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Monday 22 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Minister to dump key part of OBE [Front Page Headline]
    Exclusive by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "One of the most controversial planks of outcomes-based education will be dismantled, with the State Government preparing to reveal today that it will abolish the so-called "levels" system of marking in Years 11 and 12, which has been at the heart of the bitter debate.
    
    "New Education Minister Mark McGowan will tell a special meeting of the Curriculum Council today that it should return to a more conventional system of assessment using marks and grades.
    
    "In what is a significant about-face, Mr McGowan will also call for levels to be banned from children's school reports in Years 8 to 10.
    
    "Critics of OBE say the levels are inaccurate, meaningless to students and their parents, and impose impossibly heavy workloads on teachers. They also say they are inadequate in ranking students for university entrance.
    
    "But there is still debate over the way the contentious OBE levels will be used in Years 1 to 10 to generate the conventional grades A to E, even though levels will no longer appear on reports.
    
    "And it is not clear what effect the changes will have on students taking the new OBE English course who are in Year 12 this year.
    
    "Marko Vojkovic, the new president of influential teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, said Mr McGowan's push would "tear the heart out of OBE" because levels underpinned the OBE philosophy adopted in WA.
    
    "In practical terms, OBE will be dead because teachers won't have to refer to level descriptors when assessing students' work," he said.
    
    "Since levelling was introduced, teachers have wrestled with it and it has caused untold amounts of stress and anguish."
    
    "In July last year, the State Government was forced to delay until 2008 13 OBE courses which were to start this year after teachers threatened to boycott them.
    
    "The West Australian understands that Mr McGowan was briefed by Premier Alan Carpenter when he was handed the Education portfolio from Ljiljanna Ravlich late last year to do whatever it took to neutralise the OBE controversy.
    
    "In the past four weeks, Mr McGowan has sought advice from educators, including international assessment expert David Andrich, who said in a report commissioned by the Curriculum Council that levels were inadequate for ranking students for university entrance.
    
    "He said levels should be used only as a rough guide for tracking student progress and internal planning, not for reporting for parents.
    
    "Professor Andrich's report was buried for a year by the Curriculum Council but released last September after pressure from The West Australian.
    
    "Mr McGowan has refused to comment until after the council meets this morning.
    
    "But he is also expected to consider the idea of "teacher juries" which would allow randomly selected teachers to decide whether new Year 11 courses are ready to teach.
    
    "He is also likely to accede to calls from maths teachers to delay new maths courses, due to start next year, until 2009."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    Reader comments on this story at PerthNorg
    
    
    
  • Overhaul for WA education [Story added to The West's website at 2 pm]
    
    "All Year 12 students, except those doing trade certificates, will need to sit exams before graduation as part of a number of wide-ranging reforms to the State’s education.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said the reforms would also include the introduction of new syllabus for kindergarten to Year 10 by the end of the year and a national panel established to verify its quality.

    "The Minister said he had listened to teacher and parent groups over the last four weeks and had put a detailed plan to a special meeting of the Curriculum Council this morning, which had been accepted.

    “What is crystal clear to the Government is that we have to ease the pressure on teachers so they get back to the basics of teaching and we have to restore the confidence of parents that quality education is being delivered to students,” he said.

    "Mr McGowan said the Government acknowledged that implementation of the reforms had been problematic. This was made clear by the Andrich report released by the Curriculum Council late last year.
    
    "The plan involves:

    • introducing compulsory exams before graduation for all Year 12 students except those doing trade certificates;

    • deferring the new mathematics course until 2009;

    • establishing randomly selected ‘teacher juries’ to review 50 new courses being introduced into senior school;

    • allowing teachers to assess Year 11 and 12 students’ work using traditional percentage marks and grades (not levels and bands);

    • introducing more rigorous course content including set text lists for English and Literature and compulsory Australian history in the modern history course;

    • introducing new syllabus (course content) for kindergarten to Year 10 by the end of the year and establishing a national panel to verify its quality;

    • simplifying secondary school reports; and

    • introducing legislation to give the Curriculum Council full authority for maintaining high standards in curriculum and assessment across all years of schooling in the Government and non-Government education systems.

    "The Minister said the introduction of 50 new courses for senior school aimed to provide students with a wide range of options, whether they intended to go to university, into further training or the workforce.

    “However, many teachers believe their professional advice has not been heeded in the design of the new senior school courses and feel ill-prepared to teach them,” he said.

    “The changes announced today will address that problem.

    "Mr McGowan said the decision in the 1990s to abandon syllabus for years 1 to 10 was a mistake.

    “I am ensuring that my predecessor Ljiljanna Ravlich’s decision to reintroduce syllabus is followed through and in place by the end of the year, subject to teachers being happy with it,” he said.

    “Providing primary and lower secondary teachers with a syllabus and supporting material, underpinned by common standards, will take a lot of the pressure off them.”
    
    From The West Australian Online at link
    
    
    

  • Update: OBE effectively dumped in education changes [Story added to The West's website at 2 pm]
    AAP
    
    "The West Australian government has effectively killed off its outcomes-based education system, dumping a controversial grading method using eight levels of achievement.

    "New Education Minister Mark McGowan today said the move was part of wide-ranging changes to WA's education system.

    "He replaced Ljiljanna Ravlich as education minister last month after she was removed in a ministerial reshuffle, after months of heavy criticism by teachers and the state opposition over the implementation of OBE.

    "Mr McGowan said today Year 11 and 12 students would now be assessed using traditional percentage marks and grades rather than the proposed levels system.

    "(The move is) to restore public confidence in the rigour and quality of our education system so that these ongoing debates, analysis and perhaps in some parts confusion in relation to our education system are ended," Mr McGowan said.

    "Mr McGowan refused to be drawn on whether outcomes-based education was dead, but did not once utter the controversial acronym OBE during his press conference.

    "What we are doing is changing the system to rectify some of the flaws," he said.

    "I think our education system is fantastic. However, there are some things at the edges that needed to be repaired and that's what we're doing."

    "State opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said it was remarkable it had taken the government so long to acknowledge the levels system was not a good way to assess students.

    "I'm very supportive of the move to percentages," Mr Collier said.

    "We've had two ministers now, two years of anxiety and frustration in the educational community before we can see logical reason."

    "The State School Teachers Union of WA said it had been lobbying for today's changes for the last 18 months. [Sorry, Mike, I don't think anybody's buying that.   Web]

    "The changes to the assessment regimes are what the vast majority of teachers needed to make sense of the new courses of study," union president Mike Keely said.

    "I'm still struggling to know what OBE means ... what I think we've resolved is a form of assessment that was not viable, and it was called OBE by the media."

    "Curriculum Council chairman Bill Louden said the changes would make the education system better for students.

    "The system we're introducing will allow them to ... emerge with grades, which are useful in the employment market, and marks out of 100, which are essential for university selection."

    "The state's Catholic Schools Association and the Association of Independent Schools said they supported the changes."
    
    From The West Australian Online at link

    
    
    
    
  • Alston Cartoon (page 16) © The West Australian

• ABC News
  
  
  • WA scraps most of controversial education system

    "The Western Australian Government has essentially abandoned most of its controversial Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) system in a major overhaul.

    "OBE faced strong opposition from teachers and parents last year but the Government refused to back down, insisting many elements of the system would be introduced this year.

    "But today, new Education Minister Mark McGowan said teachers would be allowed to assess year 11 and 12 students using traditional marks and grades, rather than levels and bands.

    "Other changes include the introduction of compulsory exams for all year 12 students, except those doing trade certificates.

    "Teacher juries will be established to review 50 new courses for senior school and a new syllabus will be created for kindergarten to year 10 by the end of the year.

    "The new mathematics course will be deferred until 2009.

    "Mr McGowan is expecting overwhelming support from teachers.

    "I don't see that there has been a great deal of wastefulness," he said.

    "What we've done is listened to where there needs to be some change and we've made those changes...

    "The key aims of what I've taken to the Curriculum Council are to give teachers a greater say over courses because they know what works best in the classroom, and I have great faith in the capacity and ability of teachers."

    "Association of Independent Schools spokeswoman Audrey Jackson says the changes to the education system are sensible.

    "Although it sounds as though it's a wholesale change, it's not, in terms of the way that teachers will teach and what they will teach," she said.

    "That hasn't changed, so I don't see the timetable as being a problem."

    "Catholic Education Office spokesman Ron Dullard says the overhaul is a marked improvement and will reduces the strain on teachers, parents and students.

    "If the parents and the teachers aren't working together and happy with it, the students can't do the job that they need to do," he said.

    "So I certainly think that it's in everybody's interest that we do this."
    

    From ABC News Online at link
    
    
    
    

• Top of the Evening News Coverage on Channels 7, 9, 10 and the ABC
  
  
  
  
• Media Statement by Education Minister Mark McGowan
  

Reforms mark a clear path forward All Year 12 students - except those doing trade certificates - will need to sit exams before graduation as part of a number of wide-ranging reforms to the State’s education system announced by Education Minister Mark McGowan today. Mr McGowan said the reforms would also include the introduction of new syllabus (course content) for kindergarten to Year 10 by the end of the year and a national panel established to verify its quality. The Minister said he had listened to teacher and parent groups over the last four weeks and had put a detailed plan to a special meeting of the Curriculum Council this morning, which had been accepted. “What is crystal clear to the Government is that we have to ease the pressure on teachers so they get back to the basics of teaching and we have to restore the confidence of parents that quality education is being delivered to students,” he said. Mr McGowan said the Government acknowledged that implementation of the reforms had been problematic. This was made clear by the Andrich report released by the Curriculum Council late last year. “Reform is necessary to ensure the education system remains relevant and properly prepares students to enter the workforce or engage in further education,” he said. “But we have to listen more carefully to teachers who have the experience and professional judgement to know what works in the classroom.” The plan involved: * introducing compulsory exams before graduation for all Year 12 students except those doing trade certificates; * deferring the new mathematics course until 2009; * establishing randomly selected ‘teacher juries’ to review 50 new courses being introduced into senior school; * allowing teachers to assess Year 11 and 12 students’ work using traditional percentage marks and grades (not levels and bands); * introducing more rigorous course content including set text lists for English and Literature and compulsory Australian history in the modern history course; * introducing new syllabus (course content) for kindergarten to Year 10 by the end of the year and establishing a national panel to verify its quality; * simplifying secondary school reports; and * introducing legislation to give the Curriculum Council full authority for maintaining high standards in curriculum and assessment across all years of schooling in the Government and non-Government education systems. The Minister said the introduction of 50 new courses for senior school aimed to provide students with a wide range of options, whether they intended to go to university, into further training or the workforce. “However, many teachers believe their professional advice has not been heeded in the design of the new senior school courses and feel ill-prepared to teach them,” he said. “The changes announced today will address that problem. “Further, our community equates higher standards with more traditional course content and rigorous assessments. “This need not limit teacher creativity in tailoring content to the needs of their students, but it does ensure that all students have a common foundation of knowledge. “The changes announced today will provide greater assurance about high standards in both courses and the way they are marked.” Mr McGowan said the decision in the 1990s to abandon syllabus for Years One to 10 was a mistake. “I am ensuring that my predecessor Ljiljanna Ravlich’s decision to reintroduce syllabus is followed through and in place by the end of the year, subject to teachers being happy with it,” he said. “Providing primary and lower secondary teachers with a syllabus and supporting material, underpinned by common standards, will take a lot of the pressure off them.” The Minister said the proposed amendments to the Curriculum Council legislation would clarify the council’s role and provide greater accountability. The Curriculum Council is a Government authority with a board comprising representatives of the Government, independent and Catholic school sectors, universities, teachers, parents and employers. It is well placed to judge community expectations in the development of curriculum and to monitor standards across the State and relative to other States. Minister's office - 9222 9111 From this link [By clicking on the link, you can send a comment / reply to Mr McGowan.]




• The New York Times
  
  
  • Taking Middle Schoolers Out of the Middle
    
    Schools debate whether to extend the nurturing cocoon of elementary school or push students into a high school setting earlier.
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Top scientist criticises climate-change teaching
    
    The teaching of climate change and global warming in schools is dogged by "omission, simplification and misrepresentation", leading scientists have claimed.
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Schools in scramble for $383m [Lead national story]
    by Adam Morton and Chee Chee Leung
    
    "Victorian public schools raised more than $383 million from local communities last year to cover what principals, teachers and parents say is a shortfall in State Government funding.

    "Schools expected to collect an average of $713 for every student in taxpayer-funded education, a freedom-of-information request by The Age has revealed..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link

    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • "Academics quoted by Justine Ferrari ("20 years to revive science courses”, 19/1) are missing the mark completely when they say that focusing on “everyday science rather than textbook theory” in the classroom is the answer to restoring a 20-year deficit in scientific knowledge.

      "Pandering to fickle teenagers by making science courses more palatable to them is a nice idea but will not raise the level of science knowledge in our nation. Science is best learned in a disciplined way. This is never popular with teenagers.

      "I have been a science teacher for the past 20 years and have most enjoyed doing hands-on, relevant science. I have been appalled by the encroachment of “everyday science”.

      "We need to be working on parents and encourage a perception of science and maths as desirable careers for their children. This means raising the status of science and the rewards, financial and otherwise, of being a scientist or a mathematician. Witness how parents will push their children into sports or medical careers because of the status they enjoy. Let’s raise the science bar, not lower it."
      
      Geoff Bishop, Coolum, Qld

Tuesday 23 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial (page 16)
    Promising start, but OBE traces must be purged
    
    "On the face of it, Education Minister Mark McGowan has responded effectively to public opinion by proposing significant changes for schools. He has done what a minister should do – act in the public interest rather than that of his bureaucrats.
    
    "That, in itself, is a big advance on the regime of his predecessor, Ljiljanna Ravlich, who gave the appearance of being a hapless captive of bureaucrats and education ideologues. By the time she left the education portfolio, many teachers were disaffected and what was supposed to be going on in schools was enveloped in confusion.
    
    "Mr McGowan's political brief on his appointment to the portfolio was to clean up the mess, though there will be no official acknowledgment of that. The only way to do that, of course, is to create an education system that people can trust, respect and understand.
    
    "In short, that means getting rid of the misbegotten outcomes-based education system. Mr McGowan has made a promising start and indications are that he is genuine in his attempts to align what goes on in schools with community expectations.
    
    "For all the complexity and nonsense association with OBE – particularly with attempts to introduce it at upper high school level – what parents, students and the wider community expect of schools is relatively simply. They want students to be able to master the basic skills of language and numbers, to be aware of their own culture and history and be well prepared for higher education or the workforce. They also want a system that is transparent, which is reflected by school reports that parents and others can understand.
    
    "Of course, there is more to schooling than these elements, which could be described as the basic essentials. Ultimately, what Mr McGowan is about, if his rhetoric is to become reality, is restoring the basics to their proper primacy.
    
    "What he chooses to call reforms are, in fact, a return to traditional methods and aims. And if this works as planned, it will be widely welcomed as a triumph of common sense over arcane theorising which owes more to political correctness than a genuine concern for meeting the needs of students and the community.
    
    "Of course, OBE is being dismembered as a result of the changes being introduced, but elements of it will continue to pollute the education system. Mr McGowan now has the opportunity to remove the remnants of this abomination of a failed experiment from school systems on behalf of the community. He should not waste it." [emphasis added]
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • We are not killing off OBE, says Carpenter (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "There was fresh confusion in the education system last night as Alan Carpenter declared outcomes-based education was still alive and some teachers warned there was insufficient time to digest the latest changes before school resumed next week.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan yesterday confirmed that one of the most contentious planks of OBE, the so-called "levels" system used to mark students in Years 11 and 12 would be abolished, as revealed by The West Australian.
    
    "Teachers will now assess all Year 11 and 12 students' work using traditional percentage marks and grades with the exception of three OBE courses moving into Year 12 this year, including English.
    
    "Mr McGowan also said exams would be compulsory for all Year 12s, except those studying for trade certificates, as part of his push to restore public confidence in WA education. Now only students wanting to go to university sit exams.
    
    "In a bid to quash criticism that the new courses lacked rigour, he insisted on the introduction of content, including set texts for English and literature and making Australian history compulsory.
    
    "He said long-promised syllabuses for kindergarten to Year 10 would be ready by the end of the year and their quality would be verified by a national panel of education experts.
    
    "Teacher lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the State Government had wasted $250 million pursuing OBE and was almost back where it started. [A deafening silence rebutting this figure, folks.   Web]
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said OBE had been gutted after teachers endured two years of anxiety.
    
    "Despite significant changes to key parts of OBE, the Premier said the controversial scheme was still alive. "We are keeping those parts of the system that are working," Mr Carpenter said last night.
    
    "Mr McGowan said WA's education system was still outcomes-based because student-centred learning remained the focus, rather than traditional "chalk and talk" methods.
    
    "We have made some changes to make sure that we get to a more practical and community-accepted system and remove some of the mistakes," he said. "We have to ease the pressure on teachers... and we have to restore the confidence of parents that quality education is being delivered."
    
    "The English Teachers' Forum welcomed the changes but a spokesman said they would split teachers and create more uncertainty.
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said Year 12 teachers had their assessment programs in place. Because students were assessed using levels and bands last year, they would be asked to do the same again." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Curriculum Council takes control in classrooms (page 4)
    by Tiffany Laurie
    
    "The Curriculum Council will have new powers to dictate standards and assessment across all years of school in the State and private sectors in a desperate attempt to regain parents' confidence in the quality of education.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan yesterday proposed legislative changes to allow the Curriculum Council to set detailed syllabuses for all subjects from kindergarten to Year 10 and have full authority over the quality of assessments and exams.
    
    "He said the decision in the 1990s to abandon detailed course content in favour of a loose framework set by the Department of Education and Training had been a mistake and the State Government had to work to regain parents' confidence.
    
    "Curriculum Council chairman Professor Bill Louden denied the move would strip Catholic and independent schools of their autonomy, saying teachers could still decide how the content was presented to students.
    
    "Now, the council sets detailed course content only for Years 11 and 12. Individual schools are responsible for selecting the content for younger years using a broad framework of outcomes set by the Department of Education and Training.
    
    "Professor Louden said the new syllabuses would provide students with a more uniform education across the public, private and Catholic sectors and reduce teachers' workloads.
    
    "Teachers will still make decisions on the presentation of subjects to their classes but there will be more uniformity and a greater level of detail available at each point," he said.
    
    "The move was cautiously welcomed by the Catholic Education Office and Association of Independent Schools WA."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Sidebar: What They Said (page 4)
    
    
    • "I think OBE is a dead issue. It has been overplayed."
      Ljiljanna Ravlich, February 2, 2006
      
      
      
    • "Outcomes-based education is being introduced because it delivers better educational results. The government will proceed with the implementation of outcomes-based education because it is in the interests of young Western Australian people."
      Alan Carpenter on OBE, March 3, 2006 (Hansard)
      
      
    • "We have obviously made some changes to make sure that we get to a more practical and community-accepted system and remove some of the mistakes."
      Mark McGowan, January 22, 2007
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Minister dumps New Age syllabus
    by Tony Barrass
    
    "The Carpenter Government has been forced to dump its New Age teaching practices in a reversal that has stunned even the harshest critics of Outcomes Based Education.
    
    "New Education Minister Mark McGowan yesterday announced pivotal changes to what students in Western Australia will learn, how they learn it and how they are judged to have learned it.

    "Australian history would become compulsory for students of modern history, and books would overtake ideology as the main vehicle for teaching English and English literature.

    "Year 12 exams would be reintroduced - except for those doing trade certificates - and a new syllabus for kindergarten to Year 10 would be created by the end of this year. That syllabus would be reviewed by a panel of interstate experts.

    "Yesterday's announcement is seen as the first step by Premier Alan Carpenter to get his Government back on track after a disastrous 2006.

    "The changes, many of which will take place before school starts next week, were met with delight by OBE's most outspoken critics, particularly PLATO - People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes. [emphasis added]

    "The State School Teachers Union also welcomed the changes but added that there had been much unnecessary suffering because of government pig-headedness.

    "Bodies representing independent and Catholic schools also applauded the moves.

    "Mr McGowan said that teachers would mark in the traditional manner, with grades and percentages, as opposed to levels and bands, as championed by OBE.

    "He admitted that it was a mistake for governments to have abandoned the kindergarten to Year 10 syllabus during the 1990s. He also said communities equated higher standards of education with more "traditional course content and rigorous assessment".

    "This need not limit teacher creativity in tailoring content to the needs of their students, but it does ensure that all students have a common foundation of knowledge," he said.

    "PLATO president Marko Vojkovic said the reforms were "a really big step" and a win for common sense.

    "While congratulating the minister, he said many good teachers over 55 had walked away from the profession because of the calamity. "It's been a very hard, very personal, very emotional campaign." [emphasis added]

    "Teachers Union spokesman Mike Keely said that if former minister Ljiljanna Ravlich had listened to concerns in 2005, "we would have avoided lots of pain".

    "Executive director of Independent Schools of WA Audrey Jackson said the key reforms were "extremely sensible", while the director of Catholic Education in the state, Ron Dullard, described the changes as "a marked improvement" that was in everybody's interest."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Labor's mantra: education spending equals prosperity
    by Steve Lewis
    
    "Labor will call for an "education revolution" to deliver the next wave of economic reform, arguing that investment in human capital will revive Australia's faltering productivity.
    
    "In his first formal election challenge, Kevin Rudd will today outline a new philosophy on education that he promises will be Labor's top priority for investment and reform.

    "The paper marks a significant shift in Labor's education thinking, recasting it as an economic issue rather than a means to achieve social justice.

    "Economic dividends to be derived from education are separate from the social policy dividends which flow from a significant investment in this sector," the paper argues.

    "While the carrot of extra spending will please Labor's support base among teachers and lecturers, the economic focus of Mr Rudd's plan is likely to meet some cultural resistance in the heavily unionised education sector. The Opposition Leader argues there is a clear link between education and economic prosperity and that OECD countries that invest most in education become the most prosperous.

    "Mr Rudd will declare Australia has to build the "most educated" and "best-trained workforce" in the world.

    "The commitment means Labor will take a big-spending package to the election covering schools, higher education, skills training and research.

    "Australia spends 5.8 per cent of GDP on education, placing it behind 17 other OECD economies. Australia is the only OECD nation to have reduced public investment in tertiary education over the last 10 years, Mr Rudd says.

    "There is a clear intersection between Australia's declining productivity growth and evidence of Australia's under-investment in human capital formation," the paper says. "Education is the platform on which our future economic prosperity will rest. With a Labor government, it will be the first priority for investment and reform."...
    
    "Australia needs nothing less than a revolution in education - a substantial and sustained increase in the quantity of our investment, and the quality of our education," Mr Rudd says in the paper. "This is required at every level of education from early childhood to mature age." ...
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    Similar story in The Melbourne Age
    
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Flexibility allows for better outcomes
    by Richard Henry
    
    "Is the universities admissions system "in crisis" because students are now gaining entry to university without reaching official universities admission index (UAI) cut-offs? The reality is that thousands of students gain entry to universities every year with marks below the official index cut-off, or on a system independent of the index, and have done so for some time..."
    
    Professor Richard Henry is deputy vice-chancellor (academic) at the University of NSW.
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Lack of school spending puts Victoria behind
    by Adam Morton
    
    "Victoria has spent the least per head on government-schools of all states and territories for more than a decade - since the early days of the former Kennett government..."
    
    "Education Minister John Lenders said - and critics of Government spending agreed - that Victoria had a less centralised bureaucracy than other states, meaning it spent less on bureaucracy. He said education systems should be assessed on performance, and Victoria was leading the other states in many key areas.

    "Victoria is able to perform despite the apparent funding disparity, because our education system is the nation's most efficient," Mr Lenders said.

    "Our class sizes are at record lows, we have the country's highest year 12 completion and retention rates and one of the best student to computer ratios."

    "But Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett said Victorian secondary schools had larger class sizes than 15 years ago, and needed more support staff.

    "She said Victoria lagged in special needs funding, and its schools were less than halfway to replacing the teachers who left in the Kennett years."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    Our schools need more than bricks and mortar, Mr Bracks
    
    Victoria's public schools should not have to raise money to compensate for inadequate state funding.

    "The Age has said it before and it says it again: all children in an egalitarian society should receive a proper education regardless of the economic capabilities of their parents. This philosophy dates back to 1872 and the proclamation of the Victorian Education Act when the state took over responsibility for schooling from the church, local groups and private providers. Victoria was the first Australian colony to establish a centralised public-school system. The tenet of the act — since amended and, more lately, revised but otherwise essentially unchanged — is the importance of universal education in a democracy.

    "Indeed, Premier Steve Bracks at his election campaign launch last November said that education remained his government's first priority. At the same time, the Premier committed an extra $1.9 billion over 10 years to rebuild or modernise all Victoria's government schools.

    "Bricks and mortar, though, are not always enough. What use is a structurally sound school when, inside those nice clean walls, aspects of the institution itself are in dire need of financial repair?

    "This is asked in the face of some disturbing facts. Since the end of 1999, Victorian government schools have been the most underfunded in the nation. Figures from the Productivity Commission published in The Age today show funding per government-school student in Victoria consistently to be below the state and territory average: from $861 less in 1999-2000 to $679 less in 2003-04 (the most recent figures). By comparison, in NSW, the funding per student for the same years is $176 and $331 above average.

    "Of greater concern, as The Age reported yesterday as the result of a freedom-of-information request, is that last year Victoria's public schools had to raise more than $383 million from local communities to cover what teachers and parents say is the shortfall in State Government funding. This works out to an average of $713 for every student in taxpayer-funded education. The average sum raised per school was almost $240,000. Top of the list was the 1360-student Melbourne High, which had to raise $4.33 million; bottom was the four-student Swan Marsh Primary School, with $385. In between are schools of differing capacities and in areas of differing economic circumstances, but all in the position of having to find money they simply don't have but must have in order to function. Overall, this fund-raising across the state equates to 9.1 per cent of the Government's $4.2 billion direct investment in public schools — a disproportionate and alarming figure that, however it is broken down or reapplied, ought not to be anywhere near as high."

    From The Melbourne Age at link

 

Wednesday 24 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Discredited OBE levels still apply to Years 1-10 (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Students from Years 1 to 10 will continue to be assessed using the discredited outcomes-based education marking system which the State Government said this week would no longer apply to Years 11 and 12.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan acknowledged the so-called "levels" marking system was inadequate for ranking students for university and had caused huge angst among teachers and parents, forcing the Government to abandon plans to apply it to Year 11 students this year.
    
    "But the marking system which has been at the heart of the OBE furore of the past two years will still be used to calculate grades awarded to students in Years 1 to 10 and this year's tertiary entrance ranking in four OBE Year 12 courses, including English.
    
    "The decision to retain levels in Year 12 English, which all students must pass for graduation, is inconsistent with the report of international assessment expert David Andrich, who found levels were inadequate for ranking students for tertiary entrance. The State Government cited the Andrich report as pivotal in its decision to dump levels in upper school.
    
    "But Mr McGowan said students would not be disadvantaged. "It is always difficult to find a perfect time to make these sorts of changes but I have acted as quickly as possible to improve the system," he said.
    
    "The Curriculum Council defended the decision to continue using levels in Year 12, saying it would have been disrespectful to English teachers to announce changes without warning days before school started. Special moderation procedures would ensure that TER calculations were accurate. [What a load of absolute, utter Horse Shit!   Web]
    
    "We wouldn't contemplate doing it we didn't have confidence that this will work," council chairman Bill Louden said.
    
    "Levels will no longer appear on primary and lower school reports, but grades from A to E will still be derived from levels using a complicated algorithm.
    
    "Teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes yesterday demanded Mr McGowan abandon the system altogether now that it had been discredited. "I would call on Mr McGowan to put the final nail in the coffin of levels and just get rid of them," PLATO president Marko Vojkovich said. [And where is the SSTU?   Web]
    
    "He said grades derived from levels were meaningless. "With the algorithm, an A doesn't mean they are in the top 10 per cent of the class," he said. "You've got a situation where 150 out of 154 Year 8s all get As and yet their achievements vary widely."
    
    "Mr McGowan said OBE had been in primary schools for a long time and he didn't want to make "changes throughout every year of schooling that may have thrown the system, into turmoil". "But that's not to say I'm not listening and learning," he said."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (page 20)
    
    
    • Three great Letters on OBE
      
      OBE relief for our teachers at last
      
      "It has been a long time coming but "levels" and the process of "levelling" have been finally recognised as the debacle they have always been (Minister to dump key parts of OBE, 22/1).
      
      "The frustrating element has been the unnecessary length of time and shamefully exorbitant costs incurred by the State Government, with its failure to accept this revelation, even after a damning report on levels by international assessment expert David Andrich; ironically commissioned and then shelved by the Curriculum Council.
      
      "If new Education Minister Mark McGowan has, as reported, sought advice from educators in reaching this policy change, then he is to be applauded for his initiative, an attribute terribly lacking in his predecessor, whose storm-trooper tactics left a path of educational woe in their wake.
      
      "The Minister's return to a more conventional system of assessment, and hence reporting to parents, translates for teachers to a more realistic focus on the preparation and delivery of curriculums to students with an authentic assessment of student attainment. This is in keeping with recent cognitive approaches to learning, which require an integrated system which fosters deep structures and knowledge – disdainful to the outcomes approach.
      
      "Past and present presidents of PLATO, Greg Williams and Marko Vojkovic respectively, with respected academics of the ilk of Steve Kessell and Professor Andrich, are to be praised for their research and very public expressions of concern over the vacillation and impracticability of levels and the irrelevancies of OBE. [emphasis added]
      
      "Your newspaper deserves mention for its comprehensive reporting on the State Government's OBE agenda."
      
      G W J Pearce, Kingsley
      
      
      Guinea pigs
      
      "While I am relieved at the news that OBE has been recognised for the mess that it is, I am concerned by the decision to maintain this system for those in Year 12 this year, who did the new courses in Year 11. It is inconceivable that a system now recognised as a failure is to be continued, or that changes to the system come a week before school starts, not to mention the expense of the whole operation.
      
      "Those doing Years 11 and 12 English in 2006/2007 have been guinea pigs for this abhorrent system. I worry about my son's results in English at the end of this year – his TEE year – having been disadvantaged throughout high school by OBE."
      
      Lee Humble, Leeming
      
      
      Why I resigned
      
      "I was heartened to read your front-page report on the dumping of levels in Years 11 and 12. I desperately hope that all levels will be abolished and that we get back to some sort of system that is accurate and meaningful.
      
      "As a sign of protest I have just resigned from the Education Department after more than 30 years of teaching. I had written to both State and Federal education ministers, and my local politicians, voicing my concerns about the levels and grades in the new reporting system. I received just one reply from Peter Watson, the member for Albany. Ms Ravlich, the minister at the time, didn't appear concerned that I, and so many of my peers, have been so confused and unhappy since outcomes-based education was introduced.
      
      "So many experienced teachers have been feeling inadequate for such a long time because they just can't understand where it is all heading. OBE was designed with just eight levels for the whole of schooling. We were informed that we didn't need a common curriculum to achieve each outcome in each strand in each learning area. It didn't take long until the standards throughout the State had gone to pot.
      
      "We have lost the idea of what students can and should learn in any year level. The outcomes are difficult to interpret and can mean different things to each teacher. For example, the Level 3 reading outcome elaboration states: "The student integrates a range of strategies to interpret and discuss relationships, among ideas, information and events in written texts; identifies and uses language structures; and recognises and discusses the use of symbols and stereotypes to make meaning." How do you teach, assess and report if you have no common understanding of what that statement means? [emphasis added]
      
      "I completed the standard form to end my career. It seems that my only protest was to heavily tick the box marked "Resignation – due to departmental dissatisfaction". There has been no follow-up. No one seems to care about why an experienced Year 1 teacher should feel she had to resign to avoid further damage to her physical and mental health."
      
      Jill Larsen, Lower King
      
      
      
      
  • Op Ed
    Great education expectations (page 19)
    by Tony Rutherford
    
    Throwing money at our schools is not necessarily the way to avoid creation of an uneducated and unemployable underclass, but there is evidence that what teachers and principals need is the freedom to manage their resources
    
    "In one of his more famous, or now infamous, utterances — perhaps the original three-second sound bite — Tony Blair explained that his new Government, 10 years ago, would be about three things: “Education, education and education”. That was not long before his victory in 1997.
    

    "It is, one hopes, something that will haunt him in his retirement.
    
    "Mr Blair’s Government has indeed, in the last decade, spent a lot on schools; has, indeed, increased in real terms the amount spent on schools.
    
    "The results have been dismal. Despite fiddling with the statistics, educational outcomes have not noticeably improved. On every reliable international comparison, British schools, despite the largesse committed to them, perform poorly.
    
    "Perhaps the most damning measure has been the decline in social mobility in recent years: after all, if an education system can’t give children the freedom to succeed, whatever their socioeconomic background, what use is it?
    
    "As it is, commentators like the historian Niall Ferguson have described the outcome as the creation of an uneducated and unemployable underclass. And, as he points out, in a very competitive world, a world which now includes massive competition from countries like China and India, this is serious.
    
    "The jobs which once might have absorbed that underclass are swiftly vanishing and without good education, the developed countries face diminishing opportunities.
    
    "So Kevin Rudd’s announcement that a Labor government will spend billions more on education might rightly be assessed with some degree of scepticism.
    
    "It is already clear from his earlier statements that a Labor government would continue the interventionist approach that has characterised the regimes of both Howard ministers, Julie Bishop and Brendan Nelson, with some fairly heavy-handed use of the power of the purse to bring the States into line on such issues as national competency testing; and intervention in matters of curriculum (a national history syllabus?) is not too far off.
    
    "We are seeing a rapid shift from comparability and accountability to uniformity and central control. All this from a Government in Canberra whose skill in running a national education system is, surely, no better than its skill in running an immigration system. That centralisation surely cannot keep going without some hard questions being asked.
    
    "But it is equally clear that Mr Rudd’s heart is very evidently in the right place. He understands the issues of equity as much as did Mark Latham with his “ladder of opportunity”.
    
    "He mentions the problems of competition from the new giants, India and China. He clearly understands the relationship between investment in education and the maintenance of future rates of productivity. All sound, sensible stuff. But is money the answer, or, at least, the only answer?
    
    "The problem is that when we see an issue like this we tend to think that money is the answer. There are reasons for that. After all, every year, when the TEE league tables come out, many schools with what can only be described as luxurious levels of resources do very well.
    
    "But even in that fairly sensationalist context there are clues that the arguments are actually a bit more complicated.
    
    "Some of those non-public schools actually do well against the odds. This year there was a good story about the comparative success of the John Calvin Christian College in Armadale.
    
    "One of those associated with the school was quoted as saying: “I think that it’s the application of the resources that you have, so that the students are dedicated to working the best with the facilities that they have”. And then there was Manjimup Senior High, which performed amazingly well, and whose principal observed that: “We actually fly in the face of all the research — we are a rural school, we are not a high socioeconomic area — but we have long-standing, experienced staff and very strong support from our community and we have students who have high expectations”.
    
    "Examples like this — and they can be found every year — raise questions about the relative value of resources and application.
    
    "There is absolutely no doubt that in some ways the public education system here in WA, and in other States, needs more investment. Investment in physical infrastructure would be a useful start: too many schools are showing their age in fairly obvious ways. It’s not clear, however, that a State Government awash in revenues, and boasting ever-greater surpluses, needs all that much help in that area — it is, after all, merely a matter of State Budget priorities.
    
    "And there is, equally, no doubt that good teachers (not least “long-standing, experienced staff”) should be paid more, although devising a way of doing that in a centralised system, already heavy with unproductive bureaucracy, may prove too difficult to implement.
    
    "But there is no one-to-one relationship between more money and better outcomes that is strong enough to justify the indiscriminate chucking of money by Mr Rudd, or any other politician of any party, at schools in the hope that things will get better. West Australians, experiencing the slow farce of outcomes-based education, need no telling that both curriculum and assessment are now almost beyond repair.
    
    "And as far as the secrets of successful schools are concerned, there is enough evidence before us again to show that what teachers and principals need is the freedom to manage their resources as best they can. Yesterday’s reports mentioned that Australia now ranks 17th among OECD countries in spending on education. Britain was fifth. Given that Britain’s education system is probably not as good as ours, that’s a pretty meaningless statistic.
    
    "There’s no reason at all why we should frame policy as if it involved some kind of spending Olympics. There is, on the other hand, every reason for Mr Rudd to be asking what really makes the difference."
    
    From The West Australian at link

    
    
    
  • WA moves to establish national curriculum
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan has followed his Federal Government counterpart by declaring his support for a national curriculum.

    "Mr McGowan has directed the WA Curriculum Council to collaborate with other states on assessment and exams in Years 11 and 12.

    "He said Australian families were increasingly mobile, which meant many students were disadvantaged when they resettled in other states and were lumped with strange curriculum.

    "In my view, it is desirable that, wherever possible, our courses are consistent with those being delivered in other States and Territories" he said.

    "Mr McGowan said that Chemistry and Physics would be targeted first for national consistency, with subjects such as History and Geography, which would require some focus on WA, to follow.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's push for a national curriculum fell flat with the States last year, with her labour counterparts, including former WA education minister Ljiljanna Ravlich, accusing her of using funding to achieve a Federal takeover of education.

    "Ms Bishop said yesterday that she was delighted to hear of the stance taken by Mr McGowan, saying the WA Government should identify and adopt the highest standards and best practice in curriculums (sic) across the nation.

    "A report that analyses and compares the content of Year 12 courses across Australia has been completed recently and sent to her office.

    "It's likely to show that in a number of crucial areas, like English and History, there are vast differences", she said.

    "Curriculum Council chairman Bill Louden said that a nationally consistent curriculum would allow more sharing of teaching resources but would take time to implement.

    "SSTU president Mike Keely backed moves towards national consistency. [Or did the ALP say "Jump" and Mike asked "How high?"   Web]

    "But we must recognise that does not mean that students in Kalumburu are going to get exactly the same lessons as students in North Sydney," he said..."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • School row sparks plea for CCC probe (page 51)
    by Ryan Pedler
    
    Education Department accused of forcing teacher out of his job after speaking out about violence
    
    "A former primary school principal has asked the Corruption and Crime Commission to investigate the Education Department officials he says forced him from his job because he publicly criticised the department's poor response to violence at his school.
    
    "Alan Beard, principal at Calista Primary School in Perth's southern suburbs from 1989 to 2004, has written to the CCC alleging senior Education Department staff lied, fabricated documents and used bullying tactics to force him out of teaching.
    
    "Mr Beard alleges he was targeted after he spoke to the media in May 2004 about his concerns that the department was not supporting his efforts to address persistent violent and threatening behaviour by some students and their parents at Calista..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Problem for education is the union: Howard (page 4)
    by Rhianna King, Canberra
    
    "... The Prime Minister said basic literacy and numeracy standards and a proper understanding of Australian history were needed.
    
    "They're the sort of things we need more than anything else in education," Mr Howard said.
    
    "They're the things that we have been on about for years but they've been stymied by Mr Rudd's mates in the education union."
    
    "Education Minister Julie Bishop said it was up to the Labor States to inject more funding into schools.
    
    "State Labor governments have neglected and grossly underfunded State government schools," Ms Bishop said. "The more State governments invest in education the more the Federal Government will invest because it's tied to a formula..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • The Higher Education Supplement has 20 articles today, including:
    
    
    • Call for Bishop to act on literacy
      by Bernard Lane
      
      "Education faculties will have to abandon their unscientific ideology of reading if children across the nation are to be guaranteed basic literacy. This claim is made by Max Coltheart, a leading member of the group of 26 academics, mostly psychologists, whose open letter to former education minister Brendan Nelson inspired a national inquiry into how reading is taught.
      
      "In his first assessment of the outcome of the inquiry, which reported in 2005, Professor Coltheart of Macquarie University has warned that unless Dr Nelson's successor, Julie Bishop, takes on the education academics he holds ultimately responsible for poor literacy, the inquiry will have been wasted.

      "Professor Coltheart, an advocate of the phonics method of teaching reading, said as far as he could tell not a single education faculty had shown any sign of heeding the reformist recommendations of the inquiry. The faculties were wedded to the failed whole-language method, he said..."
      
      

    • ALP vows to boost university funding
      
      
      
    • Educators sceptical about Rudd revolution
      
      
      
    • Bishop to bounce AVCC's cash plea
      
      
      
    • We need more tertiary alternatives
      by Jack Keating
      
      "Alan Robson, vice-chancellor at the University of Western Australia, suggests about 30 per cent of school leavers should go to university ("Enough student places, say VCs", HES, January 17)..."
      
      
      
      
  • Leaving school early won't work out for men
    by Joseph Kerr
    
    "... As federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd moves to put education at the heart of a third wave of economic reform, the research shows boys who leave school at or before Year 10 face a four-fold increased risk of being left behind during their working lives, compared with tertiary educated men..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Rudd promises education change
    by Adam Morton, with the AAP
    
    "A former OECD director has joined teachers and universities in embracing Kevin Rudd's vision of an "education revolution", arguing public funding in Australia lags behind the developed world.

    "The Opposition Leader yesterday placed education at the centre of Labor's election bid, saying that states, territories and the Commonwealth must all lift education investment but that leadership must come from Canberra.

    "Speaking at Melbourne University, Mr Rudd cast an overhaul of education as a priority on economic grounds, needed to boost sliding productivity and sustain the economy beyond the resources boom.

    "Education must lie at the core of our long-term strategy for our national security, our national prosperity, even our national survival," he said.

    "But Mr Rudd drew criticism for refusing to flesh out the details of Labor's plan. He said the specifics would be outlined over the next six months.

    "Prime Minister John Howard said Labor would be better off concentrating on the basics, not making motherhood statements.

    "I don't think we need a revolution in education," he said. "I tell you what we need in education more than anything else — basic standards. We need basic standards of literacy, of numeracy (and) a proper and rigorous understanding according to an appropriate narrative sense of the history of this country."

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop accused Mr Rudd of using misleading OECD statistics to suggest education had been neglected under the Howard Government.

    "If you compare apples with apples we have increased funding," she said.

    "But former OECD education director Barry McGaw, now director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at Melbourne University, backed Mr Rudd's assessment..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Editorial
    A lesson from Kevin Rudd
    
    "The Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, will be chagrined that the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced a reshuffle the day he launched his education statement. Well, that is politics. But it would be a pity if political window-dressing overshadowed Mr Rudd's first serious policy foray. His statement is welcome, not least because it shows he has rejected the small-target tactics of his predecessor. Mr Rudd offers no specific solutions; he is more concerned to reassert the importance of government intervention in education. Labor has thus chosen one of its battlegrounds for the coming election, and it is territory where it has to be said the Government's record is patchy indeed.

    "Labor argues Australia's prosperity is closely tied to the commodities boom - a boom which must eventually end. When it does, further growth can be sustained only by increases in productivity. But too little is being invested in a vital determinant of productivity growth - education. At the time of year when school leavers are receiving offers of tertiary places, newspapers have been full of stories of the thousands with sufficient marks who will miss out, and of the inequitable admissions system which allows less-qualified candidates to buy a place with fees. That is the human side of a story which can also be told in figures. Alone of the OECD countries, public spending in Australia on tertiary education has fallen since 1995 - by 7 per cent. The shortfall has been taken up by private expenditure, but as the OECD notes, Australia is unique in this. Elsewhere, private and public spending on education have risen together. Mr Rudd's description of an undervalued tertiary education sector will strike a chord with the public.

    "From its approach over the past decade, the Government's guiding view of tertiary education is as enemy territory in the culture wars, rather than as a partner in improving Australia's economy and society. Its policies have captured the territory and are busy pacifying it. Starved of public funds, our universities struggle to maintain their income through laudable but precarious efforts to market themselves overseas. Elsewhere the story is similar. Schools are subjected to unnecessarily divisive policies, pitting public against private. Technical education, thanks in part to Canberra's needless duplication, is in disarray. Preschool education has been left to private entrepreneurs.

    "Education in Australia needs rejuvenation. Mr Rudd has started well; he now has to show he knows how to fix the shabby system he describes."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link [scroll down to second editorial]
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Size does matter

      "I am pleased that Kevin Rudd has vowed to invest more in education. Rote learning for the masses has been replaced with individualised programs and discovery learning. The outcomes achieved increase as the amount of individual attention increases.

      "Unfortunately I doubt his policy will dictate to the states that class sizes need to be reduced in line with staffing for five-year-olds in NSW. If a politician is prepared to cap classes at 20 throughout primary schools, please let us know."

      Alison Coates, Cambewarra
      
      

  • Campuses succumb to corporate world
    by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
    
    "Corporate stalls will invade orientation week and university publications will rely on advertising for the first time as universities feel the impact of voluntary student unionism this year..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Feature
    The Big Question: Who was Rudolf Steiner and what were his revolutionary teaching ideas?

Thursday 25 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Stop this Levelling Nonsense
      
      "The decision to use levelling to assess Year 12 English this year [report, 23/1] is a very, very bad one.
      
      "Levels and the "levelling" process have been shown to be inadequate, inappropriate and invalid. Education Minister Mark McGowan admitted this when he abandoning them for the other Year 12 subjects. Why should such invalid assessment still be used for English?
      
      "Two other significant issues arise. Many students taking Year 12 English are TEE students. Using levels to help calculate their TER is simply invalid and grossly unfair.
      
      "Many English classes will have a mix of Year 11 and 12 students. Should teachers have to use two totally different and incompatible assessment methods within the same class?
      
      "There is no excuse for using levelling in any form in upper secondary. The minister must step in and stop this nonsense now."
      
      Steve Kessell, Willetton
      
      
      
    • Rotten System
      
      "Mr McGowan will need to go much further with reform of education. It is not a matter of rectifying some flaws or tinkering with things at the edge - the system is rotten to the core.
      
      "We have had tens of millions of dollars wasted and whole forests destroyed to print doorstops of edubabble that have drowned teachers and killed learning and there has been a fierce campaign to suppress dissent and punish non-believers in the OBE bandwagon. We also have the whole education bureaucracy filled with the clowns who pushed this rubbish and swore blind, despite all the evidence that all was roses.
      
      "Mr McGowan will have to produce more than platitudes to rectify the enormous damage inflicted on education in this state over the past decade."
      
      John Paul, Busselton
      
      
      
    • In Short
      
      "I am relieved that sanity has prevailed in the education of our children now that OBE has finally been unceremoniously dumped, with its chief proponent, Ms Ravlich. RIP."
      
      Matt Summors, Binningup
      
      
      "It would be really nice if, during all this proposed State and Federal education revolution, they could give us decent-sized classrooms with furniture that isn't falling to bits, in schools that are adequately heated and cooled, don't leak and have functioning toilets."
      
      C Cowan, Karrinyup

 

Friday 26 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • In Short
      
      "For years many teachers have been telling the powers that be that OBE wasn't working - and couldn't work. But millions of dollars of public money have been spent to try to prop up this white elephant in spite of professional advice otherwise, in spite of worldwide evidence to the contrary. Who is to be held accountable for this money? Will they be asked to repay it?"
      
      K Wright, Denmark
      
      
      "OBE dumped? Going on past performances, I would say that the New Age education idiocy will continue with stealth as Labor grinds on with the agendas it has in mind for the long-suffering taxpayers of this State, regardless of their wishes."
      
      Ann Doig, Mt Helena
      
      
      

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • English teachers upset over OBE levels (page 8)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has played down complaints from angry English teachers over the latest changes to outcomes-based education, saying the controversial 'levels' system of marking would still apply to English courses this year because it was too late to change it.
    
    "The West Australian revealed this week that the levels system, which had been at the heart of the the bitter OBE dispute, would be abandoned for Year 11 and most Year 12 courses because it was inadequate for ranking students for university.
    
    "But Mr McGowan has said the levels would still be used to assess Year 12 English this year after the Curriculum Council decided that was less likely to disrupt students and teachers so close to the start of the school year.
    
    "However, the English Teachers Association of WA spoke out for the first time yesterday since the changes were announced five days ago, saying the decision to force them to continue using the system for 2007 Year 12 students was a 'gross act of betrayal' that would put teachers and students in an untenable situation.
    
    "It is completely unacceptable for English teachers to use an assessment system that the Minister and the Curriculum Council have publicly discredited," it said in a written statement.
    
    "The association, previously staunch supporters of OBE and the levels system, said it had not done a backflip.
    
    "It's the Minister and the Curriculum Council, they are the ones who have done the about-face," president Wendy Cody said. "To say publicly that something hasn't worked, but then to keep one group doing the thing that hasn't worked, in our opinion that is enormously damaging to teachers' morale and public perception.
    
    "There's just a total contradiction in what the Minister is saying and what we are now being expected to do."
    
    "She called on Mr McGowan to consult with English teachers before pupils start school next Wednesday. [emphasis added]
    
    "Mr McGowan said yesterday the problem was a "transitional issue" that he had asked the Curriculum Council to resolve. "When you make changes some people will always be unhappy," he said. "Ninety-five per cent of the feedback I have has has been positive."
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said the achievements of this year's Year 12s should be recorded in levels and bands to be consistent with how they were reported in Year 11."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    We’re not that stupid, Premier (page 23)
    by Paul Murray
    
    "I’ve been watching closely for evidence of a nervous tick developing somewhere on Alan Carpenter’s face. Surely it can only be a matter of time before we see some sign behind the media performer’s mask of an inner realisation that things are not as they should be inside his Government.
    
    "It only took a year in the top job to turn the Premier’s hair snowy white. Maybe we can’t read too much into that because it had been a steely grey since he was a cub reporter.
    
    "But, unless Mr Carpenter is into self-delusion, he must know that his Government is wading in quicksand of its own making.
    
    "The forward momentum of our economic boom seems to have many of Labor’s WA politicians believing they are somehow responsible for our fortunes and can do no wrong.
    
    "But if Alan Carpenter and his Cabinet don’t stand back and have a dispassionate look at the two scrawny chickens that came home to roost this week they will consign Labor to a difficult future.
    
    "As I’ve noted before, Mr Carpenter doesn’t take good advice well. But he clearly takes bad advice often.
    
    "The backflip on the policy that dares not speak its name — Outcomes Based Education — is extraordinary given the Premier’s redoubtable defence of it for so long during last year.
    
    "Dumping these changes on teachers two weeks from the start of the school year, as they are preparing their courses, is intolerable arrogance.
    
    "The time and money spent on wasted professional development days last year is intolerable inefficiency.
    
    "It is just not tenable for Mr Carpenter to have cast this newspaper as the snake in the grass for the entire OBE debate and then accept the reptile’s venom as the antidote.
    
    "Yes, Premier, lots of us are stupid. But not that stupid, dumbo.
    
    "In a highly personal attack on the newspaper’s OBE coverage under parliamentary privilege on May 31, Mr Carpenter said editor Paul Armstrong was “not up to the job”.
    
    "And the Premier added: “. . . the newspaper’s whole approach to this subject is a campaign and it is run irrespective of the truth.”
    
    "Well, the truth finally came out. The OBE debacle is no mere trifle. The education of our children was at stake — and to some extent still is because much of the beast remains alive. And it has left many teachers disillusioned and confused. [emphasis added]
    
    "The promises this week by Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd of an “education revolution” jars when you see the revolution his State counterparts have wrought on the teaching system.
    
    "Mr Carpenter may have chosen the right man to neutralise Ljiljanna Ravlich’s fiasco — the eminently slippery Mark McGowan — but there is no sign that the Premier has gone to the root cause of the problem as his new Minister papers over the cracks and buries some of the patently unworkable parts of the policy.
    
    "For someone who worked so long in the political media, Mr Carpenter has some surprising blind spots. He doesn’t read shifting political winds well. And he keeps listening to the same people who have led him astray in the past.
    
    "Mr Carpenter made a fundamental mistake by not putting a broom through his predecessor’s office when he assumed the job of Premier. He just bolted himself on to a failing outfit.
    
    "There was only ever going to be one outcome from such a flawed strategy. He then compounded the error by failing to do a review of the Gallop Government’s directions.
    
    "So the policy settings of his Government are not his own and he became captive of a group of advisers who were stuck in the Gallop groove. At least Dr Gallop had the sense to get out.
    
    "But back to the OBE disaster.
    
    "The dogs were barking, the cats were meowing and even the flies were buzzing throughout last year that OBE was a major stuff-up. One of the friendliest unions to Labor, the teachers, tried to be diplomatic but ended up as adversaries.
    
    "There was nothing wrong with the new system, Mr Carpenter maintained. Opponents like the PLATO group and a cavalcade of others representing individual teaching disciplines were brushed aside. Throughout, the Premier kept to his line, never wavering. [emphasis added]
    
    "This is not smart politics. If his political antennae aren’t good enough to sense the dangers, others around him should be looking after his back.
    
    "But some of his key advisers have a long history of running Labor leaders into the ground and they are digging a big hole for this one at the moment..."
    
    "After a disastrous first year as Premier, Mr Carpenter should review his second week back from his annual holidays and wonder if anything’s changed."
    
    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Teacher groups back national curriculum (page 53)
    by Rhianna King, Canberra
    
    "A national education curriculum appears a certainty in Australia, with unions and teacher groups joining the Government and Opposition in support of developing uniform standards for all schools.
    
    "State Education Minister Mark McGowan this week backflipped on the WA Government’s long-held opposition to the Federal push for national standards, following the lead of new shadow education minister Stephen Smith.
    
    "Labor’s change of heart comes as Education Minister Julie Bishop prepares to release a report comparing standards in Year 12 history, English, maths, physics and chemistry, which she will use to further the case for a national curriculum.
    
    "The study will analyse what is taught each subject, what is considered essential content, what standard of performance is expected of students in the subjects and how it varies from State to State.
    
    "The Minister wants to identify the best practice curriculum and roll it out across Australia. She has previously said there would be no place for WA’s outcomes based education system in the new curriculum.
    
    "Ms Bishop said that Labor’s support for national standards was long overdue.
    
    "The State and national teachers union admitted that it was only a matter of time before Australian students were taught a uniform curriculum.
    
    "But they wanted to ensure local content remained in subjects such as history and geography.
    
    "WA Secondary School Executives Association president Alison Woodman said the increasingly transient population meant national standards would become a necessity.
    
    “I agree with Julie Bishop in that it’s one nation of 22 million people yet we’ve got eight education systems,” Ms Woodman said.
    
    “It seems to be a proposal worth looking at, but there’s a lot to be done. The devil will be in the detail.”
    
    "Australian Education Union president Pat Byrne supported national standards, but agreed it was important to maintain an element of local content.
    
    "The Government’s proposed model, known as the Australian Certificate of Education, would replace the existing nine State and Territory Year 12 certificates.
    
    "It would see the development of a common framework for reporting student achievement, with levels from E (lowest) to A (highest) in each subject, and would include a midyear test known as the Key Capabilities Assessment.
    
    "Ms Bishop will discuss the proposal at a meeting with State education ministers in July."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Education union warns of teacher shortage [added to website at 1:39 pm; not in 'paper' edition]
    
    "The Australian Education union is warning of a chronic shortage of Victorian science, maths and IT teachers, as more than 60,000 children prepare to start school for the first time.
    
    "Australian Education Union (AEU) state president Mary Bluett said there were challenges facing teachers going into the 2007 school year, including the implementation of the new A to E reporting system and the chronic shortage of teachers in science, maths and IT.

    "Ms Bluett said the full extent of the teacher shortage in those specialised areas would not be known until the end of this week.

    "I think the issue of teacher shortages, particularly in maths, sciences and technology, will be impacting schools,'' Ms Bluett said.

    "Some schools will be struggling to get teachers in those areas.''

    "Ms Bluett said the union and the Australian Council of Deans of Education have been warning of the problem of a specialised teacher shortage for 10 years.

    "It's a national shortage in those areas and part of it is the cost of a tertiary education in the sciences being significantly more than an Arts degree,'' she said.

    "The depth of the shortage is being masked by the fact that we have a number of teachers who are teaching those subjects who aren't really qualified..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times Online at link
    
    
    

  • Schools import overseas staff (page13)
    by Andrea Mayes
    
    Teachers fly in:
    Shortage puts pressure on schools
    
    "Teachers are being imported from England and Ireland to alleviate chronic staff shortages in WA schools.

    "Yet at least 50 positions are expected to remain vacant when schools reopen on Wednesday.

    "And the teachers' union has warned that some schools may not be able to offer a full range of courses because of the shortage.

    "Eight overseas-trained teachers will start work in country schools this week. More are due to start later in the year, taking the total to more than 30.

    "They were recruited at Skills Expos held in London and Dublin last year and will be paid the same as local teachers.

    "But State School Teachers' Union vice-president Anne Gisborne said despite the overseas recruitment drive, schools across WA were expected to be short by at least 50 teachers on Wednesday.

    "It will be particularly bad in remote areas because of a growing reluctance for graduates to accept that remote and regional postings are the only way to progress through the system," Ms Gisborne said.

    "Shortages were acute in science and design and technology, and at least one Perth high school was not expected to offer design and technology options because of a lack of staff.

    "Ms Gisborne warned that the shortages would put additional pressure on teachers by forcing them to spend as many hours as possible in front of the classroom.

    "This would reduce preparation time, minimise opportunities for professional development and could lead to the cancellation of essential support programs for literacy and numeracy, and for students with disabilities.

    "It is a problem the union has been putting on the table for the past four to five years and it is a sad indictment on the Government's failure to engage in any long-term consideration of the teacher shortage," she said.

    "We need solid resourcing for salaries and conditions and recognition of the important job teachers do."

    "Education Department acting director-general Sharyn O'Neill said it was unclear how many positions would remain vacant when school restarted because teachers were still being appointed.

    "The staffing situation changes daily as positions are being offered and filled," she said.

    "The education sector is not alone in facing challenges to attract and retain staff, particularly in regional and remote areas.

    "I would like to reassure all parents and students that teachers will be in classrooms on the first day of school."

    "Catholic Education Office director Ron Dullard said all teaching vacancies at Catholic schools had been filled. Catholic schools offered good incentives in remote and regional areas, which had helped attract teachers, he said."
    
    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    

  • Also of possible interest:
    
    
    • Kindy Chaos (page 19)
      
      Little Lee lives only 300 metres away, but is not allowed to go
      
      
      
    • School health checks (page 30)
      
      New school children will get comprehensive medical check-ups under Labor Party policy
      
      
      
      
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    The evolution of education
    by Kevin Donnelly
    
    This is a full page article in the Inquirer section by Kevin Donnelly, in which he states the argument for a traditional education in specific knowledge, as opposed to the prevalent approach that simply learning anything is better than nothing.
    
    He also argues that the latest approach to a national curriculum is too vague to be useful.
    
    It also includes a Dumbing Down: Glossary with explanations of some of the buzz phrases used in OBE such as 'process learning' and 'fuzzy maths'.
    
    Not available online; well worth buying the paper to read.
    

All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
All media quotations, photographs and cartoons © their respective publishers

This page last updated 13 August, 2008 0:35 AM