Monday 10 July 2006

Tuesday 11 July

Wednesday 12 July

Thursday 13 July

Friday 14 July

Saturday - Sunday, 15 - 16 July

Monday 10 July

• ABC News Online
  
  
  • WA Minister labels teacher incentives plan nonsense

    "Western Australia's Education Minister has angrily dismissed the Federal Government's proposal to make incentive payments to teachers and schools that produce high achieving students.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is reportedly advocating the plan as a way of making public school teachers accountable for student performance.

    "But the idea has received a frosty reception in WA, with Education Minister Liljiana Ravlich condemning the suggestion.

    "Ms Ravlich says if the federal Minister were seriously considering the incentive proposal, it should have been raised with state education ministers at last week's special meeting in Canberra.

    "She says a scheme run by the Federal Government would be impractical.

    "Is it going to actually performance-manage from Canberra?" she said.

    "Or is it going to expect the state is going to performance-manage for them and then send the results across to Canberra?"

    "I mean, this is just an absolute nonsense."

    "Ms Bishop says teachers are the most important resource in education, and it is important to recognise them when they get high results for their students.

    "Education Union official Andrew Gohl says the idea is unworkable and would only reward some of the deserving teachers.

    "I think there's a whole range of other things that are indicators of how students perform other than just maths and science," he said.

    "There's the way they integrate socially, as well as their performance academically - these things are difficult to measure."

    Full story at ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1682425.htm
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Rewards in cash for best teachers
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Individual teachers and schools who turn out high-achieving students will receive cash bonuses directly from the federal Government under a plan that could help keep the best teachers in public schools.

    "The proposal from Education Minister Julie Bishop is designed to make state governments and public school teachers accountable for their performance.

    "But she told The Australian yesterday it could also address the loss of good teachers to private schools that offer better pay and conditions.

    "Ms Bishop yesterday accused the states of complacency in accepting low standards, particularly in literacy and numeracy, and proposed an incentive fund that would bypass the state and territory governments to lift educational standards.

    "I'm looking at ways of rewarding individual schools and teacher performance, to shift the balance away from the state bureaucracies and state teachers unions and try to get accountability through an incentive-based approach," she told The Australian. "I'm concerned there's an acceptance of lower expectations, particularly in literacy and numeracy."

    "Ms Bishop said teachers were one of the few professions not accountable for their performance and it was "high time" they were not only held responsible for their students' achievements but also recognised for outstanding results.

    "In state schools, teachers are generally paid rates related to seniority.

    "In NSW, for example, state school teachers get a pay rise every year, based on a common salary scale, subject to an annual performance review. Under this system, a newly qualified teacher with two years of training can expect a minimum of $40,259 a year. At the end of five years, that salary could have increased to a minimum $52,427. A high school principal can expect to earn about $120,000 a year.

    "Ms Bishop said every classroom in the nation should have a highly qualified teacher, particularly in those schools where the need was greatest, which were generally state schools.

    "We don't serve teachers or students well by putting the least experienced teachers in the most challenging schools," she said. "We need to encourage better teachers into state government schools, have them performing well and then reward them for their results."

    "Under Ms Bishop's plan, existing federal school funding would be broken into base funding, paid to the states, with a percentage set aside for an incentive fund.

    "Ms Bishop said the reward scheme would form part of the next round of funding negotiations with the states and territories, which start next year.

    "The Howard Government, under the previous education minister, Brendan Nelson, tied federal funding to key policies, such as the introduction of simpler A-to-E report cards and a common national test for literacy and numeracy benchmarks.

    "But keen to stamp her own style on the portfolio, Ms Bishop wants to break away from threats to withhold funding, preferring to offer rewards for high-performing teachers and schools..."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19737599-13881,00.html
    
    [Similar stories in other state dialy newspapers     Web]
    
    

  • Gifted students shy away from fast-tracking
    by Pia Akerman
    
    "CEILI Moore enjoys a challenge.

    "The 11-year-old is in the top 5per cent of her Year 6 class, participates in debating and academic tournaments, and has spoken at her local Rotary Club in western Sydney.

    "In these school holidays, she was learning to play bridge.

    "But when asked if she would consider moving up to a higher grade at school, Ceili said she would be reluctant to leave her friends and face a new challenge.

    "I'd rather be doing well in an easier grade than be behind in a harder one," she said.

    "Ceili's remarks reflect the attitude of many gifted students, and some Australian educators who fear that accelerating gifted children through school puts undue pressure on them.

    "Miraca Gross, director of the University of NSW's Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre, said teachers were unwilling to accelerate academically advanced children or were unaware that it was possible.

    "Most of these kids would be topping the class if they went up a grade. They don't realise that," Professor Gross said.

    "They're just cruising by at the moment.

    "Teachers equate acceleration with pushing the child. Teachers are afraid of hurting a kid by pushing them, so they feel better doing nothing -- but that can in fact do more harm."

    "How Australian schools deal with gifted children is the focus of a national study to be undertaken by Professor Gross and her colleague, GERRIC director of research Karen Rogers, over the next three years.

    "The study will examine state and private schools and investigate different procedures that allow academically gifted students to move faster through their schooling.

    "Professor Gross said teachers' attitudes and practices regarding acceleration would be a particular focus..."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19737607-13881,00.html
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Michael Chaney: Make a federal case of it
    We don't need radical change to improve the Federation, just better co-operation
    
    "Federal Treasurer Peter Costello certainly succeeded in placing federalism front and centre last week when he called for a radical realignment of the responsibilities of commonwealth and state governments. Yet simply dismissing his intervention as politically motivated misses the key questions raised: will our federal system help Australia advance as a nation and economy in the 21st century? Or will federalism, as has become increasingly apparent in recent times, continue to be a barrier to sustaining prosperity?

    "Those questions will be answered in part by the Council of Australian Governments meeting on Friday. There can be no doubt the Federation is under strain. The long-term trend towards greater commonwealth power and control continues unabated. Increasingly, it is the commonwealth that raises government revenue and, not surprisingly, wants an ever greater say over how those funds are spent.

    "On important issues such as health, education, business regulation and infrastructure, we no longer have a clear idea of which layer of government is ultimately responsible. When we don't know who is responsible, we don't know who to make accountable..." [emphasis added]
    
    Michael Chaney is president of the Business Council of Australia.
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19734796-7583,00.html
    
    
    

• Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Governments move towards national education framework
    by John Garnaut and Andrew Clennell
    

    "The Prime Minister and premiers will try to forge a new education agreement when they meet at the premiers conference on Friday.

    "The leaders are expected to discuss a new national learning framework stretching from preschool to high school.

    "The Canberra meeting is also likely to chart a new early education framework for children in long day care.

    "The leaders may look at standardising the age at which children can first attend primary school.

    "But some states may seek financial compensation for having to bring forward the minimum school age from five to four years and six months.

    "A Federal Government report shows the economic benefits of having a standard age for starting school, but the Victorian Government wants to see evidence that the move would also be educationally sound.

    "The premiers are also likely to discuss a national approach to improving literacy and numeracy, including benchmarking tests for years 3, 5, 7 and 9, beginning in 2008..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    

• Melbourne Age
  
  
  • High school children sick of sitting on their classes
    by Caroline Milburn
    
    "Children who start high school are miserable about the absence of physical games at lunchtime.

    "Year 7 students at private and government schools said in a study that they were forced to sit and talk during breaks because they were not allowed to run, play informal games or have access to sporting equipment.

    "Health experts said the findings were alarming given that Australia is in the grip of an obesity epidemic, with 30 per cent of children classified as overweight..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link

    
    

  • Education Feature: Shaping lives
    
    A seven-year study reveals how schools mould student values and aspirations. Caroline Milburn reports.

    "In the debate about whether schools teach values, the Prime Minister, John Howard, other politicians, teachers, parents and principals have had their say.

    "So far, student voices haven't been heard. That will soon change with the release of a seven-year study that followed Melbourne students in different secondary schools from their first days as a junior pupil to the months after their graduation.

    "Inspired by the renowned British documentary series, Seven Up, the Melbourne researchers interviewed the same students twice a year as they journeyed through adolescence, seeking to fi nd out whether the students' values, ambitions and expectations were infl uenced over time by being in particular schools.

    "Unlike Seven Up, a TV documentary, which focused on children from London's poorest and richest boroughs, the Melbourne study, published as a book in the US by SUNY Press and soon to be available in Australia, cast a broader net. It interviewed students from schools with large numbers of children from middle-income families as well as those at the extremes of the income scale. Four Victorian schools were chosen for the study, an elite Melbourne private school, a disadvantaged school and two average high schools, one in a large regional city.

    "The identity of the schools and the 26 students interviewed have not been revealed to avoid the problems experienced in Seven Up, where some participants suffered from the public exposure.

    "Deciding not to name them meant the project remained faithful to its aim of investigating the process of education, according to Lyn Yates of Melbourne University's education faculty. "We didn't set out to write 26 life stories or to test all the factors that go into student outcomes such as family background or previous academic achievement. We were trying to understand more broadly how particular lives and particular schools interact."

    "Asking students for opinions about school, future possibilities and how they felt about themselves unearthed some surprisingly similar responses, despite the differences in family backgrounds and schools.

    "At all of the schools, students were angry about individual teachers who were not good at their job. Students in different classes often talked about the same teacher who they felt treated them unfairly or taught badly..."
    
    A long feature article, available in full in The Age link
    
    
    

  • Give teachers more disciplinary powers: voters
    by Margaret Cook
    

    "Victorians are concerned about a lack of discipline in government schools. According to a new union-commissioned survey, nearly 70 per cent of the 400 voters questioned believe teachers should have greater disciplinary powers, with two-thirds saying they should be able to "exclude troublesome students".

    "Also, 83 per cent believe teaching has become more difficult because of these issues.

    "The survey was commissioned by the Australian Education Union.

    "Voters rank education as the most important issue, followed by health, police/public safety, the environment and unemployment/jobs.

    "State Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon says parents and teachers are concerned about significant discipline issues, such as disruptive or threatening behaviour, at some schools..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    

  • Sponsoring a snob-free solution
    by Craig Emerson
    

    "Australia's formal schooling system can best be described as mediocre for the majority of students and appalling for the underprivileged.

    "Sure, it's excellent for the best-performing students. But many highly intelligent, brilliant young Australians miss out on a good education. In poorer communities, these bright children are inculcated with the belief that they aren't cut out to excel at school; their highest legitimate aspiration is for a trade and they certainly should not aspire to a university education. This is the order of things.

    "The Howard Government actively promotes this view, accusing Labor of snobbery whenever we talk of higher education for the masses. Too many teachers in poor communities, struggling just to administer pastoral care to the children of broken, dysfunctional families, accept and reinforce it.

    "A couple of decades ago, decent people rightly condemned and rejected the view of extremists that black people were genetically less intelligent than Anglo-Saxons. Chauvinists argued that women were genetically inferior to men, because they had smaller brains. That ignorant, despicable argument was also cut to pieces by decent people.

    "Yet to this day there is a general acceptance that kids in dysfunctional, welfare-dependent, families just aren't as bright as those living in affluent communities.

    "What makes people believe that abused, bashed, hungry children are genetically less intelligent than the children of doctors and lawyers? Isn't it equally plausible that they are just as intelligent as their better-off peers but that they never get the chance to excel?

    "The problem is that as parents with the financial capacity take their children out of government schools and enrol them in private schools, government schools in poor communities are becoming residualised. These schools have a disproportionate number of children with behavioural problems and learning difficulties.

    "Government schools simply have to become more attractive places for learning. A needs-based funding model would allow schools with a large proportion of needy children to attract extra funding..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    Many other education feature and articles, in today's (and previous Mondays) The Age Education Section, at http://www.theage.com.au/education/
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Bulldoze our schools? I'd like to see that!
      

      "I am a teacher, long retired. I began my teaching in portables and finished in portables. I taught maths in freezing classrooms in the middle of paddocks. I saw students during breaks huddling under breezeways to escape the biting rain of a Melbourne July. I taught physics in laundries and science in kitchens. I coached football sides on mudheaps. I coached cricket teams on the baked and cracking earth.

      "I prepared lessons in the company of 30 or 40 others in staffrooms no bigger than a decent sized loungeroom. I used toilet facilities that were no better than those in the local police lock-up.

      "Each year I dreamed that conditions would improve. I persevered. I saw out countless ministers of education in countless state and federal governments, always waiting for the one who would say that state schools had suffered enough. That now was the time to address the imbalance between education enjoyed by the well-off and that suffered by the not-so-well-off. It didn't happen.

      "Is Professor Brian Caldwell correct in his call for the bulldozing of these monuments to decades of political indifference (The Age, 5/7)? Of course he is. Is The Age correct in endorsing his call ("Something is rotten in the state of our classrooms", editorial, 7/7)? Without doubt. Will it happen? Not in my lifetime."
      
      Brian Sanaghan, West Preston
      
      

    • Really radical
      
      "Maybe it's not such a "radical plan for schools" (The Age, 7/7) if the model is already in use in such unlikely places as Scotland and NSW! Since when were these locations known for their leadership in global educational achievement? What about Sweden, Finland, Japan, Singapore, Canada, the United States, France or even New Zealand? If these countries have not embraced the public-private partnership model in order to supply adequate school buildings, perhaps we need some front-page publicity on how they do go about it.

      "Could it be that the vast majority of countries and states in the world use a far less radical plan to fund public education? Perhaps they actually invest public money - adequate amounts of it, when and where it is needed, on an ongoing basis - as a budget priority. Now there's a partnership we could all back, and leave Scotland and NSW to their "radical" model."
      
      Russell Crellin, Greensborough

    Full Letters to the Editor in The Age athttp://www.theage.com.au/letters/index.html

 

• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • Curriculum reform not so simple
    by Cheryl O'Connor
    

    "Look at changes to the curriculum across the nation and there's been plenty of action. Curriculum reform at the state level has been big news in Western Australia and Tasmania, while at the national level we've seen plenty of angst about A-to-E reports and plenty of discussion of an Australian Certificate of Education.

    "But for all that activity, it looks like education is merely demonstrating the truism that the more things change the more they stay the same. Until the dust settles, we won't know exactly what the situation is in WA or Tasmania, and with most states still preoccupied with the impact of A-to-E reports, a new Australian Certificate of Education has been shifted to everybody's back burner.

    "The rocky road travelled by WA's outcomes-based education curriculum appears to have brought this wagon to a grinding halt, despite the attempts of WA Premier Alan Carpenter to broker a compromise in late June - the so-called OBE Lite - in order to convince teachers to drop their boycott of outcomes-based education. Now, it seems, the WA Government has conceded that its controversial curriculum reform - ambitiously scheduled to roll out in 2007 - is effectively dead in the water, after the WA Curriculum Council agreed that even OBE Lite was unworkable. Instead, Year11 and 12 courses will be taught next year, using the current syllabus. According to Carpenter's Minister for Education, Ljiljanna Ravlich, that amounts to the OBE "with modifications", although it's fair to say the modifications look like massive ones. [emphasis added]

    "In Tasmania, the Essential Learnings curriculum is to be dumped less than two years after it was introduced, to be replaced with a new curriculum possibly as early as next year. According to Tasmanian Education Minister David Bartlett, "A working group of principals is providing the secretary, John Smyth, with practical advice that will help to make this great curriculum simpler and clearer.

    "The process is working from a base of school reality, the actuality of what is happening in school. Using this advice, a refined approach will be developed and shared with stakeholders during Term2 so that educators at the coalface, who have now had some experience with implementation, will be able to feedback into further improving the system."

    "Bartlett admitted that the Essential Learnings curriculum had suffered "brand" damage, and might be more appropriately referred to as "Tasmania's Curriculum". While the overt message is that the ELs curriculum has not been dumped, just "refined", so that it has "clearer language and is more manageable for teachers and educators", the more important message is that anything that replaces it will be the result of genuine collaboration with educators at the coalface. That's good news.

    "On the national scene, meanwhile, Professor Geoff Masters, at the Australian Council for Educational Research, reported on models for an Australian Certificate of Education in May. The report, commissioned by the Commonwealth Government's Department of Education, Science and Training, identified that "the most desirable long-term outcome would be the emergence of a single Australian Certificate of Education awarded by each of the Australian states and territories in place of the existing nine certificates."

    "Essentially, an Australian Certificate of Education is not just about consistent certification across all Australian states and territories; it's about a consistent curriculum, which is a pretty hot potato. How hot? It's worth quoting the council's report at length. "An essential feature of the proposed Australian Certificate of Education would be the development of nationally consistent high standards. We are proposing that a national standards body be established to set nationally consistent standards of several kinds.

    "First, the national standards body would set minimum requirements for the award of the Australian Certificate of Education. Second, curriculum essentials would be established in key subject areas. Curriculum essentials would spell out a core of curriculum content (fundamental knowledge, principles and skills) to be taught in an Australian Certificate of Education subject across all awarding bodies offering that subject.

    "We envisage curriculum essentials being established in the first instance for a number of nominated senior school subjects. Third, achievement standards would be set in these nominated subjects. Achievement standards would provide a nationally consistent framework of levels (we are recommending five levels labelled A to E) against which students' performances would be reported, thus allowing results in a subject to be compared across awarding bodies."

    "Given the speed with which the WA's plan fell over before it even began, and the ease with which Tasmania's fell over within two years, the chances of welding together any nationally coherent and consistent curriculum look slim, not least because, as the council report points out, constitutional responsibility for school education resides with the states and territories..."

    Cheryl O'Connor is chief executive officer of the Australian College of Educators.

    Full story in The Canberra Times at http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?story_id=493317
  
  
  

Tuesday 11 July

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Supporters of OBE turn on council
    by Bethany Hiatt (page 6)
    
    "English teachers, who have been implementing outcomes-based education for six months and counted themselves among the few supporters of the State Government's doomed plan, have launched a stinging attack on the Curriculum Council over the controversial scheme.
    
    "In an open letter, the English Teachers Association of WA declared its lack of confidence in the council's implementation of the OBE English course in Year 11.
    
    "The association said it was unfair that English teachers bore the brunt of the excessive assessment demands associated with OBE when teachers of other subjects had been offered huge concessions.
    
    "President Wendy Cody said an outcry from members prompted her to write the letter, saying the changes announced this month came too late and were unfair to diligent English teachers who had worked extremely hard to meet the council's expectations.
    
    "The inequitable implementation process proposed in the July 3 memorandum rewards vociferous dissenters and leaves English teachers abandoned and exasperated on the implementation pathway," she said.
    
    "The attack came as the council revealed it would be back to the drawing board on OBE maths courses, which are due to begin in 1008, after widespread opposition from maths teachers.
    
    "Year 11s began studying the OBE English course at the start of this year. Feedback on its success has been mixed, though most English teachers say their workload has increased significantly.
    
    "Under the July 3 concessions, 13 courses starting next year will change in name only, with teachers allowed to use existing TEE syllabuses and mark out of 100, instead of using "levels" as English teachers have been forced to do.
    
    "But the council opted to steam ahead will full implementation of OBE English in Year 12 next year, leaving many teachers feeling abandoned by both the council and their professional association.
    
    "In her attack, Ms Cody demanded a public acknowledgment from the council of the excessive and unreasonable demands placed on English teachers relative to the requirements for other teachers.
    
    "She was not calling for a return to the existing TEE English course but said her members had done all they could do to make the changes work as goal posts kept shifting.
    
    "Ms Cody wants the council to write to each English teacher to acknowledge their work.
    
    "But a State school teacher, long-time association member and author of a TEE English good answers guide said he did not want a thank you note from the council.
    
    "He said if Ms Cody really wanted to know what English teachers thought about OBE she should survey them as science and geography teachers' associations had.
    
    "A Curriculum Council spokesman said it had made substantial changes to assessment requirements to reduce the workload for English teachers." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
  • Teacher cash bonus "an insult"
    by Bethany Hiatt (page 12)
    
    "Federal Government plans to reward teachers and schools who produce high-achieving students with cash bonuses drew fire yesterday from the teachers' union and State Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich.
    
    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said her plan could help retain good teachers in the State school system, rather than losing them to private schools that could offer better pay and conditions.
    
    "But both Ms Ravlich and State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely yesterday labelled the plan "insulting".
    
    "Ms Bishop said some of the $33 billion the Federal Government provided to the States should be used to reward good teachers for achieving results beyond expectation in students' literacy and numeracy tests.
    
    "So that we can reward teachers who are able to lift standards particularly in areas of highest need and lift the bar for every child," Ms Bishop said. "I don't accept that across Australia the standards are high enough. We can do better."
    
    "She said the proposal for an incentives payment would not come into effect until the next round of State funding negotiations start next year.
    
    "Ms Ravlich said all teachers had high standards and aspired to do their best for students, so by implication Ms Bishop was saying that teachers were not professional if they needed a bonus payment to encourage them to do better.
    
    "Ms Ravlich said the Education Department already had a range of incentives, including a recent salary increase, aimed at retaining top classroom teachers.
    
    "The idea that teachers are leaving public schools in droves is simply a furphy," she said.
    
    "Claiming it was another example of the Federal Government trampling on States' rights, she said: "I think it's particularly disappointing that a representative from WA wants to shift education to Canberra."
    
    "Mr Keely said he did not believe the bonus proposal was feasible and most teachers would find it insulting. "What is depressing is the sense that teachers don't do their very best for students unless you offer them some extra financial incentive," he said."
    
    Full stories in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• ABC News Online
  
  
  • Private schools criticise public sector incentives plan

    "Western Australia's independent schools association has criticised a Federal Government proposal to pay teachers cash bonuses for producing high achieving students.

    "Under the plan, only teachers and schools in the public sector would receive the incentives.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop says the plan would help combat what she says is a growing complacency towards literacy and numeracy.

    "She says the move would make the state education system more accountable.

    "But Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia executive director Audrey Jackson says the proposal could cause division between the public and private school sectors.

    "If there is to be a policy about rewarding good teachers I think it should be cross-sectoral," she said.

    "I think there are very good teachers in the public sector, they deserve to be rewarded.

    "[But] why create a division to say that can only happen apply within the public sector?"

    Full story at ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1683241.htm
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Support for teachers' cash rewards
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "A Federal government plan to pay teachers cash bonuses based on their performance has won support from public school principals and the Victorian Government but the teachers union branded the move "insulting".

    "Primary and secondary school principals associations said yesterday that teachers should be rewarded on merit, but stressed that professional standards should be used to judge teachers' performances rather than students' results.

    "However, the Australian Education Union said the idea of paying teachers for good work implied "they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for appreciation".

    "AEU national president Pat Byrne said focusing on "a small group of children" who were performing below standard was "distorting the entire picture of education in Australia".

    "Ms Byrne said proposing to pay teachers based on their performance implied they were not already doing the best job they could.

    "The federal Government plan, reported in The Australian yesterday, would pay cash bonuses to individual teachers and schools producing students with outstanding results.

    "The proposal outlined by Education Minister Julie Bishop would have an incentive fund created out of the existing pool of federal schools funding that would be paid directly to teachers and schools, bypassing the states.

    "Ms Bishop intends to raise the plan as part of funding negotiations next year as a way of attracting the best teachers to the most challenging schools, and making teachers and schools accountable for students' results.

    "Australian Secondary School Principals Association president Andrew Blair said no one in Australia would baulk at the idea of basing a component of teachers' pay on merit. "My concern is (Ms Bishop's proposal) is very simplistic within the measure based on academic outcomes," he said. "We should be talking about teacher quality based on value-adding, complex skills, performance and behaviour."

    "Australian Government Primary Principals Association president Colin Pettit supported the concept of rewarding great teaching but said any scheme should be implemented in co-operation with the states. "Anyone who's doing a great job needs to be rewarded," he said. "But it needs to be much broader than literacy and numeracy."

    "Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky said financially rewarding teachers for value-adding was suggested by Premier Steve Bracks, and is being discussed at the Council of Australian Governments, which meets again on Friday.

    "The idea shouldn't be about schools already performing well but value-adding to student results that are over and above expectations," she said.

    "Ms Bishop's proposal is simplistic. The issue up for debate is how to best recognise and measure significant improvements for students, if incentives should be to groups of teachers, to a school or school system."

    "The federal Opposition has a similar proposal to provide extra money to the best teachers to attract them to struggling schools.

    "Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said the ALP policy in the last federal election provided $300 million over five years to encourage struggling schools to attract the best teachers."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19750121-13881,00.html
    
    
    
  • Editorial: Chalk and cheese
    What's wrong with paying our best teachers more?

    "Unlike virtually every other profession in Australia, there is little to no connection between how well teachers do their jobs and the sort of compensation they receive. Instead, rank-and-file teachers get pay rises simply for hanging on. In NSW for example, newly qualified teachers earn about $40,259 a year. If they stay with the job, they can hope to one day make it to "salary step 13" – which today pays $69,334 a year. And so long as they keep doing their job and manage not to get fired, it doesn't matter if teachers do a spectacular job or mediocre one. They'll still keep getting the same 4 per cent per year raise that all teachers get. But a plan just put forward by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop could change all that. As The Australian revealed yesterday, Ms Bishop proposes paying cash bonuses from the federal Government directly to individual teachers and schools that perform above expectations.

    "If implemented, Ms Bishop's proposal would help students trapped in mediocre classrooms and schools by encouraging excellence rather than inertia and mediocrity. For the craft unionism of the teachers' guilds and the collective industrial awards they cling to are specifically designed not to reward the initiative, excellence and dedication of individual teachers. Instead, the classroom collectivism which Kim Beazley says would be a hallmark of a Labor government is designed to reward the guild's time-servers.

    "Of course, injecting genuine pay for performance into the classroom would require individual schools to be free to compete for the best teachers – and to be able to get rid of time-servers. But that conflicts with the centralised control of the education bureaucracy.

    "And it also would require the performance of individual schools – and individual students – to be measured and evaluated by parents. Yes, the opposition by teachers' unions and the education bureaucracy to school "league tables" comes back to their own self-interest. Ms Bishop's proposed bonuses for good teachers is a good first step in winding back this insult to those teachers who truly have the best interests of students at heart."

    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19746772-7583,00.html [scroll down a bit]
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • State Liberals look at parent contracts
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "A contract setting out the responsibilities parents have to their children's schooling could form part of the Liberal Party's education policy, to be released in the lead-up to November's state election.

    "The Opposition's education spokesman, Martin Dixon, flagged the possibility of a parent contract yesterday, after a principals' association proposed establishing a charter for all parents at government schools.

    "We are certainly considering something similar," Mr Dixon said. "I don't think it should be something a government should be imposing … but if the school council wants to implement one, I think it's a good idea.

    "The benefit is that the school council can be on the front foot. They can say, 'These are the expectations of our school. If you can't meet them, then maybe this is not the school for you'..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Also: Students and parents sign up in spirit of partnership
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "Principal Ernie Fleming avoids words like "contract" or "charter" when discussing the responsibilities expected of teachers, parents and students at his Bendigo school.

    "Instead, he uses terms such as "partnership" and "agreement" in explaining the expectations and commitments document — signed by the school's 1000-plus students and their parents.

    "It's not a business transaction, it's actually a partnership," Mr Fleming says. "The more you concentrate on it being a community agreement about the culture at the school, the more successful it will be..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    

Wednesday 12 July

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial (page 18)
    English teachers see the light – too late
    
    "English teachers as a group backed outcomes-based education and lost. Now their association complains that they are burdened with OBE work when other teachers have been offered huge concessions.
    
    "The English teachers concerned want to have extended to them the benefits of the hard-fought campaigns of other teachers against OBE. The lesson is: Had these sycophantic teachers had the courage to stand against OBE as others did, they would not now have to crawl to the authorities for similar treatment."
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 20)
    
    
    • "Perhaps Julie Bishop needs to be reminded that even the act of selecting certain "facts" to be studied in history is political, never mind the interpretation (report, 6/7). Fact: Captain James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain. Interpretation: an invasion of an already long-occupied country, an act of British imperialism, one of the biggest land grabs in history, the brining of civilisation to the barely human savages, a mix of good and bad outcomes.
      
      "There is no such thing in history as a fact without interpretation. Does Ms Bishop want to control the latter as well as the choice of facts in her simplified desire to teach "history"?
      
      Vicki Payne, Cottesloe
      
      

    Full stories in The West Australian
    
    

• ABC News Online
  
  
  • Reward teachers for classroom efforts: researcher

    "A leading education researcher has proposed a national reward scheme for high-performing teachers.

    "Lawrence Ingvarson, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, says teachers should be able to apply for a higher salary under a nationwide certificate system.

    "The scheme would assess teachers on their classroom performance rather than the results of their students.

    "The Federal Government body Teaching Australia will consider the issue of performance-based pay later this month.

    "Dr Ingvarson says his proposal is aimed at keeping quality teachers in the classroom.

    "There are some understandable reservations amongst teachers about assessment because they've been burned by so many crude schemes in the past," he said.

    "But I think it's now possible to demonstrate that teachers can assess each other's performance, set high standards and employers are increasingly looking for something that has a positive effect."

    "Earlier this week the State School Teachers Union criticised the federal Education Minister's proposal to pay teachers cash bonuses for producing high-achieving students.

    "The president of the State School Teachers Union, Mike Keely, says Dr Ingvarson's proposal makes more sense and is similar to the Level Three Classroom Teacher system already in place in WA.

    "We don't have a problem with the concept," he said.

    "We want to make sure that the implementation is high quality and really does reward and reflect excellence." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story at ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1685158.htm
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Plan for high-pay super teachers
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The teaching profession is considering creating a category of advanced teachers similar to the system of senior counsels for barristers.

    "Teaching Australia, the federal government institute charged with advancing teacher standards, will consider a report arguing for a certificate system for accomplished teachers at its board meeting later this month. It recommends that these advanced teachers be paid under a separate, higher salary scale.

    "The author of the report for Teaching Australia, Lawrence Ingvarson, said the scheme should be open to all teachers and would provide an incentive for them to remain in the profession - and excel at it.

    "Teachers should be able to apply after a set period in the job, such as 10 years, and the new pay scale should have a significant jump of up to $20,000 higher than the top of the existing scale.

    "Under the scheme, teachers would submit portfolios, videos of lessons, examples of their students' work and other evidence to prove that they met a set of standards of excellence.

    "The recommendation comes after a proposal this week by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop to grant cash bonuses to teachers producing outstanding results with their students.

    "Dr Ingvarson said linking teacher performance to student results was problematic and said it was better to pay teachers according to their performance and professional development.

    "We have a pay system based on how many years you've been teaching rather than a pay system based on evidence of professional development," Dr Ingvarson said. "You get better pay without better teaching."

    "Most teachers start on a salary of about $43,000 to $45,000, with NSW teachers receiving slightly more, averaging $48,000 to $50,000. The incremental rises stop after eight or nine years, reaching a top salary of about $68,000.

    "After that, the only rises most teachers can access is through promotion to leadership roles, such as head of department, assistant principal and principal, or by joining the private sector..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19762971-13881,00.html
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Student performance can't be sole factor in bonus pay
      
      "The idea of better pay for good teachers is fine in principle ("Rewards in cash for best teachers", 10/7), but how would it be implemented in practice?

      "Good teachers, in my opinion, are those who make subjects interesting and absorbing for students, tailor the lesson for and take time to be with individual students when required, give up their time for extra curricular activities, and so on. This can be difficult to measure.

      "In the UK, where pay is linked to some extent to student performance, a good friend, who is an excellent teacher, has missed out on a pay rise because her students didn't reach a certain target. Unfortunately, her students were, as a group, of limited ability and would never have reached the required level. This is demonstrably unfair and a reflection of what could happen if a move to link teacher pay to teacher quality is based on student performance only.

      "Given the current teacher workload, I wonder how already stretched school managers will be able to develop an equitable means of remunerating teachers in a way that truly reflects good teaching."
      
      Debbie Slater, Churchlands, WA
      
      

    • "Julie Bishop's proposal to give a cash bonus to teachers based on their students' performance demonstrates an immature understanding of how schools work. It is yet another simplistic solution to a complex problem which panders to an increasingly cynical public.
      
      "Setting teacher against teacher will not achieve the results she desires. It will simply encourage rorting of the system and reinforce the growing divide between the haves and the have nots.
      
      "I have taught in tough schools where the students achieve low results. I now teach high fliers. Does this make me a better teacher?
      
      "If Ms Bishop is serious about rewarding teaching excellence, then she should lobby the states to change their methods of promotion. In other systems, excellence is rewarded with added responsibilty and influence. In education, compliance with the latest fad such as outcomes-based education is the only criterion for advancing to the next level." [emphasis added]
      
      Marko Vojkovic. Bayswater, WA
      
      
      

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

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • School results improve with one sex in the equation
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "Boys and girls who study at single-sex schools are more likely to achieve high year 12 results than their counterparts at co-educational schools, new research shows.

    "The Monash University study contradicts the view that single-sex schools only suit girls.

    "The conventional wisdom is that single-sex schooling is good for girls, and co-ed education is good for boys, because girls have a civilising effect (on boys) but for girls the boys are a distraction," said researcher Ian Dobson.

    "We found that for boys and girls alike, students that had been in single-sex schools got better ENTERs (tertiary entrance ranks), irrespective of the sector."

    "Dr Dobson, from the centre for population and urban research, and Georgina Tsolidis, from the faculty of education, analysed the backgrounds of school leavers who enrolled in Monash bachelor degrees in 2001.

    "Their paper, Single-sex schooling: is it simply a 'class act'? was published in the March edition of the Gender and Education journal.

    "Of the boys who attended Catholic schools, 38.1 per cent who were at a boys' school scored an ENTER of 90 and above, compared to 23.6 per cent of boys from co-educational schools.

    "For girls who completed year 12 at Catholic girls' schools, 39.4 per cent achieved a 90-plus ENTER, more than double the 18 per cent of girls from co-educational schools.

    "Boys in government schools were not compared because there is only one public boys' school, the selective Melbourne High..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Schools, hospitals to suffer as staff opt out
    by Nick O'Malley, Workplace Reporter
    

    "Almost a third of the state's most senior staff, including teachers and nurses, are about to leave the workforce as the worst peace-time skills shortage in Australian history reaches its peak.

    "A government survey of public sector workers shows 27 per cent of those over 45 - or 46,700 workers - plan to retire in the next five years, and 57 per cent are set to go within the next 10 years.

    "The research shows those most likely to leave sooner tend to be paid more, suggesting they hold senior positions.

    "Nursing and teaching sectors will be hit especially hard, says the assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association of NSW, Steve Turner, as both professions tended to have older workforces with larger proportions of women..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• Cape Argus (Cape Town, South Africa)
  
  
  • Editorial
    Back to basics
    
    "It would be a mistake, on the basis of the results of last year’s “diagnostic survey” of Grade 6 pupils in the Western Cape, to conclude that our education system is facing a new crisis.

    "In fact, the class of 2005, while reflecting worryingly low levels of competence in literacy and numeracy, performed better than the class of 2003.

    "None the less – and this is acknowledged by education MEC Cameron Dugmore – there is serious cause for concern, particularly at numeracy results showing that only one in six of those tested achieved the average score, which itself was only 29%.

    "Education is one of the many areas that needed urgent reform to rid it of apartheid’s iniquitous inequities. Many objectives have been set and achieved since 1994, but the question that must be asked now is: were they the correct ones?

    "The merits of outcomes based education continue to be the subject of debate, within and outside schools; class sizes remain unacceptably high, particularly in the junior primary grades where the foundations of literacy and numeracy are laid; teachers complain that an overwhelming administrative burden reduces their classroom time; anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that matric pass marks have been forced down to improve the overall quality of results; and pre-school education – regarded as essential for later success by experts – is still non-existent to patchy.
    
    "It is not unreasonable to suggest that attempts at social re-engineering in the education sphere, while laudable in their intent, have caused policymakers to lose sight of some fundamentals – such as reading, writing and counting, for example. Surely it can’t be that difficult to get back to basics?"
    
    Full editorial in Cape Argus at http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=137&fArticleId=3335487

    
    

Thursday 13 July

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Thanks, The West Australian, for the lesson. It is a wonder I can get up off my knees to write considering my lack of courage and all the crawling and sycophantic behaviour that I have apparently indulged in this year (editorial, 12/7). The lessons I have prepared for my Year 11 English classes are underpinned by the pedagogy of outcomes-based education which has been mandated by the Curriculum Council. Perhaps my path has been smoothed by the crawling and sycophantic teachers who have gone before me and implemented OBE in the lower school curriculum. The real lesson is that English teachers have been working with the best interests of our students at heart, designing outcomes-based programs which improve functional and critical literacy. We are not asking for "concessions" and we are certainly not "crawling to the authorities".
      
      Kaye Davies, Parkwood
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Best teachers often have to leave classroom for an office
      
      "Your thoughtful editorial on teachers' pay ("Chalk and cheese", 11/7) noted that there is a very weak relationship between salaries and ability or success in teaching. Unfortunately, there have always been, and remain, serious difficulties in identifying or defining good teaching.

      "Obviously, there are schools whose students are relatively easy to teach and others who are generally more resistant to learning. Within schools, too, if any sensible grouping takes place, some classes are more difficult to instruct than others. One of the most discouraging aspects of our school systems is that promotion so often seems to require a teacher to leave the classroom for an office.

      "Generic differences in teaching style may greatly affect students' learning, but such characteristics do not have invariant effects. Some highly effective teachers adopt very child-centred, informal methods whilst others, equally successful, are much more systematic and formal. Knowledge of the subject may well be the strongest factor in long-term teacher success, but there are notorious examples of highly qualified specialists who have great difficulty in imparting what they know.

      "The question of who should judge a teacher's ability has its problems, as does the issue of what criteria should be applied. Giving students the right or power to evaluate their teachers or lecturers has contributed significantly to ever lower levels of pressure on those students. The most important power that can be given to parents is effective choice between schools, but there is little evidence that parental collectives are well equipped to make staff appointments, although parental judgments of those who teach their own children are often very shrewd.

      "A wide range of virtues is required for good teaching, although sainthood should not be expected. How to combine encouragement with firmness, moral sense with good humour, or flexibility with structure, are ongoing problems for all teachers and for those responsible for evaluating them. It is most distressing that in recent years many teacher organisations have used the very real problems that beset evaluating teachers and schools to frustrate, rather than to assist, better evaluation."
      
      Geoffrey Partington, Malvern, SA

    
    © The Australian
    

    • "As a teacher, I absolutely agree with the rewarding of excellent teachers, but I believe that a proposed 10-year wait before such rewards can be claimed is ridiculous ("Plan for high-pay super teachers", 12/7).

      "Too many young teachers on low pay rates pour their heart and soul into their students and school, burn out and then leave the profession. We must hang on to passionate teachers. The opportunity to receive bonus pay for achieving outstanding results should be open to all quality teachers, regardless of their years in the job."
      
      Suzan Hirsch, Hornsby, NSW
      
      

    • "What's wrong with paying our best teachers more?" your editorial asks. Nothing, of course. And the same question has been asked often. That it continues to be asked is proof of the difficulty in implementing it. In one sense, the best teachers do get paid more through their ability to progress within a promotion structure, although the penalty for that is often more pay for less teaching.

      "However, consider just two practical problems with trying to pay the best teachers more: who will decide the best teachers and on what criteria will those teachers be judged?

      "Principals, peer groups, parents, students, employing authorities, teacher unions – all can have a say in identifying quality teachers, but who would prevail, given the unlikely prospect of unanimity?

      "Is the best teacher the one who keeps the firmest classroom control; who has the neatest bookwork; who takes the most extra-curricular activities; who is most compliant to the wishes of their superiors; or who sometimes puts a burr under their superiors' saddles for the good of the students?

      "Perhaps the best solution is one adopted by some private schools. Teachers are paid differential rates according to a contract which remains strictly confidential to them and the school board which employs them. That way the best teachers are paid more, and there can be nothing wrong with that."
      
      Brian Monro, Marion, SA

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

• Brisbane Courier-Mail
  
  
  • Readers Comments
    
    
    • Incentives to reward good teachers?
      
      "There is only one answer for a teacher (or any other employee) who asks "What do I get if I do a good job? " and that is "You get to keep it".
      
      "I also agree with another comment here that there is no way of properly evaluating what makes a good teacher when results are also heavily influenced by factors such as the poverty or wealth of the school area."

    
    Lynda Cracknell, Bundaberg

    Complete readers comments in the Courier-Mail at http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/readercomments
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • A wide range of readers comments on the physical state of schools, and what should be done about it.
    
    http://blogs.theage.com.au/yoursay/archives/2006/07/bulldoze_school.html#comments
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Breaking the hold of school bullies
    
    Peer mediation between victims and aggressors is one of the methods teachers are using to overcome the problem, writes Anna Patty

    "The hair pulling had to stop. As did the taunting and the constant stream of projectiles aimed squarely at his head. But they kept coming and Ahmed Hamdan retaliated by throwing a glass bottle back at his female classmate.

    "It was at that moment that Ahmed, 13, a student at Strathfield South High School, realised he was being bullied and things had gone too far. So he took his complaint to the deputy principal, Greg Lucas, who recommended peer mediation as part of the school's anti-bullying program, Getting Connected.

    "I'd been bullied by boys and girls," Ahmed said. "I went to Mr Lucas when I first got bullied and he said to ignore it. He said that if it got physical, to go to a teacher. There was a girl in my woodwork class who kept throwing a bottle at me. She kept pulling my hair in my home economics class.

    "My principal spoke to her and she apologised. We went to peer mediation and we made friends. We talk now."

    "Peer mediation involved the two students sitting at opposite ends of a table with a neutral student monitoring the conversation. The anti-bullying strategy is part of programs being taught in most schools as part of physical education classes that show children how to identify emotionally and physically abusive behaviour..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • New chance for drop-out students
    by Xanthe Kleinig
    

    "Students at risk of dropping out will be able to study off campus in a new, statewide program to help them stay at school.

    "After a successful trial, "Learning Unlimited" is being extended to the northern and western suburbs, Whyalla and the Riverland.

    "The Mission Australia program gives young people dedicated support to study "off campus", part-time and in small groups.

    "It also assigns caseworkers to youth facing issues of bullying, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, family violence and mental health..."
    
    Full story in The Advertiser at link
    
    
    

  • Low-income school aid
    by Craig Bildstien

    "Business and taxpayers will be asked to contribute to a fund to help children from low-income families save money.

    "Under the plan, a disadvantaged child's savings would be matched dollar for dollar to help them buy school items that their parents cannot afford.

    "The state's peak welfare body - the South Australian Council of Social Service - wants to run a pilot project based on overseas experience.

    "In Britain, businesses, families and friends can also contribute to savings accounts opened by the Government to help children from low-income households..."
    
    Full story in The Advertiser at link
    
    
    

Friday 14 July

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed piece (page 18)
    Changes have not solved OBE problem
    Major issues remain despite Government compromises, Steve Kessell says
    
    "Never before in WA's history has there been such a crisis in education - never before have education issues attracted so much press coverage, or been the lead story on the evening TV news

    "The government knows that there is already a major voter backlash, and that its education bureaucracy is making bad policy decisions on the run. It knows that several hundred thousand families are rightly worried about their children's education. It also knows that far too much time and money have been wasted on a failed experiment called OBE, outcomes-based education.

    "How did this crisis happen?

    "In 1998, the new WA Curriculum Council produced its "Curriculum Framework". Its preamble states: "[This] is neither a curriculum nor a syllabus, but a framework identifying common learning outcomes for all students... It is intended to give schools and teachers flexibility and ownership over curriculum in a dynamic and rapidly-changing world environment."

    "Many of us welcomed the framework. I included it in the postgraduate teacher education courses that I was teaching at Curtin University's Science and Mathematics Education Centre at the time. But it wasn't long before the "common learning outcomes" became "learning area" (i.e., subject) specific Outcomes, and here the problems arose.

    "During this period, I was a member of the Curriculum Council's syllabus committee for the Year 11 - 12 Information Systems course, and actually helped write its outcomes. When I (unofficially) worked with teachers trialling it in five Perth secondary schools, cracks began to appear: these subject-specific Outcomes were restricting what the teacher could do, and converting Outcomes to traditional assessment was difficult.

    "Then came the huge leap and the huge mistake: the Council decided that Outcomes would REPLACE the entire syllabus of each course, and that eight subjective levels, written in obscure educational jargon, would REPLACE traditional marks and assessment.

    "With one proclamation, the Council turned course content and assessment upside-down, and told teachers "This is the way of the future, embrace it."
    
    "Many teachers did not share the almost religious fervour of the OBE believers; they merely went about their core business of teaching, and paid lip service to "levelling".
    
    "These teachers have now surfaced because of the imposition of the same unworkable levels into upper school.

    "Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich waxes lyrical about how wonderful OBE has been in K-10. Where is the evidence; where are the objective, independent evaluations? The evidence from elsewhere is extremely discouraging.

  The lack of such an independent evaluation is a major reason WA education is in a mess now: the same folks who write the courses evaluate and accredit them.

  "After more than a year of teachers crying "This won't work," the Government started making face-saving compromises last month. Syllabuses are back; the basic TEE course structure is back; assessment out of 100 is back.
  
  "However, levels are still with us, even though their automatic calculation from a per cent mark makes them redundant and makes their interpretation meaningless.

  "These changes, however welcome, have not solved the OBE problem. Major issues remaining include:

  • Year 11 and 12 English is in limbo: the new Year 11 course being taught now has huge problems, and needs a top-to-bottom revision before it is repeated next year or moved into Year 12.
    
    
  • Despite claims to the contrary, there will be fewer options for non-TEE students next year. How could it be otherwise when more than 400 courses are reduced to 50? Appropriate courses like Senior English, Senior Science and several non-TEE computing courses are about to vanish.
    
    
  • It is quite unrealistic, to force vocational students to study "basic content" versions of TEE courses, content that is normally studied by TEE students in Years 9 or 10. Mixing 17 year olds, who, before the school leaving age was raised, would have left school already, with younger, more academic Year 10s is a recipe for social disaster.
    
    
  • Now that attention is being paid to the problems in Years 11 and 12, teachers of Years 8 - 10 are telling us that OBE and levelling are not working in those years either (The West, 6/7).
    
    
  • Finally, any retention of Levels is unnecessary, misleading and a complete waste of time and effort. Practising bad education and bad assessment is too big a price to pay for ministerial face-saving.
    
    

  "Before any further changes are even considered, the Government needs to commission a thorough and transparent evaluation of OBE from K to 10, completely independent of the government bureaucracies. The lack of such an independent evaluation is a major reason WA education is in a mess now: the same folks who write the courses also evaluate and accredit them.

  "What the Government really needs to do is pause, listen and authorise the long-overdue review of the Curriculum Council itself, by people who actually know something about education - not politicians, and not non-teaching educational bureaucrats. Such a review is mandated by legislation, which required its completion some time ago. It has not happened, but should, as a matter of urgency. Then, and only then, should we even consider making radical changes to the Year 11 and 12 courses." [emphasis added]

  Steve Kessell retired as Associate Professor, Science and Mathematics Education Centre, Curtin University in 2004. He also served as the undergraduate co-ordinator of Curtin's School of Computing for 10 years, and was a member of the Curriculum Council's syllabus committee for the TEE Information Systems course.
  
  

• Letter to the Editor (page 20)
  
  
  • Not all English teachers back OBE
    
    "It needs to be clearly understood by both The West Australian and the public that not all English teachers have "backed outcomes-based education" (editorial, 12/7).
    
    "As an English teacher I know my entire department and many other private-school English teachers have actively and vociferously opposed OBE from the outset.
    
    "Letters of protest, signed by the majority of our secondary teachers, including all English teachers, were sent to both the Curriculum Council (David Axworthy) and to Ron Dullard, head of the Catholic Education Office in WA. [emphasis added]
    
    "My concerns have also been expressed to our principal and deputy principal and to the Independent Education Union via several surveys. Our letter to the Curriculum Council resulted in a visit to our school by Mr Axworthy to address our concerns. It should also be noted that the recent Parliament House rally against OBE was primarily organised by two groups – PLATO and the English department of a private college.
    
    "I have witnessed the targeting of another English teacher at one of the compulsory courses of study days held by the Curriculum Council. His crime? To challenge the academic rigour of the sample examination. [emphasis added]
    
    "I am offended and outraged at being labelled a "sycophant" who "now has to crawl to authorities" to get what seems very fair to me – the same concessions that other teachers are getting in regard to OBE.
    
    "I stood outside Parliament House with other objectors, proud to have done my bit to halt this experiment in educational madness."
    
    Veronica Brennan-Poland, Wembley Downs
    
    
    
    
    
• PLATO Media Release
  
  

PLATO Media Release "Abolish meaningless OBE Levels: academic" A retired Perth academic has condemned OBE Levels as unnecessary, misleading and a complete waste of time. Assoc Professor Steve Kessell described the recent government backdown on OBE as "a step in the right direction," but says major problems remain. He lists abolishing the artificial conversion of per cent marks to Levels as a top priority. "The new method (of converting marks to Levels) is meaningless. A student who receives a mark of, say, 70 per cent on a test covering many topics, may or may not correspond to a particular Level of the several different Outcomes of that Learning Area. The entire exercise is pointless," he said. He went on: "Of the many bad features of Levelling, there is certainly little consistency between upper primary and lower secondary. School reports show students dropping one or even two Levels when they enter secondary school." "It appears that, in general, Year 7 (end of primary) teachers are giving consistently higher levels than are Year 8 (start of secondary) teachers. I know of no efforts to moderate this "bridge". One can speculate on the reasons, but the likelihood of the Year 7 teacher being a non-specialist in a particular learning area, and the Year 8 teacher being a specialist, must be a factor." "The retention of Levels is unnecessary, misleading and a complete waste of time and effort. Practising bad education and bad assessment is too big a price to pay for ministerial face-saving," he said.

• The Australian
  
  
• Merit wins in private teacher pay offer [Don't get too excited -- it's NSW and ACT      Web]
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "Teachers will be rewarded for merit and professional competency, rather than years in the job, in a new salary deal at private schools.

  "A draft agreement for NSW independent school teachers, obtained by The Australian, proposes restructuring the salary scale from 13 levels into three bands, with pay rises of up to 11 per cent next year in return for meeting professional standards.

  "The agreement proposes a hefty starting salary for graduate teachers, who would earn almost $55,000 next year, and almost $76,500 by 2010 - more than fledgling lawyers on an average $40,000 - and potentially enables independent schools to lure the brightest graduates away from public schools.

  "Existing awards covering teachers in the government and non-government sectors give pay rises every year, regardless of performance.

  "The proposal also strips back existing conditions by funnelling annual-leave loading and some long-service leave into superannuation, reducing the accrual of long-service leave and the amount of informal holidays.

  "Teachers now accrue long-service leave at the rate of 1.3 weeks a year for the first 10 years of service and two weeks a year thereafter. The proposal would bring the rate in line with that of the rest of the community, at 0.866 weeks a year.

  "The amount of time teachers must spend at school will increase by two working weeks and they will be required to attend organised professional development activities during school holidays, rather than term-time.

  "While teachers have four weeks of annual leave a year, the amount of time they are not required to spend at school, called non-term time, can reach 12 weeks a year.

  "The agreement, developed by the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, is being sent this week to the principals of independent schools that fall under federal Work Choices laws, with a planned July 24 presentation to teachers, before a vote is taken later this year.

  "The AISNSW represents about 300 independent schools employing more than 12,000 teachers. About 70 per cent of schools are expected to fall under federal industrial relations laws.

  "The package for principals includes a suggested presentation for staff, which says the new pay structure is intended to recognise quality teachers.

  "Good teachers will continue to be good teachers and this proposed agreement is designed to recognise good teaching and remunerate staff according to good practice and the attainment of professional standards," the package says.

  "One of the most attractive features is the provision for ambitious teachers to move through the bands according to the level of competence achieved.

  "You will not be constrained by the 'years of service salary scale'. If you are prepared to put in the effort, you can reach the top of the scale more quickly than you can with the current system."

  "The draft agreement provides pay rises of between 6 per cent and 11 per cent next year, which would make independent school teachers' pay up to 11 per cent - and an average of 7 per cent - more than teachers in government and Catholic schools.

  "Under the state award, government and Catholic school teachers in their first year will receive about $49,000 from February 1, rising to $69,000 for the top rate.

  "By comparison, independent school teachers next year will receive $54,652 in their first year, rising to $76,729 for the top rate.

  "More than 70 per cent of all teachers in independent schools are paid at the top rate and about 90 per cent are paid at the top three rates, with few teachers starting their careers at an independent school.

  "The agreement also introduces a new allowance for "classroom excellence", worth $6100 a year, for the most accomplished teachers already on the highest band, enabling them to stay in the classroom rather than have to "move along the more traditional promotions pathway in order for their excellence to be recognised..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19783413-2702,00.html
  
  Similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald / Fairfax Digital at link
  
  

• Educators get chance to step up in class
  COMMENT
  by Judith Wheeldon
  
  "When staff of some independent schools meet on Monday week, teachers will see a new approach to pay and conditions. Their homework will be to decide whether to sign Work Choices contracts.

  "Teachers will immediately baulk at giving up 10 days of what they call "holidays" and the AIS calls "non-term time" for serious, concentrated professional development.

  "I like the idea of making serious professional development an expected part of the school culture. Many teachers will too, even if they feel diffident about admitting it in an open forum.

  "Teachers care about the quality of their practice. Most are professional and, having made the adjustment, will be glad for the chance to stay in tune.

  "An attraction of teaching is that school holidays are not a childcare nightmare. How will schools turn a potential crisis into an opportunity?

  "Teachers will not cheer when they discover that their generous long-service leave entitlement will shrink to the community standard. Coming down from two weeks per year after 10 years' service to .866 weeks will be a hard landing.

  "The power of the plan is in the proposed salary scales. Heads will measure teachers by the competency standards of the Institute of Teachers, ignoring years of service when settling salaries.

  "This is not entirely new in independent schools but under this proposal it will be easier, more fair and more open.

  "For starting teachers, the scale is good news. All other new teachers expect $49,000 next year. Under the AIS plan, they move up to $55,000.

  "By the time they reach Band3 ($76,729) teachers can qualify for a Classroom Excellence Allowance giving them $6100 per year to stay in the classroom.

  "Here is a challenge to all school systems in Australia. Let's fight over the best teachers. What better way to express the value of teaching? What better way to improve the quality of university students choosing teaching as a career? What better way to improve all schools? I love it."

  Judith Wheeldon, AM, is former head of two leading Sydney K-12 girls schools, Abbotsleigh and Queenwood

  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19783599-13881,00.html
  
  
  

• PM close to new reform deal with premiers at love-in
  by Samantha Maiden and Rick Wallace
  
  "John Howard is today expected to sign off on a funding deal with the premiers to kickstart a new generation of reform, after putting an updated package to the group in a late-night meeting.

  "The reforms to be approved by the Council of Australian Governments will contain practical improvements to health, childcare, literacy and early childhood education.

  "The Labor premiers were considering the offer last night after earlier providing unanimous support for Mr Howard after a week of leadership tension over the prime ministership.

  "Mr Howard has been in conflict over his retirement plans with rival Peter Costello. But in a clear warning to his Treasurer, Mr Howard said on morning radio he would not be "stampeded" out the top job.

  "While Mr Howard will reject any in-principle agreement to up-front competition-style payments to the states, he is understood to be considering tied funding in key areas if the states improve diabetes management, preschool curriculums and lift educational standards, particularly for indigenous children..." [emphasis added]
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19783419-601,00.html
  
  
  

• Howard resurrects plan for preschool
  by Elizabeth Colman
  
  "Premiers will today face renewed demands for a national preschool curriculum and a uniform quality standard for childcare centres.

  "John Howard will resurrect a plan - rejected by the states last month - to force four-year-olds to attend preschool.

  "The Prime Minister wants a compromise, and will ask the states at a Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra to commit to a 12-month plan to agree to a uniform starting age and curriculum.

  "In a letter to premiers, Mr Howard outlined his intention to develop "better services for very young children and improved pre-school education".

  "Childcare experts said yesterday they wanted federal and state governments to use programs to help identify children who were falling behind while they are "very young".

  "The future of a nation depends upon how well children develop and the more children who develop well the more likely we are to be a successful nation," childcare expert Fiona Stanley said..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19783063-601,00.html
  
  
  

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Retreat from accountability
    
    "So primary and secondary principals associations are happy to see teachers receive merit pay incentives ("Support for teachers' cash rewards", 11/7) as long as they are based on professional standards criteria rather than student achievement.

    "I suppose, therefore, it is fair that surgeons be rewarded based on surgical expertise rather than patient survival, mechanics on automotive artistry rather than a functioning car and hairdressers on originality but ignoring unexpected hair loss!

    "Dr Ken Rowe, of the Australian Council for Educational Research, has clearly demonstrated in seminal work that the key variable in the achievement of students in our schools is teacher and teaching quality – not postcodes, not family situations (other than acute disruptions) nor even gender.

    "The predisposition of the teaching profession in Australia to disassociate itself from the achievements of our children is a retreat from accountability.

    "Until all teachers are prepared to commit to the children and young people we, as parents, are required by law to hand over to them for the significant years of their development, the education of young Australians will be a hit-and-miss affair, with a less-than-acceptable percentage of children being exposed to great teachers while the rest endure those who focus on professional standards while apparently not giving a toss about the achievements of the students in their charge.

    "The best teachers should be acknowledged, rewarded and respected; the mediocre should be seriously challenged to improve; and the hopeless pruned from our schools."
    
    G. R. Horsell, Croydon, SA

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




• ABC News Online
  
  
  • Carpenter hails COAG outcomes

    "Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter says the outcomes for the state from today's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Canberra are much better than he expected.

    "State and territory leaders and the Prime Minister have agreed on a national reform agenda for health, education, business regulation and infrastructure. [emphasis added]

    "A reform council will be established to help ensure the financial benefits of the changes are split between governments.

    "The Federal Government has agreed to provide an additional 60 medical school places in Western Australia.

    "This is the second COAG meeting I've attended," Mr Carpenter said.

    "The first one was good, this one was even better and I just worry about how good this can get, but I'm very pleased.

    "I can go back faithfully to report to the Western Australian community that we have succeeded in what we were seeking to achieve."
    

    Full story at ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1687032.htm
    
    
    
    
    
• PerthNow / Sunday Times Online
  
  
  • Comments on the article:
    POLICE will use sniffer dogs in a fresh assault on drugs in WA schools (7 July)

    "At least three WA high school principals have asked for the dog squad to track down students suspected of dealing drugs such as cannabis and amphetamines.

    "Police say they have worked through legal issues and now have the green light to use sniffer dogs to search for drugs at schools..." [Click here for full story]
    

    "I fully support Katie Green's letter regarding allowing drug detecting dogs in Schools, we have to start educating the Children on the damages that drugs do to people."

    Posted by: patricia baird of Heathridge, Western Australia 2:23pm July 12, 2006
    Comment 3 of 3
    
    

    "I think putting drug detecting dogs in schools is an excellent idea, and it should include the school grounds as well. Schools are public places and although this may not stop drugs in schools completely, it should make them safer places and make those who bring drugs into school areas think twice before they do it again. I may just send them elsewhere....but at least parents will know that schools are once a gain a safe place for their children. If pupils have nothing to feel guilty about, they have nothing to worry about. Enquiries should be done discretely so that no child feels intimidated, and parents should be informed at all times."

    Posted by: Katie Green of Mandurah.West.Australia. 9:43pm July 10, 2006
    Comment 2 of 3
    
    

    "The war on drugs this country is so keen to start is not going to work. We have several examples on the failure of this type of Drug control. It is disgusting that we are taking away basic civil liberties and the right to freedom from our children at such a young age. We should have the right to our personal space and personal effects and know that they are going to stay that way and not be riffled through because a dog takes some interest. In NSW 73% of people searched by a dog were not actually carrying Illegal substances! SO these poor people have had there personal effects pulled out and searched usually in public for no reason. DO you want your child pulled up in the playground by a dog, searched by the police, labelled a drug taker/trafficker, ridiculed by children and teachers alike even though they are not in anyway involved in this illegal activity? People make assumptions that if the police are interested in searching you must have something to hide. What is next? Random searches of your neighbourhood? Your home?"

    Posted by: Purple Hazelwood of Melbourne 9:16am July 10, 2006
    Comment 1 of 3
    

    These and future comments in PerthNow at http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/comments/0,21590,19725178-5005379,00.html
    
    
    
    
    
• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Payday for the principals
    by Kathy Grube, Education Reporter
    
    "David Bartlett launches his mission to get more money through the school gate today -- 100 days after taking over as Education Minister.

    "His aim is to put the student at the centre of the education system and direct all resources towards giving them a better education.

    "Mr Bartlett has publicly commented that he wants to free principals from being bogged down in administration, and return them to their leadership role.

    "Unions and principals were briefed on his new plan to restructure the Education Department this week.

    "The plan redirects resources from the department's head office straight into schools and gives principals more strategic leadership and control over how resources are spent.

    "Called Student at the Centre, it is aimed at directly benefiting students, who Mr Bartlett says "are the most important people in our system".

    "It will involve a significant number of staff at the department's head office being deployed to schools or school support units.

    "The restructure will also see the current three school districts replaced with four "learning service units". The current southern district will be split in two.

    "School clusters may also undergo some changes. Administration duties may be removed so they can work more as networks to support schools.

    "When Mr Bartlett took over as Education Minister he said he would spend the first three months talking and listening to principals, teachers and parents.

    "Three months and 65 school visits later he has set the ball rolling for some major initiatives -- reassessing the Essential Learnings curriculum framework, putting school report cards in plain English and now siphoning money from the department bureaucracy to schools.

    "He told a Budget estimates committee last month he wanted to give principals, rather than bureaucrats, the power to decide where to spend funds."
    
    Full story in The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    
    

• The Launcestron Examiner
  
  
  • Lowering school age ruled out
    by Emily Bryan
    

    "Education Minister David Bartlett has ruled out changes to the school starting age amid Federal Government pressure to lower it by as much as six months.

    "A uniform minimum starting age of four and a half years was proposed last week at the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in Brisbane.

    "Mr Bartlett told Parliament yesterday that altering the minimum school age of five years could cost Tasmania $300 million, more than any other state or territory.

    "Schools now regard part- time kinder pupils as only half an enrolment, but an influx of even younger children would place greater pressure on staff and school facilities.

    "Mr Bartlett said there was no evidence to suggest that starting school earlier would benefit children.

    "The Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends Association backed Mr Bartlett, saying there were more pressing issues to address in early education..."

    Full story in The Launceston Examiner at http://www.examiner.com.au/story.asp?id=352198
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • Editorial
    Lifting the sheet on sex education
    
    "Modern society should acknowledge that young people are sexually aware and sexually curious.

    "While the best place for young people to be educated about the mysteries of sex is the family home, this is not always practical or possible, particularly in single-parent households.

    "For some parents or guardians, discussing intimate sexual issues is difficult.

    "It is therefore imperative that the controversial sex education program, Share, is adopted in all government schools – and ultimately through the broader private school system.

    "It must be acknowledged that Share is controversial. It deals in explicit terms with issues such as personal intimacy, contraception, homosexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy and rape.

    "When the Share program was first released in 2003, critics said it undermined the institution of marriage – indeed, the basis of society itself.

    "Family First MLC Andrew Evans believes the program still is too extreme.

    "But the La Trobe University's Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society has evaluated the program and given it a tick.

    "What else needs to be done?

    "Will the State Government, focussed on opinion polls rather than community leadership, seek a further assessment of Share?

    "The reality is the current curriculum is deficient in sex education and the broader associated issues of relationship management and responsibility.

    "The inevitable results of young people experimenting with sexual and personal relationships without a proper grounding and understanding of the possible pitfalls will be unwanted pregnancies and ultimately relationship difficulties, domestic violence and marriage breakdowns.

    "These are the painful and costly spin-offs of timid planning and a limited education curriculum..."
    
    Full editorial in The Adelaide Advertiser at link
    
    

  • Students pay price over debt
    by Xanthe Kleinig
    

    "State schools are owed $3.7 million in outstanding fees, forcing them to cut spending on such basic resources as books and computers.

    "The parents' debt has grown by $1 million from the previous year.

    "Education Department figures show 550 public primary and secondary schools were owed an average of $7000 before the present school year began.

    "Primary Principals Association president Glyn O'Brien said schools were making "hard choices" and cancelling planned purchases.

    "Depending on the number of parents in the school not paying, there can be a really significant impact on schools," she said.

    "When parents can't or don't pay, it's usually the number of computers or software that suffers..."
    
    Full story in The Adelaide Advertiser at link

   

Saturday - Sunday, 15 - 16 July

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Sick leave link to teaching load (page 7)
    by Keryn McKinnon, FOI Editor
    
    "Teachers at one in 10 State schools took an average of at lest two weeks sick leave last year, prompting calls to ease the pressure on a workforce facing its biggest upheaval in more than a decade.
    
    "Figures released under Freedom of Information laws reveal at some schools, teachers took an average of 4 1/2 weeks sick leave each during their 37-week working year.
    
    "And more than 50 schools had at least two staff members off sick every day of the 2005 school year.
    
    "Teachers took the most sick days at Bicton Primary (average 23.4 a year), Maida Vale Primary (23.4) and Oberthur Primary in Bull Creek (22.3). [Correction published 7 August: Hilton, NOT Bicton, Primary School.]
    
    "The State School Teachers Union claims the figures could have been higher because staff often worked when they were sick because there was a shortage of relief teachers.
    
    "They just don't want to let down their colleagues," union senior vice-president Anne Gisborne said.
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the figures were not surprising and were the result of the enormous pressures placed on teachers as a result of change, including outcomes-based education, new reporting and assessment policies and the rise in school leaving age.
    
    "Over the last 12 months, virtually on a weekly basis, teachers have been faced with change," Mr Collier said. "Teachers have felt completely disengaged and feel that decisions are being made about their profession without any consultation or acknowledgment of their talents whatsoever." [emphasis added]
    
    "The Education Department said while across the State each teacher took on average three days sick leave a year, there were pockets where the amount of sick leave was much higher.
    
    "Human resources acting executive director Kim Ward said in almost all cases this was due to one or two staff members experiencing extreme ill health and taking extended time off.
    
    "The Department of Education and Training currently does not have any evidence to support the claim that increased workload from OBE or the new assessment and reporting procedures has resulted in increased sick leave," Mr Ward said. "The number of sick days taken has only increased in proportion to increases in the number of staff employed." [Convenient...    Web]
    
    "Documents released to The West Australian show the total paid and unpaid sick leave and carer's leave taken by teachers at every public school with 10 or more teaching staff. Schools with fewer staff were not included to avoid the risk of identifying individual teachers."
    
    
    
    

Bishop urges AWA offer to all teachers (page 51)
by Bethany Hiatt

"All schoolteachers should have the option of being employed under Australian Workplace Agreements, according to Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop.

"Ms Bishop said if the States embraced AWAs, they would have the flexibility to offer incentives to teachers linked to performance.

"I think it's time that teaching staff are offered the same opportunities as those available to other workers and that includes access to performance pay," she said.

"I think employees should be free to choose their employment arrangements."

"The Independent Education Union fears that Federal funding for schools will eventually be dependent on the offering of individual contracts because the Federal Government forced WA to offer AWAs to TAFE teachers last year or risk losing $400 million in TAFE funding.

"Ms Bishop said AWAs would allow teachers to negotiate for greater choice, more flexibility and performance pay, which would have spin-off benefits for Australian education.

"Other sectors of the economy are able to embrace performance-based pay, I can't see why the teaching profession should be excluded from it," she said.

"Though Ms Bishop stopped short of saying provision of AWAs to teachers should be linked to school funding, IEU secretary Theresa Howe believes that is the direction the Government will take.

"Given that the Federal Government funds Catholic and independent schools to around 80 per cent, why wouldn't they say that funding was dependent on the offering of individual contracts?" she said.

"Some WA private schools already have AWAs in place, including Methodist Ladies College and Presbyterian Ladies College.

"Ms Howe said it was inevitable that teachers would lose some of their 12 weeks leave under WorkChoices legislation.

"Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Audrey Jackson said she was not sure AWAs were the answer. However, a salary model under consideration by NSW private schools that rewards teachers on merit and professional competency rather than years in the job could have a significant impact on schools across Australia.

"WA State school teachers recently voted to accept a Government pay offer of between 9 and 13.5 per cent over two years."

Full stories in The West Australian






© James Kemsley



• ABC News Online
  
  

• University welcomes extra med school places

  "The University of Western Australia (UWA) has welcomed a Federal Government plan to provide extra places for the state's medical schools.

  "The Federal Government announced 60 new places for medicine students in WA at the Council of Australian Governments meeting yesterday.

  "Twenty positions will be opened up at Notre Dame, while UWA will get a further 40 places.

  "UWA's vice-chancellor, Alan Robson, says the new positions will help turn around a chronic shortage of doctors in the health system.

  "I think that they'll help us meet some of the shortage of doctors in the community, which I think is a very important thing particularly in outer-metropolitan and regional Western Australia," he said."
  

  From ABC News Online at http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1687478.htm
  
  
  

• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Teaching economics
    Rewarding excellence to lift results is not a radical idea

    "What is more insulting and demoralising: working hard at a job and being recognised for your achievements with raises and bonuses, or being told that no matter how well you do, you will never be paid more than anybody else? Most people would describe the latter scenario as the more soul-destroying. But not Pat Byrne, president of the Australian Education Union. The past week saw the mooting of a commonsense proposal by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop to pay bonuses to schools and teachers that perform exceptionally well as well as a draft agreement to raise wages for NSW's more than 12,000 independent schools teachers by cutting the number of salary bands from 13 to three and ditching the old system whereby seniority was the only way to move up the pay scale. The reforms are being fiercely resisted by the likes of Ms Byrne. Earlier this week, she called Ms Bishop's proposal "insulting". And in The Australian today she blasts plans to give teachers such incentives "demoralising". This should come as no surprise. Teachers' unions are led by the same folk who oppose telling parents how their children are performing, though the obfuscatory language used in school reports around the country does as much to mask the performance of educators as it does that of their students.

    "The current system for paying teachers is so filled with perverse incentives that it almost actively discourages achievement. In NSW, 70 per cent of the state's rank-and-file teachers receive that state's top pay band of $69,334 and 90 per cent are in the top three bands. After 13 years in the profession, or at around age 35 for someone who started teaching fresh out of school, rank-and-file teachers are essentially told not to bother trying any harder because salary-wise, things are as good as they are going to get. No wonder so many teachers leave the profession in their 30s, while those in the public system are lured away to independent schools routinely offering as much as an extra $10,000 a year. The notion that it is impossible to evaluate teachers' performance is ludicrous on its face. Almost everyone remembers being taught by at least a few dedicated teachers whose talent and effort changed lives. Parents of school-age children quickly suss out who are the gun teachers and who are the duds, and lobby principals accordingly for class placements. School heads worth their salt are aware of who is performing well and who is just marking time. If children are, as we are repeatedly told, society's greatest asset and the future of our country, we should not treat those charged with shaping their intellects as members of a craft guild where everyone marches to the same tune and any economic incentive to excellence is removed.

    "The devil, of course, is in the detail. Teachers should have their pay linked to their performance, just like workers in most other professions in Australia. But any assessment regime developed by teachers, for teachers, threatens to be riddled with the sort of opaque, outcomes-based gobbledegook that bedevils report cards. In the early 1990s when then premier Joan Kirner was inflicting the Victorian Certificate of Education on that state, teachers had to demonstrate support for affirmative action, social justice and non-competitive forms of assessment. Still, despite Ms Byrne's concerns, Ms Bishop's plan to pay cash bonuses to star teachers has received a tick from principals' associations and the Victorian Government, suggesting the wind is blowing not just against the likes of Ms Byrne but Kim Beazley and the federal Opposition, who would return the entire country to collectivised wage bargaining. Ms Byrne should be made to stay after class and write "merit pay is not a dirty word" a hundred times on the blackboard."
    
    Full editorial in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19791757-7583,00.html [scroll down a bit]
    
    
    

  • Merit pay 'unfair to teachers'
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Plans to reward teachers for results, rather than years in the job, have been dismissed by the national president of the Australian Education Union, who said it was "completely unreasonable to hold a teacher responsible foroutcomes".

    "Pat Byrne disputed the idea that the teacher was more important than a student's family background in determining achievement and rejected the idea of tying pay to academic results.

    "She said a such system would set teacher against teacher and discourage them from helping difficult pupils.

    "You can only hold teachers responsible for what they can control and teachers have no control over the nature of the students they have," she said.

    "Classes are different, the way kids interact in a particular class is different, every subject area is different, every school is different.

    "All these things are variable and interchangeable and it iscompletely unreasonable to hold a teacher responsible for outcomes."

    "Ms Byrne made her comments after federal Education Minister Julie Bishop outlined a plan this week to reward good teachers with bonuses.

    "Ms Bishop accused the states of complacency in accepting low standards, particularly in literacy and numeracy, and proposed an incentive fund as a way of keeping the best teachers in government schools.

    "The Association of Independent Schools of NSW is looking at introducing merit-based pay to replace the current system of incremental rises for every year of service, with the top pay rate cutting in after about eight years.

    "Ms Byrne's views were disputed by NSW Institute of Teachers chief executive Tom Alegounarias, who said student results were directly linked to teaching practice.

    "Mr Alegounarias said that while a student's social background influenced their education, their social circumstances did not dictate a lower quality of teaching or expectations. "We hold the same aspirations for disadvantaged students as we hold for advantaged students. Our expectations of their achievement cannot be any less."

    "He said public consultation revealed teachers and the community believed excellent teachers should be recognised and assessed. The debate now focused on how best to do it.

    "You risk, in schools that do add value, overlooking excellent teachers that get good results when the results are ultimately average," he said.

    "You also risk in schools like selective high schools and in high socio-economic communities believing that teachers are excellent simply because students are well-resourced and highly motivated."

    "But Ms Byrne said paying teachers according to an individual assessment would lead to teachers declining to work in challenging schools.

    "She said it shifted responsibility from the government to the teacher without providing any support that might help students improve.

    "Ms Byrne also said it was difficult to define the term "better teacher" and it was "extremely insulting" to say they had to be encouraged into state government schools because it implied that good teachers worked only in private schools."
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19793809-13881,00.html
    
    

  • Future boffins learn science can be fun
    by Lisa Macnamara
    
    "A little primary school in Melbourne might answer what is vexing Australia's boffins: why are students no longer interested in science?

    Students at Mount Waverley North Primary School such as Mae, James, Sachin and Avani are given a daily dose of the subject, from studying the schoolyard's "frog bog" to lab work to examining a local recycling system.

    "It's fun and sometimes you learn new things and you get to enjoy stuff," Avani, 8, said of her favourite subject.

    James, however, prefers straight chemistry. "I like experimenting with different sodas, like baking soda. I like to see what happens when different mixtures go together."

    It is all part of a curriculum that is held up as a model example of how to teach the subject - a topic tackled yesterday by a group of Victorian academics who want to fix Australia's science "crisis" in primary and secondary schools.

    "There's a problem about the amount of science that gets taught in primary school, even though it's meant to be a priority," said the head of La Trobe University's education faculty, Vaughan Prain, who has called for a new national priority on enhancing science learning.

    Statistics showed primary school teachers dedicated a total of 41 minutes, on average, to science each week, often because the teachers themselves lacked confidence about their own knowledge, Professor Prain said.

    "The teachers don't have strong positive memories of science in their own primary school learning and don't have strong science backgrounds," he said. "They are therefore worried about the conceptual aspect of what it is they're meant to focus on and also the procedures (involved)..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19793805-13881,00.html
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Reward the best teachers, but keep them in classrooms
      
      "How typical of bureaucrats to think that paying the best teachers more requires portfolios, videos and work samples ("Plan for high-pay super teachers", 12/7).

      "Victorian teachers have been through four fraudulent career restructures in the past 16 years. All promised to reward the most outstanding teachers. All failed to do so. All created time-swallowing bureaucratic processes. All required the supposedly best teachers to move from classroom duties to administrative duties. All created limited-tenure positions to facilitate the exploitation and abuse of those appointed to them. All bogged such teachers down in absurd and unprofessional review processes.

      "If we want to identify the best teachers, we need a simple and competitive process which really does select the best, say, five per cent. We need to pay them as much as leading teachers receive for moving to administrative duties, but we need to insist that they keep a full teaching load."
      
      Chris Curtis, Langwarrin, Vic
      
      

      "G.R. Horsell's demand for teacher accountabilty is all well and good (Letters, 14/7). We should ask, however, in which line of work is the clientele more hostile to the service provider's best intentions than teaching?

      "Bureaucratic withdrawal of teacher authority in recent decades has made teachers almost wholly dependant on the students' socio-economic background for effecting achievement."
      
      Vernon Higgins, Alderley, Qld
      

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

• The Melbourne Age (Saturday)
  
  
  • Leaders agree on reform agenda
    by Misha Schubert
    
    "An ambitious reform plan to boost Australia's economy by $65 billion within a decade was endorsed by state and federal leaders yesterday after an 11th-hour compromise on funding.

    "Hailed by Prime Minister John Howard as a "mammoth national reform agenda", the plan is tipped to spark productivity reforms by the states in education, health, competition and regulation.

    "Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, who championed the plan designed by his department head, Terry Moran, predicted it would unleash new investment in the skills of Australians "to be more competitive and to compete better on the world stage".

    "The deal was struck at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra after Mr Howard agreed to premiers' demands for a potential share any windfall gains from their investments in reform..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    Similar stories in other daily newspapers
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    Three letters under the heading "Where schools should fear to tread" [on the proposed "contracts" between parents and schools] at
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/letters/where-schools-should-fear-to-tread/2006/07/13/1152637805195.html
    
    
    

• The Sunday Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Schoolyard blues

      "As a teacher, I now ask you to consider the human toll caused by the appalling state of public education.

      "Crossing an oval in a downpour, the last thing on my mind is corporate sponsorship. I'm too busy avoiding mud, dodging gushing spouts, or fishing pencil cases from puddles. When VCE students are shifting furniture to escape rain from a leaking roof, I'm not pondering a drift to private schools. My focus is ensuring that each individual is able to continue writing.

      "When fans or air-conditioners are turned off to save power, I'm not contemplating the latest swings in assessment from right or left. I'm plotting the fastest way to refill my water bottle from the only tap that isn't rusty, or trying to remember which toilet has soap in the dispenser.

      "Yet the deepest cracks are in our communities. Children of refugees, asylum seekers, single mothers or unemployed parents struggle to afford books and uniforms. They're balancing jobs with study, or babysitting siblings for lack of affordable child care. Some lack safe access to Melbourne's cultural centre, particularly at night. Their disadvantage is entrenched before they set foot on our campuses.

      "A third to a half of teachers at my school (and others we know) suffer depression, insomnia, glandular fever, chronic fatigue, thyroid disease, cancer or other ailments. Our bodies, like our buildings, are symptoms of a civilisation in decay. In a nation driven by greed, racism, TV ratings and mortgage mania, how can any politician, Liberal or Labor, ever find enough funds? Voters favour governments that lower taxes, right? Maybe it is values that need rebuilding."
      
      Louisa John-Krol, Dandenong High School
      
      

    • Principals to blame

      "I would be more inclined to respond sympathetically to Andrew Blair's complaints on behalf of principals (9/7) if they had not brought it all on themselves by their behaviour in the Kennett years, when their support for their colleagues in the classroom was so lacking.

      "The Kennett government offered principals and assistant principals pay increases, bonuses for compliance with political directives, exemption from cuts to superannuation imposed on teachers, exemption from the requirement to actually teach and more power to abuse and exploit teachers in schools. They grabbed the offer with both hands and found their lives made miserable by all the extra pointless work that went with it.

      "They do work long hours and they do suffer from stress - as do classroom teachers who had their conditions of work stolen from them and had to pick up the work once done by the 9000 teachers dumped by the system. Those stolen conditions have still not been returned. Principals need to accept a reduction in their power. They need to support teachers instead of making life difficult for them.
      
      Chris Curtis, Langwarrin

    
    Full Letters to the Editor in The Melbourne Age at http://www.theage.com.au/letters/

   

  • Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Education reform: what a state we are in

      "Hear, hear to Jenny Allum's cautionary tale on the pitfalls for NSW of a nationwide Australian certificate of education ("NSW, at the top of the class, must maintain its standards", July 13).

      "A case study into the problems of national syllabuses is provided by that dear old dowager the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB). More than 20 years ago, I was invited to be on a panel to update that institution's theory and musicianship syllabus, the first of at least three attempts and counting.

      "The panel's ambition was modest: to drag the syllabus's 19th-century concepts into the 20th century, to introduce non-European folk and art music examples to reflect the cultural diversity of Australian students, and to ensure that modern audio technology was appropriately used to put the "music" back into music theory so that it wasn't just a paper exercise.

      "The other states, however, quickly realised this ruse by NSW was a thinly disguised plan for world domination, slammed the reforms as far too difficult for their students, and wouldn't have a bar of them (literally).

      "The result? The many excellent Australian students of Korean, Chinese and other backgrounds who use this system still sit at cold benches in examination rooms never graced by musical sound, writing out from memory the same woeful tune once sung by British tars to steel themselves against Napoleon Bonaparte.

      "Admittedly, the board's conservatism has protected it from some of the standard-lowering fads which have afflicted public school syllabuses. But how much better would music and the young have been served if AMEB NSW had been free to listen to its demographic, unfettered by the anxieties of the worthy piano teachers of Caboolture and Toorak."

      Assoc. Professor Peter McCallum, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Sydney, Camperdown
      

    Full Letters to the Editor in the Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • The Hobart Mercury
    
    
    • Let the teachers teach: Bartlett
      by Philippa Duncan

      "Restoring power to school principals is the thrust of a "back to basics" plan released by Education Minister David Bartlett yesterday.

      "Mr Bartlett will send 150 bureaucrats back to Tasmania's state schools to take on the administrative burden from teachers.

      "But none of the redeployed bureaucrats, most of whom are former teachers, will return to the classroom to teach.

      "Schools will become more business-like and have to answer to boards of principals rather than distant bureaucrats.

      "Corporate benchmarking will be used to measure how schools are going and direct resources to those not up to scratch.

      "Balanced score cards" that show achievement, suspension rates and student and teacher satisfaction will let the public know how the 210 state schools are performing.

      "Mr Bartlett said it was time for educators to lead reform, which he promised would cause "minimum disruption" in schools.

      "Principals will be able to direct much more of the department's resource directly into those schools that need it," he said.

      "We are going lift the bar of how our schools are performing and close the gap between those that are and those that aren't.

      "This is about using existing resources better."

      "He said the 18-month restructure -- called "Student at the Centre" -- would turn the education system upside down and restore principals as education leaders.

      "Previously it was the department directing schools. This is about schools telling the department what they need," he said.

      "Mr Bartlett's plan will involve Tasmania's three branches that control the North, North-West and South regions being replaced by four learning services groups.

      "These groups will be accountable for four regions of about 55 schools in the South, South East, North and North-West.

      "Above them will be a central unit called Learning Support, which will essentially be a radically reduced curriculum unit of the department.

      "A board of six principals, a business representative and community representative will run the groups.

      "It will be up to the board and general manager to decide how to spread its resources between schools, which will sign a "service level agreement".

      "Mr Bartlett promised no jobs would be lost.

      "He said the reform should be complete for the start of next year when Tasmania's Curriculum would replace Essential Learnings.

      "The Australian Education Union has supported the sentiment of the plan but warned teachers already had "reform fatigue".

      "Opposition education spokesman Peter Gutwein cautiously welcomed the plan, but said he was concerned that jobs would be lost and the change could cause mayhem in a system already coping with curriculum reform."
      
      Full story in The Hobart Mercury at link

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