From Monday 18 December 2006 through Sunday 21 January 2007, PLATO's Breaking News coverage is on "Summer Holidays", and will be limited to Western Australian OBE - Courses of Study articles, plus other local "high-profile" education stories, with the occasional education article from The Australian. The home page will be updated only once a day, normally in the evening.

Full coverage will resume on Monday 22 January 2007.

Monday 25 December

Tuesday 26 December

Wednesday 27 December

Thursday 28 December

Friday 29 December

Saturday – Sunday, 30 – 31 December

 

Monday 25 December – Christmas Day

Christmas Reruns [just like on TV ] 12 memorable events from the year's Breaking News "Turntables equal violins"... the start of public awareness? [25 May] The Infamous Ravlich WANTED Poster [30 May] Channel 7 'OBE Forum' [12-13 June] The OBE Rally at Parliament House[14 June] Hit # 100,000 on the PLATO Home Page [28 June] Government Delays New OBE CoS [3 July] "Don't learn it, just Google it": Ravlich [22 August] CCC Report: Albert Sacked over Ravlich's Ignorance [17 October] Ljiljanna plays Sgt Schultz {Lil lost} [20 October] Ravlich FINALLY Sacked as Education Minister [13 December] Labor backbencher calls leveling "hopelessly inadequate" [16 December] The West Australian's "Marie Antionette long goodbye award" plus "Christmas with Lil" [21-23 December]

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • No Tests? College's Students Must Relearn How to Learn

Tuesday 26 December

• [Nothing of interest in The West Australian, The Australian or ABC News]

 

Wednesday 27 December

• The West Australian
  
  
  • 20pc of Year 7s can't do 'three Rs' [Front Page Headline]
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Fresh test results have fuelled concerns about the lack of emphasis on the "three Rs" in WA schools, with figures showing that nearly 20 per cent of Year 7 students still fail to meet the minimum reading, writing and numeracy standards required by the Education Department.
    
    "The Statewide tests found that just over 80 per cent of Year 7 students hit the so-called benchmark level in each of the three subjects. This is despite the benchmark figure being set significantly below 50 per cent for many of the tests..."
    
    "The results, from the WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessment [WALNA], were released by the Education Department yesterday, though no one from the department was available to comment on them.
    
    "New Education Minister Mark McGowan was also unavailable to discuss the results..." [emphasis added]
    
    "The benchmarks are a minimum level of performance, not a pass mark. A child who does not meet the benchmark is deemed to be in need of remedial help..."
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said it was a huge concern that one in five students who were about to start high school had failed to reach established benchmarks in reading, writing and maths.
    
    "That raises question marks about whether our education system is adequately preparing our children for the most fundamental components of their education – that is literacy and numeracy," he said.
    
    ""Greg Williams, head of teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, which opposes the introduction of outcomes-based education, said that either the benchmarks were set too high or schools were not teaching enough of the three Rs to meet the benchmarks..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Ravlich blocked FOI bid for report on Year 7 changes (page 7)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The State Government has refused to release an eagerly awaited report on the feasibility of shifting Year 7 students from primary to high school.
    
    "One of the last decisions made by Ljiljanna Ravlich as education minister was to refuse a Freedom of Information application to release the report, which was prepared by the Education Department.
    
    "Documents obtained by The West Australian reveal that Ms Ravlich made her decision a day before she was dumped from the portfolio, largely over her handling of outcomes-based education..." [Usurping Mark McGowan's role, or taking the heat off the new minister??   Web]
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier, who made the FOI application, said there was enormous uncertainty in schools over this issue.
    
    "The potential impact of the change on schools was massive but the Government had continued to ignore pleas for a decision to be made.
    
    "He said Ms Ravlich had repeatedly promised she would make a decision before the end of the year..." [See 5 December Hansard at this link.   Web]
    
    "Association of Independent Schools executive director Audrey Jackson said the Government needed to make a decision because schools needed time to plan.."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • SMS used to beat truants (page 7)
    by Debbie Guest
    
    "Schools are using SMS technology to slash truancy rates, alerting parents by messages sent to their mobile phones when their children fail to attend school..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Education taskforce fails test
    by Christopher Bantick
    
    "Co-operation between parents, teachers and students would seem the foundation principle of the Reporting to Parents Taskforce Report. Given that the recommendations are yet to be agreed to by the Minister for Education, David Bartlett, the taskforce must do better.
    
    "While the emphasis is on the primacy of simple language and clarity of communication in school reports, inadequate attention has been given to early diagnostic assessment of student achievement. That is worrisome and a fundamental flaw. Moreover, there is ample evidence that the Taskforce report is not a jargon-free zone.
    
    "So did it meet its critical terms of reference, "To ensure reports are clear and easy to understand''? No.
    
    "It is entirely reasonable that the taskforce was charged with cleaning up the language of reports after the confusion of Essential Learnings. But if the function of a school report is to give parents unambiguous information on how their children are learning basic literacy and numeracy, together with other subjects, then the taskforce has failed in one basic area. It does not provide a means for early determination of skill deficiency. It has not shown how learning deficiencies can be identified early. By the end of the first 5-8 weeks of first term, parents will not know if their child can spell or add up.
    
    "The Report says in Recommendation 1: "The taskforce recommends one comprehensive report supported by two short statements a year: a very short statement 5-8 weeks into the year to let parents know how their child is settling in and alert them to concerns,'' the report says.
    
    "There is no provision for an early diagnostic assessment of competence in subject areas in this report. Instead, the recommended progress report is a tick-the-box model with provision for very generalised teacher comment.
    
    "What should have been included was a way of measuring and determining a student's learning and recommendations about how that might be improved, if necessary. Should a child have a particular issue with skill development and need special support, the progress report has no specific provision for this to show it.
    
    "That means students who may exhibit learning difficulties will not have them formally reported on, and parents will have no indication until mid-year of what action the school will take. That is far too late.
    
    "Should a child have special needs, and assuming they are identified and reported on, then the Taskforce report then reverts to edu-speak. Recommendation 3 says:"The Taskforce recommends that reports for children with special needs continue to be negotiated on an individual basis as part of each child's Individual Education Program.''
    
    "What does "negotiate'' mean and will anybody actually write a report showing that a child with special needs is receiving specific support and, simply, has the child improved?
    
    "The focus of the taskforce is blurred over what to do with special needs children and at no point is it apparent that that a special needs teacher will actually write a report at all!
    
    "Such obfuscation with language belies the impetus for the Taskforce's report in the first place. In a preface the report says, "The Taskforce decided that in school reports parents seek answers to three main questions: How is my child going? Is everything OK or should I be concerned? How can my child learn better?'' Those questions are not supported by survey data or research. They are simply the views of a small group and run the risk of not being representative of Tasmanian parents.
    
    "The Taskforce report, while excessively distancing itself from the doublethink of ELs, has over-complicated the idea of reporting. What parents want is a clear statement of achievement and what the child has actually learnt. If a child gets eight out of 10, then that says something absolute. But no measure for that kind of simple assessment is recommended.
    
    "If the Education Minister accepts the recommendations, parents will not be well served by the presentation of academic results. Children from kindergarten to year 10 are put on a scale of five levels of understanding. These levels are called standards. "At present a child's learning development from kindergarten to year 10 is described on a scale with five levels of understanding. These levels are called 'standards'. "Each level is divided into three smaller steps – lower, middle and upper,'' the report says. "Students make progress along these 15 steps during their schooling: hence the steps are called progressions. This way, parents can watch the progress of their children over the whole time they are at school, and see how one year's results relate to the next.''
    
    "Besides the jargon evident, the standard bar as shown in the report is confusing and utterly unspecific in terms of where a child's actual achievement lies. Three levels in each standard of a child's progressions are woolly and meaningless. But what does the taskforce say?
    
    "The Taskforce believes the progressions on the standards bar "should be retained'', but "there should be more progressions on the bar. "The Taskforce believes that while this may make the system more complex it will also make it a more accurate and sensitive guide to how a student is going''.
    
    "Nothing could be further from reality. Progressions are a jargonised expression for not being able to determine what a child has learnt and his or her specific level of achievement at a given moment.
    
    "Language expert Don Watson, special adviser to the taskforce, makes a pithy observation in an attachment to the Report that: "At the risk of the bleeding obvious, the reports should say things that mean something to the people reading them, and these people I presume are not the authors of the curriculum or school principals charged with teaching it, but the parents and the students.''
    
    "Watson is right, but the Taskforce report has failed in that simple aim. The Report, with its emphasis on warm and fuzzy co-operation between parents and schools, sends confusing messages. At one point the Taskforce says "a mark'' is required, yet gives no provision for it other than the vagaries of placement on the standards bar. Then the report says, "Written reports allow parents to judge not only how their child is going, but how well teachers and schools are meeting the needs of the child. Written reports are a means for making schools account for their actions.''
    
    "This is a sleeper. Schools that do not measure up – and parents now have the means to complain over bad practice – may be brought to book. That seems out of kilter with the overall tone of the Taskforce report, which is more about getting parents to take an interest in their child's education by attending parents and teacher nights.
    
    "But as hard as it may sound, the paucity of precise information the recommendations give will leave many parents asking why bother attending a parent-teacher night?
    
    "The reports, as recommended by the taskforce, are light on specifics. Parents will still be left wondering why their children can't spell, read and count.
    
    "That is the critical information a parent wants to know together with what schools are going to do about improving competence. The report's suggested methods, recommended by the taskforce, are evasive at best.
    
    "The taskforce has not delivered a clear document and on the basis of the recommendations parents will not receive assessments that tell them just what their child has achieved besides "progressions''. Vagary is the winner over validation.
    
    "Tasmanian parents deserve better. It would be a mistake for the Education Minister to accept the taskforce's recommendations without them being substantially revised."
    
    From The Hobart Mercury

Thursday 28 December

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Poor 'three R' results spark call for action (page 8)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The poor results recorded by many students in the State's latest literacy and numeracy tests should prompt the Education Department to have a radical rethink about how primary schools taught and assessed the "three Rs", the Opposition said yesterday.
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the use of outcomes-based education "levels" to assess the performance of primary school children was too vague to determine their progress.
    
    "This meant when parents received their child's report they could not identify the areas in which help was needed.
    
    "Regardless of the educational philosophy in place in any State, the three Rs are an essential component," he said. "Definitely we need to look at whether our educational system does have adequate provisions for instruction in the three Rs." ...
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan vowed yesterday to oversee a renewed emphasis on reading, writing and maths in the wake of the results.
    
    "He said students who struggled to reach the benchmark were not deemed to be illiterate and would be given help to improve their skills. "I recognise that it is incredibly important to have a basic level of numeracy and literacy if you want to fully participate in the workforce and broader society," he said.
    
    "Education department acting executive director curriculum standards Chris Cook refused to comment on whether the results were acceptable..." [Yet again I ask: Does DET have anyone who is NOT an "acting" something-or-another???    Web]
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Explain why children are failing basics (page 14)
    
    "The WA Education Department finds itself in the headlines yet again, this time for failing one of the most fundamental tests of its effectiveness. One in five children in Year 7 cannot reach the minimum standards of reading, writing and numeracy, according to Statewide tests by the WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessment.
    

    "The term minimum standard means just that, since some of the benchmarks are set well below 50 per cent.
    
    "With 20 per cent of children not reaching the benchmarks, two possibilities emerge: the benchmarks are too high or the children are not being well taught.
    
    "There is no suggestion that the tests are too rigorous — quite the reverse, in fact — so the only possible conclusion is that schools are not teaching reading, writing and numeracy well enough.
    
    "The department will claim that the level is slightly up on last year in some areas, but it cannot avoid the fact that too many children have reached the end of their primary education without mastering the basics.
    
    "This gives them significantly less chance of success in their high school years when it is easier to get lost in the crowd. A child whose skills are not adequately developed by Year 7 inevitably is a child who will struggle in high school and quite possibly for the rest of their life.
    
    "The manner in which the report was released is typical of the State Government’s attitude to bad news. It was posted on the Education Department’s website on Boxing Day. Education Minister Mark McGowan was not available to discuss its implications and neither was any representative from the department.
    
    "This is a crude tactic the Government employs too often to try to stifle debate whenever there is bad news to be explained.
    
    "The department and its new Minister must explain how one child in five reaches Year 7 unable to meet generous benchmarks in basic education.
    
    "And why the situation is far worse in some country schools.
    
    "No wonder more and more parents are voting with their feet and leaving public education for the private sector, in the hope that their children will receive a better education.
    
    "If the department’s failure to provide a comment on the survey reflects any lack of urgency it feels about the situation, parents who have taken their children out of the public sector will feel vindicated."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • My daughter gets no help in three Rs
      
      "I have a daughter in Year 7 and I was shocked to see her overall results in this year's WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessment. I can only agree with your report (27/12) about 20 per cent of Year 7s failing to meet benchmarks. My daughter failed to achieve any of the benchmarks and, in fact, her spelling was off the scale at the lower level of achievement.
      
      "What horrifies me most is that her school report, which accompanied the literacy and numeracy results, did not identify any problems whatsoever with her three Rs – in fact, quite the opposite. It spoke about how her "writing had improved greatly" and she was "enthusiastic" in mathematics, but it did not alert me to any problems she is clearly having with the three Rs..."
      
      A Broomhead, Wellard
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Recipe for restoring value of teachers (page 15)
    Stephen Murray sees a need to put colour back into the grey profession of teaching
    
    "The profession of teaching has undergone many changes in the past decade. It has become less valued in reputation and less valued in remuneration relative to other professions in society.
    

    "Ironically, it has also become more demanding. Teaching has changed from working with groups of students to one that deals with students as individuals.
    
    "A student enrols in the school. The teacher:

    • Defines areas of need.

    • Applies more fine-grained diagnostic tools.

    • Refers to systemic data and/or other standardised tests.

    • Seeks informed opinion from colleagues.

    • Consults a combination of school psychologist, speech therapist, occupational therapist, school nurse, Centre for Inclusive Schooling personnel, English as a Second Language personnel, and Students at Educational Risk personnel.

    • May apply for educational aide time.

    • Keeps stakeholders informed.
    
    "The teacher is the hub of a thorough process. All systems are focused on the child. Who or what is focused on the teacher?
    
    "These processes make teaching more stimulating and exacting. They also put teachers under a tension that seems to be increasing and is hard to define.
    
    "The reason this angst is growing in the profession may be that teacher services are not valued appropriately — that is, a valuing and recognition of teacher skills and productivity in the currency of respect and usefulness in the modern era, fee for service.
    
    "Let’s look at teacher activity for a student requiring an individual education plan and put a value on those services.

    • Review student files — $75/hour or flat fee of $100.

    • Observe and record student behaviours — no fee if part of continuing assessment (see below).

    • Meet colleagues — no fee if concurrent with daily routines. $75/hour if formal.

    • Meet parents — $25/15 minutes.

    • Meet allied professionals — for example, school psychologist, speech therapist. $75/hour.

    • Collate all information — $75/hour.

    • In collaboration with some or all of the above, write an individual education plan. $75/hour.

    • Meet some or all of the above to agree to the plan. $75/hour.

    • Enact the plan and monitor progress — no fee if concurrent with general assessment practices (see below).

    • Keep stakeholders informed on a regular basis — $75/hour.
    
    "While attending to these individual needs the teacher is also attending to the continuing requirements of the profession.
    
    "A typical list with suggested values may look like this:

    • Review curriculum delivery $75/hour.

    • Plan detailed lessons for the week’s lessons catering to whole class, small group, and individual need — 30 students x $50 ($1500/week).

    • Discuss informal issues with several parents a day before the school day is “on air” — goodwill (as long as other students not disadvantaged).

    • Evaluate student output — 30 students x $50 ($1500).

    • Collate resources — 30 students x $20 ($600).

    • Have formal meetings with parents — $25/15 minutes.

    • Be on yard duty for at least two scheduled “rest breaks” — $50/half-hour.

    • Attend collegiate meetings — $75/hour.

    • Monitor a cost centre — $150/term.

    • Prepare for and attend committee meetings — $75/hour attendance.

    • Prepare for and attend professional development forums — no fee if concurrent with teaching learning program.

    • Leave fully detailed lessons, including resources, for teachers who relieve them because of absence for professional development or to recover from illness — $50 (to be deducted from relief teachers now there is more generous pay if above scales implemented).
    
    "Consider the following contrast. A colleague was teaching the daughter of an accountant.
    
    "The accountant would often engage the teacher in dialogue about his child’s progress. The dialogue occurred at school, in person and by phone. The times ranged from a few minutes to more than a half-hour.
    
    "The accountant also phoned the teacher at home in the evenings. The teacher always responded, she never charged.
    
    “What generosity,” some may say.
    
    "The teacher used the same accountant for her financial affairs. The teacher was a client of the accountant. All meetings were scheduled at the office of the accountant. All meetings were paid for. Who knows better than an accountant how to value time and resources?
    
    "Teachers need a gatekeeper. It is assumed that teachers will oblige all people at all times.
    
    "Teacher skills are many, varied, built on diplomas, bachelor degrees, master degrees, post-graduate diplomas, post-graduate degrees, crafted and honed through experience and of supreme importance. Currently no service is valued or charged in the teaching profession. It is my view that valuing has become a necessity, not only for the profession, but also for its stakeholders. By valuing educational services, people may value teaching professionals’ time, and their own time, more realistically. They will develop realistic expectations of meeting times and outcomes. Parents will be much more focused if there is a costing of the process in which they are engaged. The above fees are open to conjecture. And a way of implementation would be needed. A two-stage process may work. First, value services, but do not actually charge clients. Then, with the establishment of “Educare”, charge in the same way that other services are charged: each according to their circumstances, with a “safety net” for those in need. By valuing the work of teachers we may put colour back into the profession. Some people may dismiss the whole notion as fanciful. If so, I ask that people think again. Does teaching have a tangible mechanism to value teacher knowledge, skills and experience? Or is it a profession that continues to value itself on goodwill or feeling good?
    
    "Neither goodwill nor feeling good will pay the mortgage.
    
    "Ponder the profession that is “greying out” in society — a profession that is slipping in how it is regarded by society with each passing year.
    
    "And if teachers and the education system don’t value the profession, how can the profession possibly expect to be valued by anyone else?"
    
    Stephen Murray is a teacher and parent.

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • TEE stars tore up study rule book
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Rising demand for uni degrees
    by Dorothy Illing, Higher education writer
    
    "Australians are turning to university in an effort to improve their career prospects, reversing a trend of school-leavers taking advantage of record low unemployment and the resources boom to land full-time jobs.
    
    "The latest commonwealth figures reveal a 6 per cent jump in first-year enrolments for Australian undergraduates last year, the first for several years and an increase of more than 10,000 on2004.

    "The biggest growth has been in health and education, particularly nursing, where the number of new undergraduates was up 18per cent last year on 2004.

    "Part of the boost can be attributed to extra places being created as a result of measures by the Howard Government.

    "But the turnaround also suggests school-leavers are finding that having a degree is a more attractive option than going straight into full-time work..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Schools eye Muslim dress
    by Cath Hart
    
    "The Howard Government is to roll out a pilot program in schools in Muslim areas of western Sydney that will address the compatibility of Islamic and Australian values and the wearing of religious attire, including headscarves.
    The $1 million federally funded three-year program to improve understanding of other faiths and cultures will be run at schools in the suburbs of Lakemba, which has a large Muslim population, and Macquarie Fields, the site of youth riots last year.

    "The move comes amid broader efforts to reshape Australia's ethnic affairs policies to put a greater emphasis on integration and English-language skills.

    "The pilot, which will run in up to 16 schools, aims to "reduce isolation and alienation felt by some students" and to "support Australian Muslims to participate successfully in the broader Australian society", according to a government-issued request for tenders to establish and manage the program..."

    Full story in The Australian at link

Friday 29 December

• The Australian
  
  
  • Students face $50k uni debts [Lead Story on their website]
    by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
    
    "Students are running up debts of more than $50,000 to earn a university degree, prompting the architect of HECS to warn that graduates are paying too much.
    
    "As new figures confirmed students are leaving university with debts much larger than the average of $10,500, Bruce Chapman, who developed the original scheme for the Hawke-Keating government, yesterday disputed the Howard Government's claims that students are paying only about 25 per cent of the cost of a degree.

    "My view about the HECS charge level is it shouldn't go any higher," Professor Chapman said.

    "Does it stop people going to university? The answer to that seems to be no. But the next question is how much should students pay compared to taxpayers. We're now at a level of about 45 per cent of the recurrent cost. I think the case for making that higher is very weak." ...
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    

    • Price of knowledge a heavy burden
      
      
      
      
      
  • Liberals take lead as scandals hit Carpenter
    by Amanda O'Brien, WA political reporter
    
    "The sensational run of scandals that has dogged the Carpenter Government for months would force it from office if an election were held now.
    
    "West Australian voters have finally lost patience, with devastating effect, after watching ministers being sacked or tarnished in the continuing fallout from corruption inquiries, and seeing the ALP tainted by its links to disgraced former premier Brian Burke.

    "The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows the Liberal Opposition has assumed the lead for the first time in a year.

    "Support for Labor fell to just 38 per cent of the primary vote, down from the 42 per cent recorded in every other Newspoll this year.

    "By comparison, the Liberals surged from 37 to 40 per cent of the primary vote while the Nationals recorded 2 per cent - giving the conservative parties a combined total of 42 per cent.
    
    "While a child protection scandal earlier this year failed to translate into lost votes, Labor has now lost ground as a result of Corruption and Crime Commission revelations about Mr Burke, the sacking of minister Norm Marlborough, alleged blackmail and intimidation in the party and the questionable conduct of senior bureaucrats, as well as uproar in education..." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Australian at link [Same story also in The Sunday Times / PerthNow]

 

Saturday – Sunday, 30 – 31 December

• The West Australian
  
  
  • The suburban kids who can't read this [Front Page Headline]
    Exclusive by Keryn McKinnon
    
    "Children in Perth's mortgage belt have literacy and numeracy rates well below the State average, the first comparison of individual primary school performances has revealed..."
    
    "The figures also show there is an alarming drop in students' performance once they reach Year 7, prompting the Opposition to raise concerns that plans to make Year 7 park of high school may lead to more struggling students falling through the cracks rather than receiving the remedial assistance they need.
    
    "The rest results were made even more alarming last night when the Education Department revealed that the nationally-set benchmarks required students to score only between 22 and 44 per cent to be deemed acceptable..." [Remember the Queensland Environment Minister who moved the pollution monitors away from Brisbane to improve the results?   Web]
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he was concerned about all students who were not meeting minimum standards..."
    
    "He said if a renewed emphasis was needed on improving literacy and numeracy in upper primary school, it would be considered. But he believed the most important teaching model for students was their parents and he wanted to see more parents take greater responsibility for, and interest in, their children's education..."
    
    "Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said it was vital that underperforming schools were given help to improve students' skills.
    
    "These results should be a wake-up call for the Education Department," Mr Collier, a former teacher, said. "They need to pinpoint the areas in need of specialist help and acknowledge that one in five students needing remedial lessons in unacceptable."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Test mark of 22pc deemed OK (page 6)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    A score of 44 per cent was the most any child needed to be deemed to have adequate literacy and numeracy skills
    
    

  "WA primary school students were deemed to have met the minimum benchmark set in this year's literacy and numeracy assessment even if they scored marks as low as 22 per cent in some of the tests. [See Table, below]
  
  [Several paragraphs restating the results shown in the table]
  
  "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said parents would be shocked to find out how low a mark their child could get while still being considered to have acceptable levels of literacy and numeracy. If those low benchmarks reflected what was deemed an acceptable standard of numeracy and literacy, it was time for the standards to be reassessed. [emphasis added]
  
  "Parents and the community at large would be staggered to learn that the benchmarks in some instances were as low as 22 per cent," he said.
  
  "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said results were disappointing and further justified the Federal Government's decision to address the issue of poor literacy standards..."
  
  "Education Minister Mark McGowan declined to comment." [emphasis added]
  
  Full story in The West Australian

   

  The WALNA Benchmarks

  Year 3 Reading: 22 % Writing: 30 % Numeracy: 39 %

  Year 5 Reading: 26 % Writing: 33 % Numeracy: 34 %

  Year 7 Reading: 44 % Writing: 36 % Numeracy: 40 %

   

  • Rates show need to aid weaker students (page 6)
    Comment by Keryn McKinnon
    
    "The usual suspects continue to dominate the list of primary schools to under-achieve in the literacy and numeracy tests.
    
    "Country and remote Aboriginal schools have long been in need of specialist help to lift their students off the bottom, yet every year their poor results do not seem to improve.
    
    "However, what is revealed in this first school-by-school comparison of test results is that many city primary teachers share the desperation of bush teachers in struggling to get students to learn basic reading, writing and arithmetic..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • WALNA "League Tables" for all Government primary schools [pp. 62-65]
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    It's the PlayStation versus a literate nation (page 22)
    The Telegraph Group, London
    
    Say no to Nintendo before reading becomes a forgotten job, warns [British MP] Boris Johnson
    
    A very strong condemnation of students – especially boys – spending so much time playing computer games that they no longer read: "The more addictive these games are to the male mind, the more difficult it is to persuade boys to read books".
    
    It appears that the situation in the UK is no better than here – interesting reading on the day the WALNA 'League Tables' are released.
    
    "... Huge numbers are still leaving primary school in a state of functional illiteracy, with 44 per cent unable either to read, write or do basic sums. By the age of 14, there are still 40 per cent whose literacy or numeracy is not up to the expected standard, and a large proportion of the effort at Further Education colleges (about 20 per cent) is devoted to remedial reading and writing. Even at university, there are now terrifying numbers of students who cannot express themselves in the kind of clear, logical English required for an essay, and in many important respects if you can't write, you can't think.
    
    "It's the software that's the problem. Young people have not been properly programmed, because they have not read enough. The only way to learn to write is to be forced time and again to articulate your own thoughts in your own words, and you haven't a hope of doing this if you haven't read enough to absorb the basic elements of vocabulary, grammar, rhythm, style and structure; and young males in particular won't read enough if we continually capitulate and let them fritter their lives away in front of these drivelling machines..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    • Here is a slightly different version of the article from the author's website:
      
      "It's the snarl that gives the game away. It's the sobbing and the shrieking and the horrible pleading -- that's how you know your children are undergoing a sudden narcotic withdrawal. As the strobing colours die away and the screen goes black, you listen to the wail of protest from the offspring and you know that you have just turned off their drug, and you know that, to a greater or lesser extent, they are addicts.

      "Some children have it bad. Some are miraculously unaffected. But millions of seven- to 15-year-olds are hooked, especially boys, and it is time someone had the guts to stand up, cross the room and just say no to Nintendo. It is time to garrotte the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation, and it is about time, as a society, that we admitted the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy and the prospects of young males.

      "It was among the first acts of the Labour Government to institute a universal "literacy" hour in primary schools; and yet, in the six years following 1997, the numbers of young children who said that they didn't like reading rose from 23 per cent to 35 per cent. In spite of all our cash and effort, the surveys increasingly show that children (especially boys) regard reading as a chore, something that needs to be accomplished for the sake of passing tests, not as a joy in itself. It is a disaster, and I refuse to believe that these hypnotic little machines are innocent.

      "We demand that teachers provide our children with reading skills; we expect the schools to fill them with a love of books; and yet at home we let them slump in front of the consoles. We get on with our hedonistic 21st-century lives while in some other room the nippers are bleeping and zapping in speechless rapture, their passive faces washed in explosions and gore. They sit for so long that their souls seem to have been sucked down the cathode ray tube.

      "They become like blinking lizards, motionless, absorbed, only the twitching of their hands showing they are still conscious. These machines teach them nothing. They stimulate no ratiocination, discovery or feat of memory -- though some of them may cunningly pretend to be educational. I have just watched an 11-year-old play a game that looked fairly historical, on the packet. Your average guilt-ridden parent might assume that it taught the child something about the Vikings and medieval siege warfare.

      "Phooey! The red soldiers robotically slaughtered the white soldiers, and then they did it again, that was it. Everything was programmed, spoon-fed, immediate -- and endlessly showering the player with undeserved praise, richly congratulating him for his bogus massacres. The more addictive these games are to the male mind, the more difficult it is to persuade boys to read books; and that is why it is no comfort that Britain has more computer games per household than any other EU country, and, even though they are wince-makingly expensive, an amazing 89 per cent of British households with children now boast a games console, with distribution right across the socio-economic groups.

      "Every child must have one, and what we fail to grasp is that these possessions are not so much an index of wealth as a cause of ignorance and underachievement and, yes, poverty. It hardly matters how much cash we pour into reading in schools if there is no culture of reading at home; and the consequences of this failure to read can be seen throughout the education system.

      "Huge numbers are still leaving primary school in a state of functional illiteracy, with 44 per cent unable either to read, write or do basic sums. By the age of 14, there are still 40 per cent whose literacy or numeracy is not up to the expected standard, and a large proportion of the effort at Further Education colleges (about 20 per cent) is devoted to remedial reading and writing. Even at university, there are now terrifying numbers of students who cannot express themselves in the kind of clear, logical English required for an essay, and in many important respects if you can't write, you can't think. The Royal Literary Fund has, in the past few years, done a wonderful job of establishing Writing Fellows at our universities, offering therapy for those who can't put their thoughts on paper; and yet the fund admits that the scale of the problem is quite beyond its abilities.

      "It is a shock, arriving at university, and being asked to compose an essay of a couple of thousand words, and then discovering that you can't do it; and this demoralisation is a major cause of dropping-out. It's not that the students lack the brains; the raw circuitry is better than ever. It's the software that's the problem. They have not been properly programmed, because they have not read enough. The only way to learn to write is to be forced time and again to articulate your own thoughts in your own words, and you haven't a hope of doing this if you haven't read enough to absorb the basic elements of vocabulary, grammar, rhythm, style and structure; and young males in particular won't read enough if we continually capitulate and let them fritter their lives away in front of these drivelling machines.

      "Gordon Brown proposed in his Pre-Budget Report to spend £2,000 per head on improving the reading of six-year-old boys. That is all well and good, especially when you consider that the cost of remedial English in secondary school soars to £50,000 per head. But it would be cheaper and possibly more effective if we all -- politicians, parents, whoever -- had the nerve to crack down on this electronic opiate.

      "So I say now: stop just lying there in your post-Christmas state of crapulous indifference. Get up off the sofa. Can the DVD of Desperate Housewives, and go to where your children are sitting in auto-lobotomy in front of the console.

      "Summon up all your strength, all your courage. Steel yourself for the screams and yank out that plug.

      "And if they still kick up a fuss, then get out the sledgehammer and strike a blow for literacy."

      
      
      
      
  • Howard defends HECS (page 48)
    Sydney
    
    "John Howard has defended the HECS contribution scheme amid revelation some students are leaving university with debts of more than $50,000..."
    
    "Mr Howard said any reduction in HECS liability would burden taxpayers who opted not to attend university..."
    
    "If you are going to reduce the HECS liability, well, you're putting a burden on to taxpayers that don't have the advantage of a university education..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times / PerthNow
  
  
  • Top of the class (page 13)
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    Public and private share the honours
    
    "Students from Hale School and Rossmoyne Senior High School dominated this year's Curriculum Council Awards.

    "Between them, Rossmoyne and Hale students took out 14 of the 41 general exhibitions, awarded to the highest achievers in the TEE exams.

    "Rossmoyne, recognised as one of Australia's best state schools, had eight students in the top 41, while privately run Hale had six, including the two top-ranked students - close mates Christopher Mofflin and Michael Li..."

    "Private schools dominated the awards, winning 620 of the 1086 prizes..."
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive officer David Wood said: "It is pleasing to see that students from both government and non-government schools have featured strongly in the exhibitions and awards this year.
    
    "It will be very reassuring to parents, particularly in regional areas, to see evidence that students can achieve to the highest levels at their local schools."
    
    "Association of Independent Schools WA executive director Audrey Jackson said the results showed students could do well in both public and private institutions.

    "Particularly with the results that Rossmoyne and Hale achieved, it shows there are really good schools in WA in both the public and private sectors,'' she said.

    "The diversity of schools in this year's awards is outstanding. You have country and city schools represented, boys schools, girls schools, co-ed - schools in WA are doing a good job for their students.

    "People in WA deserve to have both strong and public systems.

    "Parents can be assured that their children can get a good education whatever their choice of school.

    "If children are prepared to work hard they will succeed wherever they go.

    "These results will tell them that teachers will do what they have always done - work hard and professionally to get the best results out of children.''
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times / PerthNow at link [see following Editorial on this topic]
    
    

    • Top Schools [General Exhibitions]:
      
      
      • Rossmoyne SHS, 8
        
      • Hale School, 6
        
      • St Hilda's Anglican School, 4
        
        
        
        

  • Also an 8-page Liftout on the year's TEE results
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    State school sets example (page 55)
    
    "Sniping at the quality of education in our public schools has become a sport in recent times. Whether all the attacks – coming from some sections of the media – are justified is debatable.

    "Public schools have been in the firing line again this week, this time over some of the results from the WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessment.

    "Nearly 20 per cent of Year 7 students failed to meet the minimum standards required by the Education Department.

    "But it's not all doom and gloom. Indeed, one Perth public school has outperformed all the private schools in WA this year.

    "Rossmoyne Senior High School consistently excels in the secondary exhibitions and awards. This year, it produced more general exhibition winners than any other school – eight of its students ranked among the best 41 in the state. That is an incredible achievement worthy of celebration.

    "We all know that WA has some outstanding private schools. But it is fantastic that a state school has come out on top. Its success is a compliment to the dedicated staff, students and parents who make up the Rossmoyne school community.

    "There is no magic formula at play, which is why senior education officials should be falling over themselves to learn, understand and transplant the lessons of Rossmoyne's success. The school should become a template for other public schools.

    "Meanwhile, Education Minister Mark McGowan is right to remind parents that they must not relinquish their own responsibility and role in their children's education. They can't expect schools to carry the entire load.

    "Poor literacy and numeracy among many of our children might not be an indictment of our schools or teachers. It might have more to do with parents not pulling their weight at home."
    
    From The Sunday Times / PerthNow at link [scroll down to second editorial]
    
    
    

  • Parents sent back to class (page 15)
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    "Parents will be sent back to school and taught how to teach their children to read, write and do basic sums under a radical new plan being pushed by Education Minister Mark McGowan.
    
    "He said parents were more important than teachers when it came to their children's learning, but he was concerned that many did not have the skills or attitudes to help them.

    "The minister is likely to run a number of trials throughout WA next year where mums and dad would go back to classrooms and learn how to teach their children.

    "I want families reading to their children and working with them to give them basic skills,'' Mr McGowan said. "I want people to see this as natural as eating.

    "Perhaps we could start them (trials) in areas where the levels of literacy, for example, were not as high as we would like to see.

    "We'd look at teaching the parents the value of education and how to engage their children in learning.

    "We could do things like recommend to parents stories to read to their children and, maybe even, set up a timetable for them to do their teaching.

    "There are interesting methods you can use, like getting children to count how many groceries are in a trolley and getting children to tell you the time.

    "We have to get away from this idea that educating our children is someone else's problem.

    "We can't just expect to put our children on buses and then leave the educating to teachers.

    "Education is everyone's responsibility - not just the schools.''

    "Liberal MP Barbara Scott, a former teacher, said research showed that the first few years of a child's life had a major impact on the rest of his or her development.

    "Before former Labor minister Norm Marlborough was sacked, Mrs Scott had discussions with him about following a Canadian model and setting up a parenting centre in Kwinana.

    "The lesson for governments is to get parents on side and target those parents who don't understand the importance of those early years in a child's life,'' she said.

    "In Canada, they have centres where parents come in with their little children and they have talks about the importance of reading to their children and the selection of proper books and games they can play to learn.

    "Children learn by having a stimulating environment. All these experiences are the basics for learning more difficult things later in their lives.''

    From The Sunday Times / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
    
  • The Sunday Times editorial comment
    Let's make 2007 a good year (page 55)
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    My resolution: families first (page 55)
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    
    
    
    
• The Times
  
  
  • Scrap school tests to stem rising tide of illiteracy, says think-tank
    by Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent
    
    * Many children lack basic skills
    * The system must reveal pupils at risk
    
    "National tests for pupils aged 11 and 14 should be scrapped and replaced with random tests in order to develop broader skills in reading, writing and arithmetic, according to a leading left-wing think-tank.

    "The Institute for Public Policy Research believes that the current testing regime encourages teachers to drill children to pass tests, resulting in a narrow curriculum.

    "It calls instead for a system based on internal teacher assessments, backed by “sample monitoring tests” to ensure that schools continue to be held accountable for their teaching and results.

    "The radical proposals come after Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, suggested that children could be measured on individual progress rather than against national targets.

    "He said that the system was too narrow and needed to be opened up to give more incentives to teachers and bored under-achievers. With the introduction of the national curriculum in 1988, test or “Sats” results for children aged 7 and 11 in the three Rs rose consistently until 2001, the think-tank said.

    "Since then the rate of improvement has levelled off and one in five children now leaves primary school unable to read, write or add up well enough to cope at secondary school..." [emphasis added – sounds familiar]
    
    Full story in The Times at link

    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Unfair HECS burden for science students
    by Justine Ferrari and James Madden
    
    "Science graduates, many of them headed for teaching careers, are leaving university carrying a HECS debt equal to that of engineers and accountants - despite the vast difference in the salaries they can expect to earn.
    
    "The anomaly has been allowed to occur despite strong demand in schools across Australia for qualified science teachers.

    "Students undertaking an undergraduate degree in science and mathematics are charged HECS fees in the second-highest band, alongside economics, commerce, accounting, engineering, architecture and computing.

    "The fees are based on the cost incurred by a university to provide the course, and is estimated to be $7118 in 2007 for science students - only $1200 less than the highest HECS band charged to law, medicine, dentistry and veterinary science students.

    "While teaching students are classified as a national priority, along with nurses, and pay a much lower fee, almost $4000 next year, student science teachers attract a higher HECS fee because part of their course is undertaken in a science faculty..."
    
    "Australia has a critical shortage of scientists and science teachers.

    "A survey last year by the Australian Council of Deans of Science revealed almost 10 per cent of science teachers had no background in science, with almost half of all physics teachers and one-quarter of chemistry teachers lacking a major in the discipline they were teaching.

    "Vaille Dawson, co-ordinator of science and maths education at Edith Cowan University, which runs the nation's second-largest education faculty, said the HECS burden was out of proportion to the salary a scientist or science teacher could expect to earn.

    "A draft study being conducted on behalf of the West Australian Science Council on the future of the discipline has found that one in four new teachers quit the profession within two years of starting their career.

    "The annual survey of graduate starting salaries released earlier this month by Graduate Careers Australia shows that dentists, optometrists, doctors and engineers have the four highest starting salaries. While teachers ranked sixth, their pay structure is capped at about $70,000-$80,000, which they reach in eight years.

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop said research showed that the level of HECS debt incurred did not discourage students from choosing courses."
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • A sense of entitlement
      

      "From my observations, charging students tens of thousands of dollars for their university studies does not make them appreciate them more or study harder, despite a popular justification for HECS ("Students face $50k uni debts”, 29/12). It makes many simply expect to pass because they are paying a lot of money, and they say so. It makes others work so hard at two or three jobs to pay the fees that they are incapable of working even minimally at their studies."
      
      Scott Poynting, School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney
      
      
      

  • Gloves off for the rumble in the blackboard jungle
    Kevin Donnelly says school education has become a burning issue that will only get hotter in 2007
    

    "Education has certainly been a barbecue stopper in the past 12 months. On these pages, as well as across the media more generally, barely a week has gone by without debates about topics as diverse as Australia's second-rate ranking in international maths and science tests, the dumbing down impact of outcomes-based education and the fact that state governments are under-resourcing schools; both government and non-government.

    "At the start of 2006, Prime Minister John Howard entered the debate with his comments about the parlous state of history teaching in our schools. Not only are students taught a black-armband view, but as a consequence of the "new history", the focus is on victim groups and students no longer celebrate the grand narrative associated with our growth as a nation.

    "The Prime Minister entered the culture wars with his complaints about the destructive impact of postmodern gobbledegook on English as a subject, especially literature. The moral and aesthetic value of literature is lost as students are made to analyse texts in terms of power relationships, and graffiti and SMS messages are on the same stage as Shakespeare and David Malouf. It is significant that David Williamson, somebody not normally associated with the PM's conservative agenda, also publicly criticised the way classics are undermined as a result of forcing students to interpret literature through a politically correct, ideological prism.

    "While much of this year's debate has focused on national issues - such as the need for plain-English report cards, the introduction of assessment of students on a five-point scale of A to E and the viability of a national curriculum - state and territory issues have also been prominent.

    "Such were the concerns in Western Australia about the destructive impact of extending outcomes based education into years 11 and 12 and the inept and insensitive way the then state education minister, Ljiljanna Ravlich, handled the situation, that Premier Alan Carpenter was forced to hose down the issue by postponing the introduction of the new certificate and, eventually, by dumping the minister from the portfolio.

    "In Tasmania, as a result of teachers being forced to adopt what was termed essential learnings - an approach to curriculum where traditional subjects are replaced by generic skills such as world futures and social responsibility - the education minister responsible, Paula Wriedt, nearly lost her seat at the state election and, like Ravlich, was eventually demoted.

    "While some educationalists, such as the Adelaide-based academic Alan Reid, argue that the education debate is being fuelled by social conservatives, the fact is that in Tasmania, much of the fight against essential learnings has been led by the local branch of the Australian Education Union. The union argued that teachers were being drowned in a bureaucratic, cumbersome and confusing curriculum regime that destroyed the joy of teaching.

    "As is evident on Perth-based internet site www.platowa.com, much of the criticism of OBE has been led by classroom teachers of various political persuasions. That opposition to OBE transcends political boundaries is highlighted by criticisms made by the NSW Labor Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, midway through the year in support of the PM's stance, and the way both Kevin Rudd and new federal shadow education spokesman Stephen Smith are echoing widespread concerns about falling standards and a lack of academic rigour in the curriculum.

    "There is no doubt education will continue to be a significant issue in 2007, especially given the coming federal election. As with this year, much of the debate will focus on the value of OBE and whether students are receiving a sound education. Debates about the impact of the culture wars on subjects such as history, English and science will also continue. [emphasis added]

    "What other issues might be on the agenda? While not receiving much publicity over the past 12 months, except for calls for increased accountability, the need to attract teachers to the profession and to properly reward them will be seen as vital.

    "Research by Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan, both academics at the Australian National University, suggest that teacher quality, as reflected by the academic aptitude of beginning teachers, has fallen. Teacher surveys carried out by the Australian Education Union show that many of those who have recently entered the classroom do not see teaching as a long-term commitment.

    "Teachers need to be paid more and better supported in their professional development. Instead of having to re-invent the wheel by designing their own syllabuses, teachers should be given clear, concise road-maps of what to teach, and be given more time to mentor one another.

    "While accountability is important and better teachers should be rewarded and underperforming teachers dealt with, it is vital that any proposed system is not overly intrusive and bureaucratic and that the complex and demanding nature of teaching is recognised.

    "Coupled with properly rewarding teachers is the need to give schools the power to hire and to fire staff and to allow decisions about the school curriculum and management, as far as possible, to be made at the local level.

    "Supporting parental choice in education will also be on the agenda in 2007. The fact that about 40 per cent of year 11 and 12 students now attend non-government schools - and given the attraction of selective government schools, especially in NSW - it's obvious parents want to choose where their children go to school and that a "one size fits all" approach no longer works.

    "In the US, school vouchers, where the money follows the child, are increasingly popular in areas such as Washington DC and Milwaukee and the reality is that Australia already has a de-facto voucher system - depending on which non-government school the child attends, both state and federal governments subsidise a percentage of the cost.

    "As a general rule, while education is often debated, Australians tend to spend more time discussing sporting events and sportsmen and women such as Shane Warne, Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman.

    "In 2006, education became a topic of strong media interest and public debate, and 2007 will be no different."

    Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down, to be published next month by Hardie Grant Books.

    From The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial: Raise a half-full glass to 2007
    
    
    
    
  • [NSW] Liberals' solar bid for state's schools

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This page last updated 14 August, 2008 1:43 AM