New Yorkers United for Kids

Tracing testing industry money to your local school board

Standardised testing suppliers spend serious money trying to influence which assessments land in classrooms. In Australia, where NAPLAN is the most prominent national test and several states run their own diagnostic programs, education companies actively court the people who decide which products a school adopts. Parents who want to know whether a board member has a financial relationship with one of these vendors used to face a wall of paperwork. Today, with the right search steps, the trail is usually traceable. The approach is broadly the same whether you live in Sydney, Brisbane, or a regional town in Tasmania, even if the official registers are different from those in New York where organisations like New Yorkers United for Kids have built detailed guides on the topic.

Most readers will start with a board member's name and end up inside a corporate filing on the Australian Securities and Investments Commission register, or in a state electoral disclosure database. The trick is knowing which door leads where, and which documents are actually public. Below is a practical workflow used by researchers and parent advocates, adapted for the Australian context but drawing on the same transparency tools that have shaped the opt-out movement in the United States.

Where testing companies show up on paper

Testing vendors in Australia are usually private companies, subsidiaries of multinational publishers, or arms of larger education groups. They register with ASIC, lodge annual financial statements, and disclose their officeholders. Start with the company name on any contract your school or education department publishes. A quick ASIC search will give you the directors, shareholders, and ultimate holding company. Cross-reference those names against your school board.

Most state education departments publish awarded contracts above a certain threshold on their open data portals. The NSW Department of Education's procurement site, the Victorian Department of Education's contracts register, and Queensland's QTenders are good places to start. Even if a contract is below the disclosure limit, the winning supplier's name is usually listed somewhere, and from there the corporate family tree is a few clicks away.

Reading political donation registers

In Australia, federal political donations above a small threshold are disclosed through the Australian Electoral Commission. State-level disclosures are handled by bodies such as the NSW Electoral Commission, the Victorian Electoral Commission, and the Queensland Electoral Commission. School board members in public schools are usually unpaid volunteers and rarely make political donations, but candidates who later join a board sometimes do, and the people who fund their campaigns are often the same networks that fund education lobbying.

If your board member has ever stood for local council, sat on a state education advisory panel, or run for state parliament, their donation history is likely on file. Search each register by surname, then look at the donor list for any education, training, or assessment companies. Names like ACER, Pearson, or Cambridge Assessment frequently appear in these documents.

Following the lobbying trail

Every Australian state now has a lobbying register, and several require lobbyists to disclose the clients they act for. The Victorian Lobbyist Register, the NSW Lobbying Register, and the federal lobbying register run out of the Attorney-General's Department all let you search by client name or lobbyist name. If a testing company employs a lobbyist, the register will show which government offices they have contacted.

School board members are rarely registered lobbyists themselves, but vendors often hire consultants who also serve on boards or sit on school council committees. Look for repeat appearances by the same lobbyist, then check whether any of their declared clients are assessment companies. That overlap is often the smoking gun.

Cross-referencing board members and contracts

Once you have a shortlist of names, the next step is to compare them with the people who actually sign off on procurement. School council minutes in public schools, available from the school's administration or through state freedom-of-information channels, list attendees and decisions. Most public schools in NSW, for example, publish annual reports with details of major expenditure. Look for any line item tied to assessment platforms, then trace the supplier back through ASIC. Resources explaining what's inside these assessments, such as https://nyunited4kids.com/common-core-standards-content, can help parents frame their questions once they know which vendor is involved.

If a board member sits on a parent committee that approved a contract, ask for the procurement policy that governed the decision. Schools in Victoria are required under the Education and Training Reform Act to keep records of significant purchases, and similar obligations exist across other states. A formal freedom-of-information request is the next step if minutes are redacted or contracts are summarised rather than published in full.

What parents can do with the findings

A paper trail on its own changes little. The next step is to put it in front of the right people. Parents worried about a child's stress during exam season can also read medical opt-out letter guidance for a different path, but those who want to keep going with transparency work should consider raising conflict-of-interest concerns at school council meetings, asking questions during public question time at board meetings, and writing to the principal or chair with a short, factual summary of what they found. Local media and education union branches often pick up stories with clear documentation.

Sources worth bookmarking:

A simple workflow to follow:

The most useful habit is treating every school contract as a small piece of public infrastructure that deserves the same scrutiny as a major government tender.

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