|
|
|
Breaking
News: Week of 27 August 2007
|
Saturday – Sunday, 1 – 2 September
- The West Australian
- Department keeps Year 9 results secret (page 5)
by Bethany Hiatt
"The Education Department is refusing to release details of individual schools' results from Statewide testing of Year 9 students."After repeated requests under freedom of information laws for the number and percentage of students at each school who achieved the minimum benchmark in reading, writing, science and maths tests last year, it has claimed it does not keep the data. This is despite the fact that it sends this information to all high schools.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the department had a "siege mentality" of deliberately not releasing information. "The lack of transparency from the department with regard to these results will merely serve to reinforce this perception," he said.
"Last year, the department published the results of Statewide literacy and numeracy tests held for students in Years 3, 5 and 7 because the Federal Government said such information should be publicly available.
"But it is not publishing the same information for Year 9 students because it says it has no need, nor is there a Federal Government requirement to do so. The department has already released publicly information on the number of students across the State who achieved the minimum benchmark in each learning area.
"Even though each school does provide some information about the performance of its Year 9s in the Statewide tests in it annual report, also available on the department website, the format is inconsistent.
"Education minister Mark McGowan said WA had the most transparent freedom of information laws in the country. It was expected that from 2008 there would be a national benchmark set for year 9 testing and school data across all sectors, State, independent and Catholic, which would be published in a format similar to that used for Years 3, 5 and 7 test results."
From The West Australian
- Business wants to sponsor your school (page 5)
by Rhianna King, Canberra
"Corporate sponsorship of schools, a national curriculum and a new pay system for teachers have been identified as possible solutions to the decline in Australian education standards, according to a Business Council of Australia report to be released today."The report found that Australia was at risk of falling behind countries such as Finland, Japan and Korea, and the BCA has responded with a 5 point plan which it will put to the major parties today.
"Written by Australia Council for Education Research chief executive Geoff Masters, the report said many aspects of the school system had not changed since the 1960s, and the poor condition of buildings and equipment reflected a lack of investment and an outdated mindset.
"It listed two main concerns: the significant proportion of young people who fell behind at school and achieved only minimal schooling, and the lack of skilled youth.
"It its 5 point plan the group calls for early intervention, customising education to be more responsive to individual students, supporting teachers to improve qualifications, increasing funding and improving governance.
"BCA president Michael Chaney said the association would use the paper to promote the need for change, starting with a national curriculum in core subjects.
"Business leaders are concerned that, while some of these issues are being addressed in some parts of the school system, a comprehensive strategy to reform school education is needed," he said. "In particular, for a large proportion o schools, the same centralised governance and management structures have been in place for more than 40 years."
"The report called for principals to be given the power to hire and fire, which both the Opposition and Federal Government have endorsed, and supported increased literacy and numeracy testing and a new pay scheme for teachers.
"The current pay structures see most teachers hit a pay ceiling about a decade after entering the profession … current pay structures tend to encourage good teachers to stop teaching," the report said.
"Quoting last year's OECD finding that Australia's ranking on education investment was 18th of 29 countries, the BCA called for increased investment in all areas of education.
"The BCA will also use the report to call for greater cooperation between business and schools, which echoes a plan announced by Education Minister Julie Bishop earlier this year.
"Schools business partnerships of the kind introduced in the UK could boost school renewal efforts," the report said. "They would also provide a greater role for business, merely beyond being an end user, in the schooling business."
"The Federal Government is drafting a core curriculum for key subjects to be taught in all Australian schools."
From The West Australian
Also see related story in today's The Australian
- Call for increased school spending [late update, online only]
AAP
"Teachers have demanded state and federal governments boost education spending after a business group warned Australia's school system was leaving students behind."In a report the Business Council of Australia (BCA) said many students were not prepared for the workforce when they left school and were being outperformed by those in Finland, Japan and Korea when it came to mathematics and science.
"Among five recommendations, the BCA called for governments to increase spending on education, which had declined from 4.5 per cent of GDP in 1995 to 4.3 per cent in 2003.
"BCA president Michael Chaney said too many youngsters were falling behind in literacy and numeracy early in their education, and there was insufficient early intervention to ensure they caught up.
"The second problem is that people are coming out of school not equipped with the sort of knowledge and skills that are required for them to be effective participants in the workforce," he said.
"Mr Chaney called for teachers to be paid on performance, saying the current system in which all teachers were paid according to length of service was a disincentive for the best ones to stay in the profession.
"Australian Education Union (AEU) president Pat Byrne backed the Business Council's call for increased investment from all levels of government.
"It is a fair call. We would say that at both state and federal level the proportion of funds that goes to education has been gradually declining," Ms Byrne said.
"(School infrastructure) has been in a state of decline for 20 to 30 years by successive state governments that have allowed it to get to this.
"That's not something that either party can resile from."
"Ms Byrne agreed some students were being left behind due to a lack of early intervention, and said the gap between high-achieving and low-achieving students in Australia was wider than in many OECD countries.
"However, the AEU did not believe the sole aim of schooling was to ready students for the workforce.
"Education Minister Julie Bishop accused the states of dropping the ball on education and leaving it to the commonwealth.
"If the state governments matched our rate of funding increase, then there would be an extra $2 billion in education," Ms Bishop told ABC radio.
"So I do call upon the states to match the Australian government's rate of funding increase for investing in education."
"Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith said the BCA report confirmed the Howard government had been under-investing in every level of education for too long.
"It underlines what Labor has been saying - making greater investments in education at every level is the single most important thing we can do for Australia's future prosperity and living standards."
From The West Australian online at link
- Letters to the Editor (page 22)
- In short
"$170,000 to tell us about construction projects we are paying for? How about a phone call to tell the parents of the economic powerhouse in the Pilbara why their children go to classrooms that have no teachers or their wives go to a hospital that doesn't deliver babies."
Peter Bothe, Karratha
Dirty works in toilets
"In reply to the letters about toilet hygiene at schools, I was a school cleaner working for the government for eight years.
"I saw some pretty disgusting things done by children to the toilets. Paper, food, sticks, sand, books and clothing stuffed down them, faeces over walls and floors and vomit on floors. Since the toilets are generally cleaned only once a day I guess they could be disgusting at times. I worked for part of my time as a cleaner in charge and never had a problem with staff cleaning toilets properly.
"The blame shouldn't entirely be put on the cleaners. Unless children are taught to respect what they are freely given, nothing will change."
Glenys Higgs, Maylands
- The Australian
- Schools failing youth, says business
by Milanda Rout
"The nation's school system is stuck in the 1960s, failing young people, and should be dramatically overhauled to produce better graduates to meet the skills shortage."And Australia's 100 leading chief executives believe performance pay for teachers, early intervention for literacy and numeracy and better links between schools and business are part of the answer.
"The Business Council of Australia today releases a five-point plan to alleviate what it says is a quality crisis in the nation's schools.
"The powerful lobby group's discussion paper identifies several problems with schools across the country, including a shortage of "job-ready" skilled young people to go into the workforce.
"It says too many students are falling behind and dropping out before they finish school and argues Australia's economic competitiveness depends on increasing the number of students who complete Year 12, as well as improving their skills and knowledge.
"Despite generally increasing education levels, Australia has one of the lowest secondary school completion rates, behind East Asia, North America, Scandinavia and much of Continental Europe," the paper reads.
"And a large number of young people leave school with unacceptably low levels of school achievement. We are failing more than 300,000 young people aged between 15 and 24 who are either unemployed or work part-time and are not undertaking part-time study."
"The paper, prepared by Australian Council of Educational Research head Geoff Masters, says students who struggle at school need to get help before they become "disengaged" from classes and drop out.
"The BCA argues that this early intervention should include all children being tested for literacy and numeracy; such children should be constantly monitored on these skills and receive specialised help if they fall behind.
"The paper also identifies areas where "additional investment will yield the greatest return" including: national teacher accreditation; more autonomy for school principals; a national curriculum; performance pay for teachers; and better links between business and schools.
"Australia must pursue policies that close and prevent gaps in education quality between private and public schools," the report reads. "All students should receive a high-quality education no matter which school they attend."
"The BCA also says education has been poorly funded and schools need more resources from government and business.
"Many aspects of our school system have not changed since the 1960s," the paper reads. "The poor condition of infrastructure, including buildings and technology, reflects a lack of investment and an outdated mindset when it comes to priorities for education."
"BCA president Michael Chaney, who is also chairman of National Australia Bank, said that while the school system was "generally good" by world standards, there were key areas in which we were at risk of being left behind by other nations.
"He said that a "major rethink" was needed to lift the quality of schools and raise Australia to the top five countries of the OECD.
"High-quality school education is crucial to our future innovation, productivity and standard of living," he said.
"Mr Chaney said businesses required an increasing number of skilled school, university and TAFE graduates but the need was not being met.
"He said the paper identified two main problems with the school system that required immediate action.
"The first challenge is the number of young people who fall behind in their learning during their school years, and achieve only minimal educational outcomes," Mr Chaney said.
"A second major challenge is the shortage of young people with the knowledge and skill required for effective participation in modern workplaces."
"Mr Chaney said the BCA would develop specific recommendations on schooling over the next six months.
"Labor education spokesman Stephen Smith said the BCA paper matched his party's commitment to increasing investment, improving the quality and standards of schooling and boosting retention rates.
"Labor is determined to encourage our kids to stay in school, as all the evidence shows that completing secondary school gives them the chance to maximise their potential and get ahead," Mr Smith said."
From The Australian at link
Similar [AAP] story on National Nine News
- The Melbourne Age
- Teachers turn up blowtorch
by Bridie Smith
"Victorian teachers have stepped up their bid for better wages and conditions as talks with the Government approach a critical stage."A television ad campaign that begins today — just over a week before thousands of teachers decide whether to walk off the job as part of a statewide stopwork — claims the longer they stay in the classroom, the more their pay falls behind others such as lawyers, accountants and tradesmen.
"The campaign is designed to gain public support and put pressure on the Government.
"Australian Education Union branch president Mary Bluett said senior Victorian teachers earned about $7000 less than their NSW counterparts.
"Unless there is a change in Government position, it is very, very likely that thousands of teachers could walk off the job come fourth term," she said.
"Teachers have made a formal claim for a 10 per cent pay rise each year for three years — well above the Government's public sector wage policy of 3.25 per cent a year.
"On average, teachers reach the top salary of $65,414 after nine years.
"The union has given the Government until Wednesday week to make progress in the negotiations that have been running since March."
From The Melbourne Age at link
- Tutors find favour as students race to be the best
by Bridie Smith
"Parents are paying for private tutors in growing numbers, according to a report that finds many regard tutoring as a way to complement their child's state school education."Business information analysts IBISWorld found a perceived lack of individual attention in the state school system was one of the main drivers of the shift, which has been gaining momentum in the past decade.
"Industry analyst Fiona Silke said Melbourne and Sydney were spearheading the growth, with the tutoring sector likely to continue to swell by an average of 7 per cent a year. Australia's tutoring industry was worth $900 million, she said.
"The IBISWorld report, released today, suggests that for many who send their children to a public school, tutoring is seen as an economical way to "top up" their child's education while avoiding private school fees.
"Tutoring is seen as a cheaper option by parents who want to ensure that their children are getting the maximum benefit out of school," Ms Silke said.
"Jonty Sharman-Smith, 10, who is far from a struggling student at McKinnon Primary School, has weekly tutoring in maths, writing and general ability.
"His mother, Kimberley Sharman-Smith, said the weekly 90-minute sessions provided the kind of classroom attention he could not get at school and his confidence had soared since he signed on in April.
"I would have to work full-time to afford private school … (and tutoring) probably is a way of trying to give the children the best start that I can," she said.
"Mrs Sharman-Smith, who teaches Japanese, said paying $37.70 a week for tutoring meant she got weekly feedback on her son's work.
"According to the report, other factors driving the growth include private school students being tutored to keep up with their peers and students being coached for scholarship or entrance exams at the prized select-entry schools.
"The arrival of two new select-entry schools by 2010 is expected to further fuel demand. Ms Silke said competition for non-fee university places would also mean more parents would turn to private tutoring.
"The manager of Melbourne tutoring business Brainworks, John Grundy, agrees. "There has been a much greater percentage of parents using tutoring as a way to get ahead," he said.
"But it's more than that … they also like their kids to be challenged."
From The Melbourne Age at link
- ABC News
- McGowan casts doubt over Pilbara ATC
"Western Australian Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan says the federally-funded Australian Technical Colleges (ATC) in the Pilbara, in the north-west, and the Perth suburb of Armadale, are floundering because they are unnecessary."Mr McGowan renewed his previous criticism of the colleges last week when his federal counterpart, Andrew Robb, announced two new colleges would be built in Perth.
"Mr McGowan says the ATC in Armadale has only 62 students and the Pilbara college has none.
"He says the colleges are an expensive new concept that has not worked in WA.
"The problem is is that the Commonwealth is duplicating what the state already does," he said.
"We already run high schools that integrate TAFE training in them, we run TAFE colleges that train people in trades and meet the broad requirements of industry."
"The chief executive of the ATC Pilbara, Nancy Rees, says the college does not have any students yet because it is still in the process of being licensed as a school.
"Dr Rees says it is working with 25 year 10 students who will be eligible to enrol at the college next year."
From ABC News at link
- The West Australian
- Inside Cover (page 2)
Teaching college fails to address Pat's gripe"Patrick Whalen loves hopping into the WA College of Teachers and OBE.
"A regular contributor to the anti-OBE website PLATO, Pat has also had numerous letters published in the West critical of both WACOT and OBE.
"The other day when WACOT posted him a copy of its newsletter, In Class, Pat was unimpressed.
"After opening the envelope I saw how useless the newsletter was," said Pat, of Joondalup.
"He put the newsletter back in the envelop, re-sealed it with tape and wrote on it,"Return to sender, unwanted junk mail".
"A couple of days later Pat received an email from WACOT advising him that "we have returned mail from your address".
"WACOT asked Pat to forward his new details at "your earliest convenience".
"This is the organisation which was created to 'lift the standard of the teaching profession'," he fumed.
"How can that happen when they cannot recognise sarcasm?"
From The West Australian
- Parents fear inequality in school sponsorship (page 16)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Corporate sponsorship of schools could lead to inequity between school communities, the State's main parents group said yesterday."The Business Council of Australia has called in its latest report for more school business partnerships, a national curriculum and a new teacher pay system.
"WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said corporate sponsorship would work well for some schools but others that struggled to get business backing would suffer.
"It needs to be done in a way that doesn't end up with billboards on school sites," he said. "One of our concerns is that the rich could get richer and the poor would stay very poor, and it could set up an inequitable arrangement because some schools would struggle to get anyone to support them."
"High school principals welcomed business partnerships, as long as schools retained autonomy.
"WA Secondary Schools Executives Association president Alison Woodman said the department should write guidelines to clarify expectations of both parties.
"It's not the entire solution, but it could be a good one," she said.
"Education minister Mark McGowan said WA had tackled most of the strategies identified in the paper. Her said partnerships between business and the education sector were common, particularly in the vocational sector.
"Pilbara schools were involved in programmes with BHP Billiton and the WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy had links with schools in the Goldfields and Pilbara.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the Government was already pushing for new pay structures for teachers and was working to improve consistency.
"It the State governments matched our rate of funding increase, then there would be an extra $2 billion in education," she said.
"But Mr McGowan said WA had increased its investment in public education 9% while the Federal Government's contribution had declined 2.5%.
"Shadow education minister Stephen Smith said the report proved the Federal Government had under-funded education."
From The West Australian
- The Australian
- No focus on 'real' education problems [Lead national story]
by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
"The Australian Council of Deans of Science yesterday accused the federal Government of concentrating on marginal issues in education, such as performance pay for teachers, rather than addressing major problems with school science courses and a shortage of qualified teachers."Council president John Rice said the Government had its priorities in education wrong, exemplified by its spending $6billion to set up a higher education endowment fund when the nation faced losing half its qualified teachers in the next five to 10 years.
"There's a lack of vision and understanding. It's not as though they haven't the money; they have their priorities and perspective all wrong," he said.
"The council's concerns were echoed yesterday by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, which released a report in 2002 about the problems in training science teachers.
"Co-ordinator of AATSE education committee Don Watts said federal and state governments lacked the will to recognise the serious problems in science education.
"Professor Watts said the federal Government was dabbling ineffectively in the states' arenas of curriculum and teacher pay instead of addressing the supply of science teachers through its funding of university places.
"The states still don't seriously invest any money in teacher retraining," he said. [emphasis added]
"Professor Watts said professional development courses were useful, provided teachers knew the substance of what they were teaching.
"The Business Council of Australia yesterday released a discussion paper criticising the state of the nation's education system and proposing a five-point plan to alleviate what it calls a quality crisis in schools. The lobby group claims performance pay for teachers, early intervention for literacy and numeracy and better links between schools and business are part of the answer.
"The federal Government's inaction was highlighted last week when Education Minister Julie Bishop announced an action plan for school science education. But the only thing released was a media statement, with the plan being sent to the directors-general of the federal, state and territory education departments.
"At a meeting on Friday, the directors-general, sitting as the Australian Education Systems Officials Committee, decided to take the plan to their individual governments and discuss it again at their next meeting in October. The federal education department is still refusing to release the report. [emphasis added]
"The report was written by Denis Goodrum of the University of Canberra and Leonie Rennie from Curtin University, who also co-wrote a report in 2001 on the status and quality of teaching and learning in science. The Government is yet to act on the report's recommendations.
"In contrast, the National Science Board in the US released a national action plan "addressing the critical needs of the US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education system" at the beginning of this month. A week later, laws were passed to bolster maths and science education by improving teacher recruitment and training.
"Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith said the Government had neglected maths and science education for 11 years, during which time Australia had slipped behind in the quality of its education and the number of graduates.
"Mr Smith said the ALP's policy would halve the HECS fees of students in maths and science courses, and halve the repayments for those graduates deciding to teach in those areas.
"Ms Bishop yesterday said the federal Government funded a range of activities to improve school science, including $5 million to the Australian Academy of Science to develop a primary school science curriculum and about $1.5 million for a pilot high school science course. It also provided $34 million to link schools with science organisations and universities to promote science, and has commissioned reports on science and maths education.
"State governments have primary responsibility for developing school curriculum and supporting teachers," she said.
"Greater national consistency in ... school curriculum, innovative salary structures for teachers and more support for professional development are key elements of the Howard Government agenda and will work to promote higher standards."
From The Australian at link
- The Australian
- Rewards for staff in tough schools ["suddenly appeared" dated 25 August]
by Jennifer Hewett, National affairs correspondent
"A Labor government would increase pay for teachers who work in tough metropolitan or remote schools."Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith said Labor would "pay teachers more for what they teach, and where they teach".
"If you have a specialist maths or science accreditation or skill, we will pay you more," he said.
"If you want to teach in Mt Isa or Meekatharra rather than in a school next to the GPO of the capital city in which you live -- or teach in a tough school where there are problems -- we will pay you more money as well."
"The commitment is part of Labor's promise of a "revolution" in the funding of early childhood education, universities, schools and vocational training.
"But despite the commitment to increase resources and work cooperatively, federal Labor's plans are certain to create upheaval in the state education bureaucracies and eventual friction with the education unions.
"Mr Smith is clearly determined to avoid being wedged by the Government on issues of values or educational standards, insisting on the need for rigour and empirical evidence.
"He has also dismissed any suggestion that private schools shouldn't attract as much commonwealth funding.
"Mr Smith told The Weekend Australian that the old comparisons between public and private or between states or with spending in previous years were no longer appropriate.
"The comparisons now have to be international," he said. "Investing in education at every level is the single most important thing we can do to enhance our prosperity. A rising tide lifts all boats."
"But he said it was also necessary to focus on children from lower socio-economic backgrounds and poorer schools to give them a real chance and improve economic capacity.
"Labor has not detailed most of its funding plans but its agenda will require serious changes in the teaching profession, with Mr Smith arguing that the financial incentives at the moment are "perverse" in encouraging teachers to get out of the classrooms.
"We went though a very bad period where the adage was, 'those who can, do, and those who can't, teach'. We are living with the adverse consequences."
"He said in some key disciplines, such as science and maths, the curriculum had got away from relying on empirical bases for answers as well as the reality of competition among students.
"He argued that Labor's plan for a national curriculum board would establish rigorous and consistent standards "firmly grounded in the fundamentals" in subjects such as English and history as well as the sciences.
"Describing himself as a traditionalist in many respects, he said it was also important to move with the times in areas such as English: "It is silly to say that digital forms of communication shouldn't be part of the study, but it can't be the starting point or the all-pervading foundation."
From The Australian at link
- Op Ed
Back to literature's bad old days
You don't broaden minds by retreating into a shell. Tom Ford unravels the latest reading strategy
"A group of authors, publishers, teachers, academics and cultural bureaucrats assembled in Canberra earlier this month to address a gathering crisis.
"They met "in the spirit of beginning a national conversation about the role of Australian literature in schools and universities". You can't really begin that conversation as it has been ongoing for decades. But the round table did raise some issues to a new level of prominence and, at least for that, deserves a closer look."The result of the meeting was a remarkable communique: the word itself, with its flavour of Comintern directives from the old Eastern bloc, is an indication of the program it outlines.
"The classics of Australian literature, the communique asserts, must be protected from competition on the open market. The glories of our literary heritage must not be allowed to moulder in the basements of second-hand bookstores. To prevent the market-driven erosion of tradition, the Canberra meeting demanded that studying it become mandatory for Australian students. As the communique says, "the teaching and study of Australian literature in schools and universities contributes to the domestic publishing industry and helps to support Australian writers". ...
Tom Ford teaches literary studies at Deakin University, where he is a visiting fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights.
Full story in The Australian at link
- The Higher Education Supplement includes this gem:
- Pressure on PhDs to meet grade
by Bernard Lane
"Students may have to defend their PhD theses orally and examiner panels could be audited for quality under reforms being considered by elite universities."The ideas floated by Group of Eight executive director Mike Gallagher come amid claims that the once respected qualification lacks relevance, suffers from dubious quality and gives candidates false hope of employment.
"These claims have dominated a lively debate on the HES website after Curtin University of Technology academic Richard Nile declared the PhD "a dinosaur from a previous age of elite education" in an HES online article..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- The Adelaide Advertiser
- Op Ed
Will we ever learn? [28 August]It's a familiar tune: a new report says our schools are failing our students and our future workforce. Maria Moscaritolo reports.
"It's a poor indictment - that our schooling is still stuck in the 1960s - but odds are little will change in the foreseeable future.
"The Business Council of Australia says our school system is governed by "outdated mindsets'' and, in the interests of the nation's future workforce, it has proposed a five-point plan to fix it. The response of the usual suspects yesterday was to make the usual criticisms: The Federal Government blamed the states for underfunding education and the Labor opposition hit back accusing it of the same.
"The familiar "blame game'' reaction sidesteps the BCA report's central premise that the very way our schools operate is flawed. The BCA's Restoring our Edge in Education report targets "an outdated mindset when it comes to priorities for education'' as well as poor infrastructure, lack of investment, and unchanged governance structures.
"In the years ahead, there will continue to be a shortage of skilled labour,'' it says. "On current trends, the education system will not be making the contribution that it could to reducing this shortage.''
"But education consultant Kevin Donnelly is critical of the BCA's efforts; he says the report is "superficial'' and does not contribute anything new to the national debate.
"In my point of view, it's unsatisfactory because it states the obvious without giving any concrete proposals,'' says Dr Donnelly, a former Howard Government adviser, and author of Why Our Schools are Failing.
"He says many teachers will just yawn at yet "another report telling us what we need to do'' and the BCA paper doesn't acknowledge the heated debate in recent years around the country about standards and models of education.
"The report does suggest the "one-size-fits-all'' model of teaching be dumped.
It says the nation's students need a system that better responds to their individual needs."Besides calling for more public funding, the report also recommends:
Early intervention for young children with learning, social and behavioural difficulties, before their problems become entrenched and they become disengaged students.
Customised teaching to respond to the needs and interests of individual learners, rather than only groups.
Support for teachers to constantly update their qualifications and their knowledge.
Better governance - streamlined oversight and clear areas of national responsibility, plus autonomy and flexibility at a local level.
"Pat Byrne, federal president of the Australian Education Union, says the reactionary political focus on money was "predictable'' but she also points out that a bigger injection of funding is inescapable if we are to implement national reforms.
"I do think it comes back to funding,'' she says. ``For example, they talk about more personalised learning, which is a great idea, but you cannot have personalised learning systems in classes of 32 - it's not possible.''
"But she adds that as long as the mind-set is stuck on dispensing blame and criticism "nothing is going to change''.
"We actually need to have all levels of government sitting down and working out how they can work together to develop national strategies and then fund them in the way they need to be funded.''
"Ms Byrne doesn't agree with everything in the report, but acknowledges it touches on important problems that need to be tackled - such as how to lift our Year 12 retention rates, and tackle the widening gap between the poorest and best performers.
"The answers are not that elusive; she points to countries like Finland, which has impressive educational standards as well as comparatively higher teacher pay.
Not that we should downplay our steady educational achievements: for instance, in the past decade, the number of 25-35 year-olds with a bachelor's degree or better has doubled."But the report says "we are failing'' the 300,000 young school leavers who each year remain unemployed or work part-time with no plans for further education.
"The BCA commissioned Professor Geoff Masters, the head of the Australian Council for Educational Research, who last year prepared a report for the Federal Government on a national certificate of education.
"Professor Master's report points out that despite our increased education levels at the top end, we still have embarrassing secondary school completion levels for a country that prides itself as progressive - lower than East Asia, Canada, the United States, and much of continental Europe.
"Too many teens still leave school with barely basic levels of education, it says, setting themselves up for chronic unemployment or low paid work. "The future Australian workforce will require both higher level skills and a broader range of skills which will need to be updated more frequently than in the past,'' Professor Masters says. "Many low-skill jobs have now been overtaken by technology or are being transferred offshore to low-cost economies.''
"In other words, if these youths are being left behind today, in a society where they can at least get low-skilled work, they will be left high-and-dry and hopeless in a hi-tech, high-skills future.
"In the same way the job market is different from a generation ago, so too are the education needs of today's emerging workforce.
"Today's young people will be employed in a wide variety of occupations, are likely to change jobs frequently and to be engaged in ongoing employment-related learning in relation to those jobs,'' the report says. "In the future, standard courses will be less appropriate than the ability to personalise learning by mixing and matching from a diversity of options delivered in a variety of formats and involving a multitude of pathways between education, training and work.''
"Dr Donnelly says Australian students already have a "dumbed down'' curriculum. He says that, rather than diversifying further, it needs to go in the other direction and drill better basic maths and English skills.
"There's been a real fall in standards, so I'd argue it's a false dichotomy to say that because the workplace is changing you somehow need to have this 'you beaut' new-age curriculum, when in fact, the argument should be that kids still need to read and write and add up,'' he says. "You still need foundation skills, and I've always argued you need that kind of structure and discipline before you can be creative.''
"Even so, Professor Masters' report says the traditional "group'' approach to teaching and to addressing problem areas is flawed and can be improved.
"Although differences in school achievement can be seen at the level of groups (e.g. boys, indigenous students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds), attempts to address these differences through group-based solutions have in general been disappointing,'' he reports."Professor Masters points out that the earliest years of life are the most important for laying the foundations of future success, "however, to date, Australia has not had a co-ordinated national whole-of-government approach to early childhood education and care''.
"He also suggests providing a more attractive pay structure, given most teachers hit their career pay ceiling after a decade. It's a recommendation that would need to be handled carefully, given the acrimony between the Government and unions when Education Minister Julie Bishop sought to tie the introduction of performance-based pay to federal funding.
From The Adelaide AdvertiserWomen with a degree earn about 40 per cent more than those who have not finished Year 12.
Almost 90 per cent of jobs today require post-school qualifications.
In the next decade, there will be a projected shortfall of 240,000 people with Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualifications.
The biggest employment growth in recent years has been in professional and associate professional (engineering, medical, building, technology) jobs.
If Australians averaged one further full year of schooling, this would boost economic growth and productivity growth by 0.3 points every year.
- The Melbourne Age
- Run-down schools get poll sweetener
by Bridie Smith
"Run-down schools will get much-needed upgrades under an election sweetener from the Howard Government."In a bid to capitalise on one of the Coalition's most lauded policies, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop announced yesterday that the Investing in Our Schools program — which funds schools for everything from shade-cloth to sporting equipment — would be extended if the Coalition won the election.
"The $1.2 billion scheme was due to expire at the end of next year, but has been so popular that the pool of money has run out. Plans to expand the program came as Ms Bishop also announced $140 million in grants as part of the final round of the scheme..."
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
- Bad boys need help, not bans
by Bridie Smith
"Suspension is not the answer when it comes to disciplining boys with behavioural problems, a behaviourist says."Julia Tilling said that rather than sending troublesome students away to external suspension programs, schools could achieve better results if they set up programs allowing students to remain in a supportive environment with mentors.
"This would enable schools to work with students to resolve conflict.
"Often when students return to the school (after suspension), the school hasn't changed, the curriculum hasn't been adapted and so they're basically being thrown back into the same environment that they were struggling with originally," said Dr Tilling, a consultant for the Brisbane Catholic Education Office..."
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
- Pitch for rural campus help
by Adam Morton
"Uruguay is not renowned for its higher education. While Australia has 17 universities in the world's top 500, the South American nation has none."But the tertiary systems of the two countries have something in common: 18 per cent of Uruguay's regional school-leavers go on to university — the same participation rate as country Australia.
"This was among the stark facts that seven university chiefs laid out during meetings with federal Education Minister Julie Bishop and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith to justify their call for an extraordinary 900 per cent rise in dedicated country campus funding..."
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
- Letter to the Editor
- Ahead of the pack
"In reference to your article "Tutors find favour as students race to be the best" (Age 27/8), could this trend be a result of the new grading system? As far as I am aware, in order to achieve an "A" [in Victoria], you need to be a year ahead of your level. This might be a simplistic way of looking at things, but if the school is not teaching a year ahead in that level, what other way is it possible to achieve this mark other than tutoring?"
Barbara Tzanakos, Tullamarine
- The West Australian
- Inside Cover: Feedback (page 2)
- "In response to Pat Whalen (IC, 28/8) and his pathetic effort at humour
"In my school education I clearly remember being informed that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Being 27, only been out of school for 10 years, I can still clearly remember this advice, which helped students to become better at recognising cheap attempts at humour and criticism such as Mr Whalen's so-called sarcasm.
"I just find it unbelievably arrogant of people to think that their 50 year old system of education cannot be improved.
"So to all the opponents of improving our education system, I had to use spell check on half of this letter but at least I am able to recognise a cheap shot and understand that there is always a better way."
Laird Chromiak, Canning Vale
- Letter to the Editor (page 22)
- Schools must change
"The major findings of the BCA report (Business wants to sponsor your school, 27/8) on education was that a significant proportion of youngsters are falling behind with the achievements in school and the lack of skilled workers. That's nothing new.
"Warnings that our nation's future economic, social and security interests hinge on improving the quality of our education system have been on the radar screen for years. Now, as the candidates for the national election turn up the volume of campaign rhetoric, we hear a rising chorus of concern. At the heart of the issue is the sorry record of schools in promoting the achievement and participation of minorities, Aboriginals and poor children. Those sectors of the population, because of different birth rates and changed immigration patterns, will increasingly populate schools.
"The convergence of these two trends - decreasing economic competitiveness and increasing poor and minority population - has put a special spin on what is expected of schools in the future. The net effect is that attainment of those students whom schools now educate least well will become increasingly critical. Increased attention to early childhood education, health and nutrition, community involvement, funding and after school care is much needed, but this alone will not solve the academic problems of poor and minority children.
"If the Australian public and policy makers hope to retain the notion of common school, then much about schools themselves must be changed. At a minimum we must reject powerful misconceptions about learning and individual differences; and we reconceive the structure of schooling those misconceptions had led us to create - not just offering equal access to schools but also knowledge.
"The concept of the school as the centre of change must not be interpreted to mean that the school alone can do what is necessary. Schools exist as part of a larger ecosystem that often hampers their efforts to become a renewing culture in which the very best educational and social values permeate daily life. It is difficult to disagree with those social reformers who believe that reform of the school without reform of society is futile. Maybe the two should proceed simultaneously.
"Perhaps the demographic and technical changes that once again have thrust a crisis on the schools' doorsteps will bring economic self-interest, with equity concerns, and lead us to create schools that educate all students for full participation in a democratic society."
Michael Detiuk, Perth
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Begin HSC in year 10, say top educators [29 August]
by Anna Patty, Education Editor
"The Higher School Certificate should be stretched across three years starting in year 10 and the School Certificate completed in year 9, prominent educationalists have recommended."The high level of stress some students experience in years 11 and 12 could be alleviated by giving them an extra year to learn and starting the HSC in year 10 would provide bored students with a new challenge.
"The principal of Sydney Girls High School, Margaret Varady, who recently completed a doctorate on the culture of selective schools, has recommended the overhaul, after a survey of more than 4000 students in years 7 to 12, and 11 school principals.
"Ms Varady found students were generally positive about their school culture and academic results, with a dip in satisfaction when they reached year 9. She suggested compacting years 7 to 10 into three years to counter the drop in interest.
"The finding that students in year 9 experienced lower satisfaction may be because of this phase of adolescence or perhaps such students need the challenge of the School Certificate, which occurs in year 10, at an earlier age," Ms Varady said.
"Consideration should be given to making the curriculum more flexible to allow schools to offer the School Certificate to all year 9 students, she said.
"This would allow students three years for the Higher School Certificate instead of two, which would enable greater links with universities and other such institutions in their final years."
"However, the State Government said that while it allowed individual students to skip a year of school, the option would not be offered in a wholesale way to an entire year of students.
"The chief executive officer at the Australian Council for Educational Research, Geoff Masters, who the Federal Government commissioned to research a national curriculum for year 12 students, said year 10 was becoming a transition year into senior secondary school.
"Some students are commencing senior school studies in year 10, and some education systems appear to be thinking of year 10 as the beginning of the senior years," he said.
"The last architect of changes to the HSC, Barry McGaw, who once headed the Australian Council for Educational Research and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development education directorate, said it was not unreasonable to accelerate students through a year. "But you can broaden the curriculum instead of accelerating students," he said.
"The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said that every student should be given the opportunity to accelerate through an entire school year.
"The Education Minister, John Della Bosca, said the NSW curriculum was flexible enough to stretch gifted and talented children."
From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
- Lesson in waste - a new school built for three pupils
With just three enrolments so far, a [NSW] primary school will be ready to open next year in a housing estate that boasts just 30 homes.
- The Australian
- Resources smash records
Western Australia's unprecedented boom continues to smash records, with new figures showing a 25 per cent jump in the value of resources exports last year... Western Australia already contributes one-third of Australia's total export income and state Resources Minister Francis Logan said yesterday there was no end in sight...
But there's no money to increase teachers' pay
- The Dominion Post [Wellington, New Zealand]
- Aussies lure workers west with promise of big bucks
by Erin Parke
"Wellington workers are being lured to Western Australia with the promise of big bucks, warm weather and "beautiful women"."Recruiters at the Go West Now expo are travelling around New Zealand with a message for Kiwis - those with the right skills can name their price in Western Australia.
"Hundreds turned up to the Wellington Convention Centre on Tuesday to meet potential employers, who are desperate for staff because of the state's resource-based economic boom..."
Full story in The Dominion Post at link
- ABC News
- Govt promises more focus on regional teachers' pay
"Western Australian Education Minister Mark McGowan says the cost of living for teachers in some regional communities will need to be addressed in the next round of pay negotiations."Mr McGowan says all teachers in the state's public education system will get a higher wage next year.
"But he says the Government is focused on attracting teachers to country areas.
"One of the things that will have to be addressed as part of the next EBA [enterprise bargaining agreement] negotiations is the issue of pay, and we're very focused on making sure that country locations are attractive for teachers," he said.
"The Nationals' spokesman for education, Grant Woodhams, has welcomed the Minister's commitment to address regional teaching issues.
"He says teachers in many regional areas are unable to meet the cost of living.
"He acknowledged that there were some real difficulties for teachers who were living in particular regional communities, in terms of just the cost of living, how much it costs for your groceries, how much it might cost for rent, how much it might cost for petrol, [a] whole range of issues that determine what your lifestyle is like," he said."
From ABC News at link
- The Australian
- Focus on universities all wrong
by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
"Government spending on education is focused on the wrong priority, investing large amounts of money to support university students at the expense of the early years of childcare and preschool."Internationally renowned economist Michael Keane said initiatives such as the Howard Government's $6billion higher education endowment fund and tuition subsidies failed to help more disadvantaged students attend university.
"Speaking before a lecture at the University of Technology, Sydney last night, Professor Keane said investment in universities had a different purpose: to support the generation of research that would lead to innovation in society.
"The endowment fund was a good idea, and probably overdue, but it's a mistake just to focus on that and not also invest in early childhood," he said.
"Putting money into colleges and universities is mostly going to just further advantage the well-off kids who are already there.
"The most effective way to get underprivileged kids going to college is to invest in them in the early stages, in childcare and preschool to beef up the skills with which they start school.
"The IQs of disadvantaged kids have already sunk well down relative to the mean by the time they're starting first grade. They're already starting school at a big disadvantage."
"Professor Keane, formerly professor of economics at Yale University, is a leading expert on investment in human capital and the economics of education, and is at present an ARC Federation Fellow at UTS. His comments follow criticisms by the Australian Council of Deans of Science, reported in The Australian on Tuesday, that the federal Government was concentrating on marginal issues in education, such as performance pay for teachers and the endowment fund.
"Council president John Rice accused the Howard Government of "a lack of vision and understanding".
"It's not as though they haven't the money; they have their priorities and perspective all wrong," he said.
"Professor Keane said guaranteeing all children high-quality childcare was not very expensive. He said Labor's policy provided $500million to provide all four-year-olds with high-quality preschool, so extending that policy to childcare from infancy would cost a few billion dollars.
"We're not talking about a lot of money and all the evidence is that it's going to have very substantial benefits."
"Cost-benefit analyses estimated that for every $1 spent on early education, the community saved $2 in the reduced costs of welfare, special education and the criminal system while increasing tax revenue with better educated people gaining higher-paid jobs.
"Professor Keane said his research showed that lifetime income was largely determined by about the age of 16, and perhaps even earlier.
"Research conducted by Professor Keane, about to be published in the Journal of Econometrics, found that the quality of childcare provided was crucial to educational outcomes."
From The Australian at link
- Flying squads skill-up Aborigines
by Paige Taylor
"Aborigines are being left behind by a resources boom that is gathering pace and creating unprecedented wealth for their fellow West Australians, Premier Alan Carpenter said yesterday.The seemingly unstoppable boom in the state's north has pushed unemployment to record lows of 3.3 per cent - but 14 per cent of indigenous West Australians still do not have jobs.
In a wide-ranging and impassioned parliamentary speech on the future of the state's Aboriginal population, Mr Carpenter announced four flying squads to teach job skills in remote Kimberley communities plagued by unemployment, alcoholism and two separate child sex abuse scandals..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Curtin accused of censoring emails [30 August]
The academic union has launched Federal Court action against Curtin University of Technology over alleged censorship and blocking of union emails to staff.
- The Melbourne Age
- School funding to focus by years
by Farrah Tomazin
"Senior high school students and children in year 2 will get less money from the State Government under contentious plans to change the way schools are funded."More funding will instead be directed at years 5 to 8, to try to place greater emphasis on students making the transition from primary to secondary school.
"Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said the changes would not cut the overall level of funding for schools — roughly $3.8 billion — or affect the state's record low primary school class sizes and key learning programs.
"But some say the changes are "robbing Peter to pay Paul": instead of the Government giving schools more money for their overall budgets, some year levels will have funding "shaved" in order to top up others.
"All year levels are important," said Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon. "This Government is constantly saying that education is its number one priority, yet they spend less per head than any other state — and this is another example of them trying to hide that fact."
"Under the proposed new funding package, year 2 students, who get an average $5275 per student, will get almost $400 less. Those in years 9 to 12, who receive $5975 per student, will get about $120 less. But students in years 5, 6, 7 and 8 look set to get about $200 more, while critical initial years of school — prep to grade 1, which currently gets about $5275 per student — will also remain almost unchanged, as will funding for year 3 and 4 students.
"Principals would continue to make operational decisions about how that money would be used," Ms Pike said.
"The changes follow an independent review by Melbourne University education experts Richard Teese and Stephen Lamb, who examined how resources are allocated in 83 schools across the state.
"Professor Lamb said the best schools targeted their resources towards the critical early years of primary and secondary school.
"It's in those early years that you need to make an impact, but it's important to sustain the effort after that, right through to secondary schools. Many schools are concerned about the transition phase from late primary to secondary … that's why there has been an increase in years 5 and 6 funding," he said
"But Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman said if the review was to be "genuine and robust", it should have come with more Government money.
"Brian Burgess, president of the Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, said the impact would be minimal; it was up to schools to decide how to target their overall budgets.
"The latest National Report on Schooling shows Victorian primary school students receive $8594 a year in recurrent government spending, compared with $9944 per student in NSW and $10,840 in WA."
From The Melbourne Age at link
- TV watching linked to teen obesity
Australian secondary students are failing to meet national dietary and physical activity recommendations for teenagers. According to a national survey of teens released today, there was a link between the amount of television students watched and the volume of high-energy foods and drinks they consumed.
Similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Editorial
Enough HSC, already
"Spring is in the air, the high school formals are under way and the state's 85,000 year 10 students are sliding into a familiar state of ennui. And that's even before they sit the much maligned School Certificate exams next term. Yes, there's something amiss among the 15- and 16-year-olds who routinely idle away the final months of year 10 before embarking on the stressful and rigorous two years leading up to the Higher School Certificate exams. Part of the problem is simply age. Many teachers would agree that mid-teens can be difficult to engage, no matter what the education system throws at them. Others blame the largely redundant School Certificate. About three-quarters of year 10 students stay on for the HSC anyway, which now accommodates a range of TAFE subjects suited to trades and technical careers, not just the academic path of the past. That leaves year 10 students with too little to strive for and too much time on their hands."A new proposal to combat the year 10 slump by extending the HSC curriculum to run over three years may seem sensible. That way, from year 10, rather then year 11, whatever students learn and achieve at school will go towards the real arbiter of future opportunity; their HSC mark.
"But moving the HSC goalposts is risky. Locking students into HSC subject choices a full year earlier might prove detrimental. At the age of 14 or 15 students are unlikely to have a career path mapped out and should not be expected to make premature decisions about something as important as their academic direction.
"As for lightening the HSC load by spreading the learning and the stress, a more likely outcome is that the same level of burden and anxiety, for parents and students, will simply be extended to a third year. NSW high schools already have the discretion to accelerate bright students or entire classes into HSC courses in year 10. To engage the rest - the majority of the student body - in those empty last weeks of year 10 demands innovative strategies devised by teachers who know their students, not sweeping policy change. Some year 10 students may respond to greater demands, but others will waste time. Yet most will return for year 11 mature enough to face the considerable pressures of the HSC, regardless. They might just have needed one more summer to grow up."
From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
- IQ at five foretells earning potential
by Anna Patty, Education Editor
"Working mothers need no longer feel guilty, according to new research which has found that children who attend preschool have the best chance at a prosperous working life."Michael Keane, professor of economics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said a person's future earning capacity could be determined at the age of five and sealed by the age of 16.
"His research, presented at the university last night, found that IQ tests on five-year-olds could predict whether they would complete high school and go on to university. "If you know the kid's IQ test scores at age five, that is a better predictor than the parents' IQ or income," he told the Herald yesterday.
"Quality day care and preschooling could help raise the intelligence levels of young children and were of greater benefit to their long-term future than later interventions, such as tuition subsidies for university students.
"The only sort of intervention that economists have found that seems to have a large impact on subsequent labour market outcomes are these kind of early childhood high-quality day-care interventions," Professor Keane said. "There is no evidence of any adverse effects on kids of formal child care. It would seem logical for government to focus more resources in that direction."
"NSW has the lowest preschool attendance rate in Australia. The education authority Tony Vinson, of the University of Sydney, last year completed a study that found some children were starting school having no idea what to do with a pen, paintbrush or book.
"Professor Vinson said NSW needed to more than double its funding for preschools. Teachers and principals have been campaigning for funding to ensure that more children complete preschool."
From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
Saturday – Sunday, 1 – 2 September
- The West Australian
- Teacher fix in doubt as imports quit (page 64)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Five of about 30 foreign teachers enticed to WA country schools this year have since quit, raising doubts about the Education Department's use of overseas recruitment to help plug the growing teacher shortage."Disillusioned recruits who have resigned at short notice include two Irish teachers who left after just one day at a Kalgoorlie school and a British teacher who left Carnarvon because he claimed he was asked to teach unfamiliar subjects.
"The department said five out of 33 overseas teachers had resigned since the start of the year, but refused to say what schools the other teachers were at or what reasons they gave for going. [emphasis added]
"Goldfields district director Larry Hamilton confirmed than an Irish couple recruited to teach at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High left after the first teaching day of third term last month.
"Their expressed reason for leaving was due to the behaviour of the kids, but I believe they were advancing that to justify a decision they had previously made," he said. [Are district directors trained to talk like that? Web] "My judgement is that they found the cultural aspect of the change too much for them."
"Mr Hamilton said another British recruit who started at the same time in the same school was thriving. "We've got to find ways of making the transition as smooth as we can," he said.
"British computing studies teacher John Harris left after less than four weeks at Carnarvon Senior High School. He was dismayed to find he also had to teach digital photography and society and environment.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the State Government should not cut corners to artificially resolve the teaching shortage.
"Many of these teachers receive a seismic shock when they arrive in Carnarvon or Kalgoorlie to be told they must teach subjects they are simply not qualified to teach," he said.
"While I don't have a problem with the recruitment of teachers from overseas, unless the conditions of their new posting, including the subjects to be taught, are made abundantly clear, then these teachers will inevitably have been set for a fall."
"Education Department acting human resources director John Serich said people discovered whether a job or location was suited to them only after they took up a position.
"A few overseas teachers have left, the majority have settled in and are enjoying working and living in WA," he said. "The department is continuing its overseas and interstate recruitment efforts, which are proving to be successful."
From The West Australian
- The best 12 reads for your children (page 16)
by Freya Contos
"The classic tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory must be read by children before they are 12, according to The West Australian’s expert panel of judges.
"Librarian of the Year Marie Clarke, children’s author Andy Griffiths and WA Primary Principals Association head Colin Pettit came up with their top choices after combining their recommendations with readers’ online votes in our “12 books your kids must read before they turn 12” competition, which closed on Monday.
"The top five selected by the panel, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, were Mem Fox’s Possum Magic, Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy, Marcia Vaughan’s Wombat Stew and Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series.
"The other seven books the judges selected from the voters’ choices, rounding out the top 12.
"They were J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle; The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis; J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit; E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web; Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame and the Deltora Quest series by Emily Rodda.
"Mrs Clarke said her choices were influenced by reading to her own children, making sure the book was easy to read and understand, as well as being great value for money and “teaching lessons about life that can be found in them”.
“A good book for children is one where they can take what they want from it,” she said. “Their response may not always be what you as the adult may think or like but at least (it allows them) to foster a love of reading and experience reading as a pleasure, not a chore.”
"Andy Griffiths, known for his humorous books Just Disgusting and The Day My Bum Went Psycho, said that the 12 essential ingredients he used when writing children’s books were: Story, anarchy, originality, story, pace, chaos, humour, story, darkness, fear, taboo-breaking and story.
“My first and last purpose in telling stories to children and attempting to get them to believe impossible things is for the sheer pleasure of the process, both for me as story-teller and for the listener,” he said.
“Although there may be other important benefits for the listener, such as an increased appetite for books and improved literacy skills, they do not justify the existence of the story.”
From The West Australian at link
Top 12 books submitted by readers
- The Weekend Australian
- Op Ed
Unassertive Tweedledee faces a thrashing from TweedledumThe Government has not communicated a consistent message Labor is winning the debate with mirrors, writes Kevin Donnelly
"Analysing our politics, especially the strategies used by the main parties to attack opponents and to win support, commentators refer to recent US practices such as triangulation, otherwise known as the third way.
"Triangulation involves moving beyond the old-style politics of the class war represented by Left-Right and socialist-capitalist, and undermining opponents by adopting their positions on important issues. While copying one's political foes can appear contradictory, triangulation nullifies what might be a political disadvantage by staking the territory normally occupied by the enemy.
"Since Kevin Rudd's election as leader of the federal ALP and Stephen Smith's appointment as Opposition education spokesman, education has become one of the policy areas that best illustrates triangulation in practice."Take the hit list of so-called elite non-government schools Mark Latham took to the last federal election. It was a policy based on the politics of envy and very much directed at maximising the support of traditional friends such as the Australian Education Union, which consistently runs marginal seat campaigns for the Labor Party.
"To win electoral advantage, Rudd and Smith have turned the politics of class envy on its head by mimicking a conservative agenda. Both argue that all schools should be publicly funded and that parents have the right to choose where their children go to school.
"In the lead-up to the 2004 election, Prime Minister John Howard, ably assisted by then education minister Brendan Nelson, argued for higher educational standards and accountability, especially in literacy and numeracy, saying that the curriculum was, as a result of outcomes-based education, politically correct and dumbed down.
"Fast forward to Smith's period as ALP spokesman and it is obvious that the ALP is staking the Coalition's territory in these areas as well. In one of his first interviews on being appointed, Smith agreed teachers needed to be accountable for results, Australia should have a national curriculum and that OBE was a serious concern, especially in Western Australia. [emphasis added]
"In a series of policy papers covering areas such as vocational education and training, maths and science teaching, establishing a national curriculum, and literacy and numeracy, the federal ALP has developed a persuasive narrative about the need to raise standards, support choice of schools and develop a rigorous curriculum that is academic as well as vocational.
"There are concerns about what will happen if the ALP wins government: the extent to which the AEU will demand payback, the intention to use the Curriculum Corporation and the Australian Council for Education Research, both associated with the present malaise, to develop a national curriculum. But Labor is winning the rhetorical debate.
"Of course, political parties do not operate in a vacuum and the question has to be asked: why has the Coalition Government allowed the ALP to act as education's Tweedledum to its Tweedledee? The answer is vital, given the Newspoll surveys that consistently rate education as one of the most influential determinants in voter choice.
"One reason the Government is losing ground on education is because of its failure to communicate a consistent message. Evidenced by the Prime Minister's comments about the destructive impact of political correctness, especially in literature and history, the rights of parents to choose non-government schools and returning to the basics, it is clear that the PM remains a strong advocate of a conservative agenda.
"Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Education Minister Julie Bishop. On taking over from Nelson, who once described OBE as a form of cancer, Bishop made it known she would not be as aggressive and would seek what she terms the sensible centre in policy debate. [emphasis added]
"At the time that OBE, which focuses on students' inclinations in learning rather than set knowledge, was under attack as flawed and substandard, best illustrated by Western Australia's attempt to extend OBE into years 11 and 12 and Tasmania's experimental Essential Learnings, Bishop stated in the Perth Post on March 25, 2006: "I have not said I am against outcomes-based education. It is a wonderful philosophy.'' [emphasis added] Her on-again, off-again statement accusing state education departments of adopting curriculums that include a cultural-Left agenda straight from Chairman Mao -- the statement was in the advance media kit but left out of the minister's speech given to a history teachers' conference in Perth -- provides a second example of Bishop's inability to articulate the Government's agenda.
"The acrimonious debate as a result of the Canberra history summit's adoption of an open-ended-question approach to learning history, and the subsequent decision to appoint a second group of history experts to develop a curriculum, provides a third example of Bishop's failure to develop coherent policy.
"In trying to force states to adopt federal initiatives -- such as performance-based pay for teachers and Year 12 external examinations -- by linking their acceptance to federal funding, Bishop also gives the impression that she prefers the type of command-control approach to public policy more suited to the old guard of the socialist Left.
"To suggest Smith is winning the debate does not mean that the ALP deserves 100 per cent support. If Labor is elected the danger is that the AEU, the Curriculum Corporation and the various state Labor-controlled bureaucracies, all of which are responsible for Australia's substandard education system, will be given control of the agenda. [emphasis added]
"As we know from debates about education, the devil is in the detail when it comes to education and there is a vast gulf between rhetoric and implementation. Historically, ALP governments have a weak record in enforcing standards and freeing schools from provider capture. It's also true that there is time for the Coalition Government to recapture lost ground by advocating a vision for education that differentiates it from its opponents. Policies such as charter schools, where local communities are given the power and resources to manage schools freed from unresponsive and wasteful bureaucracies, and school vouchers have advantages.
"Not only are such policies a natural fit for the conservative side of politics -- based as they are on empowering individuals and increasing equity and social justice -- they are also, given the ALP's reliance on the union movement and preference for statism, hard for Rudd and Smith to copy."
Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down, published by Hardie Grant Books.
From The Weekend Australian
Op Ed
Literature as porridge
by Imre Salusinszky
"Last month's Australian Literature in Education Roundtable, organised by the Australia Council for the Arts, came up with many suggestions for raising the profile of our national literature, past and present, within the education system.
"And on the eve of the roundtable, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop took one great leap for mankind by announcing the Howard Government would endow a new chair in Australian literature at whichever university put forward the best proposal."At a stroke Bishop increased the number of such chairs by 50 per cent.
"But while the state of Oz lit received a decent airing, there was much said at the roundtable that applied to the teaching in our schools of literature generally.
"As university specialists have ceased to be included on the state boards of studies, which shape curriculums and reading lists, two related developments have occurred. First, the cart seems to have overtaken the horse, with assessment and outcomes assuming precedence over content. Second, curriculums have come to be couched in a formidable bureaucratic jargon, an edu-babble that is inaccessible to mere mortals including, I suspect, most teachers.
"Here is a passage from the introduction to senior English in the South Australian curriculum: "Through the study of English, children and students learn that language transmits cultural perspectives, including gender, ethnicity and class; and who or what is or is not important as they think, imagine, challenge, remember, create and narrate.
"They learn how language shapes meaning and reality, what this means for issues of identity and interdependence, and how it is used for a range of purposes in different contexts. Learners need to know how language is constructed and how it is used by different groups in society to shape power relations."
"And this, from Western Australia's senior literature curriculum: "In the literature course students develop skills and understandings of textual production and reception through reading practices that foster the close analysis and interrogation of textual languages and constructions. In addition to expanding their imaginative and intellectual experience, students develop and extend their social, cultural and textual knowledge through a greater comprehension of cultural meaning-making systems.
"Through critical engagement with a range of text types and cultural and historical contexts, students develop their understanding of different approaches to reading texts. This enables them to ask questions about the nature of literary text and how literature is defined by, and functions within Western cultural history.
"Such questions include the reasons why cultural value is assigned to one kind of text and not another; the changing nature of what is valued as literature at different times and in different historical and cultural contexts; and the ways particular social groups are given or denied the power to define what is 'literary' and what is 'not literary'."
"It would appear, to put it bluntly, that senior-level courses in English expect students to be able to theorise the process of reading before they have done any. The sorts of inquiries outlined in these documents are perfectly appropriate to the graduate seminar room, but to place them at the beginning of a literary education is like starting arithmetic with advanced calculus.
"It seems a particular style of literary theory that enjoyed its historical moment in universities in the 1970s and '80s has returned as farce in the curriculum prescriptions of the Australian states and territories. I am reminded of the way the Finnish system of dexterity training known as Sloyd got taken up in Victorian state schools in the '50s and ended up being plain old woodwork.
"There are a couple of significant verbal giveaways in the documents quoted above. One is the use of interrogation, a word that spread through the humanities in the '80s and '90s like privet. When you interrogate a text you are apparently doing something far more important that simply reading or analysing or asking questions about it: you are standing in the middle of the road of ideas, raising your hand as some benighted Western cultural juggernaut rolls towards you, and announcing: "No further!"
"The other giveaway is the grammatical slippage evident in "the nature of literary text". It suddenly appears as if literature has become indivisible, like milk. The view implied is that the particularities of author, style and imaginative vision, which arguably distinguish literary texts from each other, are secondary to an ideological impulse that unites and transforms them into an undifferentiated porridge.
"The first point to be made about these kinds of curriculum statements is that they are, in all likelihood, harmless. I have little doubt teachers in high schools largely ignore such guff and simply get on with introducing their students to set texts without too much cultural theory clogging the gears.
"However, it is the extent to which the texts are chosen to illustrate the frequently tendentious statements in the syllabuses that is a worry. As my friend Peter Holbrook asked in The Australian last month, would there be a glaring lack in a syllabus that simply declared students would be "introduced to some of the most rewarding and influential writing of the 19th and 20th centuries in English"? Such a syllabus would generate a reading list based on notions of quality, or at least canonicity, rather than illustration of appropriate contexts. My fear is that we have become so devoted to interrogation that we are embarrassed by concepts - sorry, constructs - such as genius or greatness.
"Senior secondary studies in English enjoy an advantage right now that is unprecedented and may not last: the reading bonanza among younger children being driven by their enchantment with Harry Potter. We will not leverage this advantage by making disenchantment the object of high school literature courses.
"What should that object be? Quite simply, literary experience, for its own sake.
"Until students have undergone at least the beginnings of an inductive survey of poems and stories, they are substantially under-prepared for the deductive assertions of literary theory that await them at university. And only such a survey can form the beginning of an appreciation of specifically literary attributes such as style, structure and influence.
"By beefing up the literary content of secondary English courses and elbowing some of the more noisy curriculums out of the way, we would leave students and teachers freer to go wherever a dialogue with the text - which is very different from an interrogation - may lead."
Imre Salusinszky is a journalist with The Weekend Australian and chairs the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. These are his personal views.
From The Weekend Australian at link
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Op Ed
Too easy, it seems, to give poor teachers a pass mark
by Michael Duffy
"Jim Taylor is not the name of the primary school principal who approached me after a recent column, but it will have to do because he's not supposed to talk to the media. I'd written that it was easier to dismiss poor teachers from the state system these days and he was on the phone to tell me that it's still far too difficult."Since then I've talked to other principals and teachers about this, because it's an issue of concern to many parents, including some of those who transfer their children from the public to the private system. I don't claim to have the final word on the situation, but in at least some places it's a festering issue.
"In state schools, teachers' performance is reviewed annually by their principal or a senior teacher. The review cannot include any observation of the teacher in the classroom unless the teacher agrees. In Taylor's experience, most underperforming teachers don't. Therefore the review is usually a paper exercise, conducted with different degrees of rigour in different schools. What this means is that teachers, once they finish their probationary period, can go through their careers without ever being observed and assessed in the classroom by a senior person.
"Some principals and teachers who talked to me say the annual performance review was a joke and poor teachers could easily make themselves look adequate on paper. One teacher says her principal doesn't even do the review, but just signs the forms and sends them off.
"If a teacher is doing a really poor job this will eventually be noticed by colleagues. Her or his pupils might start to display behavioural problems in the playground and the low standard of their work will be apparent to the unlucky teacher who takes them next year. Once this is brought to the principal's attention, he or she usually tries to help the teacher informally. If this fails, the [NSW] Department of Education and Training is informed and the teacher is put on a 10-week formal support program. This can be extended by six weeks if considered necessary. At the end of the program, the teacher is dismissed if there is inadequate improvement. According to the department, 600 teachers have been put on programs in the past five years, with 270 failing to meet the necessary standards and leaving the department.
"That's fewer than 60 a year out of 50,000 teachers in primary and secondary schools and the interesting question is whether it's enough.
"Taylor believes we need a public debate on the current procedures, because they don't work all that well. He says the teachers involved nearly always take stress leave, which can be paid by WorkCover, so it doesn't affect the teacher's accumulated sick leave entitlement. He says that when the teachers he's put on a program returned from stress leave, the department told him the 10-week period had to recommence, dragging the process out for much longer. (Other principals I talked to had received different advice on this point.) As well as stress leave, teachers can claim they are being victimised or harassed by the principal [including those who really ARE being "victimised or harassed": Web], which can trigger a messy mediation procedure. In some cases the teacher will be transferred to another school during the program, which then lapses.
"One senior teacher said to me: "The process gets extended and then it gets complicated and sometimes it falls over for various reasons. It drags in other staff members, even parents, for and against the principal. In a really bad case some teachers stop coming to the staff room for lunch and the school becomes a factionalised place where you just don't want to work."
"I have been told of some principals who retired because of the stress created by this process. Others won't initiate support programs in order to avoid the problems they bring on themselves and the school.
"You can sympathise with them to a point," one teacher says. "But the other teachers can get resentful about carrying a colleague who's just coasting, and that affects staff morale. It just takes a bit longer to happen."
"The present system is an improvement on the past. Geoff Scott, the president of the NSW Primary Principals Association, says: "There used to be two 10-week programs plus a five-week review. It's much shorter now and I think we've got it pretty right." Jim McAlpine, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, is also generally happy with the present system, although he would like to see the program always finish in 10 weeks. "At the moment," he says, "it's often drawn out when the teacher involved takes leave for stress or other reasons."
"Angelo Gavrielatos, the deputy president of the NSW Teachers Federation, acknowledges the need for the procedures and says: "They have been in existence for a long time. They're the result of negotiations between the department and the federation, with the exception of the withdrawal of some appeal rights last year, which we opposed." He is concerned that "focusing on this issue detracts from the fact that the overwhelming majority of teachers exhibit a very high level of professionalism every day".
"I'm sure this is true. But anyone who's talked to many parents about this knows that, far more in public schools than private ones, there's a smattering of poor teachers who stay in their jobs year after year. After talking to Jim Taylor, I can understand why."
From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
- The Sunday Telegraph [UK]
Cameron: Hold failing primary pupils back
by Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
"Poorly performing children would be forced to stay on to resit their final year at primary school under plans to drive up classroom standards unveiled by David Cameron today.
"The Conservative leader calls for a "genuine schools revolution", including improved discipline, a concentration on the basics and a better chance for pupils from deprived backgrounds..."
From The Sunday Telegraph at link
- The Sunday Melbourne Age
- Schools to fingerprint students for security
by Deborah Gough
"Victorian students will eventually be fingerprinted or issued with identifying swipe cards as schools step up security to combat truancy, vandalism and playground violence."Some Melbourne secondary schools already use swipe cards instead of roll calls and to monitor students moving between classrooms and other areas, such as toilets.
"Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman said he did not believe the community was ready for schools to adopt biometric technology — which identifies people using unique markers such as fingerprint, iris print, face image or voice — but conceded it was only a matter of time.
"It's coming, there can be no denying of that," he said. "It's really just a matter of when, and my guess would be, not that far away."
"Australian Education Union state secretary Mary Bluett said the swipe card technology was too expensive for most state schools, but advances in fingerprint technology meant it would eventually be introduced throughout secondary schools. The push for biometric security measures comes from a school photography company, Academy Attendance Systems, which is offering technology that scans a student's thumbprint at a console and matches it to an existing template and then to students records.
"The company's national marketing manager, Vladimir Ostashkevich, said the thumbprint technology was foolproof, whereas swipe cards could be used by others.
"He acknowledged the "big brother" aspect of the systems, but said "it is about a school's duty of care to their students and knowing where they are when they are in the school".
"Jacinta Cashen, of the Victorian Council of School Organisations, said the move raised serious privacy concerns."
From The Sunday Melbourne Age at link
- The [Saturday] Melbourne Age
- PM defends his college network
The Prime Minister has denied that under-enrolments mean flagship technical colleges are failing, instead blaming delays in Victoria on an unco-operative State Government.
- The Sunday Washington Post
All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
All media quotations, photographs and cartoons © their respective publishers
This page last updated 13 August, 2008 0:40 AM
