Monday 19 June 2006

Tuesday 20 June

Wednesday 21 June

Thursday 22 June

Friday 23 June

Saturday - Sunday 24 - 25 June



Monday 19 June 2006

• Today's West Australian includes the article OBE deal 'paves way for chaos' and two letters to the editor
  
  
  • OBE deal 'paves way for chaos'
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Teachers have warned the education system will be thrown into disarray next year after the State Government forged a flawed compromise solution to the outrage about outcomes-based education.

    "In a bid to defuse a looming teacher revolt, Premier Alan Carpenter and Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich unveiled a hybrid teaching model at the weekend which merged OBE with the existing TEE.

    "Though the State Government was forced to ditch some of the more controversial aspects of OBE, some teachers warn that the result is a tangled mess which will confuse teachers when they teach the 17 new courses to Year 11 students next year.

    "Teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes (PLATO) said the system was "a two-headed monster" that would be totally unworkable.

    "The warnings came as some of OBE's strongest critics revealed plans to form a breakaway union because they claimed the State School Teachers Union had sold them out by lifting bans on teaching the new courses. [emphasis added]

    "SSTU president Mike Keely claimed the compromise package which the union accepted on Saturday was a significant backdown and tantamount to a delay – as originally sought by the union – because it allowed teachers to use existing teaching programs next year.

    "Dissatisfied educators said the package would placate teachers in the short term but the lack of detail could lead to mass confusion.

    "Teachers will not see any detail on the changes until the end of next month. The Government has promised the new courses will have clear syllabuses, an assessment structure that would allow teachers to mark in percentages or levels and that new course content would not be included in exams until 2009.

    "St Hilda's Anglican Girls' School principal Joy Shepherd, a vocal opponent of the Government's OBE plan, said the Carpenter Government had cobbled together a hybrid solution to rescue next year's students and save political face. "The fight is just beginning," she said. "But we can't let go of the pressure to come up with something better when it's fully implemented." [emphasis added]

    "Association of Independent Schools deputy director Valerie Gould said resources and materials had to be provided as quickly as possible to avoid mass confusion.

    "She feared teachers would face more problems because new OBE courses would be assessed differently to existing OBE, TEE and non-TEE courses."

    Full story in The West Australian at http://www.thewest.com.au/20060619/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto134457.html   
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • If OBE has been used with great success for many years in primary school, why are students entering secondary school lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills?
      
      M Barton, Manjimup
      
      
      
      
• PLATO Media Release
  
  

• PLATO Media Release PLATO Rejects "Compromise OBE package" PLATO spokesman Steve Kessell said there has been a huge increase in traffic on their website over the weekend. He said this is due to parents seeking the organisation’s view on the so-called "compromise OBE package", which the State Teachers' Union approved on the weekend. Kessell said: “In response, PLATO has created a 1-page Handout entitled 'Why the OBE "Compromise" is bad for your kids'. "Both it and a petition to the WA Parliament, requesting a year’s ban on all OBE-style courses in Year 11 and 12, are available on our home page.”

  
  
  
• Today's The Australian includes a major article on the WA OBE-compromise fiasco, and an article and several letters to the editor about "traditional" report cards
  
  
  • Still hope for new-age courses after rewrite
    by Paige Taylor
    
    "The Carpenter Government is keeping hopes alive that it will eventually implement its new-age gradeless high school curriculum despite being forced to rewrite the courses and retain existing exams for two more years.

    "The 17 new "outcomes based" courses that were due to be rolled out into Year 11 next year are being radically overhauled following a teacher revolt.

    "Teachers will now be allowed to assign students a percentage mark, and will no longer be required to assess their pupils under a system that many criticised as "waffle" -- by giving them "two judgments per outcome" and "course of study evidence plans".

    "The courses will now each have a syllabus and compulsory content, and ideological bent will be rolled back in some courses such as science where a "values" component would have been worth 25 per cent.

    "The state council of the State School Teachers Union voted at the weekend to accept the Government's backdown, hammered out during talks last week.

    "For subjects such as physics, chemistry, geography, music and English literature (renamed texts, traditions and cultures), teachers will continue to teach as normal. The present system of examining students in those subjects will also continue in Year 11 next year and in Year 12 in 2008.

    "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the union supported the overall direction of "outcomes based" education but the content of the courses that had been pushed on to students was unacceptable.

    "We've got a scenario where everybody has realised that what was on the table wasn't good enough," he said.

    "The courses were not up to scratch and had to be revised. We're very pleased the existing tertiary entrance exams will apply over the next two years."

    "The Carpenter Government has again signalled its intention to fully implement the "outcomes based" courses by appointing a ministerial panel to oversee the process.

    "Acting Curriculum Council chief executive David Axworthy yesterday described the changes to the courses as "a simplification of the process"."
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19513546-13881,00.html
    
    

  • Independent schools back PM on reports
    by David King
    
    "Independent schools have backed the Howard Government's controversial report cards grading system, saying parents overwhelmingly favour marking their children from A to E.

    "A spokesperson for the Independent Schools Council of Australia said anecdotal evidence suggested most parents wanted school reports which allowed comparison of children's achievement across and within schools..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19511318-13881,00.html
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    Feel-good feedback prevents preparation for real world

    • Most talked about report cards
      
      "I have taught at a variety of schools in several states, in private, public, co-educational and single gender institutions.
      

      "One of the biggest lessons I have learned was only last week when I challenged a very disruptive student by showing him a poor test result, in a desperate effort for him to see the connection between his behaviour and his academic progress.

      "He was genuinely confused, and actually did not make the connection, sincerely believing that his rights were violated by my daring to table such an idea.

      "The notion that ranking students or schools academically may offend people is causing damage to our children. Masking objective, measurable consequences of actions into "feel-good" nonsense only teaches children that the world wants no accountability from them.

      "We have been teaching a ranked system for centuries and as a result we have a global community, improved standards of living, we have overcome fascism and even reached the moon. The A-to-E ranking is healthy, consequential and not only reflects a real world, but helps shape a real world.

      "The alternative is academic rubbish."
      
      Peter Wilson, Warburton, Vic
      
      

    • "Your editorial on educational goals overlooks important flaws in grading schools. Further, your reference to soccer is not only glib but it highlights the common obsession that everything in life needs to be competitive. Surely education can exist outside such a paradigm. The first flaw in the new proposal is that in such a system we are creating "winners" and "losers".
      

      "By benchmarking against how other schools are performing, we may fail to see a more meaningful result of a particular school. Benchmarking against national accepted standards of what is expected of a student in a particular grade and subject is far superior. If many students perform above the national accepted standards, those performing below, but still at an acceptable level (based on national standards) may well be seen at the bottom of the list.

      "The notion that by finding the average of performing students one can safely and accurately assess other students is flawed.

      "Another issue relates to areas where there are a high proportion of students who come from non-English speaking backgrounds or who are new arrivals from other countries. The south-western area of Sydney, for example, is a case in point.

      "If the proposed system were to be introduced, then schools in such areas would be clearly at the bottom of the list, regardless of the quality of the teachers, staff and effort of the students. As a teacher, I see that no system of reporting is perfect. The current system has many flaws. However, the proposed changes, I believe, are not the answer. More discussion is needed."
      
      Petr Bosma, Panania, NSW
      

    • "The commonsense idea that ranking Australian schools in league tables will provide a transparent measure of teacher effectiveness (Editorial, 17-18/6) is misguided. It has no basis in research and the overseas experience is that league tables simply replicate existing social inequalities. Extensive statistical analysis by UK researchers has indicated that league tables of English schools measure not the best, but the most middle-class schools. The research found league tables fail to recognise the success of schools serving low socio-economic communities.
      

      "Conversely, schools at the top of the tables were shown to be less successful when the relative affluence of their students was factored in. Leading Australian educator Ken Rowe acknowledged the flawed nature of this proposal when he wrote that those advocating the publication of school league tables are stomping around in an uninformed fog."
      
      Mark Howie, Lawson, NSW
      

    • " From my starting school in 1947 to my youngest child leaving in 2004, the "traditional" school report card was an assessment of achievement over the year on a range of subjects and criteria and an identification of both merit and of areas needing attention. It was never a non-informative "celebration of achievement", as claimed by (Australian Council of State School Organisations president) Jenny Branch, and few parents would regard that as a satisfactory role."
      
      Michael Cunningham, West End, Qld
      
      
    • "I am a primary school teacher who was in favour of A-to-E graded report cards. I was shown a work sample that was to be used as a statewide benchmark for assessing grades in a piece of written work.

      "I was asked to give my opinion. The work sample was better than almost all similar work I have seen in five years as a beginning teacher in public schools.

      "It was clear, concise, well-structured and satisfied all the requirements of the task. In that sense I gave it an unapologetic A. To my surprise it was rated D. It will be interesting to see how parents react when their children, even very bright children, go through year after year of school receiving little more than F in all subjects."
      
      Cameron Goozeff, Newtown, NSW

      Full letters available from The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/index/0,,21223,00.html
      

Tuesday 20 June

• Dr Kevin Donnelly seminar "OBE: Dumbed-down and Politically Correct", 20 June 2006, at the University of Western Australia. Sponsored by the Institute of Public Affairs
  
  Click here for a synopsis of Kevin's talk and the after-talk discussion
  
  
  
• Today's West Australian includes two articles, an "Inside Cover" piece and a Letter to the Editor
  
  
  • OBE Fight to resume next year
    by Bethany Hiatt (page 9)
    
    "Critics of outcomes-based education yesterday warned the State Government ti brace for another bruising fight should it plan to introduce the more extreme parts of the controversial system in 2008 after delaying them next year.
    
    "While many of those who lobbied for a delay to the introduction of OBE to Year 11 next year say they are comforted by the Government's decision to drop huge chunks of the system in 2007, they warned there would be a repeat of the furore of the past six months if it decided to press ahead with its original plan in 2008.
    
    "In a clear sign the OBE row is far from over, principals who spoke to The West Australian yesterday said information released so far by the Curriculum Council raised more questions than it answered.
    
    "They had no idea what was planned for the implementation of more than 20 OBE courses due to start for Year 11s in 2008.
    
    "Sacred Heart College principal Ian Elder, who lobbied for OBE to be delayed, said he hoped 2008 courses would still include prescribed syllabuses, though he feared the council planned to revert to a hardline OBE approach. "But I would hope that sanity would prevail." Mr Elder said. "It would be stupid to go back to an attempted purist model."
    
    "St Hilda's Anglican Girls' School principal Joy Shepherd said teachers had to know what process would be used to design and implement new OBE courses after next year's compromise. "If it's taken over again by the people who've been running it then we are not getting anywhere," Ms Shepherd said. [emphasis added]
    
    "Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich last week acknowledged the Government had moved too far towards a pure OBE model and needed to pull back.
    
    "The Curriculum Council yesterday confirmed that not all the modifications it was introducing next year to make teachers more comfortable with the changes would apply in 2008. However, teachers would still have syllabuses and be able to use marks as well as levels. Melbourne-based education consultant and self-appointed anti-OBE crusader Kevin Donnelly will tell a public forum tonight that the adoption of OBE has swung the WA curriculum too far in the direction of political correctness.
    
    "What they've come up with is a dog's breakfast," Mr Donnelly said. "It is the worst of both worlds in that it's trying to put together two approaches to curriculum, a more traditional syllabus approach with an outcomes-based approach which is largely experimental." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
  • Clayton's delay a mark of stubborn Premier
    Comment by Robert Taylor (page 9)
    
    "In State Parliament last week, the Government was forced to defend Alan Carpenter against allegations that he had breached parliamentary rules by meeting only Labor member of a joint standing committee on health and education that has been looking into OBE and is scheduled to report to Parliament on June 29..."
    
    "The so-called hybrid model which the State Teachers Union accepted at the weekend is in reality a Clayton's delay of the OBE implementation for Years 11 and 12 on the bulk of TEE courses – it's the delay you have when you're not having a delay.
    
    "If Mr Carpenter's first instinct had been to sniff the political wind, if his natural inclination had not been to push ahead and damn the torpedoes but to listen out for depth charges, that delay would have come earlier and saved the Government and the community a great deal of political pain.
    
    "But by digging in, the Premier has achieved the worst possible outcome – a confused and divided workforce, suspicious parents and a Year 11 curriculum looking more and more like a dog's breakfast." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
  • "Inside Cover" (page 2)
    
    "A teacher printed out all eight levels for an OBE course and cut them into eight separate pieces of paper.
    
    "The level numbers (1 - 8) had been removed.
    
    "The teacher then gave them to his principal and asked for them to be sorted – based on their content / description – into ascending order.
    
    "His order turned out to be: 1 - 3 - 4 - 2 - 7 - 8 - 5 - 6.
    
    "Sounds a bit like Lotto.
    
    "All down to good luck rather than good management."
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 18)
    
    
    • "The Government and the teachers' union may have thrashed out a deal on OBE, which gives teachers a 12-month reprieve, but the fundamental issues still exist. The vague edubabble "levels" will still be used. The dreaded outcome four (the ethic of airbags) will still exist, only 12 months later. OBE is a dead cat that is lying in the middle of the road. If we leave it for another 12 months, there will be no miraculous resurrection. It will just smell worse than ever." [emphasis added]
      
      Ian Middleton, South Greenough
      
      

    
    Full stories in The West Australian
    
    

• PLATO Media Release

• Today's The Australian includes
  

• Catholic school parents want grades
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "The overwhelming majority of Catholic school parents support the introduction of the new A-to-E report cards, particularly the move to rank students against their peers.

  "The support opens up a potential split with parents groups in government schools after their national body, the Australian Council of State School Organisations, foreshadowed at the weekend a campaign to inform parents of their right to refuse the new plain-English reports.

  "ACSSO president Jenny Branch wants state parents and citizens branches to ensure parents are aware they can choose to exclude their child from the new system, designed in response to complaints existing assessment models are vague and confusing.

  "Challenging the push towards simpler A-to-E gradings on report cards, she told The Weekend Australian on Saturday the "traditional end-of-the-year report card is a celebration of achievement of a child throughout the year".

  "But a survey by the Federation of Parents and Friends Associations and the Catholic Education Office in Sydney shows almost three in four Catholic school parents support the introduction of the plain-English reports and just 8per cent are opposed.

  "Reporting the results in the parents newsletter, About Catholic Schools, federation executive officer Franceyn O'Connor said parents were "largely enthusiastic" about the five-level grading system. "Many parents have indicated in several discussions and meetings held throughout the year that they welcome the opportunity to compare their child's progress against statewide standards using a common grading scale," Ms O'Connor said.

  "They appreciate how difficult it may be for teachers to convey bad news but they still want a fair and honest assessment of their child's abilities to determine their rate of progress."

  "The federal Government introduced a requirement for all schools in the government, Catholic and independent sectors to provide plain-English report cards as a condition of funding.

  "All the states and territories are introducing the reports, which must grade students in five levels, such as A to E, and also provide information on the students rankings according to their peers..."

  "The federal Education Department has received many letters of support for the reforms to school reports and federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the parents she had spoken to welcomed the changes.

  "The vast majority of parents I talk to want to know in plain English how their children are performing, and how they're performing in relation to other students," she said..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19526541-2702,00.html
  
  

• Overseas students may sue over uni courses
  [could it happen here with international secondary students??   Web]
  
  by Lisa Macnamara
  
  "One of Victoria's top universities is facing legal action from international students who claim they have been misled into forking out thousands for courses that failed to live up to the hype of university promotions.

  "The 30 Japanese, Thai and Chinese students who paid thousands of dollars for TAFE courses at RMIT University will meet lawyers this week over claims that supervised teaching hours fell far short of what is promoted on the university website.

  "Japanese student Tomoko Shimomura paid $6700 for an intensive six-month translating and interpreting course run through the Melbourne-based university, but, according to the university, the 300 hours of student contact time was "nominal" and included study at home as well as the time her teachers used to assess her work.

  "In all, the six-month course amounted to only 3 1/2 months of "supervised" study.

  "If I pay this much, I want what I paid for," said Ms Shimomura, who calculated that she received just over 200 student contact hours. "I asked a co-ordinator and she said the contact hours included unsupervised and supervised hours and included teachers assessing my homework and tests."
  
  "The action comes after Thai student Prapass Chairat, 34, won compensation from RMIT late last month.

  "I don't like the way they (RMIT) treated the international students. We pay a lot but they treated me like shit," said Mr Chairat, who paid $24,000 for a two-year furniture design course..." [emphasis added]
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19526557-12332,00.html
  
  

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Isn't it fantastic that WA school students will be able to study nanotechnology now that the union has caved in to the curriculum council and the minister. I guess it will come in handy for investigating the minute brains of those advocating the changes in the first place.
    
    David Sargent, Joondalup, WA
    
    
  • Report cards will allay parental anxieties
    

    Congratulations to Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop (and former minister Brendan Nelson) for having the guts to finally bring some accountability to Australia's educational establishment. As a parent of five children, the crisis in education has dominated our family and social life.

    As parents, we watched our children (and friends' children) flounder in public schools in Tasmania: taught by exhausted, stressed and/or incompetent teachers, while being fed a fact-free, superficial, topical and "socially-relevant" curriculum (often via the internet or videos). However, despite our best efforts, we could not persuade any of the teachers or institutions to question the educational objectives, merits (and tools) of the current mainstream curriculum.

    Whether it was learning "history" through watching Hollywood movies (Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, etc.), or designing Harry Potter board games for English (while not reading a single text all year), or the endless array of entertainment or vocational courses (health studies, movie appreciation, business management) – it was all at the expense of teaching our children how to read and write. We quickly realised that the teachers and educrats (and minister for education) in Tasmania were simply not interested in what parents think. They were not serious about parental input into the current mainstream curriculum. Reports focused on our children's appearance or behaviour ("friendly", "interested") – and told us little about our children's real performance, what they had learnt or how they could improve. Even when we knew our children were failing, the schools refused to acknowledge it for fear of depressing them. Who can blame children for hating school, when we bore them to death, fail to acknowledge their pain and disguise their failure. One can't help surmise that today's public schools are designed more as child-minding centres – specialising in crowd control, entertainment and pretence – rather than as places to stimulate and educate our young. We will certainly be supporting the new plain English report cards, and any attempts to introduce national educational standards and assess school performance.
    
    K. Edyvane, Jingili, NT

  
   
  © The Austrlalian Newspaper

  • Your editorial ("Educational goals", 17-18/6) only serves to highlight the widespread lack of understanding about assessment and reporting. Primary school children are required to undertake a range of (largely academic) activities at school, whether or not they have an interest or aptitude in them. Professional soccer players are generally highly paid people, who are doing what they are good at, and what they want to do. To make comparisons of any form between these two disparate groups is misleading.
    
    Peter Howes, North Adelaide, SA

  
  Full Letters to the Editor at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/index/0,,21223,00.html

Wednesday 21 June

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Carpenter's hybrid OBE an even bigger mess, says principal
    by Jessica Strutt (front page)

    "Parents should be deeply worried about Alan Carpenter's compromised version of outcomes-based education because it was highly confusing and had left teachers without a clue about what they should be doing, the principal of one of the State's leading Anglican schools warned yesterday.

    "All Saints' College principal Geoff Shaw broke his silence over the OBE furore, saying the Government's last-minute changes that would be "dumped on our senior students" had left the controversial scheme in an even bigger mess.

    "He said the changes, the details of which would not be given to teachers until the end of next month, meant a delay to the 17 courses due to start next year was even more vital.

    "The people of Western Australian have every reason to be very worried about the management of education in this State and about the quality of the education being dumped on our senior students," Mr Shaw said.

    "He said his teachers were completely bamboozled by the size of the changes, the lack of thought about the ramifications and the ad hoc way information was being released.

    "Your frustration mounts at each point and we've reached what now appears to be end game as far as the Government is concerned but we are in a position where we haven't the vaguest idea what we are supposed to be doing and how we're supposed to be doing it," he said.

    "The Government seems to believe that it's all over and done with and all fixed up, in fact we are in an unholy mess and in many regards a bigger mess than we have been previously."

    "Mr Shaw said there was utter confusion surrounding the hybrid teaching model, which was unveiled by Mr Carpenter and Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich at the weekend.

    "The model, which merges OBE and the existing TEE, was cobbled together in a last-minute bid to defuse a revolt among teachers.

    "The obstinacy of the Education Minister was the initial problem but then I think the changes that appear to have been generated by the Premier have compounded the difficulty," Mr Shaw said. "A delay became even more essential when those changes were put there."

    [added to late edition] "A former head of the Secondary Education Authority, the forerunner to the Curriculum Council, last night joined other critics in attacking the OBE compromise.
    
    "Mike Partis, an SEA director from 1994 to 1997, told a public meeting attended by about 300 people that the agreement reached between teachers' unions and the State Government was "a recipe for further chaos."
    
    "The Government's handling of these changes has been characterised by ignorance and obstinacy," Dr Partis said.
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Axworthy cancelled an arrangement to address this meeting.
    
    "Ms Ravlich said the Government's changes - endorsed by the State School Teachers Union council last Saturday - had the support of the Education Department, Curriculum Council, Catholic Education Office, Association of Independent Schools and Independent Education Union.
    
    "Early edition story" in The West Australian at
    http://www.thewest.com.au/20060621/news/general/tw-news-general-home-sto134470.html
    
    

• PLATO Media Release
  
  

PLATO Media Release Teachers reject new OBE "Reference Group" PLATO spokesman Steve Kessell says the lobby group is disappointed with the composition of the Education Minister's new "Reference Group", established to oversee the "Compromise OBE Implementation" in Years 11 and 12. It includes the: Director General of the Department of Education and Training; Acting CEO of the Curriculum Council; Director of Catholic Education; Executive Director of the Association of Independent Schools WA; President of the State School Teachers Union; and Secretary of the Independent Schools Union. "These are the same people who, by not listening to teachers, created the original fiasco, that caused a crisis in Government, was rejected by teachers, and brought about this ill-advised "Compromise Plan," Kessell noted. He asked: "Why should we think they'll do a better job this time?" Kessell added: "St Hilda's Anglican Girls' School principal Joy Shepherd told The West Australian (20/6) that: 'If it's taken over again by the people who've been running it then we are not getting anywhere.' " Kessell also stated that: "According to PLATO's online message forum, it appears that secondary teachers, unhappy with last weekend's State Teachers Union council decision, are resigning from the union in droves." "Traffic on the PLATO website is at an all-time high, with 900 hits on the home page, and up to 150 new visitors, every day," Kessell said.

• The Canning Times Community Newspaper
  
  
  • OBE"still unclear"
    by Kate Emery (front page lead story)
    
    "Uncertainty over proposed outcomes-based education courses is likely to remain while schools await the fine print of changes unveiled at the weekend, according to some local school principals.
    
    "Local schools have cautiously welcomed a revised version of the OBE courses but, with less than six months of the school year left, teachers said they remain in the dark about the details of the changes to go ahead next year. The State School Teachers Union of WA voted at the weekend to remove its directive to teachers not to implement OBE courses until they felt comfortable doing so and to go ahead with a revised version of OBE.
    
    "Key concessions include a delay of new course content for examinations until 2009, an assessment structure to allow teachers to mark in percentages or levels and the retention of the existing tertiary entrance examination syllabus format for all new courses.
    
    "Willetton Senior High School principal Chris Booth said he wanted to see more details before making a judgement on the revised courses. "It is unclear how much we are still doing outcomes-based education," he said.
    
    "It seems that teachers can use existing programs, which should make them more comfortable, but I'm still not clear exactly what they intend for the assessment (process)."
    
    "Lynwood Senior High School principal Greg Thorne said he welcomed the changes but expected there would be further revisions to courses over the next six months.
    
    "Wesley College principal David Gee said there was a lack of detail available about the revised courses but that, at first glance, it looked tilted towards maintaining the status quo.
    
    "Also waiting on more detail are the members of the Independent Education Union, who have not yet decided whether to side with the SSTU directive. IEU secretary Theresa Howe said members would be receiving some details this week and she expected a high degree of cynicism among members, despite what she said looked like "major concessions". [emphasis added]
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Axworthy said modifications to the courses were the result of feedback from teachers.
    
    "He said the changes would give them confidence to implement the courses next year."
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • States 'rorting' schools with fees
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The states are fleecing schools of tens of millions of dollars provided under a Howard government scheme intended to pay for improvements such as upgraded classrooms and playgrounds.

    "The federal Government yesterday accused NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia of charging project management fees as high as 20 per cent.

    "It said NSW charged project management fees on a sliding scale from 3 per cent up to 20 per cent, while South Australia charged up to 20 per cent, Western Australia charged about 12 per cent and Queensland imposed a 10 per cent fee.

    "The West Australian Government is also accused of charging a fee to schools in rural and remote areas for preparing their application to the scheme. [emphasis added]

    "Pat Farmer, Parliamentary Secretary to the Education Minister, said the states were also inflating the costs of building the projects.

    "It's just outrageous. That's extra money on top of what the federal Government already gives for capital funding and the states still want to rort the system," Mr Farmer said.

    "The federal Government's Investing in Schools program was announced during the 2004 election campaign and provides $1billion directly to schools, as well as parents and citizens groups, to fund small projects.

    "State schools were allocated $700million and apply to a Canberra-appointed panel for the money.

    "The scheme has paid out more than $347 million, funding more than 4000 projects in 2600 schools last year, and more than 3000 projects in 2500 schools this year.

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop said the federal Government provided support for state-owned infrastructure and the least the states could do was provide project management support to schools at no cost..."

    "A Perth school was quoted $42,000 to resurface its netball court by one of the state Government's two preferred suppliers, while a local contractor quoted $11,800. A spokeswoman for Western Australia's acting director of infrastructure, Mal Parr, said it was fair that the commonwealth paid for managing a federal scheme..." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19539172-601,00.html
    
    

• Try new school reports, state parents group urges
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "The Victorian state school parents group has broken with its national body by advising families to try the new school reports that grade students from A to E before judging them.
  
  "Parents Victoria joins the Australian Parents Council, representing the families of 1.1 million students in non-government schools across the country, which yesterday said the majority of its affiliated organisations backed the introduction of the new plain-English reports.

  "Support for A to E reporting comes after the Australian Council of State School Organisations foreshadowed at the weekend a campaign to inform parents that they could refuse to accept the new system..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19538570-13881,00.html
  
  

• Editorial: Learning curve
  Universities must do right by overseas students

  "The principle of you get what you pay for has been replaced by let the buyer beware in many Australian universities, if the allegations made by a group of overseas TAFE students reported in The Australian yesterday have any substance to them. About 30 students from Japan, Thailand and China are meeting lawyers this week to discuss a class-action lawsuit against RMIT alleging they paid thousands of dollars for courses that did not live up to the university's advertising. In one case, a student claims to have paid $6700 for a translating course that should have included 300 hours' supervised teaching but amounted to just over 200.

  "Regardless of the merits of these students' individual claims, universities have an obligation to teach to the highest standard, not the bottom line. While full-fee paying students from overseas essentially create their own place – that is, they do not take up seats that otherwise would have gone to Australians – lowered standards for the global market trickle through the system and hurt local students. Education is Australia's fourth-largest export industry, worth $7.5 billion annually. Were our universities to become known for delivering a shonky, second-rate product, it would do immeasurable harm not just to our reputation but also to our balance of trade. Unfortunately, universities have been reluctant to hear criticism on this score. Education Minister Julie Bishop recently proposed a new code of practice for dealing with international students including monitoring attendance rates to ensure visa compliance. Ms Bishop's call was echoed in a recent speech by her Opposition counterpart, Jenny Macklin, who said: "Perhaps it is time to attend to the main game of monitoring and lifting standards, not just encouraging them along." In response, the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee slammed Ms Bishop's recommendations as expensive, wasteful and intrusive, complaining they would cost $40 million a year to implement. This is a short-sighted and dangerous attitude. After all, if universities are going to hang out their shingles to the world market and act like businesses, then they will need to adopt another principle: the customer is always right."
  
  Full editorials in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19536138-7583,00.html [scroll down a bit]
  
  

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
• "Outcomes based education: preparing children for life without competition."
  
  John Cusack, Mt Warrigal, NSW
  
  
• Report cards logical
  
  "Many unconscious assumptions and misunderstandings are bedevilling the current discussion of school assessment and reporting. The A-to-E ranking is the most logical form for a school report because most people are "average" or C on any measure (as is shown in the bell curve).

  "It is also educationally justified because it does not label below-average students' perpetual failures and gives them some hope of improving.

  "But the problem with any method of grading or ranking is that we cannot know to what extent it is generalisable to the whole state or nation.

  "Anyone who believes that A-to-E ranking of their child in a particular school is an indication of their state or national peer group relationship is being naive.

  "Aspirational parents send their children to Catholic or independent schools because they are keen to see them progress at above the average rate to obtain A or at least B.

  "Nothing succeeds like success. But nothing discourages like perpetual failure. And this is the reason good teachers resist condemning their charges by issuing hardline pass/fail assessments."
  
  Donald Richardson, Mount Barker, SA
  
  

• "We tend to think of measuring educational performance as a "good thing". However, there are risks associated with the task of measuring, particularly if the performance of students is used as a measure of school and teacher performance. It is very easy to measure performance in ways that waste students' time and/or encourage a focus on short-term, measurable outcomes at the expense of more important longer term outcomes.

  "The real measure of our education system is the quality of adults it produces. The process of measuring educational performance can have some serious negative effects."
  
  John Davidson, Chapel Hill, Qld

  
  Full letters in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/index/0,,21223,00.htm
  
  

• The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania)
  
  
  • ELs critic joins taskforce on school reports
    by Kathy Grube

    "The State Education Department is paying one of its biggest critics to help overhaul its contentious school report cards.

    "Melbourne-based language expert Don Watson has been appointed by Education Minister David Bartlett as a consultant on a taskforce to simplify school reports.

    "Don Watson, author of two best-sellers about cliches and jargon, criticised the Education Department's use of jargon in the Essential Learnings report cards last year.

    "Also a speech writer for former prime minister Paul Keating, Mr Watson's books Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language and Dictionary of Weasel Words attack the spread of bureaucratic language.

    "Last year he said the language sent home to parents to explain the ELs report cards was "totally abstract" and "like something out of the Soviet Union". He blasted the use of meaningless buzz words such as "key element outcomes".

    "The Ministerial Taskforce on Reporting to Parents was announced last month by Mr Bartlett.

    "He said it was Mr Watson's scathing criticism of the reports that made him the ideal candidate.

    "He was a little surprised at the beginning, but was excited to be involved," he said.

    "Don Watson will be involved with the taskforce right from the beginning and will be meeting with the taskforce in the next couple of weeks."

    "Mr Bartlett said the taskforce would also look at how it could better incorporate the mandatory Federal Government's A-to-E reports, which were introduced last year.

    "The taskforce will report to the Minister at the end of the year, meaning reports for this year will still use ELs language developed last year.

    "Opposition spokesman for Education Peter Gutwein said he was disappointed the new taskforce would not report back until the end of the year.

    "That said, the Liberals have welcomed the fact that the new Education Minister has recognised the problems his predecessor, Paula Wriedt, ignored," he said."
    
    Full story in The Mercury at http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19539424%255E921,00.html
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  

Telling children a dangerous lie about life
21 June 2006 (but just located today: will Archive with 21 June articles)

School reports do not tell children, or parents, how they are doing, writes Maria Tumarkin.

"Last year school report cards were cryptograms from hell. For each learning area, one tiny diagram contained coded letters, squares, shaded areas, black and white dots and a menacing progress line known as a class average.

"This year it's simpler. Your child's results are mapped onto the state-wide expected average for each learning area along a five-point scale: from A to E. C is where you need to be. A is well above the expected standard, E is well below. Parents can exhale. It's plain English all the way.

"Yet the welcome simplicity hides behind it the same essentially dishonest attitude towards children's education. We still don't know how and what our children are doing.

"Last year your child was beginning, consolidating or established. This year the child is above, at or below the expected state-wide standard. The insane graphs are gone, but clarity remains out of plain sight, obscured by a swarm of euphemisms. As parents we are still stuck poring over coded messages, trying to squeeze meaning out of all the wooden, insipid, tortuous terms and concepts that have become one of the defining traits of the outcomes-based education.

"My heart goes out to teachers locked into the system of bureaucratic double-speak — cornered into obsessive quantifying, assessing students without actually assessing them, placating parents rather than openly communicating with them.

"The issue of the plain English report cards is heating up. Boycotts, controversies, threats to cut funding are all on the table. The opinions are split. I am not entirely sure what makes the issue so divisive. To me, it's just a little bit like choosing between a triple root canal and a surgical removal of hemorrhoids. Seems kind of strange to have a clear preference.

"So I don't. Schools and education departments can rate, standardise and average out children's achievements all they want, but statistics should be an afterthought, not the message. It's for them to play with, not for us to make sense of. Mapping your child's GPS position on the road to achieving specific outcomes and standards — what a slippery, homogeneous, offensively vague way of evaluating your child's schooling. And the language itself, the much-lauded plain English, is nothing short of scary in its earnest overtones of corporate performance review.

"No matter how many bureaucrats it takes to change a light bulb, the truth is that no assessment is ever fully objective or fully fair. Personally, I prefer human bias to the notion of mechanistic detachment. I would much rather trust a teacher, no matter how potentially grumpy, disillusioned or inflexible in his or her judgement, than a set of self-referential, self-serving bureaucratic standards.

"The move away from grades comes from a seemingly honourable desire to make education non-competitive and non-punitive and to give every child all the nurturing and support required to succeed. Within the new system, failure is abolished and children in the same class are not pitted against each other. Sounds eerily humanistic. But this kind of approach, where an assessment is not really assessment but a road map, and children are all walking to learning outcomes at a varying speed and with a varying resolve, is a sweet but dangerous kind of lie.

"Some school districts in the US have replaced the word "fail" with "success deferred". Are you laughing? But haven't we been swallowing enough dumb euphemisms in Australia too?

"Could it be that the system of grades is being replaced with notions that may prove far more dangerous in the long term? Because they devalue teachers, parents and children alike.

"Stuck with bureaucratically devised statewide standards as the measure of all things, the teachers are handicapped in their ability to inspire, to guide and to help. Presented with the latest brain-twister from the Education Department, the parents are handicapped in their ability to engage and to support. The students, whose self-esteem is being so painstakingly protected, have no idea how they are doing. What will happen to them when they come to the final years of their schooling and to university, to say nothing about the world of work, where they will be measured by much more critical and stark standards?

"I am not speaking in favour of the return of As, Bs and Cs as grades, but against a euphemistic "I can't believe it's not butter" culture of replacing a clear evaluation of children's abilities and needs with something pleasant-tasting but potentially harmful if swallowed.

"It is bloodcurdling to see a bureaucratic apparatus set loose on children's education. It may take a whole village to raise a child, but it doesn't take all public servants in the country to educate him or her. On the contrary, children's education is best left to the fragile and infinitely nurturing one-on-one relationships between a teacher and a student, a child and a parent, a learner and the infinite world of learning."

Maria Tumarkin is the author of Traumascapes. The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy.

Full article in The Melbourne Age at
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/telling-children-a-dangerous-lie-about-life/2006/06/20/1150701550082.html

Thursday 22 June

• The West Australian [a quiet day in the West]
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    Can someone please put OBE out of its misery and enable our teachers to get back to the job of teaching our kids? The point is, it isn't working, it hasn't worked, it can't work, it doesn't want to work and unless Mr Carpenter and his Education Minister Ms Ravlich come to the same conclusion we are doomed to read OBE headlines and articles for a long time to come.
    
    David Sargent, Joondalup
    
    
    
    
• PLATO Media Release
  
  

  PLATO Media Release Concern for extra Year 11 and 12 students PLATO spokesman Steve Kessell claims the changes to next year's Year 11 courses under OBE will decrease opportunities for students who are not headed for university. In his testimony to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Changes to the Post-Compulsory Curriculum on 12 June 2006, Department of Education and Training Director General Paul Albert told the inquiry: "Changes are being made to the leaving age. It went up to 16 this year. It will go to 17 in 2008. That means we will have a cohort of around 27,000 students in place, as distinct from the 20,000 who are in place at the moment." Dr Mike Partis, the former head of the Secondary Education Authority, told a public meeting on June 20 that most of these extra students would be in government high schools (since the independent and Catholic systems already have much higher retention rates). Dr Partis said "The new OBE courses do NOT cater for this group adequately" and gave the example of the abolition of "senior science", with general science students now being mixed in with TEE physics students. "This means the Government is removing the courses that these students need," Dr Partis said. Kessell maintains this is just one more example of the Government not having thought through its proposed changes. "The politicians say they are doing more for the non-TEE kids but in fact they are doing less."

  
  
  
• ABC News Online
  
  
  • Howard slams public schools charging admin fees

    "The Prime Minister has expressed his outrage at public schools that charge parents so-called administration fees.

    "John Howard has told Parliament that he has learned of fees being charged at schools in Western Australia and New South Wales, supposedly for administering Commonwealth grants under the Government's investing in our schools program.

    "Mr Howard says the program provides money to schools to fill funding gaps by state and territory governments and such fees are inappropriate.

    "We're filling the space that should have been occupied by the State Government and they have got the nerve and the affrontery to charge the schools for administering our programs," he said.

    "Our program was intended to help the schools and I call on the state governments to stop docking Australian parents from the money that we're providing because they haven't done their job."
    

    Full story available from ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200606/s1668661.htm
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Kids' report cards confused Treasurer
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Peter Costello claims he had trouble deciphering his children's school report cards even though his job as the nation's Treasurer requires him to master complicated economic policy.

    "Launching a study on independent schools yesterday, Mr Costello backed the introduction of plain-English reports grading students from A to E, saying his children's reports were so confusing it was impossible to know if they had performed well.

    "They go on for pages and pages and you've got to ask yourself at the end of it whether the student's done well or badly. It's not entirely clear," he said.

    "Mr Costello, a Victorian MP, joins the Australian Parents Council, representing 1.1 million students in Catholic and independent schools, and parents and citizens groups in Victoria and NSW in supporting the new plain-English report cards.

    "The Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW, representing state school parents, joined its Victorian counterpart yesterday in backing the A-to-E reports, despite the national umbrella group urging parents to boycott the scheme..."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19548823-13881,00.html
    
    
    

  • Big starting costs in earlier school age
    by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
    
    "Lowering the starting age for children to attend primary school in Australia will cost the states hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a secret report commissioned by education ministers.

    "However, the cost-benefit analysis finds the costs would be outweighed by the net benefits to state finances by 2022.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has signalled she will push for a national school starting age of four years and six months, but has refused to release secret costings of the plan..."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19548821-13881,00.html

  
  

Friday 23 June

• The Sunday Times Online (Perth Now)
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    New pressures on students
    
    "The decision to keep students at school longer, combined with the new OBE changes, will cause big social problems for WA students.

    "If the school leaving age is raised, an additional 7000 students will stay at school. This, combined with OBE, will create some serious social problems.

    "Let’s face it, many of the 7000 extra kids forced to stay at school will loathe it, have severe literacy, numeracy, behavioural and social problems, and would prefer not to be at school.

    "The type of courses these kids have done in the past, Senior Science, Senior English etc., are being abolished under OBE.

    "The Curriculum Council argues that these kids can take regular TEE English, physics, etc. subjects along with the TEE students, “but at a lower level”.

    "The new courses are set up on a six-semester plan: 1A,1B,2A,2B,3A and 3B. The 3A-3B courses will be needed for university entrance.

    "The idea is that TEE kids could take 1A-1B in Year 9 or Year 10, do the “2’s” in year 11 and the “3’s” in Year 12.

    "What will happen? I expect disillusionment, resentment, anger, frustration and failure.

    "No, it won't be “deferred success” because no matter how long these students stay at school, they will not move much beyond Level 4. They will not suddenly get into uni. They will never have the satisfaction of getting an A or a B as they could have under the old system.

    "They are doomed to courses and tasks that will bamboozle and frustrate them and the eternal cycle of being assigned a Level 4 year after year.

    "It also means that non-TEE Year 12’s may well be doing 1A-1B subjects with Year 10 TEE students.

    "What kind of social mix will that be: students (who in the past would have left school already) being forced to stay on at school, and then being forced to take classes with the “academically-motivated little smart-arses”? This will not help their self-esteem.

    "I don’t think this will be very good for either cohort. I suspect the bigger, tougher, more mature “forced- to-stay-in-school” Year 12’s may well beat the crap out of the “little egghead wimps”! Lots of bloody noses, or worse.

    "Now how is that a better system for the huge number of students who will not be heading to university? There is no doubt that they are better off with the current non-TEE courses.

    "I suspect that the Curriculum Council, in typical fashion, has not even considered this issue."

    Steve Kessell, Willetton
    
    From http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,19563184-5005373,00.html
    

    The Sunday TImes - Perth Now Letters to the Editor are now located at
    http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/opinion/letters/
    [or go to their homepage http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/ and click the "Opinion" button]
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Education needs permanent chief for stability, pundits say
    by Kevin McKinnon and Bethany Hiatt (page 9)
    
    "The State Government needs to end the instability surrounding the most tumultuous period in education in a decade and appoint a chief to the Curriculum Council to reinstate public confidence in the troubled organisation, education and political commentators said yesterday.
    
    "Now on its third chief executive in 12 months, the Curriculum Council has been struggling to maintain stability as it battles opposition to outcomes-based education.
    
    "David Axworthy, who has indicated he wants the job, has been acting head of the council since January after the former acting chief executive Greg Robson quit to take up a job with the South Australian Education Department.
    
    "Their predecessor, Norma Jeffery, who held the position substantively, was controversially moved aside after criticism of the implementation of OBE. She is now back at the Education Department.
    
    "In Parliament last week, Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said the interviews for the job had finished and she would be making a decision on the appointment "in the not-too-distant future. [emphasis added]
    
    "But opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said given the debacle surrounding the upper school OBE courses, a permanent appointment was urgent.
    
    "This would provide some certainty and stability to a sector which at the moment is in freefall," he said.
    
    "Association of Independent Schools executive director Audrey Jackson (said) it was very difficult for someone to make changes when they were in an acting position.
    
    "She said for the sake of students the Government needed to make a substantive appointment as soon as possible.
    
    "Political commentators said the perception was that people in senior acting positions were more likely to kowtow to the wishes of Government in the hope of getting the job.
    
    "Under the Public Sector Management Act, CEOs can only hold the job in an acting capacity for 12 months. But common practice has been to renew the contract for another year." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
  • Teachers' union firm on A to E report ban
    by Bethany Hiatt (page 9)
    
    "The State Government is set for another major education stoush as the teachers' union holds firm to its ban on grading students A to E on school report cards.
    
    "Just days after Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich was forced to back down and offer significant concessions to the State School Teachers Union so it would lift its boycott on teaching new outcomes-based education courses next year, the union has maintained its strong opposition to a Federal Government directive to issue simple report cards that grade all students A to E.
    
    "Former Federal education minister Brendan Nelson linked Federal funding to the agreement to issue so-called plain English reports, which takes effect this year. Ms Ravlich refused to comment yesterday on whether she feared the union stance could jeopardise Federal funding.
    
    "WA Primary Principals Association Colin Pettit said many State schools would heed the union boycott and not include grades on primary and lower secondary reports when sending them out to parents in the next few weeks.
    
    "Instead, lower secondary reports would indicate a student's OBE level between one and eight. Primary school reports may show student achievement in levels or use a rating such as "achieving a high standard". Upper secondary reports – which are not subject to the Federal directive or union ban – will show grades on TEE courses and levels and percentages on new outcomes-based education courses.
    
    "SSTU president Mike Keely said the union could not be held responsible for Federal Government attempts to blackmail the States but he did not believe it would act on threats to withhold money from schools.
    
    "The union was philosophically opposed to grades because they were educationally unsound and could brand students as failures from a young age. Mr Keely said the department was caught in a bind, trying to impose the Federal directives on WA's OBE reporting system.
    
    "The two are almost contradictory," he said. "It's causing conflict, it's completely unnecessary."
    
    "The WA Council of State School Organisations said it was not directly backing the SSTU because parents were not passionate about the issue."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

Saturday - Sunday,  24 - 25 June

• The Sunday Times include the main Editorial, two articles and two letters to the editor
  
  
  • Main Editorial (page 57)
    Some hope in OBE compromise package
    
    "At last there are positive signs of sanity emerging in the fraught wrangle over the State Government's outcomes-based education plans.
    
    "The compromise package agreed to by teachers and the State Government last weekend warrants cautious support, even though the modified changes have strong critics who claim that the new system will still be unworkable.
    
    "But if there is goodwill on both sides it should enable the new system to be introduced effectively when final details are worked out.
    
    "The agreement gives teachers essential breathing space. As State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said, teachers voted for a plan that would enable most teachers of new Year 11 courses next year to run with their existing teaching and assessment programs. This makes sense.
    
    "It means that the more extreme parts of OBE will now be introduced to Year 11 in 2008 instead of next year.
    
    "Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich concedes that the courses will be taught under a watered-down form of OBE –
    not pure outcomes-based education as previously planned. Ms Ravlich and Premier Alan Carpenter, who did a lot of the groundwork on OBE when he was education minister, took an inordinately long time to realise that the pure OBE approach would not be accepted. For months they failed to believe there was a need to compromise in what had become a shambolic mess.
    
    "The OBE argument will no doubt last well into next year. The paramount question should be whether OBE will adequately educate our young people – that is the debate that should be vigorous and ongoing. It is the students who matter most.
    
    "With the OBE, it is essential that there is an effective assessment measure that the students as well as their parents can understand. That is why there should be support for the Federal Government's plan to force schools to rank students on a five-point A to E scale from next year.
    
    "Federal Treasurer Peter Costello was right when he said this week that school reports were confusing and whether students had done well or badly was not entirely clear.
    
    "This type of assessment doesn't do the students or parents any favours. Parents want a clear indication of how their children are going and an A to E system would be easy to understand. School reports remain a mystery to many parents. It is no good schools sending home many pages of reports without the parent being able to understand what they are looking at. They want to be able to accurately gauge the ability of their children and whether they have passed or failed their subjects. It's as simple as that.
    
    "What they don't want are reports dressed up in politically correct and meaningless jargon." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
• OBE making teachers "sick"
  by Paul Lampathakis (page 29)

  "Teachers are quitting or taking time off because of the stress of the new Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) courses already running this year.
  
  "Teachers of the new Year 11 courses have described how establishing and especially marking the subjects had pushed colleagues to resign or plan a change of careers.

  "Others were taking sick leave or holidays, ``anything just to get away from OBE'', they said.

  "Teachers are currently wrestling with the introduction of the new OBE English, media, engineering and aviation courses.

  "They're only half way though the year and things are already failing,'' one teacher said.

  "It's all the assessment we have to do, the lack of a syllabus, teachers got so stressed, they've gone on sick leave or holidays and some that I know of have resigned.''

  "Other teachers said the deal struck last weekend with the State Government to "water-down'' OBE had come too late for teachers who were already in the middle of teaching the new courses.

  "It doesn't help us, we've already written the courses,'' one teacher said.

  "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said he had heard of half a dozen cases of OBE-stress-related sick leave.

  "I've also heard a lot of people saying that they are considering resigning because of (stress),'' he said.

  "The subject assessment load is completely excessive and in some cases is damaging people's health.

  "I was talking to a teacher the other day who was getting up at four o'clock in the morning to get her marking done and she's not against the courses.''
  
  "But last weekend's deal would address many concerns, even for current Year 11 OBE teachers, most of whom could expect to halve their marking load next term.

  "Department of Education and Training director-general Paul Albert said there was no evidence that public school teachers had taken leave or resigned for reasons related to teaching the four new OBE courses.

  "Last week's modifications, agreed to by the teachers' union and based on teacher feedback, were designed specifically to provide greater confidence to all senior high school teachers to proceed with the successful implementation of the new courses of study.

  "Most public school teachers implementing this year's courses had said they felt confident and that the new curriculum had given them a fresh and innovative teaching approach and more flexibility and creativity in the classroom, he said.

  "But the department would continue providing public secondary teachers with comprehensive professional training, so they would be ready to teach new courses being introduced during the next two and a half years.

  "The department also provided five written testimonials from teachers praising their OBE experiences. [WOW ! 5 out of THOUSANDS !!    Web]

  "Our Year 11 students and staff have embraced the new English course of study because it is seen by them as a natural extension of the outcomes based education that they have been involved in since Year 8 at this college,'' wrote Denise Hewitt, head of English at Southern River College in Gosnells."   [A wannabee CC consultant ?    Web]

  Full story in The Sunday Times / Perth Now at http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,19572853-948,00.html
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor (page 55)
  
  
  • OBE is a sell-out
    
    "Education Minister's Ljiljanna Ravlich's so-called outcomes-based education is not an education system, but a form of social engineering or a human-resource management tool which achieves its purpose by replacing the teaching of knowledge with the installation of politically determined attitudes or values.
    
    "If readers have difficulty understanding OBE, they should not feel alone.
    
    "It is fundamentally illogical.
    
    "Parents should realise that their children's once-only opportunity for school-based education is already severely compromised, and that the only reason government school principals do not speak out against OBE is because they are forbidden to do so by the Education Department.
    
    "Contrary to recent claims that teachers supported the watered-down package of OBE, 80 percent wanted their union to call for a delay of the new OBE courses for Years 11 and 12, now being forced into place for next year, and to support a ban on teaching them.
    
    "These courses are not ready and some have not even been written yet.
    
    "Teachers were betrayed by their union's executive in order to protect the union's allegiance to the Labor Government." [emphasis added]
    
    Peter Fajdiga, Doubleview
    
    
    
    
• Plan to recruit students
  Sunday Times Exclusive by Trevor Paddenburg

  "Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has unveiled a plan to recruit police officers from the ranks of WA high school students.
  
  "The first of the recruits – including some as young as 17 – will be signed up to WA Police within months.

  "Mr O'Callaghan said recruiting from high schools was the only way to meet the Government's promise of 350 extra police and to "fill the void" as about 30 officers leave the force every month.

  "Under the program, new recruits will finish Year 12 and then undergo two years of specialised training at Joondalup Police Academy. After graduation, they will be ranked as probationary constables doing normal police duties.

  "The Opposition says teenagers are too young, inexperienced and lack the life skills to be competent police officers..."
  
  Full story in The Sunday Times / Perth Now at http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,19578437-2761,00.html
  
  

• Welfare 'link to school'
  by Glenn Milne (page 30)
  
  "The Federal Government is considering tying welfare payments to school attendance and nourishment at home as part of its response to the social crisis in Aboriginal communities.

  "The idea has been endorsed by Treasurer Peter Costello ahead of tomorrow's summit of state and federal indigenous affairs ministers, called to find ways of combating violence and child sexual assault blighting many remote settlements.

  "The summit is also expected to consider garnishing welfare payments for parents who are substance abusers.

  "Under the proposal, part of their payments would be held by the Government and directed towards their children's welfare.

  "Mr Costello said there had been "no shortage of money spent on Aboriginal affairs".
  

  "Like any other people, they get family tax benefits and CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects). In addition to that, they get much higher per-capita spending on health and education, yet they're still suffering from great hardships.

  "What we've proven is that simply shovelling money at these problems is not necessarily the answer.

  "One option is to tie that money to health and education outcomes much more carefully. For example, making family benefits payments payable only if the parents' kids are going to school.

  "You could also make family benefits payments conditional on the kids being properly nourished. It's no good if the money is being spent on grog and gambling."

  "Mr Costello said he'd been convinced to try the scheme by Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson. He said the Government had set aside money for pilot schemes tying welfare to health and education in the Cape.

  "But in the wake of a controversial call by Health Minister Tony Abbott for a "new paternalism" in Aboriginal affairs, Mr Costello said his plan would apply to all welfare recipients. He said it would probably work better in Aboriginal communities, where leaders were able to identify families in need."
  
  Full story online (in the Sunday Mail) at http://theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19578291%255E911,00.html
  
  

• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Howard demands state reform plans
    by Mike Steketee, National affairs editor
    
    "John Howard is pressing the states for specific plans to lift literacy and numeracy, expand early childhood education and tackle chronic disease before he promises commonwealth funding for a new wave of federal-state reforms.

    "He is ready to commit money to these and other projects, provided the states can show how they will produce benefits on top of existing programs..."

    "Mr Howard is prepared to offer commonwealth funding where it can be established the states bear a disproportionate share of the costs. But he believes it is premature to talk of an overall deal.

    "Instead, he wants to see the details of specific proposals, starting in areas such as literacy and numeracy.

    "COAG made a commitment in February to increasing the proportion of young people reaching basic literacy and numeracy standards.

    "The meeting also promised to give priority to improving early-childhood development, saying this was critical to children starting school with the basic skills for learning..."
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19570950-13881,00.html
    
    

  • The Forum
    No place for conspiracy theories in the classroom
    
    "After 34 years in the classroom and five university degrees including two masters in education, and being a parent myself, I can only sit gobsmacked at your editorial on educational goals (17/6) and wonder what it would take for you and our lords and masters in Canberra to appreciate what education and schooling in this country is really like.

    "I have just about given up ever trying to show you and the likes of Brendan Nelson just what teaching really involves and how standardised testing just cannot deliver what you expect it might.

    "I have met and worked with very conservative and quite radical teachers and I am yet to meet one who would believe that such testing could ever prove anything.

    "If you believe that teacher opposition to testing is based on selfishness, greed and ideology, then you probably also believe that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and the purported Vatican conspiracies are 100 per cent fact."
    
    Jeff Scanlan, Alexandra Hills, Qld
    
    From The Weekend Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19551237-18544,00.html
    
    

• The Herald, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
  
  
  • Boost for teacher morale
    by Dineo Matomela

    "Teacher morale in Walmer Township will receive a boost when a wellness campaign by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University kicks off in July.

    "Walmer Secondary School, Walmer Primary School and John Masiza Primary teachers are to receive wellness and motivational-orientated services from different faculties at the NMMU.

    "Education, research, technology and innovation unit faculty Professor Tilla Olivier said more than R1-million was needed for the wellness training, which includes enhancing teacher “self-efficiency”.

    "She said one of the methodologies of improving teacher efficiency was to give them cameras and video-recorders to take photographs in their community.

    “They have to write stories about the hope in their community and take exhibitions to the community to tell them of the strength they have despite their situation.”

    "She said NMMU‘s education faculty would run a programme to make maths fun while experts from the department of political and governmental studies will offer conflict transformation and management to teachers and pupils.

    "Areas where teachers, principals, parents and students are in conflict, such as discipline in the classroom, would be reviewed and then they will be assisted with skills they need to resolve and manage the conflict. The Health Sciences Faculty would offer youth resilience training at the three schools, and the sociology department would offer training in group dynamics and mentorship.

    "Olivier said Walmer Township had been identified for the wellness programme because of its pressing needs.

    “Walmer Township schools face many challenges and the surrounding community is characterised by severe socio-economic and health problems, which are exacerbated by high levels of crime, corruption and conflict.”

    "These obviously had a negative impact on the school governing bodies, teachers and pupils, which must result in high levels of conflict, stress and tensions, she said.

    "Olivier said teachers, especially in the townships and rural areas, were demotivated and demoralised and matters were made worse by the lack of parental support.

    "Walmer High School principal Lunga Dyani said the initiative by the NMMU would improve the quality of teaching. “Education is not only about books, but about personal growth of teachers and the initiative will improve teaching.”

    "Teachers were having to cope with changing of the teaching curriculum, Outcomes Based Education (OBE).

    “OBE is the new style of teaching and as teachers we sometimes doubt the changes when it comes to implementing new teaching methods.” [emphasis added]

    "He said teachers at poorer schools were understaffed and overcrowded and this led to stress among the teachers.

    “Unlike former model C schools where teachers can be hired through school governing bodies, poor schools cannot afford this and when teachers are sick it is impossible for pupils to be taught.”

    "Olivier said teachers were the only resource available to ensure quality teaching in rural schools.

    “If we do not nurture that resource, it will be to the detriment of current and future generations of pupils and our country at large.”

    "Almost 100 teachers will become involved in the programme. The project will run for at least two years, after which the long-term focus will be to run it on an ongoing basis for three years."
    
    Full story in The Herald Online
    
    

• "Not The West" Online Newspaper
  
  
  • No books needed in OBE English

    "Students may be able to pass Year 12 English without reading a book once the controversial outcomes-based education system (OBE) is introduced into high schools next year. An English teacher who did not want to be named yes folks, that’s our primary source for the front page story! told The West Australian yesterday the current syllabus made it very clear that teachers must make their students read novels, but the new OBE course was vague and ambiguous Question 1: using any West Australian conservative daily serial publication, find an example of a tautology in an article about outcomes-based education.

    "Some English teachers is also concerned the new OBE course does not contain a list of recommended novels, instead leaving book selection to an individual teacher’s discretion. What if they can’t think of any?!

    "The teacher also said the OBE course draft made no explicit mention of Shakespeare or other classic authors I also heard they are planning to make Latin optional. The English Teachers Association acknowledged yesterday that the OBE curriculum did not make it mandatory for students to read novels. But the association said it believed Year 12 students would still study books because a professional English teacher would understand that the curriculum’s requirement to read “extended narratives” included novels.

    "Curriculum Council director Rees Barrett said the new English course was not a radical departure from current practice. “Students have been able to pass TEE English exams since 1968 without having to refer to a novel,” he said. “Students can answer questions by referring to plays, short stories or short texts. Novels have not been mandated for 37 years but this doesn’t mean that students are not reading them.” You don’t mean to tell me the whole of this article is a beat-up?

    "Next week The West Australian puts the high school calculus curriculum on the front page."
    [Publication date unknown: just located today.    Web]
    
    "Not The West" online at http://notthewest.com.au/
    This article at http://notthewest.com.au/archives/2005/09/19/no-books-needed-in-obe-english/
    
    

• And for those who like conspiracy theories, here's a re-broadcast from 1993:
  
  
  • Outcome Based Education: Skinnerian Conditioning in the Classroom

    "There's been a lot written in recent times about the OBE (Outcomes Based Education) particularly in WA, but also pretty much right across the Australian education system (think as far back as Joan Kirner's VCE). This piece was written in 1993 and goes to the heart of the real agenda of OBE, not so much to do with education and a hell of a lot to do with indoctrination.

    “…Parents and educators who have been investigating the reform process are discovering that it is the master plan of the national reform movement itself- usually flying under the label of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) -- that is driving many of the most alarming trends they see in education. But that only scratches the surface. It is becoming frighteningly clear that educational reform through OBE is a major part of a sweeping Orwellian plan to radically restructure all of American society along revolutionary socialist lines from top to bottom . Addressing the 1989 National Governors Conference in Wichita , Kansas , OBE priestess Shirley McCune, senior director of the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory, explained: What we're into is the total restructuring of society….” Outcome Based Education: Skinnerian Conditioning in the Classroom by William F. Jasper “…What is happening in America today and what is happening in Kansas and the Great Plains is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change, What it amounts to is a total transformation of society .... Our total society is in a crisis of restructuring and you can't get away from it. You can't go into rural areas, you can't go into the churches, you can't go into government or into business and hide from the fact that what we are facing is the total restructuring of our society… When McCune and her OBE colleagues talk "total transformation" and "total restructuring" they mean total …. Ann Herzer, an Arizona teacher, reading specialist, and education writer who has been warning about the dangers of outcome-based education for many years, told The New American that " through OBE we are actually implementing the Soviet polytechnic system of education, and, incredibly, most conservative organizations and Christian groups that should be opposing it are completely oblivious to the threat, or are actually applauding it…."
    
    From "Jim Ball: Sydney's # 1 Overnight Broadcaster" http://www.jimball.com.au/

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This page last updated 29 May, 2008 9:27 PM