Monday 7 August 2006

Tuesday 8 August

Wednesday 9 August

Thursday 10 August

Friday 11 August

Saturday – Sunday, 12 – 13 August

 

Monday 7 August

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Confidence in State schools damaged by OBE confusion (page 16)

    "It is hardly surprising that public confidence in the performance of WA's State schools is at an alarmingly low level. The bitter and protracted debate over the implementation of outcomes-based education, a concept driven hard by the Curriculum Council and supported by an intractable Education Minister, both of whom dismissed the concerns of teachers and parents, appears to have left a deep impression on West Australians. [emphasis added]
    
    "The standard of education in both State and independent schools is often a subject of discussion.
    
    "Employer groups and tertiary institutions have expressed concern at declining academic standards and question how well young West Australians are being prepared to take their place in the workforce.
    
    "Recent reports that Edith Cowan University will allow students with a TEE average of just 42 per cent across all subjects to be accepted into its courses adds further weight to claims that standards are falling.
    
    "There is no doubt that Ljiljanna Ravlich's obduracy in the face of widespread criticism of OBE created uncertainty and confusion. It is unfortunate that the reputation of public schools has ended up bearing the brunt of the community's disgruntlement. [emphasis added]
    
    "Only the intervention of Premier Alan Carpenter brought the impasse to an end but schools, teachers and parents were left wondering whether they had been held hostage in an ideological war.
    
    "Almost 60 per cent of respondents to a Westpoll believe that independent schools are providing a higher standard of education than State schools. Only 5 per cent believe that State schools are doing a better job.
    
    "This is a clear evidence of a crisis of confidence and should be of great concern to Ms Ravlich. She has conceded that more work must be done to promote public schools. Addressing the issues raised by poll respondents would be a good start.
    
    "Sixty per cent of respondents to a Westpoll believe that State schools are not paying enough attention to the basic skills to reading, writing and arithmetic and more than a third believe that academic standards in State schools are slipping. Only 19 per cent think standards are improving.
    
    "The poll also revealed strong support – 83 per cent – for the teaching of Australian history as a separate subject during high school.
    
    "Ms Ravlich has hardly covered herself in glory in her handling of the education portfolio. Her time at the helm coincides with one of the most turbulent periods for WA schools.
    
    "Such a significant crisis of confidence in the community about the quality of State education must be addressed. If it is not, the exodus to the private system will become a stampede.
    
    "Of course, the condition of State schools is not terminal.
    
    "There are many fine State teachers and many fine State schools working hard to deliver the best possible education for their students.
    
    "They will be disappointed that their efforts are not better acknowledged.
    
    "It is a pity, however, that the public appears not to be entirely convinced of that.
    
    "If Ms Ravlich is to retain the portfolio she must make every effort to rebuild the reputation of State schools. She also must accept at least some of the blame for the fact that it has dropped to the level it has." [emphasis added]
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor (page 19)
    
    
    • "While it is unacceptable for teachers to teach outside their expertise or teach a subject in which they have no formal qualification, E. F. Lan (Letters, 24/7) insults many graduates who did not have a high tertiary entrance score and who chose teaching as a career.
      
      "A person with a high academic ability is not always able to convey their subject knowledge in a meaningful way to primary or secondary students. While subject qualifications are essential, they are secondary to the need to be formally educated to teach. This includes acquiring the techniques and skills to deal with the complexity of ensuring every child achieves to their maximum potential, often in circumstances that the teacher has no control over. Most teachers are not gifted from birth to be a teacher but are educated to be one."
      
      Brian Lindberg, chairman, WA College of Teaching
      
      

    Full stories in The West Australian

     

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Make private-state plan work: Kosky
    by Caroline Milburn
    
    "A controversial plan to rebuild Victoria's dilapidated government schools with private money may yet prove viable.

    "Education Minister Lynne Kosky has asked officials from Treasury and her department to find a way of overcoming the accountancy restrictions that prevent the Government from using private sector funds to help rebuild state schools.

    "Under the funding model, known as public-private partnership (PPP), the corporate sector builds and maintains schools on public land and leases them back to the Government. Leases usually run for 30 years. Once they expire, the school converts to full government ownership..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Parents should be seen as 'customers'
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "Victoria's government schools can learn important lessons about accountability and customer service from private schools, according to Education Minister Lynne Kosky.

    "The minister is set to tell school leaders at a Victorian Principals Association conference today that more should be done to meet parents' expectations.

    "If you look at some of the high-performing independent schools … they are very clear about the customer, in a sense, being both the student but also the parents," Ms Kosky said.

    "Particularly if a child is falling a little bit behind, the parents have the confidence that they will get fairly immediate contact, and I think we need to look at ways we can do that across the system."

    "She also acknowledged that some parents might be sending their children to independent schools because they felt such schools were more accountable.

    "Parents should be given regular updates — beyond the traditional parent-teacher interviews and report cards — about what their children are learning, their results and attendance, she said.

    "Advances in technology would help schools become more accountable, with some government schools already providing detailed information about children to their parents via the school website, Ms Kosky said.

    "She said that while many public schools were successfully meeting parents expectations, there needed to be greater consistency across the state."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Monday Education section always has something interesting, including these two Opinion pieces:
    
    
    • Op Ed
      Sinking in a policy wasteland
      by Brian Caldwell
      
      "... A strong case can be made that on several issues the Commonwealth Government is more aligned with community opinion than state governments, with its recent initiatives to ensure understandable reports of student progress, criticism of efforts in some states to modernise the curriculum, incentives to recognise and reward outstanding teaching, grants to schools to upgrade facilities, funding of technology colleges, and restoring the teaching of history.

      This is a paradox, since it has always been assumed that state governments are closer to the community. State and territory governments have had to be dragged to the starting line in most instances, sometimes under the threat of losing Commonwealth funds.

      There is a lack of alignment between the powers of principals of government schools and their counterparts in non-government schools on matters related to the selection and reward of teachers. There were instances in workshops in several states of non-government schools being able to search for the best teachers and offer excellent working conditions and appropriate levels of salary and reward.

      It is time for the playing field to be levelled on this issue. It is one of several strategies if government schools, especially at the senior secondary level, are not to become safety net schools within a decade.

      There is a lack of alignment between the demands being made of leaders and the level of support that is provided. For example, Victoria has been at the forefront internationally for more than three decades in the authority and responsibility it has given public schools, but successive state governments have failed to provide sufficient support to principals so they can be educational leaders rather than facilities managers..."
      
      Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
      
      

    • Op Ed
      Out in the clever country
      by Margaret Cook
      
      Two studies question standards in rural schools.

      "Are maths, science and ICT students in country areas disadvantaged compared with their city counterparts? The answer is yes - and sometimes no - according to two new studies.

      "A national survey of 3000 teachers and nearly 1000 parents has found that rural and regional schools have higher staff turnovers and more difficulty filling positions in these subjects. Teachers are less able to take part in professional development training and there is a greater need of resources and support.

      "Students also have fewer opportunities for excursions and visits by experts. Science teachers are particularly concerned about the lack of activities for gifted, special-needs and indigenous students.

      "But encouragingly, parents say teachers' commitment and enthusiasm "are one of the greatest strengths of rural schools..."
      
      Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
      
      
      

  • Op Ed
    Some children have only one shot at history
    by John Roskam
    
    "The funny thing about the debate over the teaching of history is that it's not actually much of a debate. Both sides fighting the so-called "history wars" agree that history is important, and that there are some basic facts that all Australian schoolchildren should know. The problem is getting agreement on exactly what the "facts" are that students should learn.

    "The "history summit" called by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, which will be held in Canberra next week, will attempt to do a few things. First, it will consider why Australian history has fallen out of favour with both teachers and students. Second, it will inquire into what can be done to restore history teaching to classrooms. Finally, assuming that there is a consensus that history can make a comeback, it will examine the content of a future Australian history curriculum. This last challenge is the most difficult.

    "Part of the explanation for the decline of history, both in schools and universities, is that the point of learning history has been lost. Theory has replaced content. While history can lend itself to the application of various theories, and while there can be arguments as to what "really happened" the subject shouldn't be dominated by these issues.

    "The study of history, like the study of English literature, has fallen prey to academics who use these disciplines as vehicles to push various Marxist, and postmodern theories about class, gender, and race. In some of the humanities, it is almost as if students are positively discouraged from experiencing enthusiasm for the subject they are studying.

    "Politicians are also to blame for the decline of history. On the one hand, they complain about history not getting the attention it deserves in a "crowded curriculum". But on the other hand, schools are expected to provide information on an ever-expanding range of issues from health and nutrition, to money management, even to driver education.

    "This development is the manifestation of a much wider issue about the way in which we call on schools and teachers to fix every social ill. We can't have it both ways. If more time is devoted to history, some things now in the curriculum will have to go..."

    John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs.
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    

• The Sydney Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Little schools in big crisis
    by Bruce McDougall and Kelvin Bissett
    
    "More than 1100 families are on waiting lists to get their children into pre-schools attached to primary and infants schools across NSW.
    
    "Some individual pre-schools – where fees are voluntary – have as many as 80 families waiting for a place, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

    "Many pre-schools administered by the Department of Education serve the most disadvantaged communities in Sydney.

    "Figures obtained under Freedom of Information show the biggest waiting lists are in Sydney's inner western and southwestern suburbs..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
    
    
    
    

• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • School closure timetable 'too tight'
    by Markus Mannheim
    
    "Parents say the ACT Government has set itself an impossible timetable by deciding only in the last fortnight of the school year which schools it will close.

    "Chief Minister Jon Stanhope told The Canberra Times last week that a final decision on the closure of up to 39 under-enrolled public schools would be announced between December 6, when public consultation ends, and December21, the last day of term.

    "But the president of the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations, Jane Gorrie, warned that neither schools nor the Education Department would have enough time to prepare for the start of the new school year, when up to nine primary schools and 14 pre-schools would have closed. The remaining closures are scheduled for later years..." [Another case of government making education decisions at the last moment...    Web]
    
    Full story in The Canberra Times at link
    
    

    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • The New Face of Summer School:
    Classrooms Fill Up With Students Trying to Get Ahead
    by Ian Shapira
    

    "In the back of a summer school chemistry class, teenagers Nichole Nguyen and Derek Cogar sat side by side, armed with periodic tables and calculators.

    "Cogar, 17, was at Prince William County's Forest Park High School because he failed the course during the school year. But Nguyen? She chose to be here -- while her friends slept in and went to the mall, and her family went on vacation -- because of her own hyper-ambitious volition. Her reason: She wants to be rid of the required chemistry class so she can take the Advanced Placement course this fall.
    
    "The stereotypical summer school -- where struggling, apathetic or otherwise attitudinally challenged students once ruled the hallways -- is changing. Overachievers are invading, enrolling in basic courses to free up their schedules for advanced courses during the regular academic year..."
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link [May require free registration.]
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • If at first you don't succeed ...
    
    "Children should now be termed "successful" not "clever", writes Katherine Demopoulos. At least, that was the proposal in a motion carried by delegates at this year's conference of the Professional Association of Teachers.

    "The proposal is a variation on a similar motion at last year's conference - which was thrown out - that students should not be deemed to have failed, but rather to have "delayed success".

    "Wesley Paxton, the retired business studies lecturer who proposed the latest motion, says we should be helping students to recognise individual success and the persistence that is needed to attain it, rather than focusing on a golden standard of "cleverness"..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link

Tuesday 8 August

• The West Australian
  
  
  • WA schools fail to teach kids history (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt and Phillipa Hansen
    
    "A leading national history teacher has attacked the way the subject is taught in WA schools, saying it was "hard to fathom".
    
    

• Expert will tell national forum State's approach to Australia's past is 'hard to fathom' as poll reveals ignorance

"The criticism of the outcomes-based education approach from National Centre for History Education director Tony Taylor is contained in a paper to be presented at a history summit in Canberra next week.

"His paper quotes a teacher who claimed the teaching of Australian history was full of overlaps, gaps and repetition.

"He says WA has no detailed curriculum requirement and no particular timetable allocation for Australian history in Years 3 to 10.

"There is no guarantee that the vast majority of students in Australian schools will have progressed through a systematic study of Australian history by the end of Year 10," Professor Taylor says.

"By the time they reach leaving age, most students will have experienced a fragmented, repetitive and incomplete picture of their national story."

"To test understanding of key moments in our nation's past, The West Australian conducted a straw poll yesterday and found a glaring lack of knowledge.

• Straw poll results (page 9) Q 1. Who did Australia fight at Gallipoli? [5/7 correct] Q 2. Who was Robert Menzies? [4/7 correct] Q 3. What year did the First Fleet land? [0/7 correct] Q 4. What was Changi? [2/7 correct] Q 5. What was the Eureka Stockade? [4/7 correct] Q 6. What happened to Gough Whitlam in 1975? [5/7 correct]

"History Council of WA president Jenny Gregory, one of three WA history experts chosen to attend the summit, said she was shocked at some of the answers. [See The West Australian for details.]

"She said the results gave weight to Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's call for Australian history to become a compulsory subject in Year 10, rather than jumbling it in with other subjects under the society and environment banner.

"If (the poll) is partly reflecting the knowledge out there on the street, then it's a bit of an indictment of the system," she said.

"One would think that people would know when Australia was founded by the British and that's pretty astounding that they don't."

"But History Teachers Association president Tom Loreck said he was not surprised by the results because people were more likely to remember stories that were relevant to them rather than dates. "I think the kids' understanding of why Australia was settled is far more important than the exact year," he said.

"Mr Loreck said while every student should know key aspects of Australian history, he feared that making it a compulsory subject could turn them off history for life.

"Australians and compulsion don't mix," he said. "I want them to engage in the subject because they love it, not because they were forced to. The problem with forcing stuff down kids' throats is that as adults they will not pick up history books."

"Ms Bishop arranged the summit after the Prime Minister called for a renewal of teaching Australian history.

Full story and details of the Straw Poll in The West Australian: article now online at link

• The Australian
  
  
  • Geography loses its place to teaching fad
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Geography does not officially exist as a subject for most school students, having been squeezed out of existence by a generalist model of education and vague, outcomes-based curricula.

    "Australian Geography Teachers Association chairman Nick Hutchinson said the integration of geography under the banner Studies of Society and Environment signalled the demise of geography as a subject in Australian schools.

    "Geography has been watered down under SOSE," he told The Australian.

    "Students aren't getting enough expertise or enthusiasm from the teachers because they're having to be generalist teachers."

    "In an article on the state of geography in Australian schools, to be published in the journal International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, Mr Hutchinson says geography curriculums have been reduced to "a collection of banal statements".

    "Although NSW is the only state that has geography as a compulsory subject until year 10, he said students in Years 9 and 10 were still learning basic concepts about Australia's geographical dimensions, its relative size and shape, latitude and longitude, and physical characteristics.

    "They do so, according to the syllabus, aged 14 to 15, after some nine years of learning geography under the umbrella of Human Society and its Environment."

    "Mr Hutchinson said primary school students had already covered such basic concepts and that by middle high school students should be challenged with something more sophisticated, such as consumer behaviour and its impact on a society.

    "Outcomes-based education, itself driven by educational accountability, moulded school geography into a series of 'one size fits all' statements," he said.

    "Thus the emphasis was shifted from recognition of the link between the concepts that underpin geography, the key questions in geography and inquiry-based learning."

    "The statements of learning outcomes expected of students that were contained in curriculums had become "motherhood statements", Mr Hutchinson said.

    "In Tasmania, geography teachers had to relate the teaching of weather to the statement that students "learn to create purposeful futures".

    "Such an outline restricted teachers to subjects such as climate change and El Nino rather than being able to include the solar system, the tilt of the Earth, continental drift and ice ages.

    "Mr Hutchinson said geography had become the map on the wall, whereas rigorous geographical study contained strong political and cultural components..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Win at all costs is eroding democracy
    by Matthew Moore, Freedom of Information Editor
    
    [A good description of what's happening to WA education.    Web]
    
    "Australian governments are so practised at frustrating the democratic process that legislation is urgently needed to try to make them accountable, a report urges.

    "Authors of the paper, including a former Liberal speaker of the NSW Parliament, Kevin Rozzoli, and a former Labor speaker from the Victorian Parliament, Ken Coghill, say an ever-growing desire to maintain political advantage has eroded the way democracy operates.

    "Information is denied, processes are manipulated and accountability is deliberately frustrated," they write in their paper released yesterday, Why Accountability Must be Renewed.

    "Ministerial accountability fails as governments seize and hold political advantage, putting partisan interests ahead of the democratic rights of citizens and their entitlement to be treated with integrity, dignity and respect..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Telstra pulls internet plug
    by Katharine Murphy, Canberra
    
    "Plans to build a national high-speed internet network in Australia are in disarray after Telstra yesterday formally pulled the plug on negotiations to build the $4 billion system.

    "Telstra's decision leaves most Australian businesses and households mired in the communications dark ages, with broadband internet speeds among the slowest in the developed world..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    Related story in The Melbourne Age: Telstra users stuck in copper age
    
    Another related story in The Melbourne Age: Our broadband isn't even broadband
    
    There are similar stories in other daily newspapers.
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • How do we teach the Tampa, Mr Howard?

      "Speaking as a teacher, I think it's simply wonderful to have a Prime Minister who is so exercised by the teaching of Australian history (The Age, 5/8). But, speaking as a loyal public servant and one wholly aware of my place in the PM's scheme of things, I seek to know what Mr Howard would have me teach about the Tampa affair.

      "Perhaps Mr Howard could forward an approved curriculum to all schools. It might include a nice snapshot of our current PM in some suitably historic setting - say the Cocos Islands or Ashmore Reef.

      "On the other hand, I suppose I could just get my students to ponder the known facts about the Tampa affair. How would that be, Mr Howard?"
      
      Alan Whittaker, Kew East
      
      

    • Sense of humour

      "John Roskam's line about the Howard Government pushing for history to be taught in schools to ensure students don't believe "things that are simply not true" (Opinion, 7/8) is an encouraging indication that even conservative think tanks, such as the Institute of Public Affairs, are capable of humour."
      
      Bernd Rieve, Brighton
      

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

• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • Test results used for schools hit list: Greens
    by Elizabeth Bellamy and Markus Mannheim
    

    "The Greens have accused the ACT Government of using student test results to determine the make-up of its schools hit list.

    "Greens MLA Deb Foskey said the secret Costello review of all government functions had used ACT Assessment Procedure, or ACTAP, test results to decide which schools should close.

    "ACT students are tested annually in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 at all government, Catholic and most independent schools to assess their literacy and numeracy skills.

    "The results are not issued publicly and are used to determine whether territory students meet national benchmarks, and how Canberra schools compare against ACT averages.

    "The Government is seeking to shut 39 schools by 2008, 17 of them primary and high schools, as part of its schools rationalisation plan..."
    
    Full story in The Canberra Times at link
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Look back in anger [Well worth a read – it could have been written here!     Web]
    by Richard Arrowsmith
    
    After 17 years as a headteacher, Richard Arrowsmith is retiring early, fed up with the endless initiatives of a government that refuses to listen to those who work in schools.
    
    "The early retirement of a secondary school head is not really national news. Even when he has had 17 years' experience of headship in two schools, and a total of 34 years in seven schools. But I am just too fed up with too many things. The problems of excessive bureaucracy, ridiculous deadlines and unconvincing consultation processes keep duplicating with each new initiative and, more seriously, the ongoing conflicts between educational ideals and political ideals show no sign of abating. Heads are asked to do far too much where the interest of the child is not the primary motive.

    "It seems to me that most major planks of policy introduced during my 17 years as a headteacher in two comprehensives have run into problems that were foreseen by us in schools..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    Weekly EducationGuardian Supplement
    
    
    

• The Independent
  
  
  • Primary school pupils fail to hit targets for maths and English
    by Richard Garner, Education Editor
    
    "Ministers have failed to reach their key education goal of getting 85 per cent of 11-year-olds to master the three Rs before they leave primary school, this year's test results will show.

    "The results, officially published later this month, will show an improvement in the percentage of pupils reaching the required standard in English and maths. But the rise will be just over 1 per cent in each, bringing the figures to 80 per cent in English and 77 per cent in maths - well below the Government's aim, according to a survey of England's 150 local education authorities by The Independent. It means 120,000 youngsters have failed to reach the required standard in English, with 138,000 in maths..."
    
    Full story in The Independent at link

    
    
    

• The Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • School clamp on fast-food feasts
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Fast food has been banned from a school to stop up to 20 parents delivering it to their children each lunchtime.
    Dandenong South Primary School's ban covers McDonald's, pizzas and other calorie-laden meals, including those from outlets such as KFC and Red Rooster.

    "The school has also brought in a fitness instructor to help teachers keep healthy, and is reviewing the canteen menu.

    "Principal Leonie Fitzgerald said the ban was proving successful, drawing a positive response from parents and children.

    "Ms Fitzgerald said the school had decided to ban fast food after it became a serious problem.

    "We had an issue with parents dropping off fast food, like McDonald's, KFC and Red Rooster, for treats for their kids," she said..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    
    

  • School welfare officers may go
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Victoria's 256 primary school welfare officers are under threat, principals fear.
    
    "The Victorian Principals Association is concerned the State Government is going to stop paying for the program, up for renewal next year.

    "VPA president Fred Ackerman said Education Minister Lynne Kosky did not guarantee the future funding of the project to principals at their annual conference yesterday..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    
    
    

Wednesday 9 August

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    MacTiernan lends an ear for right decision
    
    "Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan should be commended for listening to the people and keeping the Australind training services unchanged, though this is likely to have put her at odds with transport bureaucrats.
    
    "It is not necessarily a sign of weakness for a minister to change or abandon a plan.
    
    "If other ministers had the wisdom to see this, the Government could save itself a lot of needless political pain, such as it endured over it self-defeating obduracy over outcomes-based education." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Why we're lower
      
      "Historically, the proportion of the population pursuing higher education in WA has been lower than elsewhere in the nation. For instance, in Victoria the proportion is significantly higher than in WA, probably because eligibility scores for a substantial number of Victorian university courses are 50 or thereabouts. Eligibility scores represent the level below which a student will not be considered for university entry.
      
      "Edith Cowan University is setting 55 as its typical eligibility score for entry to 2007 courses because it is determined to help to lift university participation rates in WA.
      
      "Eligibility scores have little bearing on the quality of learning at university. Experience in Australia and overseas shows that motivated students, well-supported in their studies, can do well at university notwithstanding their school-derived entry ranking (TER).
      
      "Fair-mind people should not be trapped into automatically linking the quality of a university graduate to an eligibility score. Other States have come to understand this. Let us make sure WA does not get left behind. Skilled workers are needed now for the resources boom. By the time it has subsided, we will have an even greater need for a high proportion of West Australians with the capacity to participate in the global knowledge economy.
      
      "It is critical for WA that we unlock the head power of more of our people. ECU is striving to play its part."
      
      Kerry Cox, vice-chancellor, Edith Cowan University
      
      

    
    Complete Editorials and Letters to the Editor in The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Flexible funding for new tech colleges
    AAP
    
    "The federal government's new technical colleges will not solve Australia's skills crisis, Labor says.
    
    "While not opposing a government bill to provide more flexible funding for the colleges, on Tuesday Labor used the debate to highlight neglect of the TAFE system.

    "Frontbencher Gavan O'Connor said the government had claimed that by 2010, 7,500 students would be enrolled in 25 colleges.

    "But 21 months after the project was announced, only four colleges, with a total of 300 students, had opened.

    "You can't get a greater example of useless incompetence than this," Mr O'Connor said.

    "Labor's Anna Burke said Australia's skills crisis was caused by the systematic under-funding of the TAFE sector.

    "The colleges will go nowhere towards solving the crisis," she said.

    "The government has committed $343.6 million over five years from 2005 to fund the colleges.

    "The new bill, which passed the House of Representatives, will allow the government to bring funds earmarked for later years forward to support the establishment of colleges this year and next.

    "Vocational and Technical Education Minister Gary Hardgrave said colleges were being set up more quickly than originally proposed.

    "Mr Hardgrave said 20 colleges would be operating by 2007 and the rest in the following year.

    "He said the colleges were an important nation-building initiative that had been welcomed by industry."
    
    From The West Australian at link

    
    

     

• The Sydney Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Teachers slam cash for grades
    by Bruce McDougall, Education Reporter
    
    "Plans to pay cash bonuses to thousands of teachers for producing high-achieving students will be met with mass opposition from educators.

    "Principals yesterday accused the Howard Government of "turning back the clock" decades to when children were graded on ability and the top teachers taught the most able students.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is pressing ahead with the reward system.

    "A spokesman for the minister said the scheme would form part of the next round of funding negotiations with the states and territories next year.

    "Principals yesterday denied a claim by Ms Bishop that they were unaccountable and dismissed the reward scheme as unworkable.

    "The group possibly with the most to lose, the NSW Teachers Federation, claimed performance pay would damage productivity, morale and dedication.

    "Radical changes to teachers' pay could threaten longstanding industrial arrangements in one of the last great bastions of trade union power.

    "Performance pay is the latest among a number of major changes forced on state education systems by the Howard Government..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Why bonus payments are flawed
    by Bruce McDougall, Education Reporter
    
    "A slow-burning fuse lit in Canberra is designed to ignite a revolution inside Australia's classrooms.

    "It started with the mandatory teaching of values, new report cards grading children on their academic work and stronger emphasis on Australian history.

    "Now Prime Minister John Howard is turning his sights on what has been education's most untouchable issue - paying teachers for performance.

    "With the stated aim of retaining the best teachers in public schools, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has flagged a plan to pay cash bonuses to those turning out high-achieving students.
    Labelling teachers as unaccountable, Bishop believes they should be held responsible for students' performances - and rewarded for outcomes above expectations.

    "Such a manoeuvre, as Howard well knows, could at the same time undermine the influence of the powerful NSW Teachers' Federation.

    "It would also seriously threaten long-standing industrial arrangements in one of the last great bastions of trade union power.

    "A reward scheme for the best teachers could be on the table as soon as next year..."
    
    Full article in The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Funds review to exclude public schools
    by Anna Patty Education Editor
    
    "Public schools will be locked out of a review of how up to $7 billion in Federal Government funds will be spent on private schools.

    "The Government will review the system, which delivers one in four private schools more money than they are entitled to, behind closed doors next week.

    "The Federal Government had promised to release terms of reference for an external inquiry, but independent school representatives told the Herald it had decided against opening a "Pandora's box" of criticism from public education advocates.

    "Beneficiaries of about $7 billion in taxpayer funding for private schools over the next four years have been invited to make submissions to the internal inquiry from Monday. But public education representatives are outraged they have been excluded..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• The New York Times
  
  
  • It Takes More Than Schools to Close Achievement Gap
    by Diana Jean Schemo
    
    "When the federal Education Department recently reported that children in private schools generally did no better than comparable students at public schools on national tests of math and reading, the findings were embraced by teachers’ unions and liberals, and dismissed by supporters of school voucher programs.

    "But for many educators and policy makers, the findings raised a haunting question: What if the impediments to learning run so deep that they cannot be addressed by any particular kind of school or any set of in-school reforms? What if schools are not the answer?

    "The question has come up before. In 1966, Prof. James S. Coleman published a Congressionally mandated study on why schoolchildren in minority neighborhoods performed at far lower levels than children in white areas.

    "To the surprise of many, his landmark study concluded that although the quality of schools in minority neighborhoods mattered, the main cause of the achievement gap was in the backgrounds and resources of families.

    "For years, education researchers have argued over his findings. Conservatives used them to say that the quality of schools did not matter, so why bother offering more than the bare necessities? Others, including some educators, used them essentially to write off children who were harder to educate..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link [May require free registration.]
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • School fee loan applications soar
    from Press Association
    
    "Growing numbers of parents are applying for bank loans to put their children through private school, according to figures released today.

    "Household expenditure on private education fees reached an estimated £7.9bn last year, up from £6.9bn in 2001-02.

    "Sainsbury's Bank said it had seen a 38% rise in applications for loans to cover independent school fees over the past 12 months.

    "Steven Baillie, loans manager at Sainsbury's Bank, said he expected to see greater demands for loans as fees have risen by about 50% since 1999.

    "Around 620,000 children are now privately educated in schools, which are consistently charging more in fees," he said.

    "We expect to see a growing number of parents taking out loans to help pay for their children's education..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    

  • Guardian Special Reports on "public" schools
    
    
    
    
  • Parents jailed for daughter's school absence
    by Matthew Taylor, education correspondent
    
    "The parents of a teenage girl were jailed for four months yesterday after it emerged that their daughter had turned up for school for the equivalent of only six days during a seven-month period.

    "Newport magistrates in south Wales heard that Christopher and Deborah Haine had shown a "complete disregard" as to whether their 14-year-old daughter Shlaine went to school.

    "Anthony Harris, a chairman at the court, said the couple had also shown contempt for the two-month suspended sentence imposed on them in January for a similar conviction. The sentence is one of the stiffest penalties handed out to parents as part of the drive to clamp down on truancy. In England it is estimated that about 7,500 parents are taken to court each year but only a handful receive custodial sentences..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    Similar story in The Independent [daughter now in foster care...]
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • The Australian Higher Education Supplement
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Telstra needs jolt on to superhighway
    
    It's time to finish the job on telco competition
    
    "Telstra's withdrawal from negotiations with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over a $4 billion high-speed, fibre-optic broadband rollout is proof that Australia remains half pregnant in telecommunications privatisation and competition. Now is the time for a new push by the federal Government to settle the issue on both counts. The delays and horse trading over the fibre cable upgrade is the latest in a long line of stalling tactics by Telstra to protect its market dominance. As a result, Australia is languishing with third-rate internet services while Telstra continues to report profit levels that are the envy of the telecommunications world. The exception is mobile telephone services, where Telstra does not enjoy an effective monopoly market position, unlike fixed line services..."
    
    Full editorial in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Four Letters to the Editor on the Telstra broadband fiasco
    
    
    There are similar articles, editorials and letters in several daily papers and ABC Online News.
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • Editorial
    School buses must have seatbelts
    
    "Seatbelts must be installed on every seat on every school bus in South Australia.
    The State Government is reluctant to fit the 600 school buses with seatbelts because it estimates the cost would be about $70 million.

    "But can anyone suggest a better way of spending $70 million than on saving the lives of our children?

    "The futility of this debate is the argument that the money would be better spent on hospitals - where, presumably, children denied the protection of seatbelts will be treated next time a school bus is involved in a smash.

    "Since last November, there have been four accidents involving school buses.

    "Eight children and two adults were injured in a shocking head-on smash on the Eyre Peninsula on Monday.

    "That toll, both in numbers and severity of injuries, would have been significantly less if everyone on the bus had been wearing seatbelts..."
    
    Full editorial in The Adelaide Advertiser at link

    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Melbourne Uni row over degrees
    by David Rood
    
    "The first cracks have appeared over Melbourne University's new US-style graduate system, with tensions emerging over the nature of degrees.

    "The Age believes there is division about the decision to include both science and bioscience undergraduate programs in the new model.

    "Under the system, to be phased in from 2008, students study three-year undergraduate degrees, followed by a two-year professional degree.

    "Some academics argue that bioscience will be a feeder degree for medicine and undermines the idea that the graduate system should provide a broad general education. They say there should be one generalist science degree..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Editorial
    Food for thought
    
    "The ban by a Melbourne school on parents delivering fast food lunches for their children reflects a general community concern about the things children eat.
    
    "Dandenong South Primary School imposed the ban after it discovered up to 20 parents delivering fast food to their children at the school each day..."
    
    Full editorial in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    

Thursday 10 August

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Open season on party leaders (page 19)
    by Robert Taylor, Inside State
    
    "Both Premier Alan Carpenter and Opposition Leader Paul Omodei will find themselves under enormous scrutiny when State Parliament resumes next week after the six-week winter hiatus as they try to stamp their authority on both policy and their parties.
    
    "Despite strong public approval ratings in his first six months in the job, Mr Carpenter's handling of the John D'Orazio mini-series and the OBE saga raised serious questions and eyebrows about his judgement and temperament for the State's top job..." [emphasis added]
    
    
    
    
  • Australian history to stay in the classroom (page 7)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Students who take history in upper school are set to continue studying a compulsory segment of Australian history after a backlash against a proposed outcomes-based education course which would have allowed teachers to cover whatever countries or periods they chose.
    
    "The History Teachers Association is confident that it has persuaded the Curriculum Council to scrap a context-free course proposed to begin in Year 11 in 2008 in favour of a compulsory Australian component.
    
    "Association president Tom Loreck said yesterday that he had put members' views that Australian history be a mandatory part of the new course to the council and Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich last week.
    
    "The HTA had also recommended splitting the subject into two courses because ancient and modern history needed different teaching approaches. He was "very confident" the recommendations would be accepted.
    
    "The move follows a furore which erupted earlier this year when it was revealed the new History: Ancient and Modern course which starts in 2008 had no requirement for teachers to include Australian history, though it was recommended.
    
    "Under the current system, Year 12 history students must study at least one unit of Australian history, either from 1900-45 or 1945-90. The History Council of WA, the Returned and Services League and respected academics were appalled that WA history students could bypass the history of their own country.
    
    "The Federal Government's push for all secondary students to study Australian history as a compulsory stand-alone subject in Year 10 has inflamed the debate.
    
    "Curriculum Council acting chief executive David Axworthy said yesterday the council had not yet agreed to the HTA push.
    
    "There are diverse views among history teachers and even within the HTA about making Australian history compulsory for the new course to be introduced in 2008," he said.
    
    "Feedback would be considered by several committees before it was presented to the council for endorsement. Mr Axworthy said that process must be finished by the end of the year for the new history course to start on time in 2008. [emphasis added]
    
    "Mr Loreck said it was basic common sense to include a range of set topics that every student had to learn. And most history teachers believed Australian history should be one of the compulsory topics.
    
    "A straw poll conducted this week by The West Australian showed an alarming ignorance of key events in Australian history, including the year the First Fleet landed.
    
    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has called a national history summit in Canberra next week to discuss how to separate the teaching of history from a crowded curriculum."
    
    
    

• Sidebar: Making History What our education leaders believe every teenager should know on leaving school. Includes the views of John Howard, Kim Beazley, Julie Bishop, Peter Collier, History Teachers Association president Tom Loreck and Murdoch University chancellor Geoffrey Bolton.

• Letter to the Editor (page 20)
  
  
  • Back to the future
    
    "Your editorial (Confidence in State schools damaged by OBE confusion, 7/8) was akin to the enormous and consistent attack on the notion of liberal education or general education in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That is, march backwards to the days when education for making a living was not always combined with education for living. In both cases the criticisms are delivered in the name of "relevance".
    
    "In the 1970s the buzz word was "transition". It let schools off the hook. Transition allowed schools to go on doing what they wanted to do, what they had been doing in the past. It allowed work to become alienating, distasteful and unimportant because the problem was now one of transition.
    
    "Ironically, there were no transition problems for the bright kids. There were no problems for the potential brain surgeons. The only people who had transition problems were those who were never going to get the chance to transit. Transition was being defined in terms of "at risk" children – making sure they got the kind of training they needed. It reinforced the whole social class character of those "at risk" children.
    
    "What might have been a useful point of reference, namely that there is a serious gulf between formal school learning and real-world activities and real-world learning, and hence that we have to establish a satisfactory praxis, was distorted by the narrow definition of transition. The problems of trying to develop a better relationship between theory and practice, between school and work, between school and home, exist right across the board.
    
    "It seems to me that we still need to address those issues. That requires reform in the way we teach and the way our high schools are organised. Of course education is about outcomes. The debate should not be about whether to have outcomes but what we want those outcomes to be. Perhaps the demographic and technological changes in our society may bring economic self-interest together with equity concerns and lead us to create schools that educate all students for full participation in a democratic society."
    
    Michael Detiuk, Perth
    
    

  
  Complete stories, editorials and letters in The West Australian
  
  
  

• The Australian
  
  
  • Words failing Year 7 students [lead story]
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Less than half of all Year 7 students could identify verbs or adjectives and only 7 per cent could spell "definitely" in a literacy test sat by all NSW students entering high school this year. [A shame she said "Less" when she meant "Fewer"    Web]

    "The results of the English Language and Literacy Assessment, run in March, show that a majority of students have difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar.

    "Only 27 per cent of students knew where to put the apostrophe in "children's excitement" and 35 per cent were able to put the apostrophe in "can't".

    "When asked about the phrase "made Nick's eyes water", only 40 per cent of students identified the word water as a verb and just 44 per cent knew the words "calm", "still" and "unexpected" were adjectives.

    "When given misspelt words to correct, one in four students was able to spell "accommodation", 37 per cent could spell "scaly", 47 per cent could spell "razor" and 53 per cent could spell "paid".

    "But almost one in five students was unable to correct the sentence, "Then Ron and me had lunch", while only 35 per cent corrected "could of" to "could have".

    "Senior lecturer in the school of languages and linguistics at Melbourne University Jean Mulder said the specific teaching of grammar had been dropped from school curriculums around the nation and the poor literacy results showed that this approach was not working.

    "Dr Mulder designed the English language course in Victoria for Year 11 and 12 students, which teaches grammar as part of a study of literature and language.

    "Dr Mulder said most students who were familiar with grammar had learnt it from studying a second language, where grammar was specifically taught.

    "It's time to rethink the way grammar and language is taught, but not just simply repeating the traditional grammar approach of being taught by rote," she said.

    "It needs to be taught in context, by looking at the way words are used, not just their function, and in doing that to beable to name things, like thisword is a verb, this word is a noun."

    "The ELLA program was introduced in 1997 as part of the NSW Government's literacy strategy and is compulsory for all Year 7 students, with a voluntary follow-up test in Year 8 that is normally taken by about 97per cent of students.

    "Students are assessed on their writing, reading and knowledge of language, and are required to write two passages, answer questions after reading a piece, and identify grammatical components, correct spelling and punctuation mistakes.

    "The NSW Education Department said this year's results were "exceptionally good", with the overall results for combined reading, writing and language the best since the test was introduced.

    "In the language assessment, the results were comparable to previous years. The tests are marked within a range of 45 to 120, and the average score this year was 88.8, the same as last year's average and almost at the high point of 88.9 in 2004. A departmental spokeswoman said the questions were designed to test a range of abilities and while only 7 per cent of students could spell "definitely", 88per cent could spell "breath".

    "The spokeswoman said the question asking students to identify "water" as a verb in the phrase "made Nick's eyes water" was difficult and designed to identify the top students.

    "This question requires students to read a difficult text and identify the word 'water' within the text and then identify that it is used as a verb in this case, when it is most commonly used as a noun," she said.

    "But Dr Mulder was surprised by the poor response and said even though "water" was not commonly used as a verb, it was the only word that could be a verb in the phrase."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    Most Talked About: Broadband
    Telstra should be stripped of telecom network monopoly [6 Letters]
    
    Editorial on Telstra in The Brisbane Courier Mail
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Oh, for scores without borders
    by Geoff Masters
    
    "Your year 12 son tells you he received a final mark of 19 for English. How should you respond? It depends on where you live. In NSW, marks are reported out of 100, making 19 a very low score. In Victoria, the maximum possible score is 50, making 19 a slightly better result. But in South Australia, where marks are reported out of 20, a score of 19 is definitely worth celebrating. Most other states do not report marks at all.

    "It is not clear whether a score of 80/100 in accounting in NSW represents a higher or lower level of knowledge and skill than a score of 40/50 in Victoria or how either compares with an "exceptional" result in Tasmania or "very high" achievement in Queensland.

    "And the situation is becoming worse, with senior secondary arrangements about to diverge further. Australia now has nine different senior secondary certificates (10 if the International Baccalaureate Diploma is included). There are bewildering variations in terminology, making it harder to achieve a certificate in some states than in others, and as many different schemes for reporting year 12 results as there are agencies responsible for doing this. [emphasis added]

    "In all this the states and territories are staunch defenders of their own systems. Each considers its year 12 arrangements superior to those of other states, which are variously described as lacking in academic rigour, unresponsive to local needs, too rigid and bureaucratic, based on narrow and limited forms of assessment, and captured by educational fads. It seems that a number of states would support a national approach if it meant others adopting their arrangements. In reality, there is a very limited basis for accepting any claim to superiority.

    "Contrast this with what is happening in Europe, where the members of the European Union are working to enhance the consistency and comparability of their educational qualifications. The aim is to increase the international competitiveness of European education, to promote mutual recognition of qualifications across nations and to facilitate student mobility.
    
    "There was a glimmer of hope at the meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory ministers of education in Brisbane last month where it was decided to establish a working party to examine the feasibility of developing a common scale for reporting all senior secondary subject results.

    "But a common language (such as A to E grades) is only a first step. The bigger challenge is to ensure that it is just as difficult to achieve an "A" in, say, advanced mathematics in NSW as it is to achieve an "A" in Western Australia. This level of consistency requires agreement on how much knowledge, understanding and skill students need to have, and the quality or depth of understanding they need to demonstrate, to receive an "A" in each state and territory.

    "And this highlights the next difficulty. Can chemistry results be compared meaningfully from one state to another? The answer depends on how similar chemistry curriculums are across Australia. To the extent that year 12 curriculums vary from one state to another, any attempt to introduce a common reporting language and to compare grades or marks across the country is likely to be of limited value..."
    
    Professor Geoff Masters is chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research.
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Christian schools seek more subsidies
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Low-fee Christian schools will ask for their government funding to be increased in a submission to next week's closed-door federal inquiry on how up to $28 billion will be spent on private schools over the next four years.

    "Christian Schools Australia will argue that the funding increase is needed to keep fees affordable for low-income families while keeping up with inflation and salary increases.

    "Public education advocates have criticised the Federal Government for conducting a closed review. The chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, said those advocates would find little support from federal MPs in their argument against maintaining funding for private schools.

    "If they had their way, working-class families would not be able to have the same choice as families in higher income brackets," he said..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Today's lesson: scoring drugs
    by Les Kennedy
    
    "It all turned to pot when John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a mathematics teacher, found his year 9 class at Epping Boys High too unruly.

    "The topic he chose to address was his enjoyment of alcohol and cannabis. His candour got the attention of the teenage boys and then the principal. Later police charged Kennedy, 28, with supplying cannabis to a 14-year-old.

    "The downfall of the part-time teacher and his sacking last month was revealed in a police statement to Ryde Local Court yesterday..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Telstra and the trouble with open competition
      
      "When are politicians going to realise that Australia's telecommunications competition policy is fundamentally flawed?

      "Telstra's decision to abandon the proposed high-speed broadband network is surely enough to make people stop and think about this issue.

      "It makes as much sense to have multiple telecommunications infrastructure as it does to have multiple sewerage pipes down every street..."
      
      

    Complete Letters to the Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald at http://www.smh.com.au/letters/
    
    

• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • Reward teachers to stop drift
    by Elizabeth Bellamy
    
    "State and territory governments risked exacerbating a national drift to private schools if they did not pay public school teachers performance-based salaries, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop claimed yesterday.

    "Speaking at the National Press Club, the minister said while teachers, after parents, were the single most important determinants of their child's educational outcomes, they weren't valued highly enough.

    "Teaching should be regarded as a profession and I can't think of too many other professions where performance-based pay isn't part of their professional career," she said. "I think that the state government sector must embrace this issue because the non-government school sector is embracing performance-based pay and there will be a worrying number of teachers who, for perfectly valid reasons, would want to be in a system that recognises and rewards outstanding performance..."
    
    Full story in The Canberra Times at link
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  • Science a B-grade subject
    by Jewel Topsfield
    
    "Australia has "dropped the ball" on science education, with too little taught in primary schools and an "unacceptably high" rate of students opting out of the subject in early high school, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said yesterday.

    "Ms Bishop also backed performance-based pay for teachers, saying the single most important aspect of improving science education was providing quality teachers. "What is wrong with paying on performance if good teachers go to our most challenging schools and achieve outstanding results?" she said.

    "Ms Bishop said research in 2001 and 2004 found primary students across Australia had been missing out on science education, working less than an hour a week on the subject.

    "She also raised concerns about the low number of girls studying maths and science. An audit showed 55,000 extra science professionals would be needed by 2012-13, but supply was likely to fall short by 35 per cent."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Technical schools a sad loss, says Kosky
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "State Education Minister Lynne Kosky has conceded Labor may have erred when it closed technical schools across Victoria in the 1980s, saying "we lost something that was important for young people".

    "Ms Kosky told Parliament this week that a decision to phase out technical schools — undertaken by the former Cain Labor government — deprived some young people of a valid form of education.

    "It is probably fair to say that we lost something when technical schools were closed previously," Ms Kosky said.

    "Yes, the facilities were not great, but we lost something that was important for young people."

    "In the lead-up to the November 25 state election, Labor and the Liberal Party have formed an unlikely alliance on the issue of technical colleges..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link

• The Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Call to reward best teachers
    
    "Talented teachers who inspire students should be paid more, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop says.
    
    " Launching National Science Week, Ms Bishop said state school teachers belonged to one of the only professions not rewarded with performance pay.

    "She called on state governments to match the private education system, which was introducing performance-based pay for teachers, or risk an exodus to the private system.

    "I happen to believe that teachers are, after parents, the single most important determinant of a child's educational outcomes," Ms Bishop told the National Press Club.

    "I don't believe this country sufficiently recognises or rewards good teachers.

    "It certainly doesn't treasure its great teachers and we should."

    "Teachers were being rewarded for how long they had been in the job, not how good they were, Ms Bishop said.

    "What is wrong with paying great teachers good money?" she asked.

    "What is wrong with paying on performance, if good teachers go to our most challenging schools and achieve outstanding results?"
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    
    
    

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Parents oppose days off
    by Kathy Grube
    
    "A motion to reduce or eliminate student-free days will be put to the Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends annual conference next week.
    
    "Princes St Primary School Parents and Friends Association has proposed that Education Minister David Bartlett consider their reduction or abolition for all Tasmanian schools.

    "It suggests teachers access their professional learning out of normal school hours or before the start of each term.

    "The association is concerned at the loss of teaching hours, saying the 195 days of the 2006 school year were cut to 146 days in the classroom with a designated teacher.

    "It says teaching days were lost to sports days (6), swimming lessons (3), public holidays (6) and student-free days (4).

    "The association also calculated the time students spend in drama, music, LOTE, assembly and physical education (four hours a week) as being time spent away from their classroom teacher.

    "Association president Mark Thomas said parents appreciated the need for teaching staff to access professional learning, but were concerned their children were missing out..."
    
    Full story in The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    
    

  • School battlers score a credit
    by Kathy Grube
    
    "A pilot program in Hobart's northern suburbs is giving disengaged high school students a chance to learn a trade.
    
    " A partnership between TAFE Tasmania and three high schools in the Glenorchy cluster has enabled 16 students to get out of the classroom -- where they felt they were failing -- and into the work environment.

    "The Traineeship and Apprenticeship Pathway Program involves Year 10 students spending one day at their high school studying traditional subjects, two days at TAFE, one at an industry placement and one day at Cosgrove High School studying an intensive workplace-focused literacy and numeracy course, first-aid and workplace health and safety..."
    
    Full story in The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    

    
    

• USA Today
  
  
  • At schools, less tolerance for 'zero tolerance'
    by Marilyn Elias
    
    "Zero tolerance" discipline policies that are enforced widely in U.S. schools are backfiring: They may be promoting misbehavior and making students feel more anxious, the American Psychological Association (APA) said Wednesday.

    "The group called for more flexibility and common sense in applying the policies, reserving zero tolerance for the most serious threats to school safety.

    "Zero-tolerance policies spread in the 1990s as a tool to fight drug use and violence on campuses. Schools often suspend or expel students for having weapons or drugs, which can include over-the-counter medicine, says educational psychologist Cecil Reynolds of Texas A&M University. Verbal threats, fighting or sexual harassment also can get kids booted, he says. "There are cases such as the kindergarten boy who hugged two classmates. His teacher reported him for sexual harassment, and he was suspended."

    "The 'one-size-fits-all' approach isn't working. Bringing aspirin to school is not the same as bringing cocaine. A plastic knife isn't the same as a handgun," Reynolds says. He led an APA panel that summarized research on the topic..."
    
    Full story in USA Today at link
    

    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • US drug chief promotes random testing in schools
    by Sarah Boseley, health editor
    
    "America's drug tsar raised the stakes on drug testing in schools yesterday, suggesting that it could come to be seen as normal required and "responsible behaviour" in the same way that some US schools routinely test all pupils for tuberculosis before admission..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
  • Teachers prioritising targets over study skills, research shows
    from Press Association
    
    "Most teachers focus their efforts on drilling children to pass tests and meet government targets instead of helping them to learn the study skills they need, research released today reveals.

    "Only 20% of teachers in the study felt able to prioritise teaching children essential study skills instead of meeting targets..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    

• The London Times
  
  
  • Schools told it's no longer necessary to teach right from wrong
    by David Charter, Chief Political Correspondent
    
    "Schools would no longer be required to teach children the difference between right and wrong under plans to revise the core aims of the National Curriculum.

    "Instead, under a new wording that reflects a world of relative rather than absolute values, teachers would be asked to encourage pupils to develop “secure values and beliefs”.

    "The draft also purges references to promoting leadership skills and deletes the requirement to teach children about Britain’s cultural heritage..."
    
    Full story in The London Times at link

    
    
    

• The London Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Unskilled students
    by John Clare
    
    "Like many employers, I am appalled by what I read about graduate illiteracy but there's nothing like receiving an example to bring it home. I have just had a request for "infomation" - spelt that way three times - from a third-year undergraduate. It is not just the misspellings that stun me - "oppotunities", "relivence" - but the complete ignorance of grammar and style. In a clumsily constructed letter of three sentences, only the first begins with a capital letter and two have a comma where there ought to be a full stop. Yet this young man will have spent at least 16 years in our education system. How could his teachers not have noticed his ignorance, and why didn't they correct him?

    "If I were not giving up this column, I would have invited the many teachers among my readers to suggest answers to your questions. As it is, I shall confine myself to urging the parents (and grandparents) of all undergraduates to present them with a copy of The Elements of Style, a marvellous and timeless little book by William Strunk and E.B. White (the author of Charlotte's Web, the children's classic), published by Longman. Here, succinctly, elegantly and without fuss are the essentials of writing clear, correct English. Teachers might like a copy, too."
    
    Full story in The London Teleraph at link
    
    

  • Learning 'harmed by tests craze'
    by Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent
    
    "Most teachers admit they drill children to pass tests and meet targets instead of encouraging a love of learning, a study published today claims.

    Teachers felt that the high-stakes testing regime meant they had to cover the curriculum at "break-neck speed", using work sheets and practice papers to ensure their pupils can tick the right boxes.

    Four fifths of the 1,500 staff questioned in 40 schools admitted "teaching to the test", and conceded it made lessons less effective in terms of encouraging independence and a love of learning..."
    
    Full story in The London Teleraph at link

    
    

• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • More on the mandatory seat belts in school busses issue: Article and Editorial
    
    
    

Friday 11 August

• Curriculum Council mailing to all schools
  
  

• From: The Curriculum Council 11 August 2006 Memorandum to schools: Overarching learning outcomes and updated courses code list Following up on feedback from schools, we have revised and improved some documents on our website in order to clarify information about the new courses for Years 11 and 12. There is now substantial information available on the refinements to the courses and the implementation process, arising from the recent Government agreement with teachers and all the education sector/systems. All of this information is also available in the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) section of the Curriculum Council website. The home page for WACE is http://newwace.curriculum.wa.edu.au PD Day Four, held on 24 July, was also valuable in disseminating details of the refinements on a course by course basis. The feedback I have received from the various sessions showed the PD was well received and the support materials provided have proved very useful. Those materials are all available online at http://newwace.curriculum.wa.edu.au/pages/pd_online_day4.asp The following updates have been produced to help clarify information for teachers and deliver more comprehensive documents: Overarching Learning Outcomes We can now provide an updated document to clarify how the various courses and subjects, available in 2007 and 2008, will map to the overarching learning outcomes. The mapping document is available at http://newwace.curriculum.wa.edu.au/docs/167552_2_1.pdf Revised Courses/Subjects Selection List To help clarify information and deal with some frequently asked questions about course and subject codes, we have updated the courses and subjects selection list. This update also confirms the code for the new Literature course. Because the course name has been changed from Texts, Traditions and Cultures the codes for the course will now be based on LIT rather than TTC as shown in list included with my memo to schools on 20 July. For enrolment and reporting purposes all new courses, aligned with TEE subjects, will be identified by their new names and new codes. You can find the revised list at http://newwace.curriculum.wa.edu.au/pages/teachers_codes.asp The continuing review process is taking account of teachers’ opinions and suggestions and every effort is being made to ensure teachers have substantial support in the ongoing process to phase in the new WACE courses. In a regular meeting of the Curriculum Council’s governing body last week, new arrangements were discussed that deal with the operational implications arising from the refinements to the new courses and the implementation process. For example, there are now some clarifications for teachers of the new English course, along with adjustment to the rules for weighting of units, information on students repeating units and on the issue of accommodating different contexts within courses. A summary of the governing body’s resolutions from its 2 August meeting is available in the latest edition of the eNews bulletin, which can be viewed via the Publications section of the Curriculum Council website or by clicking on the following link http://www.curriculum.wa.edu.au/pages/eNews110806.htm DAVID AXWORTHY A/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER 167644_1.DOC

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Omodei loses ground despite higher profile (page 14)
    by Graham Mason
    
    "Opposition Leader Paul Omodei continues to struggle to win over WA voters with only 50 per cent of people surveyed in a Westpoll believing he is doing an acceptable job, well behind Alan Carpenter with an acceptable rating of 82 per cent.
    
    "Just 8 per cent of the 402 people polled last week believed Mr Omodei was doing a good job, compared with the 28 per cent who said the Premier was doing a good job..."
    
    "Political analyst Harry Phillips said the Westpoll was a great result for Mr Carpenter and a mid-term government while Mr Omodei needed a strong showing when Parliament resumes next week.
    
    "While the Opposition are not out of the picture, there is not much grounds for optimism," he said. "They are being hurt, I think, by Federal factors which have dominated this poll period."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Students failed by language system
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Schools are failing students with poor spelling and grammar and the time has come to reintroduce the direct teaching of basic language skills.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said yesterday the results of Year 7 literacy tests in NSW this year revealed that fewer than half the students tested could identify verbs or adjectives and only 7 per cent could spell "definitely".

    "Ms Bishop said the results were unacceptable and were the result of specific lessons on grammar and spelling being dropped. "These results indicate we are failing our students, the system is failing the students," she said.

    "Over recent decades, the teaching of grammar, spelling, syntax and sentence construction has become an optional extra. It should be fundamental. It's the building blocks for clear and precise communication. It's a question of priorities and in this instance, the fundamentals of our own language must be taught in schools."

    "The Australian reported yesterday the results of the English Language and Literacy Assessment, which all Year 7 students in NSW sat in March.

    "The results showed the majority had difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar, with one in five unable to correct the sentence "Then Ron and me had lunch". One in four could spell "accommodation" and 37 per cent could spell "razor".

    "But the president of the English Teachers Association of NSW, Mark Howie, and head of the NSW Board of Studies, Gordon Stanley, said such errors were common in the wider community.

    "NSW Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt said the ELLA program also showed that 92per cent of students could identify a preposition and 88per cent could select the correct verb form and a conjunction.

    "When asked if Year 7 students should be able to spell "definitely", Professor Stanley said: "Definitely."

    "But how many adults in the community get 'definitely' right every time you ask them to spell it?" he said.

    "Professor Stanley said words like "accommodate" and "separate" were commonly misspelt in the community and newspapers and students over the past decades had found spelling and grammar problematic. "I think it's a problem if we are not improving the overall performance of people as an outcome and that's something the test enables us to look at," he said.

    "Mr Howie said the test's writing task demonstrated that students were able to use nouns and verbs correctly, even if they were unable to name them.

    "Is literacy being able to use it correctly or is it being able to name it in a test item?" he said.

    "Mr Howie said he was surprised that as many as four in five students could correct the sentence "Then Ron and me had lunch" because students tended to use the language that surrounded them."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    The ABC of learning
    
    Every child has the right to be taught correct spelling
    
    "Regrettably, nothing could be less surprising than test results showing that a majority of Year 7 students in NSW have difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar. There has been a deluge of evidence to support this newspaper's demands for a return to basics in teaching methods in our schools. Now, as The Australian reported yesterday, the results of the English Language and Literacy Assessment run in secondary schools in March demonstrate that less than half of all Year 7 students in NSW can identify verbs or adjectives. Just 7 per cent are able to spell basic words such as "definitely". This dismal outcome builds on a study released earlier this year revealing that Singapore's children have a greater command of English spelling than Australian school children. Separate research found the dumping of traditional methods of teaching spelling in the 1970s caused primary students' reading scores to plummet over the following 15 years, and that students are yet to catch up to their equivalents of 30 years ago. The erosion of respect for basic English language skills in education is clearest in Western Australia, where a new English course, thrown out after widespread protest, meant students could pass their final-year exam without reading a book or being able to spell, punctuate or use correct grammar. In the age of SMS texting and spellcheck, when arguably more attention needs to be paid to spelling skills than ever before, many educators are fleeing from classroom rigour in favour of developing schools as sociological laboratories where such rigour is sacrificed on the altar of political advocacy. And too often teachers treat spelling with disrespect by consigning it to the "wallpaper method", expecting learning from words stuck on a wall. As prominent educator Judith Wheeldon has pointed out in these pages, good spelling, vocabulary, grammar and reading skills can offer a passport out of poverty and joblessness. Our written communication represents us as individuals in myriad public situations, whether we are sending a birthday card or applying for a job. Every child has the right to be taught these skills." [emphasis added]
    
    From The Australian at link [Scroll down to this editorial.]
    
    
    
    © The Australian
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Kevin Donnelly: Schools failing on Western heritage
    Our history curriculum needs a complete makeover, suggests Kevin Donnelly
    
    "And you thought the English curriculum was bad enough. Think again. The cultural Left has also sabotaged the Australian history curriculum in schools.

    "In his analysis of the history wars, Stuart Macintyre summarises the various approaches to teaching Australian history that have prevailed during the past century. Macintyre argues, as a result of the cultural revolution of the '60s, that historians questioned more conservative views in favour of a "left-wing" perspective. Historians, he notes, embraced approaches such as: Marxist history, labor history and women's history. Macintyre describes this as "history from below" and suggests it also includes perspectives based on "sexuality, race and ethnicity".

    "Anna Clark, in her analysis of the debates surrounding how Australian history is taught, makes a similar point to Macintyre: "They (what she terms the New History and the New Social Studies) marked a turning point in educational approaches, whereby traditional academic emphases were increasingly replaced by child-centred, inquiry-based methods of teaching and learning. These two progressive approaches to the discipline were also explicitly ideological, reflecting a growing belief in the capacity of education to reinforce and change social inequality."

    "One of the defining characteristics of Australia's adoption of outcomes-based education is the belief that how we relate to the world is subjective and relative. Present approaches to Australian history adopt this post-modern approach.

    "Taken at face value, the argument that there is no one version of the past that is free of any uncertainty or doubt appears reasonable. It is also the case that as societies evolve, so do values and beliefs and this change often colours the prism through which we interpret the past.

    "Yet it should be possible to argue that some interpretations of the past are closer to the truth than others and that historical truth is not simply a matter of personal preference or ideological choice.

    "Case in point: David Irving. Earlier this year, the British historian was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison by an Austrian court for denying the magnitude of the Holocaust. The fact that Irving was convicted suggests not all interpretations of the past carry equal weight and that it is possible to prove that certain events did happen and also to identify the reasons for such events.

    "In the Queensland curriculum, students are told that "knowledge is always tentative", that they should "critique the socially constructed elements of text", and understand "how privilege and marginalisation are created and sustained in society".

    "South Australia also favours a politically correct approach, as evidenced by the "equity cross-curriculum perspectives" that teachers are told to employ.

    "Chief among these perspectives are those close to the heart of the cultural Left, including: Aboriginal, gender, multicultural, socio-economic and what is described as an equity futures perspective.

    "Take multiculturalism. Read the curriculum documents and you find the focus is on diversity and difference. Never mind our common Western liberal democratic values.

    "The Tasmanian curriculum, when explaining what is meant by social responsibility, emphasises the need to endorse "multiple perspectives" and "diverse views".

    "The South Australian curriculum, in outlining the importance of students understanding cultural and global connections, also emphasises "diversity" and "difference", as does the ACT curriculum, under the heading of Australian perspectives, when it says that students should experience the "diversity of Australian life".

    "The way studying Australian history is described in the Victorian curriculum also stresses diversity, multiple influences and the multicultural nature of Australian society, with the exception of Aboriginal and Torres Stait Islander communities that are given special treatment.

    "While it is true that Aborigines settled in this continent years before Europeans and migrants from many different races and cultures have made this country their home, the reality is that Australia's development as a nation and its legal, political institutions and language are Anglo/Celtic in origin and deeply influenced by our Judeo/Christian heritage.

    "Not only does Australia's curriculum fail to properly deal with this heritage, but the assumption is that all cultures are of equal worth. Ignored is that the values of tolerance, compassion, openness and civility that ensure Australia's continued peace and stability are based on our Western heritage and culturaltradition."

    Kevin Donnelly is the director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies.

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Oldies can do it better
      
      "For the life of me, I can't understand why we are so surprised that today's grandparents are more literate than their grandchildren ("Words failing Year 7 students", 10/8).

      "The oldies had no TV when they were young and hence read books for entertainment; at school, their curricula included spelling and grammar, which were taught by teachers with high levels of competence in their subject.

      "The radio once provided an excellent yardstick for correct diction and pronunciation. Sadly, such standards have been abandoned by broadcasters, including the ABC, leaving young people with no guidelines, unless they are fortunate enough to receive them at home."
      
      Peter Bell, Camberwell, Vic
      
      

    • "As a grumpy grandpa educated in the 1930s and 40s, I was quite unsurprised at your story. It confirmed my view that not only are current teachers untrained in grammar and spelling, but so also are those entrusted with the training of teachers."

      "Jean Mulder, senior lecturer in the school of languages and linguistics at Melbourne University, is quoted as saying, "It's time to rethink the way grammar and language is (sic) taught . . ." Obviously "they" are not taught at all."
      
      Michael Game, Farrer, ACT
      
      

    • "The NSW English Language and Literacy Assessment indicates Year 7 students have achieved consistently good results over many years. In the absence of a valid historical comparison showing that these results do not match those achieved by students of the same age in past decades, the suggestion that students are now failing is injudicious.

      "Further, before the idea that NSW Year 7 students are failing in their knowledge of grammar is bandied around too much, mention should also be made of the fact that ELLA has a writing component. Student result data that I am aware of suggests that while some students might not be able to name certain parts of speech in a particular test item (such as the untypical use of water as a verb quoted in the report), the great majority of Year 7 students are certainly using verbs and adjectives correctly in their writing.

      "If an understanding of grammar is tested through the use of language by students, rather than their ability to label parts of speech in a test that is designed to distract a certain percentage of students from the correct answer, then a different picture of their knowledge and understanding develops."
      
      Mark Howie, President, NSW English Teachers'Association
      
      

    • "Students failing grammar? Resurrect the teaching of Latin. Winston Churchill's self-deprecation as a "dunce, with a little Latin and less Greek" shows the path that the finest writer of modern English trod."
      
      Jeremy Peters, Karratha, WA
      
      

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

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Maths belief 'doesn't add up'
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "The general view that girls outperform boys in VCE maths and science is being questioned.

    "A La Trobe University study found that, while statistics suggest girls record better subject scores, this was affected by the concentration of brighter girls in high-achieving subjects, compared with a broad range of abilities for boys in these subjects.

    "It relates to the ability level of the girls and boys in the subject, not girls and boys per se," researcher Peter Cox said. "The extreme example is year 12 physics. On average, only very able girls will take the subject, whereas the complete spectrum of boys' abilities are found."

    "Dr Cox, a science education lecturer, examined the participation, subject selection and performance of 2500 students over three years at one of Victoria's largest schools.

    "Instead of focusing on statistics relating to gender, he said, the issue of greater concern was the effect a student's family background had on their VCE. "It's a much bigger thing to worry about … the system seems to be letting down low socio-economic groups," he said.

    "The subjects they pick are nowhere as strategic as high socio-economic groups, and even if they pick high-end subjects, they don't perform at the same level."

    "Students from wealthier backgrounds, and boys, were more likely to choose high-status subjects such as chemistry, physics, maths and science, which had a greater likelihood of providing an advantage in the future..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Podcast lectures a hit with conscientious university students
    by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
    
    "When Nathan Moss began podcasting his introductory psychology lectures last semester, he assumed no one was listening to them.

    "His classes stayed full and no one commented on the podcasts that he was taking up to six hours to prepare each week, until the time he was late putting them on the website. "I started getting all these emails saying, 'Where are the podcasts?"' said Dr Moss, a lecturer at Queensland University of Technology.

    "It was really good because the [lecture] numbers weren't going down at all, so they were using them to revise," he said..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

    
    

• Various editorials on Telstra, including this one in The Brisbane Courier Mail

Saturday – Sunday, 12 – 13 August

• PerthNow / The Sunday Times Online
  
  
  • Sex assault crisis in schools
    by Sharri Markson [The [Sydney] Sunday Telegraph]
    
    "Sexual assaults have emerged as a major problem on school grounds, with figures showing an attack occurs almost daily.
    
    "Police figures obtained by The [Sydney] Sunday Telegraph reveal 183 sexual assaults took place in New South Wales schools and pre-schools during school hours in the year to March, 2006. The figures which concern police show there were 60 sexual assaults in pre-schools while 807 occurred in primary and high schools over the past five years.

    "Australian Council of State Schools Organisation executive officer Terry Aulich said sexual assaults in schools mostly occur between students and only occasionally involve a teacher.

    "It is disturbing. The most important issue for schools is the safety of young people," he said. "Students deserve a safe environment, free from bullying and assault. It's really important that action is taken and it becomes an officially reported thing."

    "Four times as many sexual assaults occurred in public schools than private schools from April, 2005 to March, 2006, according to the data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics.

    "Mr Aulich said schools should not turn a blind eye to sexual assault. "It's the 'we don't want to know' attitude that is the worst approach we can take," he said.

    "Teachers who sexually assault students are sacked and put on a "not to be employed" list, according to the NSW Government.

    "Child protection and sex crime squad commander Detective Superintendent Helen Begg said the incidents were concerning.

    "Police are always very concerned about any type of incident reported to them ... ," she said.

    "Each matter is dealt with individually and the appropriate investigative response, which may include consultation with the principal, Department of Education and Department of Community Services, is made..."
    
    Full story in PerthNow / The Sunday Times Online at link
    
    Original story in The Sydney Sunday Telegraph
    
    Similar story on ABC News Online
    
    
    

• The Sydney Sunday Telegraph
  
  
  • Editorial
    Stop evil in schoolyards
    
    "Parents have every expectation that when their children are deposited at the school gates every morning, they will be safe from danger and out of harm's way.

    "Whether at pre-school, primary school or high school, aparent's natural inclination is to believe that apart from a few scrapes and bruises, the worst that could happen could be a broken bone or bad grades.

    "Unfortunately, that isn't always the case.

    "According to an exclusive report in The Sunday Telegraph today, 183 cases of sexual assault were reported on school premises between the hours of 9am and 3pm in the year to March.

    "The victims range in age from pre-schoolers to graduating secondary-school students.

    "These statistics don't reveal who is perpetrating the crimes - adult teachers or supervisors, or the victims' fellow students.

    "Authorities and experts who work in the wider field of sexual assault say the number of reported cases is usually only the tip of the iceberg.

    "The simple, horrific fact is that predators who prey on vulnerable children will take whatever opportunity arises. Perpetrators plan their attacks and select their victims carefully. As well, they often manipulate their victims into believing they were complicit in the assault.

    "Parents can't protect their children 24 hours a day, but they can educate them to be aware of potential threats and teach them that regardless of what happens, they are never at fault.

    "Sexual assault is a criminal offence in Australia. It is a crime for anyone - regardless of age or gender - to force another to have sex, or to participate in any sexual act. Students need to understand that "no means no'' and that they are perfectly within their rights to reject any sexual advance from classmates.

    "Similarly, students of all ages need to be taught about the inviolable principles of the teacher-student relationship: teachers and adult supervisors are legally prohibited from engaging in any type of sexual activity with students.

    "Parents and teachers also need to educate themselves to be aware of any signs that children and students have become victims of sexual assault.

    "Changes in behaviour are often an indicator that something is wrong. Adults should be on the watch for,among other things, loss of attention and concentration, sleeplessness, and a reluctance to go to school.

    "Sexual abuse of children is one of the most abhorrent crimes imaginable. Authorities and the public and private education systems must take every step possible to eradicate this evil from the schoolyard."
    
    From The Sydney Sunday Telegraph at link
    
    
    

• The Sunday Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Christian theory not science: MP
    by Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra
    
    "The controversial theory of "intelligent design" has been ridiculed by Federal Education and Science Minister Julie Bishop, who says it should not be taught in schools.

    "Her views are a major setback for conservative Christian groups who have mounted a concerted campaign to have "intelligent design" taught alongside evolution in school science courses.

    "Intelligent design, damned by critics as junk science, argues that life on Earth is too complex to have evolved purely through Darwin's theory of natural selection.

    "I have had submissions in relation to this matter and as the minister for science I can state that it's my view that it is not part of a science curriculum," Ms Bishop said.

    "If, however, there are those who wish certain subjects to be taught or certain aspects or themes to be taught to their students, then that's a matter for parents to take up with individual schools or education authorities," she said. "But as minister for science, no, I would not advocate it be part of science courses." Ms Bishop's comments represent a comprehensive denunciation of the views of her predecessor Brendan Nelson, who last year endorsed "intelligent design" being taught alongside evolution. Dr Nelson also said he had met the group Campus Crusade for Christ, the Australian advocates of intelligent design, or ID, and said he had been impressed by a DVD called Unlocking the Mystery of Life they had presented to him..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    History — or learning by numbers?
    by Terry Lane
    
    "The federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, is holding a "history summit" in Canberra this week. As we know, the Prime Minister is appalled at the way in which the bolshie disciples of Manning Clark have seized control of the history curriculum and he doesn't intend to take it any longer. So, although the program for the so-called summit looks as though all styles of history teaching are up for grabs, we should assume that the argument is all over and declare the White Hero theorists the winners.

    "Does it matter? The PM seems to have some romantic recollection of how history used to be taught — as a sequence of heroic, nation-building events attached to specific dates. My recollection is that, once out of primary school, where we had learned about Stuart, Sturt, Cook, and Burke and Wills crossing the continent, there was nothing left to teach except British history.

    "The teaching of Australian history was so spotty that I was in my mid-20s before I discovered that we had lost at Gallipoli and I only found that out from the play The One Day of the Year. I spent a day in the Preston library trying to prove that it wasn't true..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Age at link

    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Full marks to my school
      
      "Marcus L'Estrange (Letters 6/8) claims that left-wing ideas are to blame for the development of some schools as "safety nets". It is exactly that kind of educational and cultural divide that many in the left try to avoid. My school has comparatively low average VCE scores, and is the only state school in its north-western suburb, yet it provides encouragement for all students. The school does not accept bad behaviour and helps students as well as "punishing" them.

      "The school does not dictate "that everybody should pass their VCE or equivalent". Students are given the opportunity to participate in programs that trains them in year 10 maths and English (not grade 2-3) as well as giving them skills to do what they choose with their lives. I am studying VCE at this school. I find that I am encouraged to strive for my goals, and rewarded when I excel.

      "State school teachers who send their children to private schools only quicken the pace of a move to "safety net" education for the disadvantaged. By separating those who are enthused about learning from those who are perhaps more disaffected, you eliminate a valuable two-way dialogue."
      
      Jesse Marshall, West Essendon
      
      

    • History lesson
      
      "The history of Australia should not start with Captain Cook's landing in Australia in 1770.

      "The history should start with the arrival of Aboriginal people who settled in Australia more than 40,000 years ago. It should continue with the discovery of the top of Australia by the Dutch ship, Duyfken, under the command of Willem Janszoon in 1606. It should include discoveries by Abel Tasman 1616 and Dirk Hartog 1642.

      "The history of a country should start at the beginning and not somewhere in the middle."
      
      Leo M. Steynis, Caroline Springs
      
      

    Complete Letters to the Editor of THe Sunday Melbourne Age at http://www.theage.com.au/letters/
    
    
    

• The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Hike in private school fees
    by Mary Papadakis, Education reporter
    
    "Private school fees are tipped to rise by up to 10 per cent next year.
    
    "Most Victorian independent schools have not officially set their 2007 fees, but school sources have warned parents to brace themselves for increased tuition costs of between 5 and 10 per cent.

    "At least one independent school has already increased its Year 11 and 12 fees by 8 per cent.

    "Rising teacher salaries, the demand for the latest technology, new courses and more after-hours school-based services are to blame..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    

  • Two "human interest" stories
    
    
    • Human guinea pigs
      by Mary Papadakis, Education reporter
      
      "Cash-strapped university students are risking their health for "quick money" by acting as guinea pigs in medical trials.

      "Students are earning thousands of dollars to pay for their studies by testing treatments ranging from sunscreen and anaesthetic to heart and anti-depressant drugs.

      "In return for using their bodies to test for potential side effects, students receive cash, food, shelter, a place to study and access to the internet and DVDs.

      "National Union of Students president Rose Jackson claimed students were being preyed upon..."
      
      Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun at link
      
      

    • Not just leukemia, Jack's also battling bullies: School aide plea
      by Mary Papadakis, Education reporter
      
      "A boy recovering from life-saving cancer treatment could be given a teacher's aide to protect him from school bullies.
      
      "Leukemia survivor Jack Saunders, 11, has been teased, punched, kicked and choked in unprovoked schoolyard attacks, according to his father, Mark.

      "Dandenong North Primary School principal Kevin Mackay denied this week bullying was a problem, but confirmed Jack had been involved in "squabbles".

      "Mr Mackay said the school would submit an "urgent" application to the Education Department for a teacher's aide to keep an eye on Jack during recess and lunch. Another option was to keep Jack indoors when at school, he said..."
      
      Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun at link
      
      
      

• The Brisbane Sunday Mail
  
  
  • Kids left behind
    by Daryl Passmore
    
    "... The index of social exclusion risk for children was compiled by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling using 2001 census data on issues such as low family income, single parenting, housing types, employment and access to cars and computers.

    "What we are trying to do is pick up areas where children are excluded from a number of activities which might normally be taken for granted," said report co-author Robert Tanton.

    "They might not be able to afford to go on holidays or school trips, for example. Or they might not have access to a computer at home which can impact on educational performance and the opportunity to connect with friends online.

    "Even feeling unable to have friends over for tea because you are living in a poor household.

    "If a child grows up in a poor household where the parents have low educational levels, they tend to grow up to be poor and with a lower education. That's a long-term implication.

    "There are kids who make it out of that situation, but there is quite a lot of inter-generational transfer..."
    
    Full story in The Brisbane Sunday Mail at link
    
    

    
    

• The Adelaide Sunday Mail
  
  
  • No lunch and no money
    by Kate Kyriacou
    
    "Parents are sending their children to school with no food and no lunch money, forcing schools to feed hungry students.
    
    "And frustrated principals say parents are taking advantage of their generosity by not repaying the canteen bill.

    "More and more children are going without because mums and dads can't afford to fill their lunchboxes, according to Australian Education Union state president Andrew Gohl.

    "It's very tempting just to blame parents but we need to look at the broader issue here – life at the moment is pretty tough for some people," he said. "We're at a point in time when fuel prices are increasing and the cost of living is increasing as a result of that.

    "Families are under a huge financial strain and, in some cases, they may not have the wherewithal or the ability to access the support they need to meet basic daily requirements.

    "And that means putting food in the fridge."

    "SA Primary Principals Association president Glyn O'Brien said the problem was "quite widespread".

    "It's quite an issue in a large number of schools," she said. "It's a difficult situation because parents are absolutely responsible for feeding their children.

    "But schools, because of their compassion, find themselves providing food in order for their children to learn..."
    
    Full story in The Adelaide Sunday Mail at link

    
    
    

• The Sunday Washington Post
  
  
  • News Feature [long but interesting]
    Search Me?
    Google Wants to Digitize Every Book. Publishers Say Read the Fine Print First
    by Bob Thompson
    
    "STANFORD, Calif. If it is really true that Google is going to digitize the roughly 9 million books in the libraries of Stanford University, then you can be sure that the folks who brought you the world's most ambitious search engine will come, in due time, for call number E169 D3..."
    
    "... for one thing, in their race to assemble the greatest digital library the world has ever seen, Google's engineers have developed sophisticated technology they'd prefer their competitors not see.

    "And for another, perhaps -- though Google executives don't say so directly -- the library scanning program already has generated a little too much heat
    
    "Last fall, the Authors Guild and a group of major publishing houses filed separate suits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, charging Google with copyright infringement on a massive scale. Google argues that under the "fair use" provisions of copyright law, it has a perfect right to let its users search the text of copyrighted works -- as long as, once the search is complete, it only shows them what it calls "snippets" of those works. Nonsense, say the authors and publishers: In order to find and display those snippets, Google must first copy whole books without permission.

    "Books like E169 D3 -- which finds itself smack at the heart of this contested legal territory.

    "Great example," says Andrew Herkovic, the communications and development director for Stanford's libraries, as he pauses to consider "This Is Our Land" during a Green Library tour.

    "There's a 10-1 chance, Herkovic estimates, that its copyright expired without being renewed, which would put it safely in the public domain.

    "But "if you were the corporate counsel for Stanford, Google or anybody else, is 10 to 1 good enough? ..."
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link [May require free registration.]
    
    
    

• The Sunday Independent
  
  
  • Exam board backs new A* grade to identify brightest A-level pupils
    by Richard Garner, Education Editor
    
    "The head of Britain's biggest exams board today backs the introduction of a new A* grade at A-level after years of opposition from examiners.

    "Mike Creswell, director general of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), said that he believed it was "an idea whose time had come".

    "The plan has always been supported in Downing Street as a means of helping the country's elite universities cream off the brightest talent for popular courses now that so many candidates can present themselves for subjects such as law and medicine with at least three straight As at A-level..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Independent at link
    
    
    

• Sunday USA Today
  
  
  • Better grades for kids sometimes come at a price for parents
    by Ben Feller, Associated Press
    
    "WASHINGTON — Sure, learning is its own reward. But some kids respond best to cash.

    "Andrew Waller's grades soared when his parents started offering $5 for A's and $4 for B's. Now he pockets about $25 each report card, saving it for video games and summer camp.

    "I think I would still be getting good grades, but this does help. I mean, it helps a lot," said Andrew, a 12-year old from Mobile, Ala. "I think it's a great way to motivate me."

    "So you want your kids to get an A, eh? Are you willing to pay?

    "As children return to school, many parents are deciding what prize — if any — is appropriate to offer when kids get good grades. The stakes can get pretty high.

    "Reagan Hawkins, a high school teacher in Nederland, Texas, has had students tell him they will get a new car for A's. Their parents downgrade the deal to a used car if they get B's.

    "It disappoints me, honestly," Hawkins said. "I try to instill a sense of intrinsic reward in the students. I'd rather see a student want to learn for the sake of learning than learn for the sake of a car."

    "Adults who promise money, gifts or privileges say their children study harder when incentives are on the table. The lesson they hope to teach is that rewards require work..."
    
    Full story in USA Today at link

    
    
    

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Push to make kindy full time (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Children as young as 3 ½ would be forced to attend kindergarten five days a week for six hours a day under a plan by the WA Primary Principals’ Association.
    
    "The controversial proposal would end the existing system of voluntary kindergarten and pre-primary attendance and would almost triple the number of hours that under-fives spend away from home.
    

    "The association, which represents hundreds of principals, has made the case for compulsory pre-Year One schooling for all children in its submission to a State Government review of literacy and numeracy.
    
    "WAPPA president Colin Pettit conceded the move would spark a community backlash and said any changes would be phased in over several years.
    
    "Children as young as 3 ½ years can now attend kindergarten sessions for 11 hours a week while youngsters aged five and over can enrol in pre-primary programs over five full days.
    
    "Mr Pettit said there was a big variance in the abilities of primary school students because not all pupils attended pre-primary or kindergarten.
    
    “All the research indicates that if we can get them to a good quality program before they get too old they have a greater chance of academic success,” he said.
    
    "Edith Cowan University early childhood program director Carmel Maloney said four year olds were too young to start compulsory school.
    
    “If kindergarten becomes the first year of compulsory schooling I would be really concerned that would be a signal to make the teaching program more formal,” she said.
    
    “We would want to maintain a program based on exploration and discovery and a more informal approach.
    
    “Some children have excellent experiences at home or child care and I think it is the right of parents to make a choice as to the type of experience their child receives.”
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said children would struggle to concentrate for 30 hours a week and they would miss valuable bonding time with their parents.
    
    "Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich was unavailable for comment. The Literacy and Numeracy Review taskforce, headed by University of WA education dean Bill Louden, will produce its preliminary report next month."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    Similar story on ABC News Online
    
    
    

• The Sydney Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Revolution in primary schools
    by Bruce McDougall, Education Reporter
    
    "Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt has ordered the biggest rewrite of the primary school science and technology syllabus in 15 years.
    
    "The overhaul, which will be open to public consultation, follows concern about a national decline in enrolments for science and technology in high schools.

    "It comes after a national audit revealed Australia faces a shortage of 20,000 scientists and engineers in the next six years.

    "However, Ms Tebbutt said NSW was not following the national trend of falling secondary school science enrolments.

    "According to the NSW Board of Studies, enrolments in senior secondary science subjects between 2001 and 2005 have grown or remained stable," she said.

    "The number of students studying chemistry and biology as part of their HSC has been increasing year on year, while enrolments in HSC physics have remained remarkably stable."

    "Ms Tebbutt said the rewrite of the primary school science and technology syllabus would ensure it met the same high standard as all other NSW primary and secondary syllabuses.

    "While the principles of scientific investigation and problem-solving can be taught in the same way indefinitely, clearly many new topics have emerged in science and technology since the last full syllabus review in 1991," she said.

    "The science and technology syllabuses for Years 7 to 10 and Years 11 and 12 have all been reviewed and re-written – now its the turn of primary education."

    "Ms Tebbutt said the kindergarten to Year 6 syllabus review was aimed at encouraging children's interest and skills in science when they were young.

    "Young children are intensely curious about how the world works," she said.

    "Any parent can tell you that even pre-school children want to know where the sun goes at night and why water runs downhill and how the pictures appear on a television screen.

    "The primary years are an ideal time to capture that curiosity and give children skills in thinking, investigating and problem-solving alongside fundamental scientific knowledge."

    "The syllabus review will be driven by a committee of teachers, academics and parents.

    "The committee will also look at how the K-6 syllabus can best prepare students for later study in high school and university science and technology courses.

    "It will be formed after the Board of Studies' October meeting, when a timetable for the review will be laid out."
    
    From The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
    
    Similar story on ABC News Online
    
    
    

• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    It's a proposal without any merit
    
    Rather than paying teachers for performance, let principals hire and fire, argues Judith Wheeldon
    
    "Merit pay for teachers is a heart salve, the cheapskate's way to avoid paying teachers properly for the complex, professional job they do for children, for families and for our society.

    "Under a system of merit pay, also called performance pay, teachers are evaluated and some are paid more than others for a performance judged to be superior to that of other teachers. In the present awards, teacher salaries rise as the teacher becomes more experienced, has already made a valuable contribution or is simply older, depending on your point of view.

    "(The Australian reported last month that federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has proposed an incentive fund to top up the best teachers' pay and make teachers and schools more accountable for students' results.)

    "Merit pay at first sounds pre-eminently reasonable. The premise is that the value and thus the pay of a teacher can be judged by results, necessarily meaning examination results such as skills tests, literacy and numeracy tests or public examinations, because any other measure is rightly regarded as too subjective to judge fairly for this purpose.

    "Pay on results may do well for some jobs, such as selling used cars, but people entrusted with our children and their futures have a more complex assignment than racking up sales. Merit pay is a flawed concept.

    "Evaluating a teacher's work has many facets. The easy one, because it can be expressed in figures that naturally rank themselves, is exam or skills tests results. Unfortunately, these easy-to-understand numbers do not meaningfully reflect the job description of a teacher.

    "It is not the bare results that show what the child has learned. A calculation must reveal the value added. Subtract the child's results at the start of the school year from the same individual child's results on the same skills or knowledge at the end of the year. Track the child from school to school to ensure each teacher is credited with the correct results. Complicated as it is, this can be done. But at what cost? And does value added equate with individual teacher merit?

    "In part, of course, a value-added calculation does measure the sine qua non of the teacher's work: teaching the three Rs and other academic subjects. When I was at school in the middle of the last century, this told almost the whole story. It no longer does and parents would be appalled if academic achievement were all that mattered in selecting good teachers for merit pay. Nor does one teacher necessarily deserve the credit or blame for how a child performs.

    "The classroom teacher may be greatly assisted (or hindered) by another teacher who befriends the child in the playground and gives (or spoils) encouragement to overcome a problem. The school counsellor may solve (or create) a cognitive problem capable of stymieing the classroom teacher. The culture of the school may be toxic, preventing any child from improving as they should..."
    
    Judith Wheeldon is former head of two private girls schools in Sydney, Abbotsleigh and Queenwood.
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • History put on a pedestal
    
    What will the nation gain from next week's gathering in Canberra on the teaching of Australian history in schools? Imre Salusinszky reports
    
    "Every once in a while, Tony Taylor likes to go back to the coalface. So Taylor, an associate professor in education at Monash University and Australia's leading authority on history teaching, abandoned the ivory tower for two afternoons a week in 2001 and taught a Year 10 modern world history class at a rural Victorian high school.

    "And to find out what his students knew in the first place, he gave them a simple written quiz, including this question: "What do you know about Lenin? How come he was famous? How do you know this?"

    "And here's one of the answers Taylor got back: "Singer in the Beatles. Made good music. Listen to their music."

    "Taylor is quick to point out that the study of history is not, or ever should be, about memorising facts: facts about Lenin, or Lennon or anybody else. It is about learning "historical thinking", gaining "historical literacy" and "using that understanding to develop an informed moral, political and social view of the world we inhabit".

    "But he concedes that such literacy can barely get off the ground unless students are given "narrative context"; that is, unless they are taught the great periods and events of the past and the great characters who inhabited them, in chronological sequence.

    "Along with 21 other luminaries, including former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr and economic historian Geoffrey Blainey, Taylor will play a leading role in Thursday's history summit in Canberra. The summit has been organised by federal Minister for Education, Science and Training Julie Bishop as part of the Government's campaign to pressure the state education systems into reinstating history as a compulsory subject in Australian schools.

    "Federal-state politics aside, the summit grows out of a sense, shared by many teachers on the ground, that the narrative context of history generally, and Australian history particularly, has been lost in our schools and that the subject, to quote John Howard in his Australia Day speech this year, "is taught without any sense of structured narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of themes and issues."

    "Too often," Howard told the National Press Club in Canberra, "history has fallen victim in an ever more crowded curriculum to subjects deemed more relevant to today.

    "And too often, history, along with other subjects in the humanities, has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated..."
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    Hummer humbug
    Global warming poses a new threat to childhood fun

    "Political correctness again threatens the innocence of childhood. The latest stupidity, eagerly seized on by The Sydney Morning Herald, is a US campaign against that mainstay of evil multinational exploitation, McDonalds. The crime? Giving away plastic models of "monstrous" gas-guzzling Hummer four-wheel-drives with every Happy Meal. Some just don't get it, laments the SMH. What about global warming? Don't they know there's an oil shock? Goodness me, these things only get 4.7km to the litre. To make matters worse, with enough visits to American restaurants, children can collect eight Hummers in various colours, including two versions of the H1, which costs $125 to fill at the pump. The real ones, not the toys.
    
    Full editorial in The Weekend Australian at link [scroll down a bit]
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Bookish since boyhood
    by Christopher Pearson
    
    "Someone asked me the other day: "What turned you into a reader?" To which I rather unhelpfully replied: "Books..."
    
    Full article in The Weekend AUstralian at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • The nobility of English
      
      "Although Winston Churchill may have studied "a little Latin and less Greek", Jeremy Peters (Letters, 10/8), this was apparently not the path that he trod to become a fine writer of English. For, as he himself said, "By being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the clever boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that.

      "But I was taught English. Thus I got into my bones the structure of the ordinary English sentence which is a noble thing."
      
      Cameron Goozeff, Dulwich Hill, NSW
      
      

    • "As a student of applied linguistics, I appreciate the focus The Australian has placed on the important issue of language pedagogy. I did have a chuckle, however, when I read the following sentence in Justine Ferrari's article "Students failed by language system" (11/8), quoting federal Education Minister Julie Bishop: "It's the building blocks for clear and precise communication."
      
      Matthew Zammit, Lyneham, ACT
      
      
    • "It's very easy to try to downgrade the importance of good grammar, but the fact remains that few things impress more unfavourably than a poorly written letter riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. It's time we got back to basics and realised that good grammar is a sound basis for all academic progress, whereas the reverse is like a putting up a building without proper foundations."
      
      Gerald F. Donovan, Artarmon, NSW
      

    
    Complete Letters to the Editor of The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Jean Walker's AEU conference speech
    
    Complete text of the speech given by Australian Education Union state president Jean Walker to the AEU annual council on Friday, August 11.
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Take the kid gloves off [Long but interesting...     Web]
    by Ceridwen Spark
    
    "Recently, while shopping for my two-year-old daughter's party, I was confronted with a problem. I wanted the children to play "pass the parcel" and was planning to buy the present to be unwrapped over the course of the game. My instincts told me, however, that these days it was considered "incorrect" to have just one winner.

    "Was I, therefore, required to buy more than one present, and how could I orchestrate a game in which everyone was a winner? As it turned out, I was not the only parent for whom pass the parcel presented quandaries. On the day of the party, another mum muttered about problems including one I hadn't even considered: the birthday child's right (or otherwise) to win.

    "At the heart of this rather silly problem are important questions about how we understand childhood..."
    
    Dr Ceridwen Spark is a Melbourne writer. She is researching family and adoption at the arts research graduate school at Monash University.

    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Unlocking the door to the past
    by Warwick McFadyen
    
    "I have walked down dusty roads where centurions have marched. I have sat under gnarled oak branches, alone in the shadows, as the British Black and Tans have burnt down Irish villages. I have stood with an Elizabethan audience, chilled with fear, as three witches incanted "Double, double toil and trouble", I have stood on a street in Birmingham, Alabama, as police dogs and water cannon have been unleashed on civil rights protesters.

    "And I have done all this in the quietude and calm of the inner chambers that is the imagination. It is in these chambers that the ghosts come back to life, that cities rise and fall, that human frailty and courage are given shape. The plays and stages of humankind are borne there by a simple method. It is called reading history..."
    
    Warwick McFadyen is a senior Age writer.
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Not rocket science

      "Education Minister Julie Bishop is correct to say the high drop-out rate of school students from science subjects should be addressed ( The Age, 10/8). However as a biomedical scientist for many years, I would suggest that the insecurity of careers in science may be a contributing factor. Who can blame students for not wanting to enter a discipline where government funding is inadequate? This leads to restricted, inflexible career paths and a lack of job security. This is particularly so for women, who may need to take time out for family reasons and take up part-time work for a while.

      "There is no point in improving science education in schools if there are not enough secure, well-paid jobs or career paths that encompass, in particular, the needs of women."

      Dr Hilary Vaughan, Eaglemont
      
      

    Complete Letters to the Editor of The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Private schools pull in richer families
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Private schools are attracting an increasingly wealthy clientele, despite the Federal Government's controversial $28 billion funding scheme that was designed to provide less money to rich schools and more to schools with poorer students.

    "A review of the scheme is being conducted next week behind closed doors by the federal Department of Education, with only private school lobby groups being invited to comment on the shortfalls of the system.

    "Next week private school representatives will ask for their funding to be maintained or increased to make them more accessible to low-income families.

    "However, an assessment of Department of Education data shows that private schools are attracting more wealthy students than they did in the past.

    "Next week's review will examine how the Government will distribute up to $28 billion to private schools over the next four-year funding cycle. It will look at how an increasing proportion of independent schools are funded above their entitlement under the Federal Government's needs-based formula.

    "In 2001, when the formula that assesses students based on socio-economic status was introduced, 765 out of 991 independent schools were being funded at their correct rate under the formula. When such schools were reassessed in 2004, 668 out of 1051 were being funded at their correct rate.

    "This means that the proportion of schools whose student populations had increased in socio-economic status, but whose funding was being maintained at a higher level, had increased by more than 50 per cent..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• The New York Times
  
  
  • Panel’s Report Urges Higher Education Shake-Up [11 August their time]
    by Sam Dillon
    
    "WASHINGTON — A federal commission approved a final report on Thursday that urges a broad shake-up of American higher education. It calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link [May require free registration.]
    
    Similar story in USA Today
    
    
    
• The London Times
  
  
  • Primary pupils showing passion for languages . . . [11 August their time]
    by Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
    
    "C’est formidable! The end of compulsory language teaching in secondary schools is leading to a renaissance in linguistic ability in a nation notoriously averse to acquiring a foreign tongue.

    "At least, that is what the Department for Education is hoping. Its decision to scrap compulsory foreign language lessons for the over-14s from 2004 caused an outcry and led to accusations that the young would miss out on good jobs, either overseas or at home.

    "The Government’s response was a bold one: convinced that younger children are more receptive to foreign languages than older pupils and are able to absorb the rhythms and structures more easily, it decided to introduce foreign language teaching in primary schools instead, so that the enthusiasm for languages could be nurtured earlier..."
    
    Full story in The London Times at link
    
    

  • . . . but plan to promote physics fails [11 August their time]
    by Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent
    
    "Moves to halt the decline in the study of physics appear to have failed and may even have made matters worse.

    "The number of entries for physics at A level has fallen since combined sciences was made compulsory at GCSE in 1988. Today, only pupils at independent schools can take a single science subject. At leading state schools pupils can take three subjects separately; but most teenagers take the combined science course.

    "The change was intended to improve scientific literacy, give a better platform for A- level and redress the gender imbalance between the study of physics and biology. But the number of A-level entries in physics has fallen by a third — most often “in those schools that do not offer GCSE physics”, Alan Smithers and Pamela Robinson, of the University of Buckingham, write in a report published today. About 4 per cent of 16-year-olds took A-level physics in 2004 compared with 6 per cent in 1990. The decline has affected all types of school, but independents and grammars less so..."
    
    Full story in The London Times at link
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • Physics in downward spiral as pupils think it is too difficult [11 August their time]
    by Rebecca Smithers, education editor
    
    "The study of physics in schools and universities is spiralling into decline as many teenagers believe it is too difficult, academics warn in a damning report today.

    "Just days away from the publication of A-level results in England and Wales next Thursday, the analysis by researchers from the University of Buckingham shows that the number of A-level exam entries in the subject has halved since 1982.

    "One in four universities which had significant numbers studying physics have stopped teaching the subject since 1994, they say. Even in the 26 top universities with the highest ratings for research, the trend has been downwards..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    

  • Pupils in favour of ability-grouping, study finds [11 August their time]
    from the Press Association
    
    "Most secondary school pupils prefer to be grouped by ability so teachers can pitch lessons at the right level, according to a study published today.

    However, children in mixed-ability classes tend to be happier at school than those divided into top or bottom "sets", the research from the Institute of Education, in London, suggests.

    Pupils who were placed in bottom sets because they struggled in a particular subject felt the practice stigmatised them as "thick".

    The researchers suggest that children could be taught in mixed-age classes, across school years, instead of traditional sets..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    

• The Independent
  
  
  • Leading article:
    Blair could learn from the Danes [11 August their time]
    
    "Barry Sheerman is the most influential back-bench Labour MP on education in the House of Commons. He is not naturally disposed towards rebellion. In fact, he has agreed with much of the Prime Minister's education programme - witness his voting record on controversial matters such as top-up fees and the schools legislation that will pave the way for Tony Blair's independently-run "trust" schools. So when he mounts a critique of government policy, as he did at the Professional Association of Teachers' annual conference, he deserves to be listened to.

    He made three main points - first, England should adopt the Danish model and start compulsory schooling at seven with a top-quality nursery system between the ages of three and seven; second, there should be a review of testing and assessment arrangements to avoid pupils being constantly taught to a different test throughout their school lives; and third, the Government's obsession with parent power is creating a system of very good and "bloody awful" state schools..."
    
    Full story in The Independent at link
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Bethan Marshall: Why should the gifted and talented be favoured? [11 August their time]
    
    "One of the features that makes English such a versatile language is the number of apparent synonyms that actually mean something subtly different. The Government's "gifted and talented" policy rests on this lexical nicety. It uses the idea that these two words appear synonymous, so lending them the veneer of parity, but exploits the fact that they have a slightly different resonance. To clarify this difference, in a somewhat Orwellian fashion, Labour has given these words their own definitions. To be "gifted" is to be orientated toward the academic; "talented", on the other hand, is equated more with sporting or artistic achievement, for example.

    "Presumably the policymakers alighted on these words to avoid the accusation of intellectual elitism. For a party whose rhetoric assiduously avoids selection by ability, it had to be seen to be encouraging general excellence rather than academic success alone.

    "The difficulty is that the words themselves are not synonymous. They have a kind of pecking order. Gifted feels better than talented and the policy, which was allegedly designed to encourage a broader view of what it means to excel, has become focused on a very small elite of clever children.

    "What makes this all the more problematic is the narrowness of the way these children are identified. As with IQ tests, the measures are biased away from the arts. Secondary schools tend to use national curriculum tests and cognitive aptitude tests to select the small coterie of pupils picked in any given year-group. Two thirds of the national curriculum tests address maths and science; one third covers English, the only arts subject and the one that is arguably the least reliable of the tests. Certainly it attracts the most requests for remarking..."
    
    The writer is a lecturer in education at King's College London

    Full story in The Independent at link
    
    

  • Physics fails to make the grade in our classrooms [11 August their time]
    by Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent
    
    "The study of physics in schools and universities is in crisis because a shortage of well-qualified specialist teachers has subjected pupils to boring lessons, academics warned yesterday..."
    
    Full story in The Independent at link
    
    
    
  • The Big Question: Does it really matter if the number of students studying physics is falling? [11 August their time]
    by Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent
    
    "Why are we interested in this?

    "The study of physics in schools and universities is in long-term decline, according to a report by a leading academic published today. The number of A-level exam entries in the subject has halved since 1982, the research from the University of Buckingham found. Just over 3.8 per cent of 16-year-olds took A-level physics in 2004 compared with about 6 per cent in 1990..."
    
    "Why are fewer students choosing to study physics?

    "Many scientists blame the introduction of the national curriculum in 1988 for driving schools away from separate exams in physics, chemistry and biology towards a GCSE combined science course.

    "The vast majority of GCSE students now take double-award science exams, worth two GCSEs. Independent schools and grammar schools are most likely to still insist on pupils studying for separate qualifications in the sciences; critics argue that the double science course does not prepare students adequately for A-level science, leading to many good students lacking the confidence to choose A-level physics..."
    
    "So what are they studying instead?

    "While the popularity of physics A-level has plummeted, other subjects have enjoyed unprecedented increases in student numbers in recent years..."
    
    "Does this decline really matter?

    "Physicists contribute a vast amount to the economy. Physics-based industry alone employs over 1.79 million people in the UK and contributes over £130bn in export value to the UK economy. Engineering, electronics, mobile phones, computers, television and CD technology are all underpinned by physics..."
    
    "What do physics students learn? ..."
    
    "Do physics graduates get jobs easily?

    "Physics graduates are in great demand from employers. Research has also shown that they can command higher salaries..."
    
    "Does it make a difference if students choose 'soft subjects' rather than physics?

    Yes...

    * The economy will suffer. Innovations by physicists are worth billions to the UK

    * Everyone should understand the physical laws governing our world and the universe

    * Young people should study useful subjects, not just opt for fashionable courses

    No...

    * Young people should choose subjects that interest them as that will lead them to do their best work

    * Most people never need to use any of the physics they learned at school

    * The economy is constantly changing and "soft" skills are becoming increasingly important"
    
    Full story in The Independent at lin

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This page last updated 29 May, 2008 9:31 PM