In the past few years the repetitive refrain has been that educational outcomes in Australia are stagnant; and the policy response has been to ramp up the focus on standardised testing.

It is not just the outcomes that are stagnant but the education debate itself.

The problem is that NAPLAN has moved from being a mechanism to check the pulse of one part of the education system, to being the reason that schools exist.

Improved NAPLAN results have become the purpose of education.

Despite the fact that it only deals with literacy and numeracy, NAPLAN has become the surrogate arbiter of educational standards in all aspects of education.