''We have learnt about the potential negative effects of very narrow tests, particularly when they are put in a high-stakes context,'' Professor Darling-Hammond, on a visit to Australia sponsored by teaching unions, said. Schools and teachers have been judged and rewarded financially for improving student test scores and punished for poor ones, she said. This led to good teachers abandoning schools in disadvantaged areas.
''We have seen growing student exclusion to get the scores up. Schools either prevent students from taking the test or encourage them to leave school,'' Professor Darling-Hammond said. ''Schools that have choices about who to admit will not admit low-achieving students because they will bring their scores down.''

While basic skills literacy and numeracy tests were designed to help teachers identify children with learning difficulties, they are also being used as a competitive measure of school performance on the government's My School website.

Professor Darling-Hammond said Australia would be wiser to follow the examples of Finland, Korea, Shanghai and Singapore, whose 15-year-olds achieve the best results in numeracy, literacy and science in comparison with other developed nations.
''The US is taking a U-turn away from test-based accountability,'' Professor Darling-Hammond. ''We hope not to meet Australia heading in the other direction in seeking policies we have sought to move away from.''

Professor Darling-Hammond said national standards had been unrealistically raised each year in the US and the Republican government had given children from ''failing'' schools vouchers for private schools. Children from disadvantaged areas enter lotteries to gain a place in privately run charter schools.