Monday 12 March

Tuesday 13 March

Wednesday 14 March

Thursday 15 March

Friday 16 March

Saturday – Sunday, 17 – 18 March

 

Monday 12 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Principals back call to delay OBE music course (page 12)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Principals of the top music specialist State schools have backed teacher's calls to delay a controversial new outcomes-based education course that would pass Year 12s who are unable to read or write music.

    "Teachers furious that the Curriculum Council appears to be ignoring their views have collected more than 100 signatures from music teachers at 40 State schools demanding that it postpone the course until 2009 to allow time for changes.

    "Churchlands Senior High School principal Neil Hunt, who signed the petition, warned that the top subject prize could go to a student unable to read any music if the course went ahead in its current form.

    "The model being proposed has a multitude of problems and one of those is how it will be assessed," he said. "I believe the outcome of that can significantly erode the (music) standards we are used to seeing."

    "It is understood that John Curtin College of the Arts principal Mitchell Mackay has also signed the petition, which will be sent to the Council this week.

    "John Curtin and Churchlands are the only WA public schools offering specialised programs to gifted music students.

    "The call comes after more than 20 private school music teachers voted overwhelmingly in favour of postponing 2009 OBE music, which Year 11s are to start next year.

    "The West Australian last month revealed council plans for separate exams for students who could not read traditional musical notation, allowing them to use storyboards, graphic notation or guitar tab - a move that Churchlands music department head Glenn Robinson labelled a "comical compromise".

    "He said the course was being developed on the run and had elements that no one in WA had taught or tested before.

    "The Curriculum Council says the course is designed to be inclusive, so students studying popular, world or indigenous music are not expected to read traditional music.

    "But Mr Robinson said it was impossible to force such diverse musical forms into one course, or compare a classical pianist with a disc jockey.

    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said the music curriculum committee would meet today to seek resolutions to the teachers' concerns."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    Churchlands SHS music department's statement, petition
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • National standard for new teachers
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Teacher graduates will have to meet uniform standards of literacy and numeracy for the first time under a national system to accredit education courses.
    
    "The draft framework, approved by state and territory teacher registration boards and obtained by The Australian, sets out mandatory requirements that education courses must meet for teachers to be registered in government, Catholic or independent schools across the nation.

    "The framework, developed by the Australasian Forum of Teacher Registration and Accreditation Authorities, will specify required levels of literacy and numeracy as well as content to be taught in teacher education courses - a minimum four years of full-time study and a minimum amount of practical classroom experience.

    "Institutions will have to provide evidence of "a mix of professional studies, discipline studies and embedded professional experiences (and) ensure appropriate subject content studies," it says.

    "A spokesman for AFTRAA said the policy would, for example, specify the level of science a student must study to qualify as a science teacher.

    "At the moment, there aren't explicit requirements that are national and in some places there aren't explicit requirements at all," he said.

    "Teaching courses that fail to meet the standards will not receive accreditation, and the qualifications of their graduates will not be recognised by schools. [emphasis added]

    "The framework comes amid a national debate over the need to increase the standards and professionalism of teachers and moves toward a common school curriculum framework for all states and territories.

    "The federal Government and the Labor Opposition have both committed to introducing a core national curriculum as a way of improving standards and avoiding syllabuses being hijacked by educational fads. National accreditation of teacher courses is the first step towards national teacher registration and professional standards, which AFTRAA is expected to go on to develop.

    "With a shortage of teachers, particularly in maths and science, national recognition of teacher qualifications is an important step in allowing teachers to move more easily across state borders.

    "The AFTRAA comprises all state and territory teacher registration boards and was charged by the council of the nation's education ministers to develop national recognition.

    "At present, the accreditation for courses varies widely between the states and territories and this framework will provide mutual recognition, so that a course accredited in one state will be recognised in another.

    "The move effectively sidesteps the federal Government's process for accreditation of teaching courses through Teaching Australia, which is intended to be voluntary.

    "It is considering a model ranking courses using a star system instead of ensuring standards..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

• Media Statement: Peter Collier MLC, Shadow Minister for Education and Training
  
  
  • Design and Technology teachers under pressure
    
    "A lack of resources, increasing administrative work and a severe shortage of design and technology teachers (woodwork and metal work) is increasing the risk of injury to students in WA's public schools.

    "Shadow Education and Training Minister Mr Peter Collier said that despite the state's dire skills shortage, design and technology courses like metal work and woodwork are continually being ignored by the State Government.

    "Mr Collier said the State Government could no longer ignore pleas by the Design and Technology Teachers Association Inc (DATTA) for much-needed commitments.

    "In a letter to Mr Collier, DATTA President Mr Mike Callaghan stated that:
    

    "Due to changing curricular in lower school and the pressures of developing new Courses of Study for senior school it is felt that the core role of teaching is being adversely affected"; and

    "The demands of the new courses being implemented by the Curriculum Council have generated an unprecedented increase in the amount of non-teaching administrative tasks. The resulting impact is less time for normal duties such as …classroom/workshop maintenance. Poorly maintained rooms pose a safety risk to teachers and student."

  "Pleas for help and solutions offered up by these teachers, like increased technicians in Design and Technology classrooms to bring them into line with their Home Economics and Science counterparts, have been ignored by the State Government, Mr Collier said.

  "Action must be taken to get more teachers or provide more support for these teachers to give students a chance to have the best standard of education.

  "DATTA's letter is a vote of no confidence in the Education Minister who has so far been all talk and very little action. [emphasis added]

  "I support the request for increased technicians. With the current skills shortage these types of courses, like metal work and woodwork have become increasingly significant to students and WA's future. The government will ignore this request at its peril.

  "Unless the situation is addressed with regard to Design and Technology teachers and the wider profession as a matter of urgency, we will have a crisis on our hands within the next twelve months.

  "Unfortunately, DATTA's concerns are typical of the wider profession as teachers have been consumed with constant change over the past two years.

  "The problem has been particularly bad in rural and remote schools. Mr Collier said that it was little wonder that there was a shortage of teachers given the blatant disregard for the welfare of the profession by this government.

  "The problem has been exemplified by the fact that the workforce in the Design and Technology is rapidly ageing and there are significantly less students choosing it as a career option.

  "The situation is so parlous that a number of rural and remote schools are unable to offer Design and Technology subjects to their students.

  "This letter is a cry for help from an extremely vulnerable sector of the teaching profession."
  

  From Peter Collier's website at link
  
  

• ABC News
  
  
  • Teacher shortage forces distance education move
    
    "Students at Geraldton Senior College, in Western Australia's mid-west, are being taught by distance education because of the teacher shortage.

    "The mid-west's largest high school has had to cancel support courses because it is three-and-a-half teachers short.

    "College principal Gary Simmons says he has had to think outside the square to ensure his 1,000 students are receiving adequate education.

    "We've obviously had to work a range of strategies to make sure teachers have been in front of students and the most recent one we've had to do is to subscribe to enrolling quite a number of students from five classes in fact to the School of Isolated Distance Education (SIDE) to have their English program delivered," he said.

    "The Education Department's district director for the mid-west, Rod Baker, says he will be raising his concerns about the SIDE classes to the state office.

    "Mr Baker says while it is normal to have some specialised classes taught from Perth, Geraldton Senior College is the only school in the mid-west forced to conduct sat-web classes for major subjects.

    "He says he will be pressing the teacher shortage issue at a state conference in Perth this week.

    "Many, many issues I think and I guess there's a lot of discussion to go ahead, but hopefully it won't take too long and we're able to come up with some solutions that will alleviate this for 2008 at least," he said.

    "Three teachers have recently been appointed to Cue, leaving the current teachers shortage in the mid-west at seven."
    
    From ABC News Online at link
    
    
    
    

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Call for homework ban
    by Philippa Duncan
    
    "A push is under way for Tasmania to become the first state or territory to ban homework in public schools.

    "Tasmanian State School Parents and Friends president Jenny Branch has begun a campaign to stop teachers setting homework in primary and high schools.

    "I really want someone to show me homework is beneficial," she said.

    "If it is not, I don't think we should be having it.

    "I don't want to see kids coming home and doing useless homework. I want them outside playing.

    "There are quite a few reports out there saying it might not be beneficial -- so why are we doing it?"

    "Ms Branch said homework -- which is set for most Tasmanian students from grade three -- could cause stress in the home and add to the child obesity problem.

    "I think kids need to come home and have freedom to play," she said.

    "I would be concerned if kids came home and sat in front of the computer, especially when we are having so many problems with obesity.

    "Shouldn't kids be getting out and getting active?"

    "But her call has won little support from the teacher union or state Education Minister David Bartlett.

    "Australian Education Union Tasmanian president Jean Walker said banning homework would disadvantage students when they got to college or university.

    "Most teachers would believe homework was beneficial to developing good study habits," she said.

    "There's no way they (students) will get through tertiary education without being prepared to give up some of their own time.

    "Those study habits have to be formed.

    "If they don't form the habits in primary school, they won't form them."

    "But Ms Walker conceded there needed to be a balance.

    "On the other hand, we would encourage parents not to have their kids over the books, or in front of the computer, all the time," she said.

    "She also said the call could win support from parents who had to deal with children who found homework difficult and stressful.

    "Ms Branch, who is also the national P&F president, said homework could trigger emotional and financial stress.

    "It can be quite stressful for some children who can't handle it," she said.

    "The parent is saying I'm too busy to help. The child is feeling pressure."

    "She said teachers normally set one task for their class, which did not take into consideration a student's abilities.

    "Ms Branch said parents regularly raised the topic and last week one had needed to connect to the internet so their child could do homework.

    "She's having to spend almost $60 a month," she said. "We have been talking about this at a national level."

    "Mr Bartlett said individual school communities decided the amount and content of homework.

    "Personally, though, I am convinced there is ample time after school for children to find time for both exercise and homework," he said.

    "Homework is part of the discipline of learning."

    "Ms Walker said the amount of homework handed out each week varied enormously between schools."
    
    From The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Education expert backs push for unified system
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "The former NSW director-general of education Ken Boston has urged Australia to back a national curriculum, after his involvement in two failed attempts to make the system work.

    "I think it is a big step forward, and it should have happened 20 years ago," Dr Boston said.

    "There is no doubt the children need it and the economy needs it.

    "There is already a great deal of commonality between the states when you look at maths and science."

    "Dr Boston, who left NSW in 2002 to become the chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in Britain, said a national curriculum was working well there.

    "An impassioned supporter of the public school system, he is supporting the call of the federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, and the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, for a national description of curriculum content and standards.

    "Dr Boston chaired committees that oversaw two attempts to develop a national curriculum in Australia under strategies named the Hobart declaration of 1989 and the Adelaide declaration of 1994.

    "We were trying to sort out what every young Australian should know and understand," he said. "We reached agreement at a system level, but it foundered because of a lack of political will."

    "Dr Boston said that it was significant that the two biggest parties in federal politics now supported a national curriculum. "I hope they pull it off this time," he said. But if the states failed to agree, "we might find it foundering for a third time".

    "With families and children moving from state to state, a small country like Australia, with its population of 20 million, should embrace a national curriculum, which had worked well in Britain, with more than three times the population.

    "There is a great deal of commonality between the states when you look at maths and science," Dr Boston said.

    "We need to be specific about what children should read.

    "My view is there should be a canon of literature including Australian poets and authors, traditional English works and contemporary literature from Asia and the United States."

    "Dr Boston said that science and maths graduates should be paid market rates to attract them to teaching and tackle the growing shortages in the profession. [emphasis added]

    "NSW and Queensland are among states that are resistant to a national curriculum, because they believe it would compromise the high standards they have established.

    "The NSW Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, has said she is wary of any national move that could compromise the rigour of the internationally recognised NSW Higher School Certificate.

    "The headmistress of SCEGGS Darlinghurst, Jenny Allum, is among NSW educators opposed to a national curriculum. Ms Allum, who previously has worked for the NSW Board of Studies, believes that it would compromise NSW standards.

    "She disagreed that Australia's relatively small population made it a practical proposal. Rather, the country's vast geography and entrenched state-based curriculums made it highly impractical."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    

    • Statistics show too much is expected of teachers

      "Thank you for publishing Dale Spender's article defending teachers ("Now the class scapegoat is the teacher", March 10-11). I'd love to see some politicians coping with 30 14-year-olds for an hour, although the politicians wouldn't last that long.

      "A great deal of research indicates that the largest group of people who can work effectively together is about 15, but we expect teachers somehow to cope with twice that number; then they are supposed to teach everything from grammar to morality, while responding to the learning and emotional needs of every individual."

      Michael Bailey, Uki
      
      
      

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Employers warn on VCE maths drop-off
    by Chee Chee Leung
    
    "VCE enrolments in higher-level mathematics have fallen by up to 14 per cent over the past five years, prompting industry to predict a worsening of the skills shortage in fields such as science and engineering.

    "Academics have also warned that a continued slide in students choosing the more advanced subjects — specialist maths and maths methods — could result in a "dumbing down" of university courses.

    "Former maths lecturer Frank Barrington, who wrote a report on year 12 maths participation for the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute last year, said: "Tertiary institutions adjust their entry requirements to match the available students, and eventually there's pressure to make degrees less technical and easier, given the average intake." ...
    
    "The Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the decrease in students taking the more advanced maths was affecting members. "Employers have been reporting that many young graduates or school leavers don't have the employability skills they require," said a senior policy adviser, Andrew Rimington. "That means having to source professional, qualified people from overseas." ...
    
    "Professor Hyam Rubinstein, chairman of the national committee for mathematical sciences at the Australian Academy of Science, said the decline in higher-level maths at school was linked with a "crisis" in the availability of qualified maths teachers."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Schools under siege
    
    Terrified students and teachers at government schools across NSW are under attack by intruders at a rate of more than one playground invasion a day. [See following Editorial on this story.]
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    We shouldn't need to fence kids in
    
    "Parents rightly expect that when they drop their children at school of a morning, they will be safe.
    This is a primary responsibility of state governments. And it is one the public has every right to assume will be taken seriously.

    "But Premier Morris Iemma's claims that our schools are safer than any in the country is nothing but a hollow untruth.

    "The Daily Telegraph reveals that a violent incident occurs in at least one NSW school every day. This is not only unacceptable, it is alarming..."
    
    "But just as alarming is the Government's attempts to keep these statistics secret.

    "Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt said yesterday crime statistics and academic research showed serious violence was rare in schools.

    "This is also a blatant untruth.

    "If it was rare, then why has the Government been forced to spend millions of dollars building large steel fences around hundreds of schools, installing elaborate security and putting principals through crisis management courses?

    "There is something drastically wrong when children are being locked away behind wired fences to keep them safe from intruders.
    
    "Ms Tebbutt must front today – election campaign or not – and explain to parents why they should not be deeply concerned.

    "More importantly she must explain why this is happening and what the Government is going to do about it."
    
    Full Editorial in The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
    
    
    

• The Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • First-time teachers older
    
    A new generation of mature-age teachers is entering Queensland classrooms pushing the average age of first-time teachers last year to 32½.
    
    [See following Editorial on this story.]
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Older heads welcome
    
    "After years of concern about falling entry OP scores for teaching degrees, the trend of more mature, well-qualified individuals with years of work and life experience behind them entering the profession is good news.

    "This is why the average age of teachers being registered for the first time in Queensland has risen to 32½, and school principals across the state and private sector are attesting to the quality of this new generation of teachers.

    "It takes real commitment to return to study, and pay the fees involved, after years in the workforce, and this is what thousands of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s are doing.

    "While there will always be a place for the bright, enthusiastic school leaver who has his or her heart set on teaching as a lifetime vocation, the more mature entrants are enriching the mix in a profession in which Australia, like the rest of the world, has suffered severe shortages for years."
    
    From The Brisbane Courier Mail at link
    
    
    

Tuesday 13 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • School flies teacher in and out to fill shortage (front page)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "WA's teacher shortage has deepened with a Port Hedland high school using fly-in, fly-out teachers, while students at other country schools are being forced to study subjects such as English and Maths by correspondence.

    "A team of Science teachers is flying in and out of Hedland Senior High School on a fortnightly roster to help supervise 440 Year 8, 9 and 10 students who are studying Science through correspondence because there are not enough full-time teachers available.

    "But the Education Department denied the arrangements constituted a fly-in, fly-out service, arguing it was normal for staff to return to work when arriving in Perth.

    "Fly-in, fly-out is the mining experience of putting staff in for two weeks, for example, then flying them home for a week on an ongoing basis," acting schools deputy director-general Keith Newton said yesterday. "It is normal practice for teachers from Schools of Isolated and Distance Education to visit students regularly to check on their progress and, in the case of Hedland SHS, to discuss any issues with the teachers supervising the lessons and develop course materials. The same teachers are not sent up each time."

    "Hedland school council chairman Rob Fry said the teachers were operating on a fly-in, fly-out arrangement. "I don't know what else you can call it," he said.

    "State School Teachers' Union president Mike Keely said it was clearly fly-in, fly-out. He said it was "intolerable" that so many students were studying through distance education.

    "Geraldton Senior College last week gave up waiting for another English teacher and started offering the subject by correspondence.

    "State schools started the year with a shortfall of 264 teachers. By the end of last week there was still a deficit of 63 teachers, including 53 high school and 10 primary school teachers"
    

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • More SIDE appointments made to deal with regional teacher shortage

    "More teachers have been employed at the Schools of Isolated Distance Education (SIDE) in Perth to cope with the ongoing shortage in regional areas.

    "Five English classes are being taught through SIDE at Geraldton Senior College - the entire science program for 400 students in years eight, nine and 10 at the Hedland Senior High School is being conducted by SIDE and maths classes at Jerramungup are also being taught from Perth.

    "While it is considered appropriate for more specialised classes in regional areas to be conducted through the SIDE system, education staff are concerned at the need to offer classes in mainstream subjects.

    "The director of isolated and distance education, Jan Little, says she has had to employ about 12 extra staff to cope with the demand on the department.

    "It's meant that we've had to recruit some extra staff. It's much easier to do in the city of course which, as you know, is a big issue for our system but, yes, we've had ... to get some extra stuff printed off and extra materials despatched out, so there's been those sort of impacts," she said."
    

    From ABC News online at link
    
    
    
    
• CNN
  
  
  • MIT to offer its courses free online by year end
    
    Boston, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will become by year's end the first U.S. university to offer all of its roughly 1,800 courses free on the Internet, a school official said on Friday.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Teaching framework 'won't lift standards'
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "A national system to recognise accredited teaching courses drafted by the states and territories is flawed and will only approve existing courses rather than improve the quality of teacher education.
    
    "The independent body Teaching Australia, established by the federal Government to improve the quality and professionalism of teachers, argues that accreditation needs to be conducted against a set of nationally consistent standards.

    "The state and territory teacher registration boards have agreed on a framework for recognising approved teacher courses that will specify common elements, including standards of literacy and numeracy that teacher graduates must meet.

    "The Australasian Forum of Teacher Registration and Accreditation Authorities will specify the content to be taught as well as a minimum amount of practical classroom experience.

    "But Teaching Australia chief executive Fran Hinton said the framework was essentially mutual recognition of existing programs rather than national accreditation.

    "It's a useful step but not enough," she said. "Teaching Australia is interested in a rigorous consistent national accreditation system focused on quality improvement."

    "Teaching Australia will hold a forum later this month to consult on national accreditation. It is proposing a system with levels of accreditation measured against standards of what graduates should be able to do and what should be taught in teacher courses. It believes the AFTRAA proposal does not satisfy the requirements of national accreditation because the states and territories will still conduct their own approval processes.

    "National accreditation is intended to raise the standard of teaching, but research shows the academic calibre of teachers has fallen over the past two decades.

    "Tertiary entrance scores into education degrees this year were generally about 10 points lower than more popular courses such as commerce, law, medicine and international studies.

    "At the University of NSW, the score to enter an arts/education degree was 80 compared to 93 for international studies or 95 for commerce. At Monash University in Melbourne and Queensland University of Technology the differences were similar.

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop said entrance scores varied by demand but universities had a responsibility to ensure students accepted into a course had a reasonable prospect of completing their degree."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Your Say
    Making the grade
    
    "Teaching is one of the last professions in Australia to implement national accreditation of the courses that educate its members, writes education reporter Justine Ferrari.

    "Only three states, NSW, Victoria and Queensland, have legislation requiring a formal approval process and the method by which the courses are judged vary widely across the nation.

    "The teacher registration boards across the nation have now agreed on a framework to recognise accredited courses in the states and territories based on a common set of specified standards.

    "The agreement by the Australasian Forum of Teacher Registration and Accreditation Authorities will not only make it easier for teachers to work interstate, but also attempts to ensure a common standard of teacher education.

    "The only criticism might be why has it taken so long?"
    
    Readers' Comments on yesterday's article in The Australian at this link [33 so far]
    

    • I especially liked:
      

      "I am a student teacher currently doing my final year at uni. In my opinion, the worst thing that ever happened to teacher education was taking it away from dedicated teacher training colleges and making it a university qualification. We are not taught subject content or behaviour management skills.
      
      "The main focus is on theories behind education and educational psychology, and this is entwined in all this academic garbage that is just ridiculous and so far removed from reality to be downright offensive.
      
      "If I were to study maths and science, and refuse a job teaching history, my name goes to the bottom of the pile and I get penalised. We are told to take what we get offered no matter what the subject; and it’s the teachers fault! Look to the dictators in the state education departments who place teachers in these mismatched areas..."

      JJ of Brisbane
      
      
      "Who would want to be a teacher, nowadays, when every man and his dog thinks they know how to do your job better than you can ... and are encouraged to say so? No wonder education is torn in so many competing directions, few of which appear to benefit students or their teachers.

      "Sadly, nothing will really change for the better until teaching is made attractive enough to draw the very best applicants away from other careers, which offer so much more in terms of status, remuneration and career structure. Even nationally accredited teacher training courses cannot make silk purses out of sow’s ears!"

      Irene Buckler of Glenwood
      
      
      "There is little need for critical skills to teach brain dead political indoctrination in State schools; “four legs good, two legs bad” is about the standard required.

      "The teachers union has set an agenda of no discipline; no responsibility, no accountability, leading to no hope; and state government have given into them. A jobless graduate on benefits is probably a locked in labor voter seeking their “just entitlements”; and thus the goal..."
      
      exchalkie of Sydney
      
      
      

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    • Children are poorly served by ill-trained teachers
      
      "When I was teaching history at a South Australian university in 1974, an Australian-born mature-age part-time student submitted to me for assessment a 1000-word tutorial paper that contained 49 spelling mistakes. What most distressed me was the discovery that for eight years he had been a full-time teacher in a state primary school. Far too many children have been poorly served by teachers of that ilk.

      "Seven years later, seated next to the state’s Director of Education at a public function, I mentioned to him that I’d found that, in a class of 106 first-year undergraduates, the written work of two-fifths of them indicated that they believed that, to make any noun plural, one added an apostrophe and an “s”. I added that when I had endeavoured to explain to each of those 43 individuals the difference between plurals and possessives, they had no idea of what I was talking about. The director refused to believe me. When I pressed the point, it became clear that he did not want to know about it.

      "While the present state of affairs is considerably better, it’s good to learn that the Australasian Forum of Teacher Registration and Accreditation Authorities recognises that there is still room for improvement ("National standard for new teachers”, 12/3)."
      
      Peter Howell, Norwood, SA
      
      

    • "The proposal for uniformity of literacy and numeracy standards as well as content in teacher training courses will further compound the teacher training mess that currently exists should the states and territories become involved.

      "Let’s first approach the training of maths and science teachers. What’s wrong with the time-tested method of having a person gain a degree in maths or science first and then a year obtaining a diploma in education? Such teachers will know much more maths/science than in the syllabus they are required to teach. These teachers are usually confident in teaching maths/science and will inspire and encourage students to pursue a career in science.

      "The university course itself sets the standard in maths/science, and such teachers are aptly trained for inter-school and inter-state transfers. To train maths/science teachers through specific accredited maths/science courses, as suggested (often fraught with differing standards), is a back-door approach. Such teachers cannot compete with the maths/science graduates and can, at best, be teachers at primary and lower high school level."
      
      Joseph Buttery, Tennyson, SA
      
      
      

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Julie Bishop gets an F for fairness
    by Julie Szego
    
    "Over the past generation there has been too great an emphasis on teaching young people their rights, to the detriment of teaching them about their responsibilities, bemoaned federal Education Minister Julie Bishop last November. And yet her own actions suggest she is all too susceptible to this insidious fad. This minister milks her right to persistently trash public schools, to the detriment of her responsibilities to those schools. She is obliged to ensure all Australians can access a high-quality education, unless I'm missing something major here.

    "That's the problem with the Howard Government - you can't always take the portfolios at face value. The former de facto minister for multiculturalism, Andrew Robb, had great trouble uttering the M word; at least now the Government has been honest enough to scrap the term entirely. Maybe it ought similarly to drop the pretence with Bishop's portfolio and preface "education" with "private", to avoid any further confusion.

    "As a new set of statistics last week confirmed the drift towards independent schools, Bishop responded by bashing the states for running a second-rate system. "Parents are choosing to pay school fees at non-government schools because of the quality of education provided," she said.

    "Let me get my head around this. Bishop squanders precious funds, needed to help struggling schools lift their game, on some of the nation's wealthiest private schools. This helps wealthier schools offer yet more inducements for spooked middle-class parents to opt out of the state system, thereby further damaging morale and outcomes in that system, and so on. Then Bishop points the finger at state governments for running down state schools, as if she were merely a detached observer.

    "With the funding fiasco comes a relentless campaign of vilification against public schools, which descends into the abstract and symbolic. This is pretty clever because if you make allegations that by their nature can't be proved, it follows they also can't be disproved.

    "We're also told parents flock to private schools because these schools teach "values". That's a foggy sentiment, although we have come to understand this probably means Christian values (why else is the Government thrusting chaplains on public schools when welfare officers would suffice?) and, in keeping with Bishop's latest comment about parents "choosing" to pay for "quality" education, the value of a dollar. Or in the case of an establishment such as Melbourne Grammar, whose principal, Paul Sheehan, recently warned parents against settling for the nearest state primary school, it's a modest $15,000 for your child's first year.

    "Again, Bishop incites parents to shun public schools; who wants to be seen as the kind of parent who short-changes their children and abandons them to the morality of Mao? She then uses the resulting exodus as a measure of dissatisfaction with the public system. These are all statements of the bleeding obvious - yet astonishing nonetheless.

    "It is especially astonishing when you consider that "secular" and "free" - the attributes under attack, explicitly or implicitly - also happen to constitute the philosophical foundations of public education. All of which suggests it is the system itself that troubles the Government, not simply its performance. If that is indeed the case, it leaves the Government two choices. The first is to commit political suicide in brazenly arguing for a user-pays approach to learning, with a gradual shift to full privatisation. The second is to accept that most people still regard first-class universal education as the mark of a civilised and all-round clever nation and start showing some genuine commitment to the cause. At the very least, the reckless sabotage ought to stop.

    "None of this is intended to let the states off the hook. They should push unions to accept performance-based pay as soon as possible and boost their own investment accordingly. Good teachers should have long-term incentives to stay in classrooms, bad teachers ought to be sacked more easily, failing schools must be closed if they can't be turned around, and so on. (The policymakers can ensure all of the above is implemented fairly and sensitively.) Federal Labor is also finally making the right noises about performance-based pay and now echoing the Liberals' call for a national curriculum.

    "I wouldn't mind if the Victorian Government was also more aggressive in defending the honour of its schools. Why, for instance, do private school principals get referred to as "educators", but the title is rarely conferred on state school chiefs? How about the next time an outstanding principal from some struggle-town school retires, the education department sends out a press release trumpeting his/her achievements? After all, when you factor in the handicap, don't these principals merit a higher grading than their counterparts in the private sector?

    "It now seems to be routinely reported that Victorian Education Minister John Lenders sent his own children to private schools. One could excuse this somewhat distasteful violation of privacy if the same question was asked of his Liberal counterparts. This doesn't happen, of course. Conservatives are expected to turn their backs on the system, both personally and politically. When it comes to public education, failure starts at the top and we have tolerated this for far too long."

    From The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Scientist at Work: [Australian] Terrence Tao
    Journeys to the Distant Fields of Prime
    
    At age 7, Terence Tao was taking high school math classes. At 31, he is one of the world’s top mathematicians, tackling an unusually broad range of problems.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • All primary schools to teach foreign languages by 2010
    
    Every child in England will start learning a modern foreign language in primary school from the age of seven, the government announced today.
    
    Similar story in The Independent

 

Wednesday 14 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • How an F became a B in our schools [Front Page Headline]
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Students who scored as low as 49 per cent in a recent series of Statewide exams were deemed to have reached a highly desirable "achievement target" equivalent to a B-grade by the Education Department.

    "In another alarming insight into the standards now considered acceptable by education authorities, Year 9 students hit the so-called 2006 achievement target in writing with a score of 49 per cent, down from 54 per cent the previous year.

    "Students needed 53 per cent to hit the target in maths, down from the 56 per cent needed in 2005, 67 per cent in reading, down from 71, and 61 per cent in science, up from 58.

    "An achievement target is designed to challenge more academically gifted students and differs from a minimum benchmark, the lowest standard considered acceptable.

    "Of the Year 9 students who sat the tests, 14 per cent failed to achieve the minimum benchmarks in English and maths even though the score needed to achieve the basic pass for maths was 28 per cent. English is broken into reading which had a 39 per cent pass mark, and writing, with a 35 per cent pass mark. [That doesn't sound right: 35 % for minimum benchmark but only 49 % for 'challenging gifted students' - only a 14 % gap. Web]

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan revealed recently that more than half of the 16,000 Year 9 public school students who sat the tests last year failed to meet the achievement targets. But at the time he refused to reveal the scores required to hit those targets, despite claiming they were "challenging" and were considered the equivalent of a B grade or better.

    "Mr McGowan said just 45 per cent of Year 9 students achieved the target in maths and science, 47 per cent in reading and 51 per cent in writing. That was a drop of one per cent on the 2005 results across all subjects except writing, which improved by one per cent, despite the injection of extra resources into high schools aimed at boosting literacy and numeracy.

    "Education Department curriculum [lack of] standards executive director Chris Cook said the scores needed to hit achievement targets changes from year to year according to the difficulty of the tests. "If there are a higher number of difficult items then the percentage required... is lower," he said.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said those standards were unacceptable, while Melbourne education consultant Kevin Donnelly said he was concerned that WA set the benchmark so low that many students would stumble over them. "The reality in WA is that a lot of kids are going into secondary schools unable to read, write or add up," he said.

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • School cleaners strike pay deal (page 17)
    by Kim MacDonald
    
    "A strike by cleaners and gardeners which could have led to mass school closures has been averted after the workers reached an 11th-hour pay deal with the State Government yesterday.

    "The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union and the Government agreed on a deal to give school cleaners and gardeners the same rate of pay as their public sector counterparts.

    "The first major pay negotiation by new Employment Protection Minister Michelle Roberts, which ends 14 months of heated negotiations, will give the workers a 12.5 per cent pay rise over three years, plus an extra $53.75 a week. This equates to an extra $2 to $4 an hour, up from current rates of as low as $14 an hour for junior workers.

    "About 2000 workers, including education assistants in the same union will get only 12.5 per cent extra over the same period, which will be paid retrospectively from January 1 this year.

    "LHMU secretary Dave Kelly predicted last week schools would get so dirty they would be forced to send students home within a week, after the workers threatened to stop cleaning classrooms.

    "Mr Kelly said he was pleased industrial action had been averted. The deal would be put to a vote soon.

    “All our members have been asking for is to be treated equally and receive the same pay for the same work as their colleagues in other government departments,” Mr Kelly said.

    “In the deal negotiated with the new Minister Michelle Roberts it has been agreed that the request is fair and reasonable and the Government will pay these workers what they are entitled to.”

    "Mrs Roberts said the workers were particularly vulnerable, with the work pool consisting predominantly of women who were single parents and sole income earners for their families.

    “This will mean that some of the State’s lowestpaid workers will be paid the same as their counterparts, such as those in the State’s public hospitals,” Mrs Roberts said. “Today’s outcome demonstrates the State Government’s commitment to looking after and protecting some of our most vulnerable workers and providing them with equitable pay.”

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Uni students struggle to stay out of poverty
    
    When students are struggling to scrape together enough money for food, attending lectures and passing exams becomes doubly difficult.
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Teacher shortage ignored by govts, union says

    "Western Australia's State School Teachers Union says Australia soon faces the prospect of a teacher shortage in the tens of thousands and nothing is being done about it.

    "Earlier this week it was revealed students at some regional schools are being taught by distance education and there are still about 60 teaching positions vacant around the state.

    "The union's president, Mike Keely, says state and federal governments have known about the problem for years and done nothing.

    " 'Twenty to thirty thousand teachers short in Australia by 2010' said the Ministerial Council in 2003 and what has the Federal Government done? What have the state governments done? You tell me," he said.

    "Mr Keely says a long term plan is needed to improve the reputation of teachers and attract people into the profession.

    "Mr Keely also says better incentives and job security are needed to encourage teachers to travel to regional areas."
    

    From ABC News Online at link
    
    
    
  • WA Liberals play down reports of push to dump Omodei
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Higher Education Supplement has 17 articles today, including:
    
    
    • Plan must also look out of school
      Some students will still struggle under a national curriculum, writes Malcolm Skilbeck
      
      "It is highly likely that whichever party is in office in 2008, implementing a national curriculum agenda will be a priority. There will be implications for tertiary institutions.
      
      "By far the most important has to do with the education of teachers and the array of professionals responsible for such crucial services as health, social welfare, psychology, community building and maintenance, employment and family support. Curiously, practically nothing has been said about how professional capability is to be targeted as part of the strategy, other than criticisms of teacher skills from one side and advocacy of performance pay from both sides.

      "A syllabus, whether for a single course in an institution or a whole national system of schooling, is no more than a plan or design for teaching. Learning standards are no more than tasks to be performed and targets to be reached. Tests and assessments measure what has - or has not - been learned. Their effect on what is learned in schools depends on the capability and commitments of teachers or, more broadly, the whole instructional regime and on the actual engagement of learners..."
      
      "Little has been said about how, through homogenised syllabuses and standardised tests, we are to sustain the diversity, creativity and imaginative experimentation that are the bedrock of innovation. Nor is it clear how account is to be taken of the diversity of the student population: ability, aptitude, interest, home circumstances and cultural background.

      "And what of students who don't reach national performance targets? Do we revert to the discredited system of repeating the grade?" ... [emphasis added]
      
      Full story in The Australian's Higher Education Supplement at link
      
      
      
      

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • The "Monday Education Supplement" [finally updated] has 11 articles, including:
    
    
    • YALP for help in the classroom
      
      A remedial learning program from Israel helps local students, writes Annabel Stafford.
      
      
      
    • Party slams teacher pay plan
      by Farrah Tomazin
      
      "Federal Labor is set to face internal dissent for its "in principle" support of performance pay for teachers after rank-and-file members of the Victorian ALP passed an urgency motion declaring the system unfair, inefficient and anti-labour.

      "At the State Labor conference, the Labor Party faithful hit out at the Howard Government's plans to introduce performance-based pay in public schools, accusing Canberra of targeting teachers as part of a "culture wars campaign" in the lead-up to this year's election.

      "State conference declares that the concept of individualised performance pay is anti-labour in spirit and effect, is unfair, is inefficient, and would compromise the teamwork and collegiality so necessary to create the most effective learning environment for our children," the motion said.

      "The motion was a direct attack on Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, who is threatening to withhold funding from the states unless they sign up to a new system of merit-based pay.

      "But Federal Labor has also declared its in-principle support for performance pay, provided the measures used to assess teachers are rigorous and fair. Hawthorn ALP branch secretary Ian Hundley - who moved the conference motion - said many party members would be opposed to Labor backing performance-based pay.

      "Asked if his position was at odds with the motion passed by Labor's rank-and-file at the conference this month, Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith said he was pushing for a more comprehensive strategy to reward teachers than the "flawed and far too narrow approach" of the Federal Government."
      
      From The Melbourne Age at link
      
      
      

    • Threat to national curriculum plan
      
      A Labor proposal could get "bogged down" in state parochialism. Caroline Milburn reports.
      
      "Labor's plan for a national curriculum was in danger of being derailed by the force it aimed to defeat - state parochialism - a leading historian has warned.

      "Dr John Hirst, who headed the Commonwealth Government's initiative to embed civics education in schools, said federal Labor's plan to introduce a national curriculum from kindergarten to year 12 was an impressive document.

      "But its proposal to set up a National Curriculum Board, made up of state and territory government representatives as well as nominees from the Catholic and independent school sectors, was likely to get bogged down in parochial argument.

      "It's a dangerous formulation," Dr Hirst said. "If you take people from existing state bureaucracies there will be a natural tendency for them to defend and argue for their own approaches. Instead you want people who are in touch with all sectors, who know what is happening in schools and who can put a bit of distance between existing practices and start again."

      "Under the Labor plan a nationally consistent syllabus in the core subject areas of maths, English, science and history would be introduced for all Australian children within three years if the ALP wins the election.

      "The National Curriculum Board would develop the syllabus and be led by an eminent education expert appointed by the Commonwealth. The 21-page policy outlining the plan said too many of the different state and territory curriculum documents used for schools were vague and unclear about student knowledge and skills. Currently 34 separate organisations and several national groups and research associations contribute to the development of curricula.

      "Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said the national curriculum should be concise and written in plain English for teachers, parents and students to understand. He flagged a more rigorous approach to standards and subject knowledge, saying younger students would be required to understand basic grammar and meet consistent spelling competency levels.

      "Dr Hirst said the document, New Directions for Our Schools, was right to emphasise a balance between knowledge and skills. "Most of the state curriculums, especially in the humanities and social sciences, have become too scatty and bitty because the emphasis has moved too much towards skills and content has been left vague and open. This document redresses that move."

      "Labor's proposal means a national curriculum is virtually inevitable. Last year the federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, said the introduction of a national curriculum was one of the Government's priorities.

      "Australia is one of the few developed countries in the world that does not have a national curriculum.

      "Professor Geoff Masters, chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research, said the current arrangement of each state being responsible for the development of curriculum created unnecessary duplication of effort and differences in core subject matter. It meant smaller states and territories also had trouble developing high-quality curriculums because they lacked the resources to do it.

      "It cannot possibly be the case that we need a different year 6 maths syllabus in South Australia than what we have in Victoria," said Professor Masters, co-author of a study released last month on the content and standards of year 12 subjects taught nationwide. "And then in some year 12 subjects . . . almost all the subject matter is common across the whole country. So we have seven different governments busily developing the same syllabuses seven times over in these subjects with different types of assessment and reporting of the results."

      "Professor Lyn Yates, foundation professor of curriculum at Melbourne University's department of education, said the national plan sensibly allowed scope for local variations to the curriculum. However, its suggestion that curriculum differences could be one of the reasons for state differences in student results had not been proven.

      "It's been well established that social inequality lies behind a lot of the issues around student performance," Professor Yates said."
      
      From The Melbourne Age at link
      
      
      

    • The awful truth about HECS
      
      A world comparison shows Peter Costello's one-liners on university fees are clever but off the mark.
      
      
      
      
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Go to the back of the class, minister
      
      "Julie Szego (Opinion, 13/3) deserves an A+ for her incisive denouncement of the Howard Government's deplorable assault on Australia's "secular and free" public education system. She also gets a kookaburra stamp for correctly describing the techniques used to destroy this once universally admired institution.

      "Julie Bishop, however, will be suspended indefinitely for her difficulty with understanding the conceptual difference between rights and responsibilities, exacerbated by her inability to use basic arithmetic in working out where the greatest funding needs are."
      
      Astrid Sweres, Box Hill North
      
      

    • Pay and divide
      
      "No, Julie Szego, politicians see performance pay as another way of dividing the teaching profession. At the same time, they can reduce the salary bill because it is cheaper to pay some teachers less than give everyone what they deserve.

      "In a profession that both relies on and requires teamwork, it is far better to set professional standards and to offer more opportunities for promotion for all teachers than to become involved in divisive management policies that deter teamwork and discriminate against sections of your workforce."
      
      David E. Spratt, Burwood
      
      
      

      
      
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • 'No Child' Target Is Called Out of Reach
    by Amit R. Paley
    
    Goal of 100% Proficiency Debated as Congress Weighs Renewal
    
    "No Child Left Behind, the landmark federal education law, sets a lofty standard: that all students tested in reading and math will reach grade level by 2014. Even when the law was enacted five years ago, almost no one believed that standard was realistic.

    "But now, as Congress begins to debate renewing the law, lawmakers and education officials are confronting the reality of the approaching deadline and the difficult political choice between sticking with the vision of universal proficiency or backing away from it.

    "There is a zero percent chance that we will ever reach a 100 percent target," said Robert L. Linn, co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA. "But because the title of the law is so rhetorically brilliant, politicians are afraid to change this completely unrealistic standard. They don't want to be accused of leaving some children behind." ...
    
    "Foes and supporters alike praise the law for drawing attention to student achievement gaps. The law requires testing for all students in reading and math from grades 3 through 8 and once in high school; it also requires reporting of scores for groups of students including racial and ethnic minorities, those from low-income families, those with limited English skills and those with disabilities who receive special education.

    "But testing experts say there are vast academic differences among children of the same racial or socioeconomic background. Countries with far less racial diversity than the United States still find wide variations in student performance. Even in relatively homogenous Singapore, for example, a world leader in science and math tests, a quarter of the students tested are not proficient in math, and 49 percent fall short in science..."
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    

• The Times
  
  
  • Nursery teachers are told they must monitor babies’ babble
    
    Nurseries and childminders will be required to monitor the babbling of babies to check their development under a new curriculum for the underfives.
    
    Similar stories in The Guardian and The Independent
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Warning: no politics in the classroom [13 March late update]
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Teachers have been warned against discussing politics with students before the state election.
    
    "The state's director general of education, Andrew Cappie-Wood, has sent a reminder memo to school principals warning them against the distribution of overtly political material. He said discussion of controversial issues was only acceptable when it served an educational purpose.

    "Material of an overtly political nature or which is considered by the principal to be inconsistent with the values of public education or the school's purpose and goals must not be distributed on the school site." Concerns have been raised about leaflets critical of the Federal Government's industrial relations changes.

    "Dr Cappie-Wood said schools were neutral and should not be used as arenas for discussing opposing politics.

    "The Greens candidate and spokesman on education, John Kaye, accused the State Government of double standards, pointing to a pamphlet distributed by the NSW Catholic Education Commission that criticises the Greens' education policy.

    "The policy suggests reducing NSW grants for Catholic schools and freezing them at the 2003 level. The pamphlet, authorised by the commission and the Council of Catholic School Parents, points out that the policy "would severely affect the funding and operation of Catholic schools".

    "On the one hand the minister's department is busy telling public school teachers to keep politics out of schools. On the other hand, the minister has turned a blind eye to the outrageous behaviour of the NSW Catholic Education Commission when it sent children in Catholic schools home with a leaflet blatantly attacking the Greens.

    "Dr Brian Croke from the NSW Catholic Education Commission said its responsibility was to inform staff and parents about policies that would affect them."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link

 

Thursday 15 March

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Call for homework debate [from 14 March]
    by Philippa Duncan
    
    "A private education leader has called for a wider debate about homework, suggesting a ban on study at weekends and more time for students to do the work.

    "Catholic Education director Dan White said some students with heavy sporting commitments or parents working shifts found overnight homework almost impossible to complete.

    "He also said homework should be avoided at weekends, especially for primary school children.

    "Regrettably, in some families, weekends are now often the only time where children and their parents can spend large amounts of time together," Dr White said.

    "This could mean that weekends need to be a `no go' time, except in the more senior years.

    "Most Catholic schools would have a policy of avoiding homework on weekends."

    "Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends president Jenny Branch this week called for a homework ban in public schools, sparking furious debate.

    "Education Minister David Bartlett rejected the proposal as "ludicrous" and "out of touch".

    "But the call did win support from Melbourne adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, who agreed there was no evidence homework in primary and middle school had academic benefit.

    "Dr White yesterday endorsed Mr Bartlett's support of homework, saying students needed to learn at home if Tasmanian schools were to remain competitive.

    "But I would recommend that schools provide homework with longer timeframes and in tune with modern family life," he said.

    "Done properly, this can also help students develop the time management skills that are so necessary in today's world."

    "Dr White said parents could track their child's progress through homework.

    "It's useful for parents to see how their children are coping and what they are studying," he said.

    "Ms Branch argued there was no evidence that homework was beneficial and studying at home could be adding to the child obesity problem.

    "She also said homework could cause emotional and financial stresses in the home when parents were too busy to help or felt they needed to get the internet connected.

    "Dr Carr-Gregg said he had surveyed 1400 children and 42 per cent had said their parents did their homework for them."
    
    From The Hobart Mercury at link

  
  
  
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers banned from giving kids sweet treats (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Teachers will be banned from rewarding students with lollies and parents' groups will be asked to swap chocolates for toilet rolls in their fundraising campaigns under strict new rules for school canteens.
    
    "The far-reaching demands that come into effect later this year will also force canteen operators to get approval from the WA School Canteen Association for any recipes they plan to use and will recommend that parents supply fruit muffins [What? Why not toilet rolls?   Web] rather than cakes to celebrate their children's birthdays..."
    
    [Perhaps we should just pass a law that states: "No enjoyment allowed west of the rabbit-proof fence", and be done with it.   Web]
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Catholics skip the grade
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Victoria's Catholic schools have changed the controversial new student reports after confusion over grading.
    
    "Up to 160,000 Catholic school students will now receive reports with grade descriptions such as "well above", "at" or "below" the standard expected next to subjects.

    "The State Government's A-to-E grading will be relegated to a legend at the bottom of the report.

    "The changes come after parents and teachers expressed confusion over the gradings.

    "Under the controversial model, students at the "expected standard" receive a C, while a pupil will have to work a year ahead to score an A.

    "The state's 490 Catholic schools were advised of the changes yesterday.

    "Catholic Education Office assistant director Debra Punton said the refinements were made after consultation with parents and teachers.

    "The feedback was that they were confused about the use of A to E, given their own experience," Ms Punton said.

    "She said students would receive a grade description and the corresponding A to E ranking would be in a legend at the bottom of reports..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    

  • University staff not qualified
    
    A major university [RMIT] has been caught using unqualified teachers in courses for which it charges more than $12,000.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Uni heads seek measures to ease student debt
    by Lisa Macnamara
    
    "University chiefs are demanding the Howard Government give students a dramatic increase as part of an overhaul of income support to ease the rising burden of debt being built up while earning tertiary degrees.
    
    "A 25 per cent boost to the Youth Allowance and free public transport are among the recommended responses to a report on student finances that revealed more students were skipping class to make ends meet. "We've put forward what we see to be sensible recommendations in the interests of students," Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee president Gerard Sutton said after a meeting of the AVCC in Sydney yesterday.

    "This would be expensive, but we're recommending it and we believe in it."

    "In another recommendation, the age at which students would be deemed as independent of their parents would be lowered from 25 to 18, enabling those still living at home to get the Youth Allowance.

    "And going into the election, we intend to push that strongly, because the age of independence at 25 years is counter to what anybody in our society would think is the age of independence and is simply a cost-saving measure," Professor Sutton said.

    "The AVCC report last week, based on a survey of almost 19,000 students, found those with access to Youth Allowance or Austudy had fallen by 6.4 per cent since 1998. It showed the average private debt at graduation was $25,000 on top of the HECS loans, with 24.4 per cent of undergraduates taking out a repayable loan for their studies - up from 10.7 per cent in 2000.

    "Free bus and train travel to and from university would be offered to students under the vice-chancellors' plan.

    "The going-to-uni transport pass would be limited for use during semester, in other words we're trying to line the university students up with the school students in terms of free travel, as opposed to concessional cover," Professor Sutton said.

    "Other measures to be put to Education Minister Julie Bishop include an extension to rent assistance, interest-free loans for study, special payments for indigenous students, and an increase in the number of tax-free government scholarships.

    "Ms Bishop said student support was being considered. "Levels of student support are under constant review, and the Government is already considering a range of issues in this area," her spokesman said.

    "Opposition counterpart Stephen Smith said the recommendations should be considered to improve university education.

    "While students must be willing to put in the hard yards to support themselves, there is a point when the financial and time pressures faced by students becomes simply too great," he said."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Melbourne Age
    
    
    

  • Unions funding 'sneaky' tactics
    
    Teachers and nurses unions are wasting their members' money by using it to fund "underhand tactics" to bolster Labor's NSW campaign, federal Employment Minister Joe Hockey has claimed.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Schools dudded of funds as Howard promise broken
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "The Federal Government has broken a 2004 election promise to public schools by cutting the amount of money it offered them for computers, air-conditioning, classrooms and playgrounds.

    "When the Government introduced the $1 billion Investing in Our Schools program, it said public schools could apply for up to $150,000 over the four-year term of the program. Now, that amount has been reduced by a third.

    "Many schools were shocked to learn of the change from the office of Pat Farmer, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Education or on the Department of Education website.

    "The website says the amount has been reduced to a maximum of $100,000 for government schools. Private schools can apply for an unchanged $75,000.

    "The Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, defended the move, saying the Government never intended to give all schools $150,000. She said an extra $181 million had been provided to the program and government schools that had received less than $100,000 would be helped.

    "It is a competitive grants process based on need, and in rounds 1, 2, and 3 schools could apply for up to a limit of $150,000. It was never intended, nor was there funding for, all schools to receive $150,000," she said.

    "However, in a letter to all principals, the former minister for education, Brendan Nelson, originally said the program - announced by the Prime Minister, John Howard during the 2004 campaign - would continue from 2005 to the end of 2008..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Canberra failing to regulate colleges: industry
    
    Australia's leading private education industry body has accused the Federal Government of failing to act against rogue colleges that rip off foreign students, out of fear of litigation.
    
    
    
    • Student hunger strike over treatment as 'cash cows'
      
      More than 60 overseas students went on hunger strike yesterday amid claims they would be forced to pay thousands of dollars extra to finish their degrees after being examined on material they were not taught.
      
      
      
      
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Dozens in GOP Turn Against Bush's Prized 'No Child' Act ['GOP' = 'Grand Old Party' {Republicans}]
    by Jonathan Weisman and Amit R. Paley
    
    "More than 50 GOP members of the House and Senate -- including the House's second-ranking Republican -- will introduce legislation today that could severely undercut President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, by allowing states to opt out of its testing mandates..."
    
    "Burson Snyder, a spokesman for [Republican House Minority Whip Roy] Blunt, said that after several meetings with school administrators and teachers in southwest Missouri, the House Republican leader turned against the measure he helped pass. Blunt was convinced that the burdens and red tape of the No Child Left Behind Act are unacceptably onerous, Snyder said.
    
    "Some Republicans said yesterday that a backlash against the law was inevitable. Many voters in affluent suburban and exurban districts -- GOP strongholds -- think their schools have been adversely affected by the law. Once-innovative public schools have increasingly become captive to federal testing mandates, jettisoning education programs not covered by those tests, siphoning funds from programs for the talented and gifted, and discouraging creativity, critics say..." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
    
• The Times
  
  
  • ‘Academies failing to improve basic skills’
    by Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent
    
    "The Government’s most senior education official last night admitted that he was “greatly concerned” about poor English and maths results in Tony Blair’s academy programme.

    "David Bell, permanent secretary to the Department for Education and Skills, told the allparty Public Accounts Committee, that academies’ peformance had to improve and that principals were more than aware of that.

    "While insisting that all schools in the Government’s ambitious reform programme are starting “from a low base”, he acknowledged that results for literacy and numeracy were low. “It does concern me greatly,” he told the MPs. “But it concerns the academies more, because getting the basics right is the foundation to success elsewhere.”

    "Seven years after the Government announced its ambition to turn around England’s failing schools, only a fifth of privately-sponsored academy pupils are achieving five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including maths and English."

    From The Times at link
    
    
    
    
  • Teachers at top private school vote to strike over colleague’s dismissal
    
    Teachers at an elite independent school have voted to strike after a colleague was dismissed over the school’s poor examination results. It is believed to be the first instance of a school publicly citing exam results as a reason for dismissing a member of its teaching staff.
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • Year 12 board seeks to suppress school marks [from 14 March]
    
    The state's examination board is attempting to suppress by law the Year 12 performances of individual schools. [See following editorial on this story.]
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Schools must be open to examination [from 14 March]
    
    The State Government must require the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia to release information about the performance of individual government schools.

 

Friday 16 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • New teachers not qualified for subjects (page 7)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "More than a quarter of the nation's new teachers are teaching subjects for which they are not properly qualified, a report to be released today will reveal..."
    
    "Teachers who responded to the survey also criticised universities, saying they were out of touch with classroom reality and pushing out graduates who were unprepared for the working environment..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    See detailed stories on this report in The Australian, The Melbourne Age and The Brisbane Courier Mail, below.
    
    
    
    
  • School bans students shouting classmates birthday cake (page 7)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "A Canning Vale school has barred parents from sending cakes to class to celebrate their children’s birthdays in response to stringent new guidelines on types of food allowed.
    
    "Campbell Primary School principal Peter Glendenning said the ban was imposed because eating cakes and lollies conflicted with the State Government’s new canteen regulations and because cutting and serving birthday cakes wasted class time.
    

    "Mother-of-seven Holly Brownless was disappointed that she was no longer allowed to send cup cakes or chocolate frogs to school for her children’s birthdays. “It’s one day a year, it’s not like it’s every month,” she said.
    
    "Kate Gorman, who has one child in pre-primary, said the ban would affect other activities such as cooking lessons or giving Easter eggs to friends.
    
    "Mr Glendenning said in one case chocolate-coated doughnuts covered in M&Ms were taken to school to be given to 24 children. The P&C agreed it was easier to ban cakes rather than determine what was appropriate. “We still celebrate children’s birthdays but we do it in other ways than using a birthday cake,” he said.
    
    "WA Canteen Association president Robin Bromley said while she wanted to encourage healthier cakes, birthday cakes were not banned.
    
    "Education Minister Mark Mc-Gowan said schools made such decisions with parents but he did not have a problem with children taking a cake.
    
    "WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said barring birthday cakes was “over the top” but it was up to individual schools."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    See The West's Editorial on this topic
    
    
    

  • Set up special Aboriginal schools ‘or build more jails’ (page 5)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The State Government’s special adviser on indigenous affairs believes the State’s one-size-fits-all education system is failing many Aboriginal children.
    
    "Former WA governor Lt-Gen. John Sanderson said the State had to invest in more special schools which would encourage Aboriginal children to embrace education otherwise it would end up building more prisons.
    

    "Lt-Gen. Sanderson, who the Government pays $200,000 a year to advise it on how to fix entrenched problems in Aboriginal communities, said WA had a responsibility to offer special education environments to Aboriginal children so they received hands-on attention, quality teachers and resources they deserved.
    
    "He said programs such as that operated at Clontarf Aboriginal College, which specialises in football, needed to be introduced on a wider scale. But he said there appeared to be some opposition in the community to giving “special consideration” to Aboriginal people.
    
    “You can’t just have an education system that’s based on one premise,” he said. “You’ve got to make special arrangements — otherwise the alternative is to build more prisons.
    
    “One of the big problems is a lot of these young kids are entering the education system without the fundamentals to be educated.
    
    “They don’t come from a family background where they have been equipped to go into the education system that we have created and participate with confidence.
    
    “They go into it and very quickly become really uncomfortable and then stop going.” ...

    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Nanny State laws stifle initiative and common sense (page 18)
    
    "City consultant Charles Landry was on the money when he described Perth as the city which says No – except he shouldn't have stopped at Perth. Throughout WA we are enveloped in a nanny State maze of rules and regulations which threaten us with dire consequences if we don't toe the line.
    
    "You ride a bicycle at your peril unless you're wearing a cycle helmet. You can't buy a glass of wine at your local cafe unless it has a liquor license, or shop at your usual supermarket on a Sunday. You can be fined for littering, for failing to stop at a stop sign in a deserted street of even for jaywalking..."
    
    "And the Government's blitz on junk food in school canteens has reached a pitch of absurdity when one headmaster announces a ban on birthday cakes..."
    
    "The Government's push to get junk food out of school canteens is a welcome step in the fight against child obesity. Even health-minded canteen operators would have an uphill battle to get children to buy salad rolls and fruit muffins if chocolates, chips and sausage rolls were also on the menu.
    
    "It makes sense for schools to reinforce the healthy eating message when the occasion arises in the classroom, and for teachers to be encouraged to reward good behaviour with treats other than chocolate frogs and sweets.
    
    "But clearly there is no harm in the odd chocolate frog, and it would be a sad day if children were forbidden to bring a cake to school to share with classmates on their birthday.
    
    "Though most restrictive laws are brought in with good intentions, our legislators should be wary of creating an over-regulated society where citizens are discouraged from making decisions and taking responsibility for their actions. The starting point should always be less regulation and more emphasis on courtesy, common sense and flexibility." [emphasis added]
    
    Full Editorial in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    When it’s untoward to be going forward
    by Pam Casellas
    
    “Going forward, at this point in time, if we are prepared to think outside the square, give 110 per cent, get all our ducks in a row, collapse the timetable and leverage our assets . . .” [OBE-speak personified !  Web]
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Unis failing to teach skills for classroom
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Universities are failing to prepare teaching students for the classroom, with a national survey showing a majority rate practical experience as more beneficial than their years of study.
    
    "A survey of more than 1300 new teachers in government, Catholic and independent schools has found 60 per cent rated schools as excellent or very good for equipping them with classroom skills compared with only 40 per cent rating universities as highly.

    "About one in eight said their university course was unsatisfactory in preparing them to teach literacy and numeracy and to manage classrooms effectively.

    "Almost one in three said it failed to prepare them to deal with bullying or disruptive students and dysfunctional families.

    "By comparison, about six in 10 new teachers rated as excellent or very good their school practical training for preparing them in the content of their speciality subjects and giving them strategies.

    "President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association Andrew Blair called for a national summit to examine the practical training of teachers, and to redesign the programs with more formal partnerships between schools and universities.

    "Mr Blair said one of the biggest problems with the practicum program was its poor resourcing, with universities less able to cover rising costs and schools reluctant to participate because of the disruption to the academic program and the pittance teachers were paid for their involvement.

    "There has to be more money on the table. These things are happening nationally and really need to be addressed at national level. These issues can't be resolved state by state," he said.

    "Mr Blair said one model found to be successful overseas was internships for the start of a teaching career, an idea supported by the president of the Association of Principals of Catholic Schools, Vincent Feeney.

    "Mr Feeney said the role of schools in training teachers had been "understated and underrated" and the structure and funding for practical training were inadequate.

    "In the early years of their career there needs to be a formal role for schools; it needs to be organised, structured and funded," he said.

    "We would have better teachers and better retention rates if we had an organised program for the early years of their career."

    "President of the Australian Primary Principals Association Leonie Trimper said beginning teachers felt the gap between theory and practice when moving from university lecture halls into school classrooms.

    "The survey found almost half chose teaching as a second career, but one in four of all new teachers became so dispirited by the job that they intended to quit within the next five years.

    "Part of the disenchantment concerned the workload and not feeling prepared for the job."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    See related articles in today's Melbourne Age; similar stories in other daily papers.
    
    The Brisbane Courier Mail has some interesting quotes from teachers, plus is the topic of their Editorial.
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Free-range children a product of family evolution
    by Klay Lamprell
    
    Parents shouldn't lay all the blame on unscrupulous marketers and the media for the rising sophistication of their tweens
    
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Given the right conditions, teachers will produce results
    
    The education system needs to be stable and uniform, writes Barry Duff.
    
    "On performance pay for teachers, the ALP and the Liberals are lined up as expected but on a national curriculum they have swapped sides from 15 years ago. Kevin Rudd is favour of a national curriculum, but is the ALP?

    "Here's how performance pay for teachers works. The principal frees time for two teachers to introduce a remedial program — although successful it is not continued the following year because the resources are needed for a new initiative to enable the principal to get the maximum bonus again.

    "A teacher is flayed by a parent because the child had much better results the previous year. Testing shows that the child does not know last year's work let alone this year's. How is that possible? Last year's teacher desperately needed good results for a maximum performance bonus (or simply to maintain a reputation) so if the test was "2 x 3 = ?" the "revision" was "3 x 2 = ?".

    "Farrah Tomazin (Opinion, 9/3) assumed "good teachers deserve better pay" and saw the main problem as measuring teachers' performances. She cited a study showing that "the pupils of teachers on a bonus scheme scored a half a grade higher". But how does this help the other pupils?

    "Incentives in a corporation enhance the bottom line if they improve most workers' performances even if the improvements vary from stellar to minimal.

    "But the goal should be to provide the best possible education to every child every year.

    "If performance pay does not help, what does? Above all we need a stable education system. Children are only 11 for one year and need to develop appropriately that year and every year.

    "We should not have schools run at the behest of a principal who may not sustain a good performance and eventually will leave the school subject to change by a new principal with different ideas and priorities.

    "We need calm in the classroom. Australian Education Union surveys in 2005 and 2006 found that the second top concern of teachers was behaviour management and that voters wanted greater disciplinary power for teachers. It's time to recognise that disruption of a class is a criminal activity quantifiable in terms of teacher time and school resources but not in terms of the damage to other students' education.

    "If parents are not ensuring that their children are educated for participation in our democracy and to contribute by working we, citizens, have the right to intervene. A full education requires young people to be "learning or earning (and learning)" to at least 21 years old. Britain and the United States have tough measures to ensure that young people are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

    "We need a culture of high expectation, and we should forget about whether students are interested and enjoying school — it's nice if they do but we expect them to do school work and home work not schoolfun and homefun. Both genius and freedom of speech require 99 per cent perspiration and only 1 per cent inspiration.

    "A national curriculum would allow curriculum developers and publishers to produce the highest quality materials — the whole of Australia is a small market. The idea that our states — accidents of our colonial history — are appropriate curriculum boundaries is simply nonsense. Why should Victoria develop Wodonga's curriculum and NSW Albury's.

    "The state ALP governments have been opposing a national curriculum — but it was they who instituted national curriculum statements via the Hobart Declaration in 1989. The state education ministers own the Curriculum Corporation but have left it to its own devices — they will dominate Kevin Rudd's promised National Curriculum Board, so don't hold your breath for results.

    "Tomazin finished with the telling comment: "This, however, is an election year." Isn't it time we stopped making decisions about our children's future (and our future in the long run) as promises in the heat of election campaigns? We need constitutional provisions for a two-thirds majority for any change to any education legislation and for any education budget. If they fail to reach agreement, funding would be increased automatically by inflation plus 5 per cent. With more power, stability in the system, high-quality curriculum materials and guaranteed funding we can expect our teachers to produce results."

    Dr Barry Duff has taught in government schools and in the faculty of education, University of Melbourne.
    

    From The Melbourne Age at link

• Heat on to improve uni training
  by Farrah Tomazin
  
  "The Federal Government is under renewed pressure to boost dramatically the quality of teacher training in universities after a damning study found more than one in four new teachers teach subjects for which they are not qualified.

"With education a political pressure point at this year's election, a nationwide survey of beginning teachers has found that many are unprepared to teach in schools because some education faculties are "out of touch" with classroom life.

"Twenty-seven per cent of teachers were teaching subjects beyond their expertise, mostly in areas such as English, maths and religious education, according to the survey. And a quarter were not planning to stay in the job for more than five years, because of frustration with workloads and a lack of long-term career incentives. Almost 1400 teachers from public, independent and Catholic schools were surveyed as part of the study, which was conducted by the Joint Principals' Associations — principal organisations representing each school sector. The report, to be released today, also found:

• Many new teachers felt under pressure to take on administrative roles in order to boost their careers, rather than improve their ability in the classroom.
  
  
• Obtaining full-time employment is a key problem with more than half of teachers surveyed on short-term contracts.
  
  
• Most teachers (86 per cent) only choose to work in urban areas — 55 per cent said they did not consider rural schools, and 80 per cent said they did not consider working in remote schools.
  
  
• Teachers generally feel overwhelmed by their workloads and the bureaucratic requirements of state education departments. [emphasis added]
  

"Principals have called on governments to boost resources in university education faculties and schools. Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair called for a national approach so that beginning teachers had greater support, mentoring and professional development.

"But although the survey has again placed the spotlight on the Federal Government's funding of universities, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop yesterday said it was up to the university deans of education to introduce urgent reforms to boost the quality of teacher training.

"It is disturbing that, after completing university degrees, starting teachers are reporting they feel untrained and unqualified to start teaching," she said.

"The Australian Council of Deans of Education hit back last night, with president Sue Willis saying that improving teaching quality was a mutual responsibility. "The minister is rather missing the point — accountability is always two ways. It's not possible to provide the highest quality without resources that are commensurate with that," Professor Willis said.

"The survey comes as Ms Bishop prepares to meet her state counterparts next month to discuss ways to improve teaching quality and attract more people to the profession. Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has also raised concerns about the quality of pre-service teacher training, and will challenge Prime Minister John Howard to tackle the issue at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting."

From The Melbourne Age at link




• Senator moots 'fat report card' for schools
  by Mark Coultan, New York, and Jill Stark
  
  [Senator Political Correctness Meets Ms Nanny State.  Web]
  
  "Children should have their weight recorded by schools and sent home to parents in "fat report cards" in an effort to win the fight against obesity, a Liberal senator says.

  "Speaking at a diabetes conference in New York yesterday, Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett said he was impressed by work in some US states to give parents reports on their child's body mass index — a measure of weight compared with height.

  "Barnett, who has type 1 diabetes, said he would support a similar move in Australia, subject to appropriate privacy measures.

  "We benchmark literacy and numeracy. Why shouldn't we benchmark a child's weight?" Senator Barnett, founder of the parliamentary diabetes support group, said at a Global Changing Diabetes Leadership Forum.

  "The conference was sponsored by diabetes drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk, who gave Senator Barnett $40,000 for a healthy lifestyle forum last year.

  "His plan to weigh Australian schoolchildren came after talks with presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who introduced data collection of children's body mass index. The results are reported to parents on a bar graph with a pointer indicating if the child is in the "normal", "at risk" or "overweight" range.

  "The report is considered only a screening test, with parents urged to consult a doctor if necessary. They are also advised on how to control weight through healthy eating, diet and exercise.

  "But Victorian obesity experts yesterday told The Age the plan was flawed. "World research shows that kids who are weighing themselves increase their chances of creating disordered eating, and in adolescents it can actually contributes to weight gain," said Dr Rick Kausman, a weight management expert."
  
  From The Melbourne Age at link
  
  
  

• Editorial
  Being ripped off is not an education
  
  "The international education market in Australia is worth $10 billion a year and is rising. In the past decade, student numbers from overseas have risen by 40 per cent to more than 350,000. As the level of students has increased, so too the number of providers. The Australian Council for Private Education and Training represents about 1100 private education operators, who alone have 250,000 students on their books.

"Australia has a strong and well-earned reputation for high educational standards. However, this reputation is at risk from a combination of greed, dodgy operators and an attitude whereby it is OK to feel good about the cash flow but not feel obliged to deal with proper regulation of the industry.

"In recent weeks The Age has reported on instances of foreign students being ripped off by private education providers. The scams involve students paying thousands of dollars for courses that do not exist, being told to take holidays during courses, being subjected to sub-standard teaching and having to use poor facilities. The Australian Crime Commission has been involved, too, recommending an investigation into one "rogue" college in Melbourne. Nothing was done about its accreditation for eight months until media scrutiny led to its deregistration.

"This is the danger when a cash cow becomes sacred, and that is how the flood of international students to Australia is now regarded. It is not only private education providers; universities, and even primary schools, look to overseas students for money. The Federal Government has encouraged this trend, but if the students are treated shabbily then in the long run the practice and philosophy behind it will be self-defeating. For who would come to this country to study if they suspected they would receive a lesson in being ripped off?"

From The Melbourne Age at link



• The Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • Editorial
    Let us teach
    
    "If parents are concerned about what and how our children are taught, the newly released Beginning Teacher Survey commissioned by the Australian Joint Principals Association will do little to ease their anxieties.
    
    "Rather, the responses of 1351 teachers from a variety of primary, secondary, government and non-government schools across Australia should alarm parents, state education departments and teacher-training universities.

    "Happily there are some gratifying findings. For example, 93 per cent of "beginning" teachers – those in their first three years of service – either "liked" or "loved" their choice of career.

    "This is a staggering proportion, given that almost half had entered teaching from other vocations including white-collar professions.

    "New teachers also offered praise for their students and school environments and 89 per cent described their level of collegial support as "good" or "excellent". But the survey's results soon become grim.

    "Despite their affection for their new-found career, almost a quarter of all beginning teachers believe they will leave the profession within the first five years.

    "Teachers offer myriad reasons for this.

    "One complaint is of paperwork and administration unnecessarily burdening new teachers – exacerbated by the reality that careers can only truly advance with the assumption of yet more administrative duties.

    "A related concern is the unreasonable bureaucratic demands state education authorities place on teachers, with many a practitioner pleading, "If only they would let me teach!"

    "But even this must pale to the anxieties created in the 27 per cent of new teachers required to teach outside their area of expertise – including in the core subjects of English and mathematics.

    "Underpinning each of these is beginning teachers' principal complaint that universities fail to prepare them for the grim realities and pressures of classroom teaching.

    "There is a fundamental disconnection between what universities cover in their degree programs and the real skills teachers need to survive at the "chalkface". [emphasis added]

    "Students complain that their programs are hollow – devoid of tangible skills in, for instance, behaviour management and instead gilded with nebulous "feelgood" courses focused more on pedagogic philosophy than on how to teach specific subject content.

    "This is not a new complaint, with such charges around since the 1970s when "alternative" teaching methods first became fashionable.

    "It is regrettable, however, that education authorities have for so long ignored what is clearly a universal concern.

    "As a matter of urgency, state governments must more accurately align teacher-training programs with the needs and wants of beginning teachers.

    "To lose qualified teachers from the profession for want of better training is not just the loss of a past resource.

    "It also undermines our most precious future resource: our children."

    From The Brisbane Courier Mail at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Wasteful universities claim sparks furious response
    by Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter
    
    "The federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, has offered no apologies for putting the squeeze on universities, saying they needed to prove they were working at optimum efficiency before they could cry poor.

    "But her comments were condemned by academics and the Opposition as evidence the minister was out of touch with what was happening in universities.

    "And university chiefs said increased class sizes over the past decade were affecting the quality of education.

    "As universities campaign for a 15 per cent increase in funding, Ms Bishop criticised them for wasting "millions" through inefficient travel, technology and stationery purchasing, and failing to embrace workplace changes.

    "They were bogged down by "entrenched, outmoded and inefficient work practices", Ms Bishop said in a speech to the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association yesterday.

    "The sector continues to call for funding increases but it must be able to demonstrate to the taxpayers that sustain them that our universities are efficient, flexible and well governed. I am nowhere near convinced all that could be done is being done."

    "This year universities will receive $8.2 billion in funding..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    Similar story in The Australian
    
    
    
    

• The Times
  
  
  • ‘Dumbed-down’ English GCSE fail to challenge pupils, says watchdog
    by Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
    
    "English GCSE examinations have been dumbed down, with too many predictable questions that allow children to rattle off answers learnt parrot fashion, a government watchdog suggested yesterday.

    "A report from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) identified a number of weaknesses in English GCSE, which is taken by half a million pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and which is now a core element in school league tables.

    "The QCA said that between 2002 and 2005 questions had become so formulaic that candidates “could foresee too many of the likely questions” and faced too few “unforeseeable challenges”...

    Full story in The Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Report Says Public Schools in California Are ‘Broken’
    by Carolyn Marshall
    
    "San Francisco — A scathing 18-month evaluation of California’s public schools has concluded that the state’s educational system is “broken,” crippled by a complex bureaucracy, flawed teacher policies and misspent school money, leaving it in need of sweeping reforms that could cost billions of dollars.

    "The report, a compilation of 22 university studies titled “Getting Down to Facts,” was released in two parts on Wednesday and Thursday. The long-awaited report, requested by a bipartisan group of state educators and legislators in 2005, cost $3 million and evaluated why California’s 6.8 million school-age students have lagged behind children in almost all other states.

    “The structural problems are so deep-seated,” a summary of the report said, “that more funding and small, incremental interventions are unlikely to make a difference unless matched with a commitment to wholesale reform.”

    "The report, financed by private nonprofit foundations and coordinated by investigators at the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice at Stanford University, revealed “deeply flawed” problems in both the management and financing of the schools.

    "Among the findings were these: state financial policies so “complex and irrational” that they thwart school and district efforts to educate and school data systems that are poor and ineffective, making it impossible for districts to share vital information. ; the state suffers from “regulationitis,” a condition that has schools paralyzed by rules and buried in paperwork. [emphasis added]

    "In a statement, about the education studies released Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “Today’s studies show that no amount of money will improve our schools without needed education reform. We need to focus on critical school reform before any discussion about more resources.”

    From The New York Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Truancy To Cost Md. Teens Their Licenses
    
    Maryland lawmakers approve a bill that would deny driver's licenses to students with 10 or more unexcused absences in the previous year.
    
    
    
  • GOP Bills Would Relax Test Requirements of 'No Child' Law
    
    Republican critics of the No Child Left Behind law flexed their growing muscle yesterday as 57 GOP lawmakers, including the national party chairman, endorsed legislation that would undermine President Bush's signature education initiative.
    
    Similar story at CNN
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Daily Telegraph
  
  
  • Mobiles take porn to school
    
    Pornography is coming into classrooms as students acquire the latest generation mobile phones, it has been revealed.
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • School rejects homeless girl
    
    A keen Year 10 student, living less than 500m from Adelaide High School, claims the school turned her away because she is homeless... "Adelaide High School said I wasn't allowed to be enrolled because we had to have a 12-month lease or rental agreement or something in the zone," she said.

 

Saturday – Sunday, 17 – 18 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Academic reignites OBE English furore (page 11)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The furore over outcomes-based education has been reignited, with a highly respected academic, textbook author and former TEE English chief examiner demanding that a new OBE literature course be delayed.
    
    "Edith Cowan University senior lecturer Brian Moon said yesterday the new course, which Year 11s are due to start next year, has fundamental problems and needs "substantial rethinking".
    
    "Dr Moon said in an analysis piece he wrote for English teachers that the course concentrated too heavily on literary theory and failed to put adequate emphasis on the need to read books.
    
    "Dr Moon, whose textbooks are used widely in Australian schools, said he believed it was inappropriate for theory to replace foundation studies of literary works. Students should develop their enjoyment of literature first.
    
    "The higher level theory should be reserved for extension or enrichment – a kind of "special topic" study, perhaps for university candidates," he said.
    
    "A submission he wrote to the Curriculum Council recommending the literature course be changed and postponed was rejected. [emphasis added]
    
    "Dr Moon also criticised last year's hasty implementation of the OBE English course and the way it was now being assessed. "The current confusion over assessment methods is unacceptable," he said. "Teachers should also have been provided with examination papers long before this."
    
    "Dr Moon declined to add to his written comments when contacted by The West Australian yesterday.
    
    "Notre Dame University education dean Michael O'Neill said Dr Moon's views were significant but the extra workload on English teachers if the literature course went ahead next year was a more pressing reason for delay.
    
    "He said English teachers were "frustrated and anxious" as they tried to come to grips with assessment procedures that kept changing over the past 12 months.
    
    "The English Teachers Association of WA, which has written to Education Minister Mark McGowan calling for the literature course's delay, welcomed Dr Moon's intervention.
    
    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said wide-ranging consultation had taken place on the new course." [But no one believes this, David.   Web]
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (page 20)
    
    
    • Please explain
      
      "With the parent/teacher interview season about to open, the leaders of the Department of Education and Training (DET) and the Catholic Education Office (CEO) have placed teachers in an untenable situation.
      
      "When discussing a Year 10 student's report with his or her parents, teachers will be expected to support levels, explain them, and pretend that they understand and accept them. Then, when they turn to the older sibling in Year 11, teachers will tell the same parents that levels have been totally abandoned because they are a completely invalid form of assessment.
      
      "Parents will leave interviews knowing that teachers have to be telling lies in one of those interviews. The truth is that both DET and the CEO are forcing teachers to support an assessment and reporting regime in Years 8-10 that has no validity.

      "On top of this, the Western Australian College of Education and our respective unions, that trumpet the cause for elevating the status of teaching in the community at every possibility, stay strangely silent.
      
      "It would be nice if the leaders of these organisations, or perhaps even the Minister, could attend a parent/teacher meeting and explain to parents how an assessment protocol can be totally invalid for a student in Year 11, yet be satisfactory in Year 10."
      
      Greg Williams, Bicton
      
      

    • Poor WA
      
      "Oh my, does anyone else feel as though our civil rights are finally going to be taken away? I don't smoke, but making it an offence to smoke in the alfresco areas in Freo is a win for the big-brother mentality.
      
      "Even worse, now they want to take away the fund-raising chocolates. Oh my gosh, communist Russia, here we come! Schools are for teaching: teach and encourage good eating, moderation in all things, not banning "goodies" and then having our young binge on such items after school (which we've all see in our shopping centres). Does anyone know of someone who has died from chocolates alone? Poor WA, it gets worse every day. Where's the common sense?"
      
      Marianne Horner, Mt Pleasant
      
      
      
      
  • Clearned school staff fight for compensation (page 55)
    by Kim MacDonald
    
    Imagine the possibilities – if the DET gave a damn about its employees!
    
    "The Education Department is facing workers compensation claims from two teaching assistants who accuse it of wasting thousands of taxpayers' dollars on a 13-month witch-hunt to investigate false claims they stole a potato bake and a few other items of food.
    
    "The Thornlie High School teaching assistants were recently cleared of wrongdoing but they claim the unwarranted and heavy-handed investigation led them both to suffer severe depression..."
    
    "But there was no apology from the department this week, with Trevor Porter, acting executive director of professional standards, defending the length and cost of the investigation.
    
    "It is not unusual for delays to occur in investigations when employees being investigated when employees being investigated seek legal options or opt to take sick or other leave during an investigation," he said. [How about calling it the DETD: Department of Education, Training and Delays?   Web]
    
    "The department has a responsibility to its employees and the community to investigate all allegations of staff misconduct in schools, and these investigations are related to behaviour, not the amount of money involved."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Public servant shows what proper public service is (page 19)
    by Paul Murray
    
    Well worth a read
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun
  
  
  • Relief push for working parents
    by Mary Papadakis, Education reporter
    
    "Schools would open 10 hours a day under a radical proposal to help relieve the growing pressure on working parents.
    
    "Victorian education leaders have backed a recommendation to keep schools open an extra four hours a day from 8am to 6pm.

    "The proposal was put forward by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in a report released recently.

    "The plan would essentially create a "one-stop shop" for parents, who would be able to use on-site before and after school hours care.

    "Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman said the recommendation was about providing parents with a convenient service.

    "We are here to provide a service for the community, for parents and their kids," he said.

    "But Mr Ackerman said appropriate facilities needed to be built as part of the State Government's $1.9 billion plan to build new schools and upgrade existing rundown ones.

    "This shouldn't be seen as an add-on without any additional resources and facilities," he said.

    "Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said she supported the idea of schools having extended hours care on site if appropriate facilities and resources were available.

    "It makes enormous sense," she said.

    "A spokesman for Victorian Education Minister John Lenders said while the Government appreciated schools needed to cater for families, there were no plans to extend school operating hours to make on-site before and after hours care compulsory.

    "Instead, the Federal Government needed to do more to help make workplaces family friendly to relieve the stress on working parents, he said."
    
    From The Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun at link
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Jerramungup students not disadvantaged: Education Dept [16 March]

    "Western Australia's Education Department says the lack of a maths teacher is not compromising the education of students at the Jerramungup District High School, north-east of Albany.

    "Twenty-eight students in years 8, 9 and 10 at Jerramungup are being taught maths through the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education, because the school has been unable to attract a suitably qualified teacher.

    "Paul Mather from the Education Department's Esperance district says the students and the teacher are linked over the Internet, so there is still the opportunity to interact and ask questions.

    "The computer can be remotely accessed by the teacher in Perth and [the teacher can] manipulate whatever is on the screen in front of the students," Mr Mather said.

    "The students are linked by a teleconference phone so they can speak as well as see things being manipulated on a screen."
    
    [If it's go great, why doesn't DET run ALL classes this way?   Web]
    
    From ABC News Online at link
    
    
    
    

• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Schools free to ban Muslim veils (page 12)
    Exclusive by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "Schools and their communities should have the power to ban students from wearing Muslim veils, says Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop.
    
    "We (the Federal Government) think that individual schools should have the responsibility for determining those kinds of rules within schools,'' Ms Bishop told The Sunday Times this week in Perth.

    "In terms of what students should wear to school, that's very much a matter for the individual school community.''

    "Ms Bishop was answering questions about whether the Federal Government would follow other nations in prohibiting Islamic headscarves at public schools, after reports this month that senior British teachers would be able to ban students from wearing full-face coverings.

    "British schools can already stop teachers from wearing niqabs - veils that cover the whole face apart from a slit for the eyes.

    "Ms Bishop also said state governments and school communities should decide between them whether public school teachers should be allowed to wear veils.

    "(Teachers) are employed by state governments and it's a matter for the state education authorities, or indeed the individual school communities, to determine what is appropriate for that school community,'' she said.

    "It's not something for the Federal Government to decree from Canberra.

    "I would be concerned if we started to dictate what people should wear or should not wear in terms of religious garb.

    "After all, priests are able to wear particular clothing and nuns wear particular clothing.''

    "Though State Education Minister Mark McGowan is responsible for WA public schools, he would only say that if a situation ever arose where such a ban was proposed, the State Government "would need to consider our legal and ethical obligations''.

    "WA public schools can choose their own uniforms within certain parameters, such as restrictions on wearing denim, but the veil issue has not been clarified..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    

  • 'Kids need airconditioned rooms' (page 12)
    by Braden Quartermaine
    
    "Airconditioning in classrooms should be mandatory, say hot and bothered teachers.
    
    "A primary schoolteacher from a southern suburbs school said teaching her class of 30 children had been a nightmare in recent weeks.

    "With a classroom of hot, tired and grumpy students, and teacher, how much valid teaching and learning do you think gets done?'' she said.

    "Children go outside at recess and lunchtime and overheat and return to class unable to cool down. The afternoon then becomes a lost opportunity.

    "Some parents have taken it upon themselves to collect their children and take them home when the weather gets too hot - not much learning going on there, either.

    "I wonder how much work the politicians would get done day after day if they had to work in an office with 30 other sweaty bodies in close proximity without airconditioning?''

    "WA State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the lack of airconditioning in classrooms was a big issue for teachers and students.

    "If you've taught in 40C heat, you know you don't actually get a lot of work done,'' he said.

    "The kids can't concentrate. For little kids, it's pretty tough.

    "With most occupations, people are working in airconditioned offices. The vast majority of our teachers and young people are not.

    "They're working in the hottest part of the year.

    "Some schools have got parents who can afford to substantially contribute and some schools have put in a lot of airconditioning themselves.

    "But it's not fair - if your parents don't have money you don't have airconditioning; if your parents do, they do.''

    "The Education Department said it had no idea how many classrooms in Perth were airconditioned.

    "The department said airconditioning in public schools was installed according to climate data provided by the Bureau of Meteorology, with schools in the hottest areas of the state all airconditioned.

    "Schools could use grants to make additions and improvements.

    The Sunday Times revealed last week that children travelling on buses without airconditioning were coming home sick.

    "Some parents are refusing to let them ride on buses on hot days.

    "Quinns Rocks Primary School is outraged after raw sewage spilt on its grounds this week.

    "The school has portable toilets, because of a lack of deep-sewerage, which vandals tipped tipped over, spilling the contents."

    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
    
  • Feds cut school aid limit (page 12)
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "... State Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the cut was a slap in the face for public schools that had planned to apply for cash this year and would result in many missing out on minor capital works..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times
    
    For details, see the story in The Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Choc frogs and all that (page 77)
    
    "Even though an obesity epidemic stalks many children, there is no need for misguided crusaders to insist on taking more of the fun out of kids' lives.
    
    "It's bad enough that political correctness has reached silly proportions, but now the friendly chocolate frog, a traditional reward for children over the years, is under attack – at school where he was once Toad of Toad Hall.
    
    "Teachers will be forbidden from rewarding children with lollies and chocolates. The crackdown can even extend to taking birthday cake to school. Those who must be obeyed want cake replaced with fruit muffins.
    
    "The Sunday Times is not saying that there isn't merit in insisting that nutritious food is provided at school canteens. But the occasional lolly and piece of chocolate never hurt anyone.
    
    "Canteen controllers should not be filling the role of parents, who surely have the responsibility for what their children eat. School authorities should concentrate on introducing compulsory sport and regular exercise programs for children at school as a much better way to tackle the obesity problem than a heavy-handed crackdown on canteens.
    
    "If things such as lollies are banned, it's a sure bet that they will circulate on the student underground network. With luck, the occasional chocolate frog might still be seen jumping in school grounds, albeit undercover."
    
    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Sciences a turn-off: call for teacher specialists
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Primary schools need teachers who are specialised in maths or the humanities to stop children switching off science and to improve literacy and maths skills, an education authority says.

    "Stephen Dinham, from the University of Wollongong's department of education, said primary school teachers have been forced to broaden their knowledge and skills too widely.

    "Professor Dinham, who specialises in quality teaching and educational leadership, was a member of a recent Commonwealth review of teaching and teacher education.

    "He said the profession needed to attract teachers with a greater depth of knowledge, such as those with maths and science degrees.

    "Part of the reason students were turning off maths and science in high school was because they had turned off in primary school. "Students are becoming disengaged because the work is not challenging enough," he said. "We underestimate what kids can do. Bright kids in maths can be stifled if their teacher can't extend them."

    "Professor Dinham said it was impossible for primary teachers to continue to cover all bases without compromising quality.

    "What is expected of them is so broad now they are lacking depth in some areas," he said.

    "If you have specialist maths, science and technology teachers - and that's all they have to do - you will attract different people to teaching.

    "It would mean that humanities teachers could concentrate on the other aspects. We will continue to need the generalist teacher, but … two broad specialisations would attract suitable people to primary teaching, and enable greater depth in teacher education."

    "Professor Dinham said the expectations on primary teachers to cover all areas of the curriculum, as well as the social and emotional needs of children, had become "unreasonable, if not untenable".

    "As the primary school curriculum has become increasingly crowded with greater testing of the 'basics' along with ever increasing social 'extras', it has become more difficult to train, professionally develop and support primary teachers. As the breadth of teaching responsibility increases, inevitably, the depth decreases," he said. [emphasis added]

    "Critics of specialisation fear primary schools could adopt the worst of high school culture including teachers who focus on subjects rather than students.

    "High schools today are actually more orderly than primary schools," Professor Dinham said.

    "The primary school day is now highly fragmented with numerous disruptions and changes of activity. It has become increasingly difficult to squeeze in … everything that is demanded."

    "The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, agreed it would be useful for primary schools to have specialist teachers. "A balance would need to be struck between the need for specialisation and the need for primary school kids to have a stable environment with the one teacher," she said." [Sounds like an educrat's solution: 'do nothing'.   Web]
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • What these women want is the chance to learn
    by Tony Stephens
    
    "Year 10 was a big deal for Amanda Morgan and April Ceissman. Both nearly didn't make it, having dropped out of year 9. Year 12 is a bigger deal.

    "The girls, young women now at 17, had dropped out again last year. There were too many demands on their time, having to mind younger members of their families and care for older ones who were sick. Amanda and April had no time for study.

  Schools in … Amanda Morgan, left, and April Ceissman are the recipients of a scholarship scheme to help them to the HSC. Photo: Andrew Meares, © The Sydney Morning Herald

  
  

  "Now they are giving school another shot. Enrolled at Alexandria Park Community School in Sydney, they are determined to finish their HSC this year.

  "Amanda, who lives at Waterloo, was the first member of her big extended family to reach year 10 at school. Some didn't go to school at all. Some uncles cannot read or write.

  "April's father died when she was seven and she was brought up by various aunties in a kinship care arrangement through the Department of Community Services. She lives independently in a Department of Housing flat in Redfern.

  "This week Amanda and April were awarded $10,000 scholarships to help them do the HSC. The money will pay for things that most year 12 children take for granted: lunch, uniforms, school bags, excursions, a computer and access to the internet..."
  
  Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

  
  Canberra Stink

• Furious PM tells minister: good riddance
  
  An angry and embarrassed John Howard has ordered all his ministers to scrutinise their shareholdings after Santo Santoro became the second minister to lose his job in as many weeks.
  
  Similar articles in all newspapers
  
  
  
  
• The Sunday Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Why we need more men in schools
    
    Children need male as well as female teachers, writes Geoffrey Ryan.
    
    "Walking through the junior school yard one day I noticed a large number of students, mainly boys, congregating near the goalposts.

    "The big attraction turned out to be Mr Healy, a young teacher playing kick-to-kick with the students. What I took for granted as a schoolboy had become a novelty.

    "Four years ago, my school council endorsed a plan that aimed, in a small way, to encourage young men into primary teaching.

    "The scheme works like this: young men in year 12 who express an interest in primary teaching are considered for a type of internship at the school. If selected, the school pays their HECS fees and offers them part-time employment as teachers' assistants for up to 40 days a year. Under the direction of experienced staff they help in the classroom, on camps, with sport, drama and music, thus earning an income while studying and gaining experience relevant to their vocation. At the end of their training they will be employed at the school. [emphasis added]

    "This scheme is a necessarily modest one — the school employs just 35 primary classroom teachers.

    "Our motivation was twofold, First, we wished to redress the significant gender imbalance. Second, we believe strongly that students should be taught by a cross-section of the population; male and female, young and old, Australian-born and overseas-born.

    "The most recent large-scale survey of the profession, Teaching in Australian Schools, funded by the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs in 1999, involved 20,000 teachers at state and private schools. Female teachers outnumbered males 2 to 1. In the 21 to 30 age group, the ratio was 3 to 1, indicating that the gender imbalance will continue to grow. At primary level the imbalance is even greater. I have heard of primary schools in my region with few or no male classroom teachers. The problem will only worsen if steps are not taken to address it.

    "The average age of Australian school teachers in the 1999 survey was 42. The profession is ageing and education faces a big challenge as baby boomers retire in the next five to 10 years. Simply replacing them will be an enormous undertaking. With the smaller number of young males entering primary teaching the gender imbalance will only worsen if nothing is done.

    "Education is the means by which society's values and traditions are transmitted to successive generations. Male and female teachers have different but complementary skills.

    "Male teachers are neither better nor worse than female teachers, but it is important for students to be taught by both genders.

    "In a society where single-parent families are increasingly common and the primary care giver is usually female, exposure to male as well as female role models for both boys and girls is important. It is a sad fact that many children go through their primary education without being taught by a male.

    "In Australian society we see gender equality as desirable and important. It is not good that a generation of children may grow up believing teaching to be a "female" occupation. It is also important that children see both men and women take on nurturing roles. The perception that classroom teaching is "women's work" is reinforced by the fact females occupy far fewer formal and informal positions of responsibility in schools. Males, a minority of the profession, are twice as likely to occupy executive or managerial positions.

    "Good teachers can be male or female, young or old, Australian-born or overseas-born. It is important the profession reflects this and that students are exposed to all. The modest scheme at my school will not redress the imbalance, but it is a start."

    Geoffrey Ryan is principal of Westbourne Grammar School and national chairman of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia.
    

    From The Sunday Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Talk to the kids — everyone will benefit
    
    It is time we started speaking to our kids. Sounds obvious, perhaps, but as our report today shows, young children are losing the capacity to speak clearly and concisely and, increasingly, needing speech pathology. Why? Because instead of conversing with Mum and Dad they are watching the television and playing computer games.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Sunday Telegraph
  
  
  • Boys to start school later
    
    "Boys should start school later than girls, education and childhood experts say, because they are slower to develop.

    "Adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said boys should start school later than girls - at the age of six.

    "Most boys are already six months behind girls in fine motor development when they enter school,'' he said.

    "We have to make the world of boys, particularly the classroom and playground, safer and free of ridicule and shame.''

    "Australian Childhood Foundation CEO Dr Joe Tucci said the school starting age should be reviewed, with too great a mix of ages in prep ranging from four to six years."
    
    From The Sydney Sunday Telegraph at link
    
    
    

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Tick for homework
    by Angus Hohenboken
    
    "An education expert has rebutted claims by the Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends that the benefits of homework are yet to be proven and should be banned.

    "Dr Kevin Donnelly, known for his strong criticism of Tasmania's ELs curriculum, yesterday said peer-reviewed research from the US and an international study of maths and science students proved homework improved academic standards.

    "The executive director of Victorian-based consulting group Education Strategies said the idea of an education system or school that did not allocate homework was bizarre.

    "The research is very positive about its benefits," Dr Donnelly said.

    "A meta-analysis by Dr Harris Cooper looked at 120 (homework related) studies and 70 per cent found homework was beneficial, so the research is there.

    "The Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) shows countries that do better in maths and science generally have more homework. So some of the research is definitely saying there is a correlation between homework and high levels of achievement." [emphasis added]

    "On Monday Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends president Jenny Branch called for a ban on homework in public schools, claiming there was no evidence of benefit to students and that it may contribute to child obesity.

    "Her calls were backed up by Melbourne adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, who agreed there was no evidence homework in primary and middle school had academic benefit.

    "Education Minister David Bartlett rejected the proposal as "ludicrous".

    "Dr Donnelly said for a change he had to agree with the minister, but added that teachers had to find the right balance.

    "If you do too little or too much homework it can be counter productive, common sense should prevail," he said.

    "In middle and upper primary you wouldn't want more than an hour (each day) but for middle and upper secondary it could be up to three hours, and there needs to be variety.

    "I am not arguing for homework for homework's sake.

    "It's good for children in terms of learning time management and working to a deadline."

    "Dr Cooper's research is in his book The Battle Over Homework (1989) and the TIMSS findings came from research in 1994 and 1995.

    "Ms Branch yesterday said the Tasmanian State Schools Parents and Friends were keen to see the homework debate continue and said a workshop on the issue would be held at the group's upcoming parent seminar in Launceston.

    "She said parents were asking whether homework was achieving desired outcomes.

    "While we all want our children to do well and develop good study habits, I hear from a lot of parents who find the amount of homework their child receives creates unnecessary stress and takes up time they could be spending on other, potentially more valuable, activities," Ms Branch said."
    
    From The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    
    

• The Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • Overhaul of training
    by Tess Livingstone
    
    "State Education Minister Rod Welford has called a meeting of the heads of university teacher training departments to plan an overhaul of teacher training in Queensland.
    
    "The meeting follows the release of a joint survey by the principals of state, Catholic and independent schools showing that teaching graduates wanted courses overhauled to give them the skills to teach and manage students.

    "Almost a quarter of beginning teachers plan to leave the profession within five years because of the pressures they face.

    "Mr Welford met with 70 principals in the Cairns area yesterday, and said they were deeply concerned about the levels of practical training given to students.

    "It's far too little," he said.

    "Some students undertaking four-year degree courses spent less time prac teaching than those undertaking 12-month postgraduate teaching courses, which had struck a better balance.

    "Mr Welford said as well as discussing the report, the meeting with the deans of education was essential as new national guidelines for teacher training were being drawn up and the Queensland College of Teachers was reviewing teacher training in Queensland..."

    Full story in The Brisbane Courier Mail at link
    
    
    
  • Just what you'd expect from bureaucrats
    
    Health kits too fat
    
    A $20 million State Government campaign has hit a hurdle with promotional material found to be too fat to fit in the average letterbox.
    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Review of Kevin Donnelly's Dumbing Down [Hardie Grant Books, 230pp, $24.95]
    Standing up for education
    by Ross Fitzgerald

    Kevin Donnelly is a first-class polemicist hammering the progressivists wrecking our schools, writes Ross Fitzgerald

    "As a liberal-humanist and member of the Left, I still find it disconcerting that so-called progressivists continue to oppose selective schools, unambiguous academic standards and the teaching in our schools of distinct disciplines such as history, geography, science, mathematics and English. This is because, for the working class, high-quality education represents the most effective avenue for social mobility and for ascending the ladder of economic and intellectual opportunity.

    "Kevin Donnelly is a first-class polemicist in the best sense of that word. In his regular contributions to The Australian, his provocative book Why Our Schools are Failing (2004) and now in Dumbing Down, he focuses attention on the pernicious effects of outcomes-based and politically correct curriculums and the impact of the so-called culture wars on our primary and secondary schools and, by implication, our universities.

    "For the record, Donnelly and I were both on a committee appointed by then federal education minister Brendan Nelson to introduce the teaching of civics in our schools.

    "Unlike Donnelly, I am a member of a committee reporting to Education Minister Julie Bishop, which oversees the teaching of values in our schools.
    
    "In Dumbing Down, Donnelly is particularly strong in dealing with the teaching of history and English. With regard to Australian history, it is difficult to disagree with his contention that many students leave school "with a fragmented and superficial understanding of the past".

    "He usefully reminds us what the distinguished conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey actually said in his now famous-notorious 1993 John Latham memorial lecture. Blainey argued that what he termed the black-armband view of Australian history "might well represent the swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too favourable, too self-congratulatory, to an opposite extreme that is even more unreal and decidedly jaundiced".

    "Blainey in fact acknowledged that the stories, contributions and sufferings of women, indigenous Australians and of non-Anglo-Celtic migrants had too often been ignored. Hence he maintained that "it is wrong to ignore the sins of the past and that what is needed is a balance between celebrating our achievements and acknowledging our past mistakes".
    
    "Donnelly is also right on the money when he discusses the deleterious effects of English departments in Australian universities being recast as centres for cultural studies and of school children no longer required to be taught the basic rules of spelling, grammar and syntax. He rightly accepts that there is "a certain amount of truth in the argument that education can be used as an instrument to enforce control and to impose a one-sided view of the world". As Blainey acknowledged, the way Australian history was taught in our schools in the 1950s and '60s "undervalued indigenous history and uncritically promoted Australia's British heritage and the benefits of Empire". At the same time, it is important to stress that the rules of grammar and syntax, and of basic mathematics, remain the same "whether taught by a socialist or a capitalist".

    "In his 1869 article, On General Education, no less a person than Karl Marx argued that "Nothing [should] be introduced either in primary or higher schools that admitted of party and class interpretation. The rules of grammar, for instance, could not differ, whether explained by a religious Tory or a free thinker." [emphasis added]
    
    "Sometimes Donnelly's stress on proper style and correct spelling, grammar and syntax comes back to bite him: too often in Dumbing Down he resorts to the worn-out phrase "of course" and once at least refers to "its principle conclusions".

    "Nevertheless, he usefully attacks the stupidity of entrenched notions of cultural relativism, which maintain that there is nothing inherently worthwhile about particular cultures and that all cultures are of equal worth. As he argues, this approach "ignores the fact that some cultural practices such as female circumcision, misogynism and sati (where wives throw themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres) are unacceptable in the West and that values such as tolerance, compassion, the rule of law and being committed to a free and open society are culturally specific."

    "Both the Coalition Government under John Howard and the ALP under Kevin Rudd have rightly nominated education as a key issue leading up to this year's federal election. It behoves us all as citizens and parents to ask, for example, why it is that competition and academic excellence, a belief in our best students being rewarded and in the central importance of an intellectually rigorous academic curriculum are so often attacked by educationalists as "elitist and socially unjust".

    "To the contrary, an understanding of the basic building blocks of science, mathematics, history, geography and English is the surest launching pad for culturally and economically disadvantaged children, as is an education system whose standards are assured via competitive examinations, discipline-based curriculums and more formal methods of teaching." [emphasis added]

    Ross Fitzgerald is the author of 28 books, most recently The Pope's Battalions: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split.

    From The Weekend Australian [Edition 5, Queensland]
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • For Teachers, Middle School Is Test of Wills
    by Elissa Gootman
    
    "... Faced with increasingly well-documented slumps in learning at a critical age, educators in New York and across the nation are struggling to rethink middle school, particularly in cities, where the challenges of adolescent volatility, spiking violence and lagging academic performance are more acute.

    "As they do so, they are running up against a key problem: a teaching corps marked by high turnover, and often lacking expertise in both subject matter and the topography of the adolescent mind..."
    
    "Around the country, middle school teachers are often trained as elementary school generalists or as high school subject specialists, with little understanding of young adolescent psychology.

    “We’re really in a malpractice kind of environment, where we’re preparing teachers for elementary classrooms and high school classrooms but not middle-grades classrooms,” said Peggy Gaskill, research chairwoman of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform, an alliance of educators, researchers and others seeking to improve middle school education..."
    
    "Part of the challenge of middle school is the breathtaking range of student ability, more pronounced than in elementary schools, where one can only fall so far behind, or high schools, which generally offer tracked classes.
    
    "The most difficult high school students often drop out or skip class, while middle school teachers tend to face a full house.

    “Problematic kids in high school don’t come to school anymore, but in middle school they still show up,” said Barry M. Fein, the principal of Seth Low. “I think that piece alone makes it more challenging.” ...
    
    “Middle school is like Scotch,” she reflected in the teachers’ lounge one afternoon. “At first you try to get it down. Then you get used to it. Then it’s all you order.” ... [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link
    
    
    

• The Times
  

  • Universities set to coach the brightest children from the age of 4
    
    The most gifted 10 per cent of primary school children are to be offered extra classes under plans to track the brightest 400,000 through school and into university.
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
• Letter to the Editor
  
  
  • Teacher cops the discipline

    "I reinforce Professor Barry Duff's views about the need for teachers to have greater disciplinary powers (Opinion, 16/3).

    "Now retired, I did not have a discipline problem in most cases. I kept lessons going at a fast pace, with plenty of information and interesting activities for students. However, a handful of students were determined to disrupt the lesson. One boy in particular was good at this, so

    "I told him that he could stay outside the room until he gave a written undertaking that he would desist in this behaviour. This was after I had sent three emails to the year co-ordinator, none of which elicited a response.

    "After the boy spent three lessons outside, the co-ordinator passed by. He said I couldn't do this as it would disrupt the boy's education. I said that if I hadn't, the boy would have disrupted the other students' education.

    "The school then arranged a meeting with the student and his parents. I was not invited. The boy returned to class with the required letter, and no more disruption ensued. However, very soon the principal put me on due disciplinary process and I was constantly criticised for small things that had never been an issue before (e.g. being five minutes late one morning). Do I need to say any more?"

    R. A. Marks, Drouin

  
  More Canberra Stink
  

• Ex-premier slams Liberals and ALP
  
  Former premier John Cain has launched a withering attack on Australia's political culture, branding the major parties policy-free zones that are dominated by factional shock troopers, funded by secretive donors and obsessed with finding "celebrity" candidates.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Preschoolers' Test May Be Suspended
    
    Congress Takes Steps to End Head Start Exam, Which Critics Say Is Flawed
    
    Congress is moving to end a standardized test backed by the Bush administration and given to hundreds of thousands of preschool children in Head Start programs each year, amid complaints from early childhood experts that the exam is developmentally inappropriate and poorly designed.
    
    
    
    
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • Messages mixed on schools' results
    by Xanthe Kleinig
    

    The state's examination board will not release Year 12 results by individual schools and wants new laws to keep it that way.
    
    "School performance information is too much of a good thing, the state's education authorities claim.

    "In a major overhaul of education legislation in preparation for the new high school certificate, the state's examination board (SSABSA) has asked for new laws to prevent the system-wide release of school results.

    "A former member of the board, Graeden Horsell, disagrees. "It's a public service. It's a public education system and should be accountable to the public," he says. "What's the fear in knowing how it is performing?"

    "Board chief executive Dr Janet Keightley, however, says consequences of a public release are "dangerous".

    "Where league tables ranking schools are published, as in the UK and some states of the U.S., "incredible pressure" is placed on schools, she claims.

    "In one poor-performing British school, a principal tore open the packet of A-Level examination papers to prep students the day before the exam. His efforts landed him in jail. [emphasis added]

    "The other likely outcome is an increased selectivity in schools, an obvious drawback for public schools obliged to take all students, regardless of their abilities, backgrounds or potential.

    "Schools have a right to their own information, Dr Keightley says, as do education authorities - but it must be presented to the public "in context" rather than in a simplistic league table.

    "SA Association of State School Organisations director David Knuckey says most parents will feel they have a "right to know" how schools perform.

    "I fail to see how keeping the state of our education system a secret, can benefit education," he says.

    "Australian Education Union state branch president Andrew Gohl, however, says governments know which schools are under-performing, yet have failed to provide them with extra resources. "All this ends up as is an exercise in blaming teachers for the lack of support, which is really a system problem," he says.

    "Association of Independent Schools executive director Garry Le Duff says: "There is concern in all the sectors about league tables and these being generated through the media."

    "Schools fear information could be made available in new annual reports, which must be published by March 30.

    "They must explicitly address key indicators on student achievements, teacher qualifications and performance but will not be centrally collected and not necessarily use comparable information. Mr Le Duff says independent schools have complied with the federal minister's request but releasing lists of school results in order of achievement is a different matter.

    "There will always be schools, because of the nature of the students they are servicing, they probably always will be seen to be a failure," he says.

    "South Australian Institute for Education Research president Ted Sandercock says legal constraints on information, in place in Queensland and New South Wales, can stand in the way of legitimate research. The State Government is yet to finalise its position."
    
    From The Adelaide Advertiser at link
    

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

This page last updated 17 April, 2009 10:58 PM