Monday 7 May

Tuesday 8 May

Wednesday 9 May: Federal Budget Special

Thursday 10 May

Friday 11 May

Saturday – Sunday, 12 – 13 May

 

Monday 7 May

• The Australian
  
  
  • Teachers reject four high school courses
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "High school teachers in Western Australia have rejected four new courses for Years 11 and 12, citing serious concerns about their content.
    
    "Following consultation with teachers in each of the 40 new courses scheduled to be introduced next year, 20 will be deferred until 2009 and only 15 will proceed next year, with some amendments.

    "Most of the 20 courses were deferred over concerns that teachers had insufficient time to familiarise themselves and that all the support materials were not ready.

    "But Christina Gillgren, who is overseeing the consultation process with teachers, said literature, history, geography and biological sciences were deferred over serious concerns about content and structure.

    "The literature course has been criticised for its focus on theory rather than providing a basic knowledge of writing.

    "Brian Moon, an author of English textbooks and professor in English studies at Edith Cowan University, wrote to the English Teachers Forum in March, claiming the title of the literature course "does not accurately represent its nature or scope".

    "The course focuses too much on theorisation of textual practice and not enough on developing foundational knowledge of literature through, for example, wide reading and systematic study of authors, genres, periods, etc," he said. [emphasis added]

    "History Teachers Association of Western Australia president Louise Secker said many members were divided over the new course, which combined ancient and modern history.

    "The concerns centre on the thematic approach of the course, under which students choose a nation, civilisation or period to examine historical themes, such as conflict and resolution.

    "Ms Secker said the delay was welcome to enable history teachers to work through the issues.

    "The Geographical Association of Western Australia argues the course prescribes too much content, with some units containing 40 points and 40 skills.

    "The WA Government has faced a backlash from teachers about the readiness and suitability of the year 11 and 12 courses introduced in an overhaul of the WA Certificate of Education."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Students to rush city in visa loophole
    
    Demographer Bob Birrell said that instead of meeting the new standards of English proficiency, students interested in permanent residency after completing courses in Australia could relocate to regional centres where it is easier to meet entry requirements for the skilled migration program. Adelaide is considered a regional area under the laws.
    
    
    
    
• The Times
  
  
  • Teachers are treated unfairly in this culture of allegations, says Falconer
    by Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
    
    "Teachers accused of abuse of pupils should be guaranteed anonymity while the allegations are investigated, the Lord Chancellor said yesterday.

    "Lord Falconer of Thoroton said that teachers’ reputations were being ruined by the “allegations culture” and an unfair disciplinary process that could leave their careers in tatters even if allegations proved to be completely unfounded.

    "The Lord Chancellor also called for a more “common sense” approach to human rights. Head teachers were perfectly justified, for example, in refusing unreasonable demands from Muslim pupils who claimed that it was their human right to wear Islamic dress in schools. He cited the decision of a Luton school to stop Shabina Begum wearing a jilbab – a long loose gown – to class.

    "Lord Falconer told the conference of the National Association of Head Teachers that teachers should not face automatic suspension when an allegation was made against them. False accusations should no longer be automatically reported to the local authority or appear on Criminal Records Bureau checks and job references, he said, and schools should have some means of making public statements of a teacher’s innocence as soon as they were cleared of a spurious allegation.

    "Suspensions and investigations that lasted for years “ruin lives often utterly unfairly”, he said. If teachers facing accusations were automatically suspended, regardless of the allegations’ merits, that knowledge could spread very quickly, ruining reputations, Lord Falconer said. Nor was it fair that “patently false” accusations should be allowed to follow teachers through their entire career.

    "Teachers have long complained that allegations against them are recorded by the school and reported to the local authority. This means that the accusations appear on criminal record checks and job references, even when the teacher is cleared, blighting their chances for career advancement.

    “Where it’s demonstrably the case that the allegation is false there should be greater discretion as to whether it’s recorded,” Lord Falconer said.

    "Mick Brookes, the association’s general secretary, said that heads were sometimes able to protect teachers from false allegations by not reporting them to the local authority, yet there was nobody to protect heads when they fell victim. An accusation against a head would automatically be referred to the authority, which would suspend them at once.

    “If an allegation is made against a head, the cavalry come out very quickly. Social services are there in squads and there is an immediate, very high escalation,” Mr Brookes said.

    "As a head teacher he had taken the risk of not reporting four cases in which his teachers had been accused of abuse because he had found all the cases to be unfounded. Those teachers were left to get on with their careers. He contrasted this with the case of a head who has been suspended and who attempted suicide as a result, even though the union expects him to be cleared of the claims against him.

    "Lord Falconer rejected the union’s demands for sanctions against those who levelled false accusations against teachers and heads, arguing that this might deter those with genuine grievances from reporting them. He also ruled out changes to criminal investigations of teachers.

    "Public misunderstanding of human rights legislation partly explained the “allegations culture”, the Lord Chancellor suggested. An overzealous interpretation of the Human Rights Act had led to claims in the name of “human rights” that were nothing of the sort."

    From The Times at link
    
    Similar story in The Independent
    
    
    
  • Playtime is banned at £46m new school
    by Alexandra Frean, Education Editor
    
    "Pupils at a new £46 million “super school” will have no break and no playground because the headmaster does not agree with the concepts.

    "Alan McMurdo, head of the Thomas Deacon city academy in Peterborough, which is to open in the autumn, said that learning would improve if pupils had to concentrate on lessons throughout the day. PE and organised games on adjacent playing fields will be part of the timetable and there will be just a 30-minute break for lunch.

    "The school, which will have maths and science specialist status, has defended the plans, saying that pupils would be able to “let off steam in an organised way”. Dr McMurdo said that the school would be run like a business. He said: “I want the teachers teaching and the children learning at the school. If children are enjoying lessons, then there will be no need to go and run off steam outside.”

    "Clarissa Williams, head of Tolworth Girls’ School in southwest London, said that children needed their own space in which to play and socialise. Her school had recently increased the number of tables outdoors to allow more pupils to eat lunch outside in fine weather.

    "She said: “Being outside and able to exercise is an essential part of the school day.”

    "This was not only true of schools, she added. “It’s interesting to see how many employees go out of their workplaces during the day for a run.”

    From The Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Disability funding is about the child
      
      "The article "Parents pay for help as private schools fail test" (Age, 4/5) raises important and complex issues confronting schools across Victoria. We are concerned, however, that these issues have not been addressed in the article. All schools are facing difficulties with the lack of funding for education, especially funding for students with disabilities. Independent schools in particular face significant difficulties in providing disabled students with adequate facilities and services, due to the large discrepancy in funding for these children.

      "Typically, the highest level of government funding in 2006 available to an independent school to support a disabled student was about $5000. If this child was in a government school, that school would typically receive $38,295. As such, the wider school community has become responsible for covering this significant funding gap.

      "As your article highlights, providing students with a fair and equal opportunity to a quality education should not be at the exclusion of a group or groups of students. Independent schools believe funding for disabled students should follow the child and should not discriminate on the basis of school. Closing this disparity in funding will help provide schools with the means to identify and support students with specific learning needs and to continually enhance their education so that they are not left behind."
      
      Michelle Green, The Association of Independent Schools of Victoria
      
      

    • Dubious methods
      
      "Michael Crommelin (Age, 4/5) makes the fundamental error of equating correlation with causation when he claims that students of graduate professional programs are more likely to have attended government schools.

      "Highly able, mature and motivated students will enter a professional course after year 12, irrespective of the school attended or their socio-economic status. To make their US-style education attractive, Melbourne University is using dubious strategies such as creaming off the best students through scholarships under the guise of equity, awarding juris doctor for a first degree in law when it should, at best, be a masters degree."
      
      Dr Ed Boyapati, Gowanbrae
      
      

 

Tuesday 8 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Education 'heads for meltdown' (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    Academics urge State Government to stop patching up flawed, unworkable OBE and look at new models
    
    "The furore surrounding outcomes-based education has been reignited, with highly-respected academics warning that education in WA is headed towards meltdown and the teacher shortage is likely to worsen if the State Government ploughs ahead with the controversial system.

    "Notre Dame University’s associate education dean Richard Berlach and lecturer Keith McNaught have launched a scathing attack on the philosophy underlying OBE and urged the State Government to consider other education models instead of patching up an unworkable system. Professor Berlach said the inherent flaws remaining in OBE included vague outcomes that could be interpreted in different ways, a lack of mandated core knowledge, assessment overload for teachers and a dumbing down process in which brighter students were held back by weaker students.

    "Their comments are a significant blow to Education Minister Mark McGowan, who has spent much of his four months in the job trying to create a perception that the State Government has disposed of most of the controversial aspects of OBE.

    "Mr McGowan has instructed teachers not to include on reports the contentious “levels” assigned to students and says he wants more syllabuses injected in the curriculum. But Professor Berlach says the key parts of OBE are still in place despite it being a flawed model.

    “Until compelling evidence for the success of OBE can be presented, then the value of the theory for practice remains suspect,” the lecturers wrote in national education journal Issues in Educational Research.

    “Evidence suggests education authorities would be unwise to wait any longer before making a careful audit of OBE’s bona fides, examining other paradigms for the provision of compulsory education, and then taking the bold step of choosing the model which offers the greatest empirical evidence of success.”

    "Professor Berlach stopped short of saying OBE should be scrapped but said there were more successful education models that should be examined. He did not believe there was any evidence to show that OBE worked. [emphasis added]

    "And though OBE was not entirely responsible for teacher attrition, he said it would be foolish to disregard dissatisfaction with OBE as a significant contributing factor. Based on a study of reasons for school system breakdowns by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, he said that if teacher numbers continued to decline and concerns about OBE ignored, there was real danger of WA heading for a “meltdown scenario”.

    “For this scenario the OECD suggests that ‘there would be a major crisis of teacher shortages, highly resistant to conventional policy responses’,” he said.

    "Professor Berlach said attempts to placate teachers by simplifying assessment and preparing syllabuses were just tinkering at the edges."
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Balga probe failed to halt cash (page 10)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The State Government poured at least $360,000 of taxpayers' money into the bungled Balga Works Program for disadvantaged youth after the project had been scrapped and was at the centre of a police and Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry.

    "Answers to questions in Parliament reveal the Department for Community Development had paid more than $360,000 to Balga Senior High School Parents and Citizens Association to fund the program between October last year and March this year.

    "The revelation comes as the Education Department continues to refuse to answer questions from shadow education minister Peter Collier about how much it put into the program.

    "Mr Collier, who wants a parliamentary inquiry into the matter, said he first asked questions of the Education Department in December.

    "The answers were due to go back to Parliament at the start of this month but he is yet to receive them.

    "He said yesterday the continuation of payments for the program five months after the Government said it had been shut down, was another example of its inability to manage key areas. The DCD has contributed more than $450,000 to the failed program since October 2005.

  'You've got taxpayers' dollars being poured into a program that is lacking transparency.' Peter Collier

  
  

  "I can't for the life of me understand why the Carpenter Government continued to fund a program that did not have the support of the relevant minister, did not pay former employees and was the subject of a CCC inquiry," he said.

  "You've got millions of taxpayers' dollars being poured into a program that is completely lacking in transparency."

  "The West Australian revealed last November that detectives had been investigating the bungled $2 million Government-funded program since September, with the CCC also involved.

  "The Education Department paid money via the school to Melbourne-based company, Hurson Pty Ltd, until October last year to run the program at the Balga school.

  "A memorandum of understanding which launched the Balga Works program was signed by then Balga SHS principal Merv Hammond and Manufacturing Industry Training Services, part-owned by Hurson Pty Ltd.

  "Michael Peter Carton was a director of MTIS and his wife, Katherine Day, is a director of Hurson.

  "Mr Carton narrowly escaped jail in March after pleading guilty in a Victorian court to using forged documents to rip off more than $140,000 from a Federal Government training scheme.

  "Asked why funding to the Balga program had continued even after the scheme was scrapped, Child Protection Minister Sue Ellery told Parliament the DCD had bought services from the Balga High School Parents and Citizens Association under the program until the end of December last year.

  "Due to inaccuracies in invoices given to the department, a delay occurred while it verified amounts to be paid for services provided. Education Minister Mark McGowan said he expected answers to Mr Collier's questions to be provided this week."

  From The West Australian
  
  
  

  • Catholics move Year 7 students to high school (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Catholic schools will move all Year 7 students to high school and offer fulltime kindergarten to four-year-olds in a decision that contradicts a State Government study which found no educational benefit in shifting Year 7s to secondary schools.
    
    "Catholic Education Office director Ron Dullard said most Catholic schools would provide kindergarten to Year 6 in primary schools and Years 7 to 12 at secondary level by 2015.
    
    "In February, Education Minister Mark McGowan said he would not transfer all Year 7 public students to high schools after an internal Education Department study found it was too expensive and had no educational benefit.
    
    "Mr Dullard said the move would bring WA Catholic schools into line with most other States in which children start high school at Year 7.
    
    "A national push for common school starting ages and curriculum had influenced the decision, as well as the fact that children who are in Year 7 in 2009 will be six months older than current Year 7s because of a change to the school starting age in 2001.
    
    "Ian Elder, principal of Sacred Heart College, Sorrento, said Year 7s would be nearly 13 after 2009, old enough to cope with high school programs.
    
    “I do not envisage bringing them on to the high school campus and then separating them as a little group of Year 7s because you may as well have them in the primary if you’re going to do that,” he said.
    
    "Mr Dullard said one of the conditions of the move was that parents at feeder primary schools had a say in how Year 7s were taught.
    
    “The normal thing would be a halfway house, with more teachers than at primary school but less than normal in Year 8, so you’re moving progressively towards integration into the high school,” he said.
    
    "He said transferring the Year 7s would free up extra classroom space to offer full-time kindergarten programs five days a week.
    
    "WA Primary Principals Association president Colin Pettit said parents who sent their Year 7s to Catholic schools would be slugged higher fees.
    
    “There is certainly no educational advantage for any child to be moved into a high school setting at Year 7,” he said."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (pages 18-19)
    
    
  • Progress at last
    
    "I congratulate the Curriculum Council for finally listening to teachers (Teacher juries' damning verdicts put 20 OBE courses on hold, 4/5). If the council, other education bureaucrats and the State Government had been listening to teachers we would not have an education system in shambles, students studying at Third-World standards, teachers leaving in droves and tens of millions of taxpayers' money wasted on useless "spin" and obsolete curriculums and teacher PD.

    "The current Year 11 and 12 English courses, which were not subject to the teacher juries, are still an unmitigated disaster, and rearranging the deckchairs won't solve the problems."

    Steve Kessell, Willetton
    
    

  • I agree
    
    "Congratulations to Miranda Devine for her column (Language teaching fails our children, 4/5) about the "whole language" or constructivist approach to reading versus the systematic phonics instruction that proved so successful in the pilot program with Aboriginal children.

    "Obviously the whole language approach works quite well for the 70 per cent of children who grasp it, but that is not a sufficient success rate, nor does that method help with spelling which is a real problem now. Sounding out the phonetics must surely assist with understanding the foundation of words and therefore encourage better spelling ability.

    "Please, educators, listen to Miranda Devine."

    Dianne Martin, Bunbury
    
    
    

There is virtually no education news in the major eastern states newspapers today: it's all Federal Budget speculation.

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Conflicting views on teachers' stress claims
    
    School teachers in NSW are making more than 800 compensation claims a year for stress-related injuries on the job.
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Boy's peanut death triggers rush to tackle allergies
    
    Kindergarten staff and parents have rushed to sign up for a course on how to recognise and treat severe allergies. The move follows the death of a boy, 4, from a suspected reaction to peanuts.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed: DIY journalism is not a real alternative [7 May]
    
    "Citizen journalism" is a broad, loose term that encompasses everything from sending a photo or video to an established news organisation or posting comments on an online forum, to writing a blog or editing or writing for a collaborative online publishing venture. [Sound familiar?  Web]

Wednesday 9 May
Federal Budget Special

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Federal Budget Coverage Mini-Site
    
    
    • 12-page Budget Liftout [content covered below in articles from The Australian, The Melbourne Age and The Sydney Morning Herald]
      
      
      
  • Education 'meltdown' rejected (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has hit back at claims the State Government should consider alternatives to WA's controversial outcomes-based education model to avert a potential education "meltdown".

    "The West Australian revealed yesterday that Notre Dame University associate education dean Richard Berlach and lecturer Keith McNaught had strongly criticised OBE, in a national journal, claiming dissatisfaction with OBE was a significant contributor to the growing teacher shortage. [As Blind Freddy knows!  Web]

    "Professor Berlach said that until there was compelling evidence for the success of OBE, its value remained suspect and he urged education authorities to consider other models.

    "He said attempts to patch up the system by providing syllabuses and simplifying assessments, while welcome, were just tinkering at the edges.

    "Mr McGowan said WA had an internationally recognised, outstanding education system with a well-qualified and highly motivated workforce, excellent facilities and good course content.

    "The Government was introducing syllabuses, returning to traditional methods of marking in upper school, ensuring half of classroom time in primary school was spent on literacy and numeracy, setting up "teacher juries" to assess new Year 11 and 12 courses and simplifying school reports.

    "He said the changes were "hardly tinkering". The "teacher jury" recommendations to delay some [actually, MOST   Web] was a judgement on the readiness of them, including course content, resources to teach them and whether teachers were prepared." [Mr McGowan keeps missing the point: it's the courses which were not "prepared", not the teachers! Web]

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Politics 'eroding public service' [Front Page Headline]
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The State's public sector watchdog has launched an extraordinary attack on the Carpenter Government, accusing it of disregarding the independence of the public service and featherbedding ministerial offices with ALP members at taxpayers' expense.
    
    "In her second-last report before retiring this month after the Government refused to renew her contract, Public Sector Standards Commissioner Maxine Murray said the State had overseen a huge increase in ministerial staff members who gave the Government a massive boost at election time.
    
    "She said ministers' offices put "political spin" on the advice of public servants to suit the purposes of the Government and that Premier Alan Carpenter's ability to hire and fire senior bureaucrats had eroded the independence of the public service..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    

    • ABC News
      
      
      • WA Premier rejects public sector report
        
        Govt should be embarrassed by report: political analyst
        

 

Today's news is totally dominated by the Federal Budget.

Here are links to the Commonwealth budget papers, some budget overviews, and a number of articles / editorials on the K-12 and tertiary education budgets. Many come from The Australian, but there are similar stories in virtually all capital city daily newspapers.

I have also included links to the main articles in The Melbourne Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, to compare and contrast the editorial perspectives of the News Ltd [Australian] and Fairfax [Age and SMH] newspapers.

• Commonwealth Government Documents

• Official Australian Government Budget home page
  
  
  
• The Australian Federal Budget 2007-08
  
  
  
• Education, Science and Training Budget Information
  
  
  

• The Australian
  
  
  • Federal Budget Coverage Mini-Site
    
    
    
  • Costello masterclass
    by Steve Lewis
    
    "Peter Costello has kick-started the Coalition's election campaign with a big-spending budget that delivers a $31billion tax cut to middle Australia and a radical overhaul of the universities to trump Kevin Rudd's "education revolution"...
    
    "But with a post-election eye to The Lodge, Mr Costello offered voters a taste of his vision to build a world-class university sector, announcing a $5billion Higher Education Endowment Fund.

    "Based on the same principles as the Future Fund, the university scheme will grow with further budget injections and use its investment earnings to fund new buildings on campus and boost Australia's research efforts.

    "This is the greatest ever education endowment and it will set Australia up forever," Mr Costello said..."
    
    "Announcing the biggest structural change to higher education in years, the Treasurer said the endowment fund was "bold and innovative", but admitted the overall reform package would allow the universities to increase the number of full-fee-paying courses.

    "Moving Australia closer to a US style of privately funded institutions, the Government will also encourage rich people to provide endowments to the universities through a new system of tax deductions.

    "The university scheme builds on the Government's Future Fund, which has been built up in recent years to offset the mounting future costs of public servant superannuation liabilities.
    
    "But the Government has also sought to counter Mr Rudd's education "revolution" by announcing $3.5 billion in immediate new funding for the universites, schools and technical colleges..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    Costello crafts a clever budget
    
    The Government trumps Labor's education challenge, but on its own philosophical terms
    
    "... The philosophy that underpins the Future Fund, set up to meet commonwealth public service superannuation liabilities, has been repeated in the establishment of a dedicated endowment fund for higher education. It is both good economics and clever politics. Mr Costello has met Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's challenge that education is the key to future prosperity. But he has done it on the Howard Government's own terms, enshrining choice, private sector participation and reward for performance. Where Howard offers a US-style model of philanthropic contributions driven by market forces, Labor's model is centralised and driven by bureaucrats. The political wedge has been carefully and deliberately fashioned..."
    
    "The Government's education revolution goes further than funding, however. Finally, there is an attempt to introduce performance-based pay for institutions and to encourage individual teachers to continue study to improve their skills. The $3.5billion proposal includes a $700 voucher system to help children, who fall behind in basic numeracy and literacy, to catch up; $50,000 grants to schools that make significant improvements in literacy and numeracy outcomes; and $102 million for a professional development scheme for teachers with those who participate in "summer schools" receiving a $5000 bonus. In addition there is a bonus scheme for apprentices in skill-shortage trades and $768 million over four years to help manage university enrolments..."
    
    Full editorial in The Australian at link

   

  
  © The Australian
  
  

  • Teachers will be paid $5000 to improve skills in the summer
    by Justine Ferrari
    
    "School teachers will receive a bonus payment of $5000 to attend summer school to upgrade their skills and knowledge of their subject under a $101.7million program unveiled last night.

    "The Australian Government Summer Schools will start in January, offering 1000 teachers each year a 10-day residential program in five core subjects of early literacy and numeracy teaching, English, maths, science and Australian history.

    "Teachers will be selected by the federal Government from a pool nominated by government and non-government schools, with the commonwealth covering travel and accommodation costs and paying the teachers $5000 on completion of the course.

    "The first summer school will be held next year, with initial funding for four years, but the Government is committed to continue running the schools.

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop said the programs would be run by top tertiary educators and would provide up-to-date training based on new research.

    "The quality of teaching staff in Australian schools has a direct impact on student achievement," she said. "These leading teachers will be able to share their knowledge and skills and mentor other teachers in their schools."

    "The budget also allocates $77million over four years to boost the amount of classroom practical training student teachers receive as part of their degrees.

    "As part of a redesign of teacher education courses the program will provide at least 120 days of in-school teaching experience to student teachers undertaking three and four-year degrees. Students in one and two-year courses will receive 60 days.

    "Ms Bishop said the program would also fund development of new standards for beginning teachers, in consultation with teacher registration authorities, deans of education at universities, teachers and other stakeholders.

    "Improving the quality of teaching in our schools is a priority for this Government and the most important step is experience in the classroom," she said.

    "I am concerned that student teachers have not had adequate opportunity to spend quality time in schools before commencing their teaching careers."

    "The initiative is in response to a recent parliamentary inquiry into teacher education, which found a wide variation in the quality of practical experience for student teachers and in the amount of time student teachers spent in classrooms before graduating.

    "The budget also allocates $5million over two years for the development of a national system of teacher registration and accreditation of teacher training courses."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Schools paid for making grade
    by Justine Ferrari
    
    "Raising literacy and numeracy standards is a big priority in the education budget, with the federal Government offering a cash bonus worth up to $50,000 for schools that record significant improvements in students' reading, writing and maths skills.

    "Peter Costello unveiled an extra $843 million of spending initiatives over four years, including paying teachers $5000 to attend summer schools to upgrade their subject knowledge and a broad expansion of the Government's scheme of tuition vouchers to include older students and innumerate students.

    "The bulk of the extra spending, $457.4 million over four years, will fund the extension of the reading tuition program to students in Years 5 and 7 from January and Year 9 from 2009 who fail to pass literacy benchmarks in national tests..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Top mark wanted for the three Rs
    by Justine Ferrari
    
    "Last night's budget is an unapologetic appeal to parents in an election year with its emphasis on the three Rs, and a bid by the Coalition to regain the upper hand as the team with the ideas in education.

    "Of the $843 million extra money allocated to school students and their teachers, the vast bulk, more than $500 million over four years, is to improve the standards of reading, writing and maths.

    "Despite the protestations of teachers, teacher unions, teacher educators and state governments that Australian students are among the most literate and numerate in the world, it is obvious to anyone else that a large number of kids today can't spell, irrespective of their academic ability, and basic maths skills are missing.

    "True, in the standardised tests of 15-year-olds run by the OECD, Australia ranks fourth in reading and science and eighth in maths. But what those figures hide is that Australia by international standards has a long tail - a higher than average proportion of students who fail to meet a minimum standard.

    "The Australian education system is also relatively bad at overcoming social disadvantage. While other countries provide a quality education that gives all kids a fairly equal start in life, the performance of Australian school kids is heavily dependent on their socio-economic background.

    "So while Peter Costello publicly, and embarrassingly, dismissed Education Minister Julie Bishop's plans for performance-based pay for teachers in pre-budget discussions, last night Costello and Bishop presented a united front with a relatively full bucket of money to indicate they too believe education is important.

    "After dominating the education debate for most of last year, Bishop has been suffocating in recent months under the oxygen squeeze of Kevin Rudd and his education spokesman Stephen Smith. With the advantage of being on friendly terms with every state and territory government, because they too are Labor, Rudd and Smith rolled out policy after initiative in school reform, and colluded with their Labor colleagues to thwart Bishop's plans.

    "The debate in education is no longer a fight over the funding of private or public schools: it is fought over what is taught inside classrooms. The federal Government was quick to pick up on community disquiet about educational standards and the influence of educational fads in school rooms.

    "With Rudd assuming the ALP leadership, the Opposition regained some of the ground it had ceded in one of its traditional policy strengths. Last night, the Coalition sought to restake its credentials as the education government."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Uni fund strategy a pre-poll assault
    by Paul Kelly
    
    This is Peter Costello's education revolution - a new higher education investment fund seeded with $5 billion this year and the prospect of the same amount each year. It constitutes a dramatic change in Coalition priorities and an assault on Labor's election strategy.
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Rug pulled from under Rudd's feet
    
    The Treasurer has done everything within his power to jam the Opposition Leader politically, writes political editor Dennis Shanahan
    
    "Peter Costello has crafted a budget that will make John Howard proud. The Treasurer has introduced radical and forward-looking reform in education, he's laid the political groundwork to say you can't trust Labor with trust funds, he's given across-the-board tax cuts in an election year and he's tried to neutralise some nagging public toothaches.

    "But most of all, while espousing good economic management and policy, he's jammed Kevin Rudd politically on all the areas that fall within the Treasurer's remit.

    "Labor's "education revolution" under the Opposition Leader now looks small and pale compared with a self-perpetuating endowment fund in perpetuity kickstarted with $5billion and locked away forever, and facing another $5billion lump sum next year if the Coalition is re-elected..."
    
    "At school and technical college level, Costello bypassed the states but addressed parental concerns about the standards of reading and writing and provided for more apprenticeships."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Lucky few who hope to bridge the learning divide
    
    
    
    
  • Limits lifted on full-fee courses
    
    Peter Costello has unveiled a market-based education revolution that will remove the brakes on the number of full-fee degrees universities can offer to students who miss out on courses through their marks. Vice-chancellors will be able to offer up to 21,000 HECS-funded university places across Australia.
    
    
    
    
  • The Higher Education Supplement has 18 articles, including:
    
    
    • Funding coup to bankroll university building 'for all time'
      by Catherine Armitage
      
      "A $5 billion endowment fund for universities will be created to fund capital works and research facilities "forever".

      "The move was the centrepiece of a budget that puts education generally, and higher education in particular, squarely back on the Government's spending agenda.

      "The Higher Education Endowment Fund will deliver to universities $900 million over three years from 2008-09, eclipsing what was an optimistic request for $500million over three years.

      "Education Minister Julie Bishop said the "unprecedented" investment and other measures would "fundamentally reshape the higher education landscape".

      "The fund answers universities' longstanding complaint about inadequate funds for capital investment, which has left them dismayed on tours of campuses and research laboratories in Europe and North America. They have complained that crumbling laboratories and old equipment are constraining their ability to attract world-class academics, and keep top researchers in Australia.

      "The fund also potentially opens the floodgates for private philanthropy to support higher education. Individuals and the companies will be able to make tax-deductible donations to the fund.

      "The fund will be managed by the board of guardians for the superannuation Future Fund. That board will be responsible for investing the fund's capital to maximise earnings for distribution to universities each year.

      "The $5 billion to be invested in the fund represents nearly half of the 2006-07 budget surplus built on the back of the China boom.

      "The Government intends to continue adding to the fund from future budget surpluses.

      "Peter Costello said he hoped the Government would be able to inject a further $5 billion into the fund next year. The Government noted that the $5 billion would "broadly match" universities' existing accumulated financial investments and endowments. Universities will be able to apply for funding for specific proposals.

      "The HEEF board, separate from the Future Fund board, will advise the minister on which proposals deserve funding.

      "Strategic" projects that fit the Government's policy priorities, such as those which promote a university specialisation or respond to labour market needs, would be favourably viewed."
      
      From The Australian's Higher Education Supplement at link
      
      
      

    • $1.7bn boost exceeds hopes
      
      The federal Government has moved to close its vulnerable higher education flank with a big spending budget that answers most of the universities' strongest funding grievances while giving them much greater discretion to offer the courses students want.
      
      
      
      
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Full Budget Coverage Mini-Site
    
    
  • Budget Key Points
    
    
  • Editorial: Costello provides vision beyond the pork-barrelling
    
    
  • Costello's clever carrots
    
    
  • Unis win $5bn in budget
    
    
  • Unis get their own future fund
    
    
  • Back to (summer) school for teachers
    
    
  • Education goes down market route
    
    
  • Fast-track plan to tackle skills shortage in trades
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Full Budget Coverage Mini-Site
    
    
  • Editorial: Happy marriage of clever politics and sound economics
    
    
  • Private schools set to gain more of the pie
    
    Funding for private schools will increase by $1.7 billion over the next five years to $7.5 billion while Federal Government contributions for the nation's public schools will rise by $300 million to $3.4 billion in the same period, according to projections contained in the budget.
    
    
  • $70bn splurge on education, tax cuts
    
    
  • Praise and criticism for budget
    
    
  • Universities enrolment bonanza
    
    
    
    
• The Times
  
  
  • Teach more practical skills, says union chief
    
    Britain is in danger of creating “an army of unemployables” as advances in technology drastically cut jobs available to teenagers who have no qualifications, it was claimed yesterday. A teaching union said that 10-year-olds should study motorcycle maintenance and other practical skills that would improve their job prospects.
    
    Similar story in The Guardian
    
    
    
    

Thursday 10 May

• A Year 6 student's speech

  A student composed this speech, and presented it to his Year 6 class. He says the teacher was particularly moved.... to tears... of laughter!

• OBE Courses of Study Delayed

  "Every ones probably seen the newspapers gasbagging about OBE and if your dad’s a teacher you’ve probably seen him spending much less time with you and instead staring at the PLATO website whenever he gets a chance - blabbering about OBE, but really, what is OBE? Generally speaking, outcomes based education is simply the idea that what students in schools have learned should be measured by what they can do, rather than what they know.

  "Seems pretty harmless… right??? Well it is, until you get into the deep dark realms of the extra things which come in hand in hand with OBE, such as the evil levelling systems, the crazy grouping of subjects into ‘learning areas’ and especially the torturous OUTCOMES.
  
  "Teachers lie awake at night dreading these things!

  "Still confused? Well, let’s put it this way. OBE came in at the same time we were in Kindy, so, we don’t know anything other than OBE. So, will our school life change for the better if OBE is scrapped? You wish!!

  "Most likely there will be more tests, higher standards and much, much more home work (sound effect) However, if on the other hand, OBE means dumbing down in schools I think kids should be for OBE! It would mean easier tests, lower standards and (thank God) much less annoying homework.

  "But it’s already going to be pretty difficult in years 11&12. When we get to those years, our test results will be what gets us into university…or not.

  "A lot of teachers have been working to stop the introduction of OBE being introduced into years 11 and 12. They have been doing this because they believe that the courses written under OBE are not good enough for students to learn from, and because the exams at the end of those courses will be unfair.

  "Last week, juries of teachers decided to postpone the OBE courses, and make the government rewrite their courses. My dad (aka really cool ***** teacher) wrote a paper for them to read about the ***** Course, and was asked to come in and explain it. Because the juries agreed with him, the deep dark ***** course is going to be written again, and it’s going to be heaps cooler!

  "In the end it’s pretty much a domino effect; my Dad makes the course heaps cooler and some day I could be doing that course! It also helps in the sense that now that Dad’s done his bit there’s no reason for him to go on PLATO so much - well…for the moment!"
  
  
  

• Letter from WACOT
  
  
  • To: All Schools

    08-May-2007

    Dear Principal/School Administrator,

    As a result of an article printed in The West Australian on 5 May some teachers have been misled into believing that they can identify themselves as 'conscientious objectors' and not pay their fees.

    The legislation governing the operations of the College sets the annual membership fees and provides proper processes for ensuring that they are paid.

    WACOT is still processing annual fees which continue to arrive daily.

    Staff will soon start sending out reminder notices to teachers who have not paid.

    The College will follow the requirements of the Western Australian College of Teaching Act 2004 in pursuing a proper course of action for those who do not pay their annual membership fees.

    The College urges teachers who have not already done so to pay their annual fees to avoid penalties as described under the Act, a copy of which is available on our website.

    Dr Suzanne Parry

    Director
    
    
    
    

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Western Australia Budget Mini-Site [all budget articles from The West's website, not the 'analogue' newspaper]
    
    
    
  • The 2007- 08 WA Budget - at a glance
    
    Spending on education also rose 5.7 per cent to $3.3 billion, which will include strategies to recruit more teachers and give the parents of students in Years 11 and 12 a $200 boost to help cover the cost of education, or $400 for parents of students enrolled in full-time TAFE or training.
    
    
    
  • Ripper's budget fails the grade: teachers
    by Bethany Hiatt and Peta Rule
    
    "The State Government's $177 million increase in education funding has failed to impress the State's peak teachers' union.

    "State School Teachers Union acting president Anne Gisborne said the 5.7 per cent increase in education spending was paltry in the context of widespread teacher shortages that were likely to worsen.

    "There is no glimmer of any sense of consideration or interim funding to support that," she said.

    "So I’m assuming that they’re expecting that any short term initiatives and strategies that the department needs to undertake will have to be done within the funds that they’ve got available and I think the problem they’ve got on hand is much bigger than that."

    "The funding will include a major drive to recruit more teachers, which has already resulted in expressions of interest from 150 teachers from the UK.

    "The State Government has previously come under fire from shadow education minister Peter Collier, who said many vacancies were left unfilled as hundreds of teachers were forced to wait up to eight weeks to get employment checks – including police clearances – so they could start work." [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Ripper's budget receives mixed response
    
    
    
    

From the morning 'analogue' newspaper:

• Teacher bonus scramble expected (page 10)
  by Bethany Hiatt and Rhianna King
  
  "WA teachers are expected to rush the chance to make a tax-free $5000 bonus for just 10 days work by signing up to a summer school program aimed at improving their teaching skills in English, maths, science and history.
  
  "While the Federal Government is throwing $102 million over four years at the program, only 100 teachers from WA will be eligible for the training program and the bonus that it generates.
  
  "About 1000 teachers from both public and private schools will be selected annually and teachers will have to be recommended by their school, and then endorsed by the Government..."
  
  "... State School Teachers Union acting president Anne Gisborne said the initiative meant Canberra had no confidence in the ability of teachers.
  
  "At this particular time when we have a major teacher shortage crisis in WA, to expect teachers to go back during their time when they're supposed to be relaxing and getting ready for the next year to undertake further study I think really is a bit short-sighted," she said.
  
  "That money might have been better directed to people who currently are not teaching to attract them back into teaching." [emphasis added]
  
  [Why not ask all teachers to take a 20 per cent salary reduction and give it "to people who currently are not teaching to attract them back into teaching"?  Web]
  
  Full story in The West Australian
  
  
  
  
• What about us, say school groups (page 10)
  
  The article points out that most of the Federal budget education initiatives benefit tertiary, not K-12 education
  
  Full story in The West Australian
  
  
  
  
• Letter to the Editor (page 18)
  
  
  • Silly teachers

    "Mr McGowan may believe that we have "an internationally recognised, outstanding education system with a well-qualified and highly motivated workforce, excellent facilities and good course content" (report, 9/5), but as one of those well-qualified workers I can take issue with the rest. My motivation is sapped every time those in charge of the "good course content" send me some more "clarification" that muddies the water still further.

    "Last week we had four more documents to digest in the Year 12 English Course of Study but I had trouble looking at them straight away. I was still recovering from the circular that had arrived the week before stating: "The term 'equal weighting' should not be interpreted as literally as some teachers are interpreting it... ensure that all outcomes have a similar weighting in the final result." Aren't teachers silly? We had thought that "equal" actually meant "equal" but the Orwellian staff at the Curriculum Council were happy to correct us. If Mr McGowan wants to keep his highly qualified workforce in those "excellent facilities", he needs to listen to the real experts and teachers who tell him to stop the patching-up process and ditch OBE and the "newspeak" that goes with it.

    "The teacher shortage was a problem at the beginning of the year but that was nothing compared to what will happen when the new financial year begins and teachers who can access their super retire early to escape the ongoing madness.

    "Students, parents and teachers want a system where "equal" means "equal", not something some educrats thinks it ought to mean to hide more inadequacies in the New Courses of Study."

    B. A. Lee, Ardross
    
    
    

• The Geraldton Guardian
  
  
  • Teacher Crisis – Extra Work Stops [9 May Front Page Headline]

    "Teachers at Geraldton Senior College are set to take action in their bid to get the State Government to recognise their plight.

    "The college is disappointed it has been left off a list of 11 schools that require urgent attention and compensation. Now the school's union representatives have passed a motion calling for action.

    "Union representative said that the motion was aimed at stressing that staffing and recruitment was not the responsibility of the school but of the Government.
    
    "He said that teachers had been working two jobs in taking on permanent extra classes and the work that comes with them.

    "Principal Garry Simmons, said the school felt it had been punished for ensuring the students received the best possible education.
    
    "We worked out solutions in order not to disrupt their learning - in implementing these solutions we have outsmarted ourselves, we have not bee recognised as having a problem.

    "The motion will be implemented from today. Other concessions the union is pushing for include:
    

    Rental allowances.
    
    Postponement of Yr 11 & 12 compulsory schooling until it is properly catered for.
    
    Permanent positions for teachers, technicians and assistants.

  "SSTUWA David Kelly said the claims would be addressed at the negotiations for the next agreement, around the end of September.

  "David Kelly said industrial action was unlikely because the government was likely to address the claims.
  
  "The government will have to concede some of these issues whether they like it or not"

  "Local MP Shane Hill congratulated the school and was looking forward to receiving their motion."
  
  From The Geraldton Guardian
  
  

• ABC News
  
  
  • WA Govt, Opposition reject Commonwealth university plan
    
    "A move by the Federal Government to strip the states of their regulatory control over universities has been greeted with a mixed response in Western Australia.

    "Universities are currently required to report financial matters to both the State Government and the Commonwealth.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop says it makes more sense for the Commonwealth to take on that role alone.

    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan has rejected the plan saying the current arrangements are well accepted.

    "The Opposition's Peter Collier agrees.

    "I think the system is operating quite efficiently and I would be reluctant to endorse the change," he said.

    "However, Curtin University Vice-Chancellor Jeanette Hacket says she'd support the plan if it reduced bureaucratic red tape.

    "The Federal Government could force the states to comply using the Commonwealth's constitutional powers."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  

• Budget Analysis Mini-Site
  
  
  
  
• Editorial
  Budget reply key test for Mr Rudd
  
  Labor needs to show it can meet the challenge of the Government's newfound flexibility
  
  "... The Opposition has fallen neatly into Mr Costello's education endowment fund trap, looking backwards and criticising the projected return from the fund in year one rather than seizing the forward-thinking merit of a growth fund in perpetuity..."
  
  "Education is the biggest political wedge, however. By creating a US-style perpetual trust to help university infrastructure and encouraging private, tax-deductible donations, the Government has not only neutralised Labor's allegations of under-investment, it has created an alternative model that will favour choice. Establishment of the $5 billion fund has clearly caught Labor off guard. Mr Rudd's initial criticism will not be enough. He has resorted to attacking Mr Howard's funding record rather than looking to the future. While university funding as a percentage of GDP has fallen under the Howard Government, GDP has more than doubled. And the Coalition's approach to higher education has been to squeeze it hard to promote a more dynamic and business-focused sector. The different world view of the Government and Opposition is sharpened further by Mr Rudd's criticism of the amount of money that will be available for distribution from the fund in the first year. Mr Rudd argues that only $300 million will be available to be spread around 38 universities to address a historic capital funding shortfall he estimates at $1.5 billion. By arguing the money is inadequate, Mr Rudd misrepresents the long-term funding implications of the new arrangements..."
  
  Full editorial in The Australian at link
  
  
  
  
• Op Ed
  Choice would be eroded by centralisation
  by Kevin Donnelly
  
  Although on the right track, the federal Government's approach to education is too bureaucratic
  
  "It's hard to criticise the raft of budget initiatives directed at school education. After all, many of the programs - including literacy and numeracy vouchers, giving bonuses to those schools that raise standards and re-skilling teachers - are directed at strengthening learning outcomes. Making the system more accountable and open to market forces is always welcome.

  "And in arguing for a more academically rigorous curriculum and higher standards, the federal Government has reaffirmed education as a key election issue and successfully reclaimed the territory lost to Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd and his education and training spokesman Stephen Smith as a result of their so-called education revolution.

  "All good so far. But some concerns remain.

  "Take the idea of introducing a Year 12 aptitude test to decide tertiary entry, a system similar to the SAT tests in the US to decide college entry.

  "Many in the US consider intelligence tests a flawed method for preparing and selecting students for tertiary study. By measuring so-called generic skills and competencies, such tests undervalue the importance of subject-specific knowledge and lead to the situation where learning is reduced to preparing for the test, as opposed to mastering a range of subjects over a two-year period, as happens in Australia.

  "Such were the concerns about introducing a SAT-like test that the 2005 Department of Education, Science and Training-funded investigation into developing an Australian certificate of education - carried out by the Australian Council for Educational Research and detailed in Australian Certificate of Education: Exploring a Way Forward - argued against adopting such an approach in the final years ofschooling.

  "Both main political parties have signalled the need for a national curriculum and, as expected, the federal budget includes provision for developing what are termed core curriculum standards and nationally consistent standards in key subject areas across years 10, 11 and 12. What ever happened to simply writing a syllabus, detailing what needs to be taught? [emphasis added]

  "Unlike the Labor Party, which has promised to work in collaboration with the states and territories, the Coalition Government has decided to impose greater national consistency in curriculums across all schools by linking acceptance to continued federal funding. Such an approach represents an overly bureaucratic, intrusive and centralised model of developing public policy.

  "A national curriculum is not the only area in which the federal Government is seeking to unilaterally impose a standard. The list includes reporting school and student performances against national benchmarks; introducing performance-based pay for teachers; including external assessment in Year 12; and introducing national teacher training and registration standards.

  "One of the justifications for imposing a national approach to curriculums is the need to ensure greater consistency in what all Australian students learn. The intention to allow states and territories to develop their own syllabus and materials appears contradictory and in opposition to developing a unified approach.

  "An added concern is the educational jargon. Although descriptions such as "core curriculum standards" and "nationally consistent standards" sound impressive, a curriculum based on such edubabble quickly unravels the closer it gets to the classroom.

  "In the US, standards refer to a model of curriculum development that is based on the academic disciplines, relates to a specific year level, includes high-stakes testing, is internationally benchmarked, and is written in a concise, easily understood and teacher-friendly way.

  "If the proposed national core curriculum standards embrace the US model, there may be a chance of Australian education improving. But based on past experience and the prevalence of outcomes-based education, this is unlikely and the danger is that teachers will have to go through yet another round of exhausting and wasteful curriculum renewal. [emphasis added]

  "Much has been made of the need to improve teacher quality through teacher training and ongoing professional development. The intention to develop national teacher training and registration standards and to pay teachers $5000 to attend 10-day residential programs during the summer holidays appear worthwhile. Again, though, a closer examination reveals flaws. Much of Australian education suffers from provider capture, where subject associations, deans of education and educational bureaucrats are more concerned with defending self-interest and promoting ideological fads such as whole language and fuzzy maths than assisting students.

  "Giving such groups $5 million dollars over two years to develop what will most likely end up being an overly abstract, jargon-riddled and educationally correct national framework for teacher training and registration is wasteful and counterproductive.

  "Spending $101.7 million over four years and rewarding the so-called best teachers with $5000 for attending 10 days of professional development - plus travel, accommodation and other costs - appear to be good ideas at first sight. After all, teachers are doing it hard; why not reward the high-flyers? But research suggests that such short-term professional development programs have little effect and common sense suggests that a better option would be to subsidise those teachers willing to undertake postgraduate qualifications during an extended period. [emphasis added]

  "The federal Government's education initiatives display a willingness to innovate and to open education to greater choice and increased accountability. Better rewards for excellent teachers, giving principals increased autonomy in how they manage schools and employ staff, and encouraging more selective high schools is commendable.

  "But by mandating a national curriculum and a centralised and bureaucratic system of teacher training and registration, controlled by the usual suspects, there is a danger that the gains represented by increased flexibility and choice will be lost."

  Kevin Donnelly is director of Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down.
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Uni chiefs tip higher HECS fees
  
  Vice-chancellors have predicted the majority of universities will embrace the option of increasing HECS fees by up to $1239 a year for accounting, economics and commerce degrees.
  
  
  
  
• Full-fee payment change offers a degree of certainty
  by Lisa Macnamara
  
  "For Peter Bardos, securing entry into a course at one of Sydney's top universities will be easier with federal budget changes bringing in an extra safety net for those who miss out by a few marks.

  "Although in Year 11 at St Aloysius' College, Sydney, the 16-year-old has his hopes on an economics degree at the University of NSW or Macquarie University.

  "You need quite high marks, so I'm not completely sure (I will get in)," he said. "It helps that I don't need to get the marks and there's a second option for me."

  "Such a view would become more popular according to the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, following the federal budget which proposed lifting the cap on domestic fee-paying places beyond the 35 per cent that applies to most courses - 25 per cent for medicine - provided institutions fill their government-supported places first.

  "The number of full-fee paying students has increased gradually and even though it's a small percentage of the total student population, I think that will go up with these changes," AVCC president Gerard Sutton said.

  "But it will always be on the scale of the number of places available under HECS."

  "The federal Government says the new measures would give universities more flexibilty in meeting student demand in competitive courses, such as law and medicine, where some universities have reached capacity.

  "Although the move was criticised by student and education unions as creating greater inequity in higher education, it was welcomed by Peter's parents who say they want to ensure their only child gets his desired qualification..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Balance could rapidly top $50bn
  
  The new Higher Education Endowment Fund could soar to $50 billion or more in a matter of years as the Future Fund's call on budget surpluses comes to an end.
  
  
  

• Minister's mind open on TAFE fee loan scheme
  
  Vocational Education Minister Andrew Robb has vowed he has an "open mind" on the option of extending a HECS-style loans scheme to cover TAFE fees.
  
  
  
  
• Rudd shifts on fee degrees
  by Samantha Maiden and Steve Lewis
  
  "Kevin Rudd has signalled a major shift on Labor's longstanding pledge to ban full-fee university degrees as he fights to counter Peter Costello's education budget.
  
  "As vice-chancellors confirmed that the budget changes meant thousands of university students faced a $1000-a-year increase in HECS fees for accounting, economics and commerce courses, the Opposition Leader shocked his own front bench by refusing to rule out a backflip on full-fee degrees.

  "The shift could see a Labor government allow some students to be offered a full-fee degree if they fail to secure a place based on their marks - an option repeatedly attacked by Labor frontbenchers as "queue-jumping" by rich students.

  "Last night, Mr Rudd's office confirmed the Labor leader was now leaving the door open to a change of policy, allowing some full-fee degrees for the first time. However, he will oppose the Treasurer's budget changes removing all caps on the number of full-fee degrees universities can offer..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Endowment a magnificent investment in the future
    
    "Peter Costello’s $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund is a magnificent investment in the future which would only ever be possible under the Coalition’s prudent economic management. Let us not forget that the last Labor government left debts that cost nearly twice this amount in annual interest payments alone.

    "Why anyone would want to put our future prosperity at risk with the inexperienced and union-controlled Labor Party escapes me."
    
    Jeff Burnham, Birtinya, Qld
    
    

  • "Is a university endowment fund for long-term capital works really the best the Liberals could muster? Fees won’t fall, classes won’t reduce in size, there will be no more lecturers and the system will be less equitable as a result of more people paying their way into university.

    "I’m sure the nation’s vice-chancellors are ecstatic at the prospect of naming new buildings after themselves but, once again, it’s the students who get the raw deal."
    
    Chris Mulligan, Birchgrove, NSW

    
    

I did not have time to check The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.  Web

Friday 11 May

• One-third of WA teachers ineligible awaiting representation
  
  
  • Media Statement, Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier
    
    "Almost 14,000 teachers were ineligible to teach in Western Australian schools as at April 30 because of their disillusionment with the WA College of Teaching and the State Labor Government.

    "To be eligible by law to teach in a Western Australian school, the state's 42,428 schoolteachers must be registered with WACOT, but almost one third of these had failed to pay their $70 fees by the final due date, April 30.

    "Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier said the teachers were disillusioned, cynical and angry about having to pay $70 to WACOT and yet receive absolutely nothing in return.

    "Last Tuesday week, there were nearly 14,000 teachers ineligible to teach in WA schools because this government has refused to do anything about having 10 elected teacher representatives on the WACOT board," Mr Collier said.

    "Teachers have never had elected representatives on WACOT's board since its inception in 2004.

    "During that time, they have lived and worked through unprecedented change, including the stressful public debate on Outcomes Based Education - one of the most controversial issues in WA's education history."

    "The WA College of Teaching Act was promulgated in August 2004 as a quality assurance for teaching staff and was designed to have nine ministerial appointments to its board and 10 teacher representatives elected from schools from each of the sectors (Government, independent and Catholic Education) throughout the state.

    "Teachers waited more than two years for an election but when regulations concerning the election of teacher representatives were tabled in August last year, they were found to be invalid and the election declared void due to a minor technicality.

    "Two Education Ministers - the hapless Ljiljanna Ravlich and now Mark McGowan - have done nothing to redress this issue and teachers remain unrepresented," Mr Collier said.

    "For 14,000 teachers to refuse to pay their WACOT fees, it is not because this overwhelming number has simply forgotten or haven't got the money.

    "They are sending an unambiguous and frustrated message to Mr McGowan to get this issue sorted as a matter of urgency.

    "We now have the diabolical position whereby a third of Western Australian teachers are technically breaking the law.

    "What is the government going to do - sack them?

    "I have a solution - call the election for the 10 teacher representatives."

    "The WACOT board has seen the new regulations regarding the election of teacher representatives and approved them but the new Minister had done nothing.

    "His lack of urgency on this issue is providing unnecessary anxiety for teachers. This can be alleviated by the Minister bringing on an immediate election."
    
    

    • Commenting on this latest WACOT fiasco, "Cynical" suggested on the PLATO Forum that It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Meltdown [to the tune of an old Christmas favourite]. Click here for the music if you'd like to sing along.
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Standardised tests fail students, say teachers
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    

    Just what you'd expect from the AEU.  Web
    
    Link to all submissions made to the Senate Academic Standards Inquiry

    
    "National literacy and numeracy tests are invalid measures of student ability because they cannot assess a child's "sense of wonder" and levels of cowardice or arrogance.

  "In a submission to the Senate inquiry into the academic standards of school education, the Australian Education Union argues against the use of standardised tests to measure student achievement and says "there is no crisis in standards".

  "The AEU has long been cautious about the use of basic skills tests and other standardised tests as a means of measuring the wellbeing of Australian schools," it says.

  "Much of what is important in schooling is not measured by standardised tests."

  "The submission from the teachers' union includes a list of 24 examples of qualities the AEU says are "exceedingly difficult" to measure in tests, ranging from skills that tests purport now to measure, such as critical thinking, curiosity, question asking and creativity, to more esoteric qualities such as a sense of beauty and humour, courage, humility and spontaneity. While the union acknowledges that 7-12 per cent of students failed to meet minimum standards in literacy and numeracy, "this does not indicate that standards are falling or that standards are worse in Australia than elsewhere".

  "The simplistic approach of subjecting students to exam-type situations to determine literacy and numeracy levels is not educationally or statistically valid," it says.

  "The federal Government has forced the introduction of common national literacy and numeracy tests in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 from next year, replacing the existing system where every state sets its own test.

  "But the union fears the introduction of national results is part of a federal government attempt to control schools, and would result in the compiling of league tables of schools, identifying some schools, and teachers, as poor performers.

  "The submission to the Senate inquiry by AEU federal president Pat Byrne and federal secretary Susan Hopgood cites international tests showing Australian students are among the best in the world to argue there is no crisis.

  "But leading education research centre the Australian Council for Educational Research says in its submission there are wide variations in students' levels of achievement.

  "The union says the main problem evident from international and national tests is the low achievement by disadvantaged students, including indigenous, rural and remote students.

  "But the ACER, which runs the tests cited by the union, says socio-economic background is correlated with school achievement but it is not high. While Australian 15-year-olds performed well on average in the OECD literacy test, the ACER says there is significant variability between students, with 7 per cent of Australian girls and 17 per cent of boys at the lowest international standard.

  "(This means) they are likely to be able to locate specific details in text but unable to connect ideas or to draw conclusions from a piece of writing," it says. "In some areas, few Australian students perform at very high levels. For example, in international tests of year 8 mathematics knowledge, only 7per cent of Australian students performed at an 'advanced' level compared with 44 per cent of Singaporean students."

  "The ACER says Australia has one of the lowest high-school completion rates in the world, with almost one in five 20-24-year-olds neither finishing high school nor in education.

  "Many young people leave school in Australia with only minimal standards of education," it says. "A significant number of students appear to become disenchanted with and disengaged from schooling during their secondary years."

  "The AEU submission argues the debate about falling educational standards is hysterical, based on "myths, misconceptions and deliberate deceit" that makes scapegoats of teachers for their students' failings.

  "Generic and ill-informed hysteria around 'standards', the quality of teachers or the quality of schools is totally unproductive," it says.

  "The union accuses the Howard Government of using the debate to hide its inequitable funding of public schools, and says the ALP has been hijacked by the debate so it "also feels it expedient to develop policy designed to deal with the 'crisis"'.

  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

  • Budget Reply and Analysis Mini-Site
    
    
    
    
  • Education at heart of the matter
    
    In this edited extract from last night's speech, Labor leader Kevin Rudd sets out his plan for Australia while keeping a grip on the purse strings
    
    
    • Complete (unedited) speech from The Sydney Morning Herald [.pdf]
      
      
    • Replies by The Democrats, Greens and Family First
      
      
      
      
  • Op Ed
    It's about momentum, and Rudd's losing it
    
    The Coalition steals a march as the Opposition is caught wrong-footed on crucial policies, writes political editor Dennis Shanahan
    
    
    
    

  
  © The Australian
  
  

  • Labor's budget reply: Rudd's apprenticeship
    by Steve Lewis, Chief political correspondent
    
    "Kevin Rudd has outlined a $2.5 billion plan to create a new generation of skilled tradespeople by funding the construction of state-of-the-art training workshops at every high school.
    
    "In an attempt to reclaim the initiative on education after the Coalition's big-spending budget, the Opposition Leader outlined a new Trades in Schools program, giving adolescents the chance to learn plumbing or computing skills before entering the workforce.

    "The Labor pitch is aimed at the Howard battlers, and comes as Mr Rudd tries to counter a strong resurgence by the Coalition in the past fortnight, and defend his lead in the polls.

    "Promising a long-term vision but offering only modest initiatives to counter Peter Costello's budget, Mr Rudd announced $250 million in funding to plug leaks in town and city water pipes.

    "He also announced plans to re-establish a national Asian languages strategy, costing $65 million, to help build bridges with China and other fast-growing economies to Australia's north.

    "And he promised a Labor government would provide $84million over four years to ensure access to on-the-job training for 20 weeks a year for vocational education students in Years 9 to 12 as part of a Labor push to encourage children to stay at school.

    "The $2.5 billion Trades in Schools program - which applies to all of the nation's 2650 secondary schools, government and non-government - is a direct challenge to the Government's budget push to make universities world-class, with a new $5 billion investment fund..."
    
    "The push to transform secondary schools into de facto technical colleges forms part of a wider push to solve the skills crisis and lift the Year 12 retention rate, with Mr Rudd setting a target of 90 per cent by 2020 - up from 75 per cent currently.

    "It also directly targets the Coalition's pitch to traditional Labor voters, who have backed Mr Howard's political pitch to convince middle Australia that vocational education and training is just as important as going to university. Mr Rudd said Labor "sees no difference in value between a trade certificate and a university degree".

    "TAFE Directors Australia's executive director Martin Riordan applauded the "bold plan to revitalise vocational education and training". He said it would give the sector "a more prominent place in school education and develop a pathway for hundreds of thousands of students".

    "Under the plan, every Australian secondary school - including the rich private schools - will be able to apply for capital funding of up to $1.5 million each to build trade workshops and computer laboratories. Mr Rudd said schools would also be able to apply to build metal workshops, commercial kitchens, automotive workshops and plumbing workshops, while also purchasing equipment such as drills, grinders, wood- and metal-turning lathes."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    See similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    

  • Report places us at bottom of class
    by Sid Marris
    
    "Australia's effort to improve its competitiveness has stalled, with a poor performance in telecommunications infrastructure hampering the nation's potential.

    "The World Competitiveness Scoreboard for 2007 released in Switzerland yesterday says Australia needs better foundations for economic growth in an increasingly competitive world.

    "Compiled before this week's budget, the study by Swiss business school IMD says Australia must: do more to reform its education system; promote higher educational and skill levels; and encourage greater business innovation and technology use.

    "The Howard Government this week made a $5 billion long-term injection into the education sector in the form of an investment fund that will deliver money yearly for buildings and equipment.

    "But Labor has criticised the spending for being too late, ignoring the trades sector and not boosting funding on broadband infrastructure.

    "The study, supported by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, also says the nation must boost investment in infrastructure, including water, energy and transport networks.

    "Australia ranks 21st on telecommunications infrastructure.

    "Weaknesses include a ranking of 42nd on internet costs and 38th on mobile telephone costs..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Asian languages scheme to improve ties
    
    Kevin Rudd has pledged a new Asian language program in schools to boost business and foster relationships in the region.
    
    
    
    

  • Ministers accuse Bishop of bullying to control unis
    
    State education ministers yesterday accused their federal counterpart, Julie Bishop, of unnecessary bullying tactics over her pitch to wrest more control of universities.
    
    See similar story in The Melbourne Age
    
    
    

  • Campuses that get donors favoured
    
    Universities will not be guaranteed an annual share of the profits generated by the $5billion Higher Education Endowment Fund, which will favour campuses that can secure matching funds from big corporate donors.
    
    
    

  • Rudd to phase out full-fee degrees
    
    Kevin Rudd has been forced to clarify his policy on full-fee degrees, yesterday saying he would, if elected, phase them out from 2009 but allow existing students to complete their degrees.
    
    
    

  • Pressure on to take paying students
    
    The lure of the dollar could increase pressure on universities to take more students who can buy their way into sought-after courses, education experts and unions have warned.
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    

    • The spectre of mediocrity
      
      "I rarely agree with Kevin Donnelly’s views on educational matters, but his latest column ("Choice would be eroded by centralisation”, Opinion, 10/5) makes many sensible points.

      "One undesirable effect of a bureacratic, more centralised education system would be the certainty that every new trend and set of meaningless jargon would be inflicted on the whole country, rather than just on one state or territory at a time.

      "Teachers like me who have been in the classroom for more than 30 years have seen the “new, improved models” come and go with monotonous regularity. The current obsession with national standards and accountability should not jeopardise our ability to sort through the innovations and use only what is helpful and toss out what is ridiculous and counter-productive in the real world of the daily classroom.

      "The ACT, where I teach, is usually ignored in the various reviews of Australian education. We have a dynamic, successful system of school-based curriculum and assessment, where those who develop the courses also teach them every day in schools. While not perfect, our model has produced very high student retention rates to Year 12, and our students who go on to tertiary studies have an enviable record of success. It would be a great pity if all that we have achieved is swallowed up in the medocrity of a national system."
      
      Steve Ellis, Hackett, ACT
      
      
      
      

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • 'Stealth' merit pay for teachers hits flak
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Teachers could be given performance pay bonuses through a $53 million Federal Government fund designed to reward schools for boosting literacy and numeracy.

    "As part of this week's federal budget, Treasurer Peter Costello announced plans to reward schools up to $50,000 a year if they demonstrate improvements to students' results in reading, writing and maths.

    "But Education Minister Julie Bishop last night confirmed principals could use the money to pay teachers for performance — prompting claims Canberra was trying to introduce the controversial system of merit-based pay for teachers "by stealth".

    "School communities will be able to use the funding to further improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes of students, including paying greater rewards to outstanding teachers," Ms Bishop said. "However, this will be a matter for individual school communities."

    "Principals yesterday said the move was unworkable. Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said: "It's conceptually flawed. Teaching is a group activity, and we know that improving performance does not come down to one individual teacher."

    "Rewarding teachers for performance rather than years of service has been a political pressure point for Ms Bishop, who last month failed to garner the support of the states and territories for the controversial plan.

    "Sparking a showdown in the lead-up to this year's election, Ms Bishop is now forcing the states to introduce performance pay in order to receive billions of dollars in schools funding when the next four-year funding round begins in 2009. They must also give principals more power to hire and fire teachers and provide the Commonwealth with detailed data on school performance as a condition of the deal, worth about $42 billion.

    "Victorian Education Minister John Lenders accused his federal counterpart of being a "bully". Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said the states would not "capitulate to these types of ultimatums", and NSW and Tasmania also expressed their opposition."

    From The Melbourne Age at link
    
    See similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    The hunter becomes the hunted
    
    Kevin Rudd was setting the political agenda, but now the Government, business and the unions are setting it for him, writes Michelle Grattan.
    

  
  

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Smarter uses for $700
      
      "How much remediation can a $700 voucher purchase? A qualified tutor with a teaching qualification and specialist experience (and a police and working with children check) will cost parents a minimum of $50 an hour, meaning perhaps 14 one-hour lessons. Going through a recognised tutoring service will incur even more costs.

      "According to the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2005 National Benchmark Results published by the Ministerial Council on Education, Training and Employment Affairs, some 7 per cent of year 3, 12 per cent of year 5 and 10 per cent of year 7 Australian students did not reach the national benchmark for reading. The figures for numeracy were 5, 10 and 18 per cent respectively. According to these figures, approximately 170,000 students would be eligible for $700 tuition vouchers, costing a staggering $118 million. The figures for indigenous students are more than three times these. Where are indigenous parents going to find suitable and qualified tutors?

      "A specialist remediation teacher's wage is about $65,000 a year. More than 1800 extra specialist teachers could be employed in the schools where they are most needed for the same money, benefiting all the students, not just those falling behind and not just for 14 hours, but for a whole year of schooling. Is this supposed to be the work of a clever treasurer?"

      David Zyngier, lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy, Monash University

      
      
      
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Democrats budget speech
    
    
  • Greens budget speech
    
    
  • Family First budget reply [.pdf]
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Pay the piper, call the tune
    
    "The Federal Government has a powerful argument for greater control over Australia's universities: money. Canberra contributes about 60 per cent of university revenue, so it quite reasonably expects more say in how that money is managed.

    "The inconsistent governance of universities is yet another quirk of Australia's federal system. There were just four universities at the time of federation in 1901. Since then, the number has increased almost tenfold. As the sector has grown, so has the Commonwealth's role in funding it. At the same time, the financial contribution of the states and territories has shrunk to less than 2 per cent of university revenues. The federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, says the states now contribute less to the universities than they take from them in payroll tax. Yet the universities remain state and territory institutions, established under state and territory legislation and subject to their laws in important areas. It is this anomaly that Ms Bishop now seeks to address.

    "The minister is not proposing a Federal Government takeover of the university sector. Ms Bishop's immediate demand is only for the states to refer to Canberra their power over university financial administration, reporting and auditing. The states and territories have no good reason to demur. If they are prepared to let Canberra pick up the bills, they should also be prepared to give it the relevant regulatory authority. It can mean only greater consistency and transparency in the management of the tertiary education sector.

    "However, if the states and territories do not accede to Ms Bishop's request, the minister has indicated she might seek to use the Federal Government's powers over corporations to take control of the universities. Matters are not likely to go to that far. Yet the idea of a Commonwealth takeover does have appeal. Australia's universities increasingly compete in an international marketplace - whether for lecturers, researchers or students. A more cohesive university sector would be more competitive. The power Canberra now exercises in key financial and policy areas could profitably be extended across the board to eliminate the inconsistencies between state and territory regimes in a range of regulations and requirements affecting tertiary institutions.

    "But for the moment Ms Bishop is right to put the emphasis on co-operation with the states and territories as she sets about lifting standards of governance."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link [scroll down to second editorial]
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    The budget ends the easy ride
    by Peter Hartcher
    
    Thank God for elections. Competitive politics, with an anxious Government facing the prospect of electoral oblivion, has forced the Howard regime to address issues that it had long preferred to ignore.
    
    
    
    
  • Bunnies turn into hunters, taking aim at Rudd's reputation as a toiler
    
    Now the Coalition is moving into a new phase in its project of deconstructing Mr Rudd.
    
    
    
    
  • Keep full fees or pay compensation: universities
    
    Kevin Rudd's promise to abolish full-fee paying undergraduate places if he wins government has met a lukewarm response from universities, which say they would need to be compensated for the loss of fees.
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Knowledge Limited: company name or the outcome?

      "The Federal Government has forced public universities to rely heavily on commodifying and selling tertiary education, and Julie Bishop has the audacity to have them formally named as "trading corporations" ("PM to seize uni control from states", May 10). This insidious little scheme has been quietly working in the background to deliver ultimate control of unis to Canberra via its "constitutional powers over corporations".

      "Beautiful. Make them operate like a business, reclassify them and move in, completely deregulate the ratio of private to public places and eventually make tertiary education essentially accessible only to those who can buy it. A regressive, silvertail ideology realised at last. This is what we have allowed. Who needs tertiary education to see we'll never be the "clever country"?"

      Robyn Dalziell, Castle Hill
      
      

    • "Your editorial "A lesson from Mr Costello" (May 10) overlooked a serious point. The estimated $304 million annual harvest from the $5 billion fund will be divided among the universities at the Government's discretion.

      "Under past ministers, funding for tertiary programs has gradually moved from quality research in worthy areas, such as the anthropological and linguistic documentation of Australian and international cultures, an area in which I am heavily involved, towards areas that are commercially applicable, that generate immediate monetary return for their investment.

      "I would think that if the Howard Government were re-elected this year, we may see this trend continue with a further bias towards, say, pharmaceutical research and development, which would ordinarily be privately sponsored, at the expense of programs that are vital, yet are not immediately profitable.

      "In an era in which we are witnessing the most rapid loss of indigenous language and culture, among other areas, in history, I seriously question whether this is the right way to go."

      Aidan Wilson, Mosman
      
      

    • "I read with some horror that the Howard Government is planning to take over universities. With the removal of the cap on full-fee-paying students and the Treasurer not ruling out the increase in HECS that would follow this, is the Howard Government taking us one step further down the road of the American education system? I can almost hear John Howard and Alexander Downer whining that I am anti-American, but let me say that I love America, I work for an American company and I holiday in America; I just would not want to get sick or try to educate my children there."

      Bob Eggleton, Sydney
      
      

    • "Julie Bishop has told us universities are corporations. That makes students customers, academics mere service providers and the Commonwealth Government the major shareholder. An education revolution, indeed."

      Tim Quadrio Eastwood
      
      
      

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teacher funding inadequate, says union (page 11)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Teachers have condemned an extra $177 million in education spending as lacking vision, saying it would do nothing to alleviate the staff shortage.

    "State School Teachers Union acting president Anne Gisborne said the 5.7 per cent increase in spending on education and training failed to include any measures to deal with the growing teacher shortage.

    "We don't see any sense of a social vision being portrayed in a time when we have a State Government that has a significant surplus..."

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said given the lack of teachers, it was disappointing the Government had not used the Budget to significantly increase teachers' salaries to make the profession more attractive..."

    Full story in The West Australian

    
    

  • State to fight Federal uni takeover (page 4)
    by Rhianna King and Bethany Hiatt

    "The State Government has vowed to fight a Federal takeover of universities, but it is unlikely to have the backing of WA's vice-chancellors, who said yesterday they were open to the idea of answering to Canberra.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has demanded the States hand over responsibilities for higher education, claiming Labor governments across Australia have done nothing except tie up the sector in red tape while Canberra bankrolled the system..."

    "Curtin University constitutional law expert Greg Craven said Ms Bishop's threat to invoke the Commonwealth's right to govern anything associated with corporations was "legally impeccable".

    "I think the reality is the States have to work out if they're in the game or not. They are going to have to take a lot more interest and devote more resources," he said. "If they don't, it's inevitable the Federal Government will take greater control."

    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    

  • TV addict teens fail at school – study (page 42)
    by Cathy O'Leary, Medical Editor

    "Teenagers who watch television for three hours or more a day are more likely to drop out of school and give university a miss, according to new research..."

    Full story in The West Australian

 

Saturday – Sunday, 12 – 13 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Sneak peek at exam questions in OBE plan (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    

    "Even the fact the council's panel was considering this proposal shows it is clutching at desperate measures in an effort to create credible results". Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier "Teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the proposal was 'unethical' and a clear sign that the council's English panel was worried the new exam format and assessment method were going to produce poor TEE results." "So they are trying to make it as easy as possible for a lot of students to get a good mark," PLATO president Marko Vojkovic said.

    
    
    "English students would be shown parts of their TEE exam paper in advance under a Curriculum Council proposal which teachers say is aimed at averting disastrous results associated with outcomes-based education.

    "Warren Grellier, who chairs the Curriculum Council's assessment, review and moderation panel which oversees the development of OBE English, asked English teachers in a memo this week to comment on whether schools should be given questions from the reading section of the exam in advance.

    "The questions would relate to a written passage that would remain secret until students sat the paper.

    "Mr Grellier, who is also a principal consultant in the Education Department's Senior Schooling Academic Standards and Support directorate, acknowledged that his plan was designed to deal with the fears associated with OBE.

    "His email read: "The rationale was to take the focus off the question(s) and place emphasis on the reading practices that students need to adopt with the unseen passages. The proposal was seen as a measure to reassure teachers and students in what has and continues to be a volatile period of implementation."

    "Critics say the proposal would result in weaker students obtaining artificially inflated marks and discriminate against more academic students - which goes to the heart of OBE philosophy that no student fails.

    "English was one of the first OBE courses to be introduced to Years 11 and 12 and has borne the brunt of implementation problems. This is the first year students taking OBE English will sit an exam in the new course, which is vastly different to the previous course.

    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood at first told The West Australian this week that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on any issues relating to this year's exam.

    "But a day later, after he received a phone call from the office of Education Minister Mark McGowan, he claimed the proposal had simply been floated as an idea.

    "It's not practical, it will not happen," he said yesterday.

    "Teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the proposal was 'unethical' and a clear sign that the council's English panel was worried the new exam format and assessment method were going to produce poor TEE results.

    "So they are trying to make it as easy as possible for a lot of students to get a good mark," PLATO president Marko Vojkovic said.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said: "Even the fact the council's panel was considering this proposal shows it is clutching at desperate measures in an effort to create credible results".

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Rebels may lose license to teach (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    

  "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said any talk of deregistering a third of the teaching fraternity for not paying their fees was nonsense. "Half the schools across the State would have to close," Mr Collier said. "If WACOT provided some meaningful services for teachers, including representation on the board, the problem wouldn't exist."

  
  "Nearly 14,000 teachers who have not paid fees to their peak professional body face being stripped of their licence to teach in WA schools - despite the growing teacher shortage.

  "Membership of the WA College of Teaching is compulsory, but it has admitted that 13,979 teachers - a third of its 42,428 members - failed to pay their $70 registration fee by the April 30 due date.

  "Many defiant teachers are refusing to pay until WACOT holds an election for 10 teacher positions on its board. The only election held since a temporary board was appointed three years ago was abandoned in November amid controversy.

  "The college insists it will take steps to deregister teachers if they do not pay. But it will face huge problems if teachers continue to hold out because members' fees are WACOT's sole source of funding.

  "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said any talk of deregistering a third of the teaching fraternity for not paying their fees was nonsense.

  "Half the schools across the State would have to close," Mr Collier said.

  "If WACOT provided some meaningful services for teachers, including representation on the board, the problem wouldn't exist."

  "WACOT director Suzanne Parry was unable to confirm how many members had paid since April 30.

  "Asked whether WACOT would push ahead with deregistration, Dr Parry said to would be "working co-operatively" with all members and hoped to have an election date soon.

  "To a degree they have justifiable reasons for being upset." Unnamed WACOT Spokesman

  "Last week, a WACOT spokesman told The West Australian it would set an election date before pursuing unfinancial members.

  "To a degree they have justifiable reasons for being upset," he said.

  "But this week WACOT told members a news report may have wrongly led some teachers to believe they could identify themselves as "conscientious objectors" and not pay their fees. Dr Parry would not say whether the spokesman was wrong.

  "A spokesman from Education Minister Mark McGowan's office sait the Government was drafting regulations so new WACOT elections could be held as soon as possible."

  From The West Australian
  
  

  • Editorial
    State of rot in Carpenter's culture of denigration (page 18)
    
    "... Evidence has been emerging of a cowed public service – with many of its chiefs kept on edge in acting positions – in the Carpenter culture of obsessive intolerance not only of dissent but also of questioning of the prevailing ideology.
    
    "Rather than fixing problems – in a deplorably inadequate health system and in education, child welfare and so on – the Carpenter method is to react with resentful bad temper directed at those who draw attention to them. This is the stuff of totalitarianism,
    
    "So rotten has this Government become that it is provoking opposition in the name of decency from within, as MLA Tom Stephens' attack on it this week exemplified."
    
    Full editorial in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Carpenter’s stance on integrity a disgrace (page 19)
    by Paul Murray
    
    "For most of her five-year tenure under Labor as Public Sector Standards Commissioner, Maxine Murray has hardly been a thorn in the State Government’s side.
    
    In the main, this fat cat has purred. But over the past year, Ms Murray discovered a distinctly prickly side.
    
    That epiphany coincided with the Carpenter Government’s moves to downgrade her office and then decline to renew her contract. What is the chicken and what is the egg in that equation is in the eye of the beholder.
    
    But in her sunset era, Ms Murray is creating a real problem for Alan Carpenter by seeking to tell the truth about his Government and the continuing politicisation of the public service.
    
    This week, the commissioner released the fourth of her reports in a review of the PSSC’s first 10 years, looking this time specifically at integrity issues.
    
    For her efforts, she got a personal bagging from the Premier. That should not surprise anyone aware of Mr Carpenter’s modus operandi..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • The Moral Maze, by Hugh Mackay
    Poor are always with us, even in a boom (page 18)
    
    Notes the issue the educators and OBE proponents absolutely refuse to admit or to discuss:
    

    "There’s also a factor we’re reluctant to talk about: low intelligence.
    
    "Many people whose intelligence isn’t low enough to count as a disability nevertheless struggle to organise their lives and to make sensible decisions about money, relationships, work or housing..."
    

    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    

• The Weekend Australian
  
• School science courses 'pre-Newtonian'
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "Science in years 8 to 10 in Queensland is essentially descriptive, with courses failing to recognise the scientific revolution triggered by Isaac Newton in 1687, leaving students woefully unprepared for senior study.

  "Submissions to the Senate inquiry into the academic standards of school education argue the calibre of maths and science taught is low by international standards, the quality of teaching is poor and the courses fail to stretch bright students.

  "A submission from a maths teacher of 40 years' standing, who co-authored a series of textbooks and worked with the Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies, said that maths to the end of Year 10 "fails abjectly" to provide students with the skills to progress to more rigorous maths or the physical sciences.

  "That this has been allowed to go on for decades is a scandal," John Ridd said.

  "Dr Ridd said the standard of algebra taught in Queensland schools was poor and there was "now no numerical science in years 8/9/10".

  "It is a sad fact that science in the years up to the end of Year 10 in Queensland is essentially all descriptive. It is non-numerical, pre-Newtonian," he said.

  "Dr Ridd said the "awful gap" between the standard of maths at the end of Year 10 and the start of Year 11 had required a lowering in the standard of maths taught.

  "Maths has had to be softened, weakened, by a large amount," Dr Ridd said. "Work that used to be done in years 8/9/10 now appears in the first sections of the Year 11 maths B texts.

  "Naturally the longer-term effect of that is that the standards reached by the end of Year 12 have declined -- with implications for the next stage -- university maths, physical science and engineering. There is a gap there too."

  "Dr Ridd's concerns are echoed in a submission by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and the International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics, which says the long tail among Australian students "of under-achievement and failure is apparent well before the end of secondary education".

  "The AMSI and ICE-EM submission argues that the OECD maths skills test often quoted as showing Australian 15-year-olds perform highly "is not a valid assessment" of maths knowledge, with some of the questions "effectively general aptitude tests rather than mathematical ones".

  "The submission says that a better guide to the standard of students is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study of Year 8 students, which tests curriculum content. Its results show that by the early years of high school, a large proportion of students already lack the background skills necessary for intermediate and advanced level maths courses in years 11 and 12.

  "The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers agrees that students are failing to reach their full potential in maths, and attributes this to poor teaching, modelled on methods used in the 1960s that "foster memorisation as opposed to deep learning".

  "But the association says Australian students compare favourably with their international counterparts and the achievement standards in courses compared well to those expected of overseas students.

  "We believe there is a disproportionate focus on comparisons between the states and territories, particularly through the media, which is not helpful to improving standards," it says."
  
  From The Weekend Australian at link
  
  Dr Ridd's submission to the Senate Inquiry is available at this link
  
  
  
  

• Universities slip off the leash
  
  Universities applaud the Government's budget measures but the devil will be in the detail, writes political correspondent Samantha Maiden
  
  "John Howard's new embrace of university reform is a foray into enemy territory, according to his critics. But the Prime Minister regards this week's landmark education budget as something of a new chapter in the Menzian legacy.

  "Blaming a "left liberal bias in academia", he believes there's a perception the Coalition is not interested in universities, but that "couldn't be further from the truth". "Many people would argue that the foundation of the modern university system in this country was in fact laid down when Menzies was prime minister of this country," he said yesterday. He said the budget announcement of a $5billion Higher Education Endowment Fund was "only a beginning".

  "Another measure - lifting the cap on the number of full-fee degree students in Australia's universities and relaxing micro-management for other students - failed to grab the headlines in some newspapers this week. But the nation's education bureaucrats and vice-chancellors are convinced it is these measures that will deliver the "big bang" of Howard's education revolution. The centrepiece of the budget after family-friendly tax cuts - the Treasurer's embrace of higher education - was aimed squarely at destroying Labor leader Kevin Rudd's ascendancy in the polls and in the education debate. His proposal to extend the Future Fund idea to a new endowment fund for universities will deliver an income stream that could grow as universities enjoy new tax incentives designed to encourage private philanthropy to boost the fund's coffers.

  "But after years of complaints from universities that reforms introduced in 2003 by then federal education minister Brendan Nelson delivered too much red tape and regulation, the Government has also released the brakes on the market in the halls of academe.

  "While changes to HECS funding were expected following signals from federal Education, Science and Training Minister Julie Bishop, the budget reforms went further. By abolishing the present 35 per cent cap on the number of full-fee degrees universities can offer students who miss out on marks, universities are off the leash..."
  
  Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
  
  
  
  

• Loans scheme boost for private colleges
  by Lisa Macnamara
  
  "Private colleges predict their enrolments will swell by 200,000 on the back of measures announced in the federal budget to help vocational students meet the cost of course fees.

  "The Howard Government's proposal to extend FEE-HELP to those studying in private training colleges would help those who could not afford to pay for tuition up front, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training said.

  "Under the budget initiative, students enrolling in diplomas and advanced diplomas -- and paying up to $30,000 for courses such as aviation, computing or natural medicine -- would be able to access the loan scheme from next year.

  "The move means many private college students will receive the same assistance as their counterparts in higher education institutions, who can borrow up to $80,000 -- $100,000 for dentistry, medicine and veterinary science -- to help cover costs.

  "Our estimate is that it could lead to up to 200,000 additional students funding their own vocational training," council chief executive Tim Smith said.

  "It means students have a real choice not to go to university, and choose a vocational course in a private college." ...
  
  Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
  
  
  

• ALP vows further cash for training
  
  Kevin Rudd's $2.5 billion promise to help train apprentices at2650 schools is only a downpayment on more spending on technical education before the election.
  
  
  
  
• Rudd's skills plan clever by design
  
  With Kevin Rudd's $1.5 million in its coffers to construct or upgrade trade centres in high schools, Perth's Lake Joondalup Baptist College could build and equip a woodwork room, a metals room and a machine room.
  
  
  
  
  
• Op Ed
  Counting the numbers
  
  Peter Costello's budget was a tactical masterstroke that highlights the magnitude of the task facing Kevin Rudd to defeat the Howard government, says Paul Kelly
  
  "This has been Peter Costello's week. It is the week he lodged his most powerful claim to out-muscle Kevin Rudd and become Australia's next prime minister..."
  
  "The budget delivers a triple blow to Labor: it affirms the magnitude of the Howard Government's economic credentials, highlights the social and human dividends from sustained economic prosperity, and involves Costello's own education revolution that put Labor under sudden pressure..."
  
  "For Australia, the good news from the 2007 election contest is that education policy is being transformed, with both Rudd and Howard pledged to long-term reforms that should boost educational investment and national productivity..." [emphasis added]
  
  "The symbolic brilliance lay in the new Higher Education Endowment Fund. This took Labor by surprise. It was ignored in Rudd's budget reply because Labor hasn't fathomed how to respond. The fund is a sharp break from the past, a long-term investment vehicle that chains the budget surplus to universities during the coming decades.

  "It represents a permanent change in Coalition priorities and is an example of long-range thinking, contrary to Rudd's standard critique of the Howard Government. The vice-chancellors, ecstatic after such a rough decade, are now aligned with the Government. Rudd, having pledged an education revolution, has been gazumped by Costello. His budget reply focused on schools, not universities..."
  
  "[Education Minister Julie Bishop] said a fund of $15 billion to $20 billion was realistic by the end of the Coalition's next term, if re-elected. Down the track, she said, a $50 billion fund was "not out of the question".

  "For the record, the Future Fund has capital of $52billion, having been established in 2005-06 (including $18 billion from the Telstra sale). And the 2006-07 surplus has yet to be transferred to the fund.

  "Costello's separate $3.4 billion education package has a distinct values slant: an emphasis on core literacy and numeracy, vouchers for parents to bypass state education systems and partial university deregulation. And this is where Rudd faltered.

  "Since he became leader, Rudd has wanted to review Labor's policy of abolition of domestic full-fee-paying places. The reason is simple: if you stage an education revolution, making the universities worse off is a strange way to start. Bishop says this fee category is worth $500million revenue to universities. Labor says this is an exaggerated figure.
  
  "On Wednesday on Sky News, Rudd repeatedly refused to endorse Labor's existing fee policy. The balloon went up; the media sensed a policy change.

  "Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith tried to give Rudd cover, saying abolition was "our long-term aspiration", implying that something else might occur. But such a policy reversal was the wrong atmospheric for Rudd's budget reply. Rudd's acceptance of Howard's policy would have enraged the pro-Labor network of interests pledged to the abolition of such fees and would have shocked much of the Labor party.

  "(Under Howard's policy, once universities have filled their HECS places they can offer domestic full-fee places. Such enrolments constitute 3 per cent of undergraduates. While the budget abolishes the caps on these places, this will have no real effect on numbers, a point conceded by Bishop.)

  "In parliament on Thursday, Howard mocked Rudd by documenting how the Labor leader had wanted to change policy only to retreat. He likened Rudd to former leader Kim Beazley. Howard said Labor's policy meant foreign students could earn such places but not Australians, a signal of his populist resort on this issue if the politics get hot..."
  
  Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
  
  


© The Weekend Australian



• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • How will Labor staff the trade workshops in our schools?
    
    "Kevin Rudd’s proposal to place industry-standard training facilities in high schools has merit ("Rudd’s apprenticeship”, 11/5), but from where does he intend to source the staff?

    "TAFE colleges have been experiencing considerable difficulty in recruiting suitable lecturers, so what is Rudd’s strategy for sourcing the hundreds of skilled staff which will be necessary to provide industrial-level training in schools? Many of the existing manual arts and other skills teachers do not have industry-standard skills."
    
    T. Smith, Sorrento, WA
    
    

  • "Kevin Rudd’s rediscovery of the need for technical education is welcome, but there is an incredible irony in this change of heart. It was Labor ideology which destroyed technical schools in the past 20 years and replaced them with one-size-fits-all secondary colleges.

    "This process cut the links with industry in the governance and direction of technical education in schools, and phased out teachers with trade experience. It was based on the delusion that a distinction between high schools and “techs” was elitest and that all students should be oriented towards university. Rudd denounced this delusion in his budget response as if he had reached some brilliant insight. Perhaps it was – for him.

    "Meanwhile, the Howard Government’s 25 Australian Technical Colleges, announced in the 2004 budget, have only just got off the ground. There was little fanfare accompanying this belated attempt to fill a gap created by Labor state governments, and in some cases little cooperation from the same quarters. The most encouraging aspect of these schools is that they are governed and led in part by local industry."
    
    J. Morrissey, Hawthorn, Vic
    
    

  • "Before spending tens of millions of dollars teaching children an Asian language, perhaps Kevin Rudd could first help state Labor governments ensure that our children can read and write English correctly. With standardised tests showing the majority of school leavers lack even these basic attributes, why is Mr Rudd not focusing on getting the basics right?"
    
    Jonathan Whybird, Upper Kedron, Qld

  
  
  

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Costello rules out plan to enrol more fee-paying students
    by Adam Morton
    
    "Melbourne University's plans to cut HECS student numbers as it transforms into an American-style graduate school are in doubt after Treasurer Peter Costello ruled out letting it replace them with lucrative full-fee payers.

    "According to modelling sent to Canberra and obtained by The Age, the university plans to double its Australian full-fee student numbers while cutting about 3000 HECS places over the next 20 years.

    "It is part of the most radical shift in the university's history: slashing undergraduate degrees from 96 to six and moving professional courses such as law and medicine to postgraduate level.

    "But Mr Costello yesterday said that no university could give up HECS places while taking on more fee-paying students, who pay up to $240,000 for a degree. "We won't be allowing universities to substitute fee-paying students for Commonwealth-supported students," he said.

    "The Government's stance is the biggest political roadblock facing Melbourne University since it announced the most radical change in its 154-year history..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Howard's technical colleges struggle
    
    The Federal Government's flagship technical colleges are costing up to $25,000 a student after sluggish enrolments and bureaucratic delays.
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Rudd wipes out on Budget wave [also in most News Ltd Sunday papers]
    by Matt Price
    
    "That Peter Costello's 12th Budget knocked Labor around was no surprise. It was no secret the Coalition had billions of surplus dollars up its sleeve.
    John Howard and Costello are masters at extracting maximum bang for Budget bucks.

    "Having seen the wave coming, Kevin Rudd couldn't avoid getting dumped. He conducted a truly excruciating interview after the Budget.

    "Appearing on Sky News, Rudd was skewered by the station's young political editor David Speers.

    "When Rudd boasted Labor had a detailed plan for $3 billion in spending cuts, Speers asked for specifics. Three times Rudd blathered and dithered; he didn't know the details.

    "While the Government is trumpeting its Higher Education Endowment Fund, Budget fine print reveals universities are free to charge higher fees and offer more full-fee degrees to Australians.

    "Labor's policy would abolish domestic full-fee courses, now entrenched in the top universities. Speers asked Rudd whether he'd stick to this, prompting an absurd answer about checking Costello's Budget papers.

    "Clearly, Rudd left open the scrapping of Labor's no-fee policy..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Ripper blows great chance
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    There was a feeling from the beginning of the week that things were not going to go all that smoothly for the Carpenter Government as it tried to sell its Budget.
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Tasmanian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Budget a Tampa short of bounce [also in most News Ltd Sunday papers]
    by Glen Milne
    
    Peter Costello has mugged Kevin Rudd with the reality of incumbency. The Budget with its $30 billion plus in spending on tax cuts for all and the gazumping of Labor's "education revolution" with a $5 billion university endowment fund was a reminder that while oppositions propose, government's dispose.
    
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Overhaul for school kitchens, workshops
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Tired industrial design workshops, cooking facilities and other vocational training equipment would be updated to commercial standard under Labor's plan to inject $2.5 billion into Australia's secondary schools.

    "NSW teachers yesterday welcomed the promise of extra capital funds for schools, but were concerned about the Opposition's silence on how it would boost the TAFE system.

    "Peter Costello said nothing about TAFE, but we were hoping Kevin Rudd would fill the gap," the NSW Teachers Federation president, Maree O'Halloran, said.

    "Labor said it would have more to say about TAFE before the federal election and rejected concerns that its Trades Training Centres in Schools Plan threatened the return of 1950s-style technical schools, abolished under the Wyndham Scheme in the 1960s.

    "The Prime Minister, John Howard, would not criticise Mr Rudd's latest education announcement, saying it had followed the lead of the Government, which had revived technical education through Australian Technical Colleges. "The greatest mistake we made in education in this country for decades was to move away from dedicated tech schools; whether you do it that way or you do it by having a bit in each school can be debated," Mr Howard said.

    "The Teachers Federation said Labor needed to ensure it would not duplicate the TAFE system or lock young students into a vocational training path from a young age. "Every school in a public high school should have access to the full academic curriculum," she said.

    "The office of Labor's education spokesman, Stephen Smith, said the trades training plan would not affect the broader curriculum, but offer every secondary school between $500,000 and $1.5 million in capital works funding for facilities.

    "Australia's 2650 secondary schools would receive an average of $1 million over the next 10 years, which could provide a new industrial-standard kitchen, a workshop and computer laboratory for each school..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Patching up the ivory towers
    
    Most university vice-chancellors are in a state of pleasant shock after the budget, writes John Garnaut.
    
    "... On Tuesday night, the Treasurer, Peter Costello, made higher education the centrepiece of his $70 billion budget. At its heart was what he described as a bold, visionary and unprecedented $5 billion investment fund that would finance university infrastructure forever. Fund earnings could amount to $400 million in the first year, he said, rising to $1.2 billion if fund capital grows to $15 billion.

    "The Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, says the initiative was "inspired" by the enormous endowment funds that sustain the great American universities such as Harvard and Yale. A national philanthropic fund was first suggested by David Murray, the former Commonwealth Bank chief who heads the Future Fund. The concept grew in talks with Costello and Bishop to become the Higher Education Endowment Fund.

    "I remember David Murray talking about it with the Treasurer last year," Bishop says. "It was way before [Labor leader Kevin Rudd's] education revolution."

    "And, yes, Bishop sees Tuesday's budget as a seminal moment. The $5 billion seed funding is the first instalment. "It will give them the opportunity to be truly world class," she says.

    "Leaders of the nation's long-suffering universities are nearly as chuffed. "I seriously believe this budget is the best news for Australian universities for decades," says Gavin Brown, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney (who recruited Snyder).

    "The president of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Gerard Sutton, says: "We were asking for half a billion dollars year. They delivered that, but they delivered in a way that stays with us forever."

    "The rapturous reception can be partly explained by the surprise that the Howard Government is talking positively about universities. "I was genuinely shocked," says Glyn Davis, the vice-chancellor of Melbourne University. "One of the reasons I was so pleasantly surprised is higher education has not featured in national policy for some time."

    "Not so surprisingly, the best universities are keen to ensure the money is used to reward excellence - not just any institution that calls itself a university. "I hope the returns on the endowment fund aren't smeared across the sector," says Ian Chubb, the vice-chancellor of the Australian National University..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Don't need this bribe

      "Julie Bishop, how about dividing up the $53 million among the disadvantaged schools for the facilities they need and seeing the improvement that results ("Bishop spends $53m on apples for teachers", May 11)? Teachers don't really need bribes, you know, just the tools: we become teachers because we have a desire to educate and to help our students, astonishing though the idea may be to you."

      D. Nicholls, Balmain
      
      
      

• CNN
  
  
  • College cost crunch felt worldwide, not just in U.S. [Lead Education Story]
    
    Australia's HECS scheme of "income-contingent loans" is held up as a "good example".

 

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This page last updated 17 April, 2009 10:59 PM