contact the SEP to discuss how to take forward the fight to defend public education.

1. This public meeting convened by the Socialist Equality Party calls for a national boycott of NAPLAN tests on May 11, 12, 13 by parents, teachers and students. The boycott outlined by the Australian Education Union and the New South Wales Teachers Federation is a boycott in name only. To take forward a struggle in defence of public education, teachers must reject outright the AEU and the Rudd government’s entire “education revolution”, including NAPLAN high-stakes testing and the My School ranking system.

2. We call on teachers and parents to organise public meetings in every school district to open up a full and democratic discussion on the Rudd government’s assault on public education and the economic and political agenda behind it. National school rankings are opposed by 95 percent of education professionals yet our voices are being silenced.

3. Rank and file action committees of teachers and parents must be established in every school/district to plan a political and industrial campaign, independent of the unions, to oppose Labor’s education revolution and its draconian anti-strike laws. A genuine boycott of Rudd’s NAPLAN tests must be organised, calling on support from parents and students. This struggle will find powerful allies, not in parliament, but among hundreds of thousands of workers and their families across Australia and internationally.