Some are saying that NAPLAN should be abandoned because literacy and numeracy standards have not risen since NAPLAN was introduced in 2008. Is that the equivalent of saying that, if weight loss is not achieved by dieting, the bathroom scales should be thrown away? Key questions about monitoring are about what is measured and what is missed. The presentation will review the roles in education of full-cohort assessment through NAPLAN and national and international sample-based assessments and examine them in the light of national goals for education set down in statements by the Council of Education Ministers in 1989, 1999 and 2008. It will set this work in the context of more general attempts in Australia and elsewhere to monitor national progress by moving beyond GDP as a single measure that is flawed both for what it misses and what it measures.