Monday 8 October

Tuesday 9 October

Wednesday 10 October

Thursday 11 October

Friday 12 October

Saturday – Sunday, 13 – 14 October

 

Monday 8 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Opposition wants pay rise for established teachers (page 16)
    by Keryn McKinnon

    "Salary increases and better career opportunities were needed for practising teachers to avoid an exodus of experienced staff from the State's public schools, the Opposition said yesterday.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said that, while recent announcements of pay boosts and scholarships for graduate teachers were good, they risked upsetting long-serving teachers who could soon be working alongside new staff for the same salary. "They would be legitimately aggrieved at what is happening," Mr. Collier said.

    "More than a third of teachers would be eligible to retire within two to three years and other experienced staff may look elsewhere for employment if their needs were not met, he said.

    "Mr. Collier's comments come as Education Minister Mark McGowan embarked on an interstate recruitment mission to lure teachers from Victoria and Tasmania to public school classrooms in WA.

    "His trip coincides with an $80,000 advertising campaign across Australia and New Zealand to try to boost the teaching workforce.

    "Last week, Mr. McGowan announce graduate teacher's pay packets would be boosted by $4600 to bring them to a base salary of $50,000 with the potential to earn up to $70,000 if they went to hard-to-staff schools. He also revealed scholarships worth up to $60,000 over four years on offer.

    "Teachers with experience in the classroom are sitting back shaking their heads and saying, 'What about us?'," Mr. Collier said.

    "They needed more career advancement paths as well as more money. Mr. Collier said that there were promotional opportunities into administration work, but not in the classroom.

    "Mr. McGowan acknowledged existing teachers needed to be better rewarded. "We are currently working on a new enterprise agreement to properly reward classroom teachers doing the toughest jobs," he said."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Voters want Budget surplus spent on police, nurses and teachers (page 4)
    by Ben Spencer
    
    "Voters want the Carpenter Government to spend its record Budget surplus on easing chronic staff shortages in police, health and education before giving tax cuts or building a 60,000-seat stadium, according to the latest Westpoll.

    "More than three-quarters of the 407 respondents to last week's poll wanted the money used to provide more police, nurses and teachers.

    "The overwhelming result, which comes just weeks after Treasurer Eric Ripper unveiled a record $2.3 billion Budget surplus, prompted accusations from unions and the Opposition that the Government was failing to deliver essential services..."

    "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said he would be demanding a 10 per cent pay rise for teachers as part of next year's pay claim, which would make WA teachers the country's highest. [But Mike won't be the union president next year, regardless of which ticket wins. Web] He said the teacher shortage would worsen unless wages on offer to WA teachers were the most lucrative in Australia..."

    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor (page 22)

    • Wrong move

      "I despair at the stupidity of public service bureaucrats generally but those mismanaging the Education Department excel themselves and attract special attention. To overcome teacher shortages by increased salaries to novices while leaving the best teachers relatively worse off defies belief.

      "Unfortunately, in the short term, there may be some apparent success. Students with low ambition or short-term horizons, similar to the bureaucratic masters, may be attracted by the policy but it is doomed to long-term failure.

      "In five years time, those new teachers who are competent and hard-working, and providing they have endured the system for that long, will be disillusioned. They will see their competent contemporise in real professions being rewarded by merit while they are stuck in a system that rewards the incompetent and lazy. Furthermore, long-serving good teachers will be dismayed by the policy as they note the narrower gap between their salaries and those of the novice teachers."

      W.A. Piper, Bunbury
      
      

    • A long way to go

      "Education Minister Mark McGowan deserves a small pat on the back for starting to address the crisis in teaching.

      "Consider a beginning teacher looking at a prospective teaching career - maybe $70, 000, without living costs being deducted, one "free" trip to Perth each year, probably living in a secure compound to attract the highest locality allowances, compared with a mining industry job down the track, starting at $80, 000, with accommodation, meals and often medical benefits included, and travel to and from Perth thrown in every two or three weeks to boot, with not dissimilar working hours in either job.

      "Unfortunately, the Minister's proposal does not address other reasons for teachers leaving the profession after the first three, four, or five years of service. The Minister also needs to address the grinding workload placed on teachers, the inadequate, substandard or total lack of affordable, decent housing, the huge cost of living (not adequately addressed by locality allowances), the uncaring bureaucracy which doesn't respond to teachers' requests or needs.

      "Work needs to be done on making the rest of a teachers' career attractive, too. Minister, you have a long way to go before you gain commendations for your efforts."

      C. Kelly, Hazelmere
      
      

    • Selective staff shortage

      "I have been a primary teacher since graduating as a mature aged student four years ago, working at various schools in the metropolitan area. To achieve employment each year I have filled out necessary online application for DET (Department of Education and Training), which takes on average two hours, and utilising the merit select system, which was suspended this year.

      "This latter system involved a personal CV, a written application answering five generic questions (which took me six weeks to write) and finally, an interview that involved leaving the school I was working in and being asked numerous questions from a panel of peers. Although this last method was incredibly stressful, as well as time-consuming, it was the only method that enabled me to gain employment, as I have never in four years received a placement directly from the department, although finishing in the top 3 per cent of my graduating year.

      "In my first few months out of university I was the "recommended teacher" for a position at a school, where I was relief teaching, and then had it removed by the department for what was called an emergency placement. I found out later this emergency placement was a teacher from England who lasted one term before going home. However, through the merit select system I was fortunate enough to get employment for the next year (beating the other 82 applicants for the job!). This disappointment repeated the next year having been recommended for a position and then having it removed again.

      "It must be said that I will never go to the country to teach because I spent several years in the North-West in my previous employment and my partner has a career in Perth which pays much more than I could receive, even with the supposed bonus.

      "Having arrived at this stressful time of the year again and reading of the shortage, I rang the department and asked about how my application was going for this year. The reply was as I expected, the shortage was "selective" and the only primary shortages were in remote communities in the far north of the State. With no merit select to fall back on this year and with a "selective" shortage, my chances of employment are not rosy next year.

      "My message to future graduates is, do something else as soon as possible because it is a nightmare getting employment."

      Name and address supplied
      

      
      
    • Tax Concession

      "A simple way to increase the benefits available to teachers in our public schools is to give them the same tax concession available to teachers in private schools.

      "Private schools are classified as "charitable institutions" so they are allowed o make tax-free payments to their teachers of up to $17, 000 a year. This gives their teachers a tax saving of $5355 a year (based on an average tax rate of 31.5 per cent which applies to incomes in the range $30, 000 to $75, 000). To receive $5355 after tax a teacher would need to earn $7817 gross. So the tax concession is equivalent to a salary increase of $7817 - a significant increase for public school teachers.

      "The classification of private schools as "charitable institutions" is publicly available information. Just look at the Australian Business Register website - www.abr.business.gov.au. It shows all private schools in WA - including Hale School, Perth College, Scotch College and Penrhos College to name just a few - are classified as "charitable institutions" endorsed to access tax concessions. (It does seem incredulous that such schools are deemed "charitable institutions" - I will allow someone else to debate that point.)

      "Employees of public and non-profit hospitals are also eligible for the same tax concession.

      "If teachers at private schools and employees of our public hospitals can benefit from the tax concession then it is only fair and equitable that teachers in our public schools should also benefit. It is unfair to discriminate against our public school teachers in this way. It also begs the question: is this substantial tax subsidy of our private schools under our taxation system included in the total expenditure reported by the Federal Government in respect to the private school system? It certainly would be a major component and any figures which exclude it would be misleading."

      Name and address supplied (the author is a senior employee of the public education sector)
      
      

    • Bigger picture

      "Michael Chaney, president of the Business Council of Australia, is getting closer to a solution in observing: "You can imagine a society where young people will want to go into teaching - and the position is held in very high esteem" (report, 5/10). But he is still not seeing the bigger picture.

      "Like Education Minister Mark McGowan, he sees the solution in terms of money. Throw enough money at the problem and greed will triumph over principle.

      "It's not about money. Under the present government system it is possible to have teachers earning any sum you can imagine, but no amount of money is going to elevate the quality of education and opportunity for children in WA.

      "You cannot "make" good teachers by offering money. It's about freedom. I speak about the freedom of teachers to have a representation on the board of WACOT (shades of Jimmy Jones), so they can have a say in how they do not wish to be dominated by three agencies that severely retard the opportunity of a good education for our children. Can you see a situation arise on the board of WACOT whereby teacher representation votes to close it down? A true "profession" is surely on that uplifts and benefits humanity and is divorced from the taint of mammon. I am a third generation teacher in my family and wish to see a change.

      "We don't need an Education Department, such is at present, nor a teachers' union nor a WACOT. We do need a department to define what is needed to be imparted to children in this State and a set of standards that are required to be achieved at the end of the year.

      "The taxpayers' dollars that are being spent on this rapidly deteriorating, antiquated system deserve a better future.

      "Put the responsibility of educating children into teachers' hands by closing down the Education Department, union and WACOT and give parents an education voucher, equivalent to the last cent of what it takes to educate one child for one year. Let parents choose the teacher that they wish to educate their child for the year and judge that teacher accordingly on the results obtained at the end-of-year "standards test".

      "Parents would soon decide the future of the poorly performing teachers so that standards would rise to a point where, as well as the voucher, teachers attaining top results could charge an additional fee.

      "Teachers would be independent professionals and rent a classroom from the appropriate government department."

      Garrick McCain, Warnbro
      
      
      

• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • Teachers in Victoria are unlikely to move to WA
    
    "Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike says she is not worried by WA's attempt to lure teachers in the midst of pay negotiations because teachers like living in Victoria.
    
    "WA Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan is in Melbourne today to try to attract teachers to the west by offering higher wages.

    "We suffer from a shortage, part of the problem is we have a very successful state economy which is drawing in lots of people from interstate and also drawing people out of teaching and into other occupations,'' Mr McGowan said.

    "WA is trying to fix its teacher shortage by offering first-time teachers almost $70,000 a year. Fresh graduates will receive a $50,000 starting salary.

    "The Victorian government is offering teachers a 3.25 per cent annual pay rise. But teachers, who earn between $46,000 and $65,000, want an extra 10 per cent per year for three years.

    "Mr McGowan told ABC Radio today the timing of his recruitment drive was coincidence.

    "I haven't come here to cause the Victorian government trouble,'' he said.

    "You've taken (AFL footballer) Chris Judd from us so the least you can do is give us some teachers.''

    "However, Ms Pike said she did not expect many teachers would take up the WA offer.

    "The kinds of initiatives that Western Australia's engaged with have been around for a long time,'' Ms Pike said.

    "States with remote and rural areas are always offering additional incentives for teachers to come.

    "The pattern is that they will get a few who want to go to a new adventurous environment, but when teachers think about their future, they think also about the state that they live in, their job security, their mortgages, their families.''

    "She said losing teachers this way had never been a problem for Victoria.

    "We have a very, very low attrition rate with our teachers. In fact it's less than five per cent, compared to industry averages of about 13 per cent,'' she said.pe``People are attracted to Victoria because it's a great place to live and a great place to work,'' Ms Pike said.

    "But Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said the WA approach would put pressure on the Victorian government.

    "With increased interstate and international competition, we will continue to see our best and brightest teachers leaving in search of better pay and conditions,'' she said."

    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link [also add / view reader comments at that link]
    
    
    • Some of the reader comments so far
      
      Two chances, Mr. McGoo, Buckley's and none!!! Do you honestly think that Victorian teachers are not aware of WA's atrocious and universally condemned model of OBE, a Department of Education that sets the benchmark in bureaucratic bloat, incompetence, non-responsiveness, and dysfunction, a teacher registration board WACOT that has spent 7 million dollars in three years and still can't even so much as assemble a mailing list and last week threatened to deregister thousands of teachers (which you promply said you'd SACK!) just because they stood up for their rights under law to be given representation, a Curriculum Council that changes courses weekly and after 10 years and close to $250 million dollars has not yet been able to put together a SINGLE course that has been implemented, let alone one that teachers consider anything other than totally unworkable and regressive and a string of failed education ministers and sacked DET directors, only to be replaced by more totally unqualified political appontments - and all led by the most dishonest, arrogant premier this state has ever seen? NOBODY'S THAT STUPID to fall for your lies, McGowan. Teachers in WA are leaving in droves BECAUSE of the conditions here - conditions which you're too bloody minded to acknowledge or address.
      Posted by: Nobody's fool of Western Australia
      
      hey what about just getting WACOT to work for our teachers - if the government honestly sacks a single teacher for not registering i think the whole lot of us (and I don't work in the education industry) should go on strike. My child's education is the pawn in their stupid game.
      Posted by: govt is losing it! of WA
      
      I am laughing in disbelief. As a relatively young teacher in my 30s, I am currently contemplating moving to Victoria... away from the mess of this state's Education System. To think that the minister is going to Victoria to try to recruit teachers is an absolute joke - he should be here trying to retain teachers of 12 years experience such as myself. What is he thinking? I really hope he reads these messages to see how sick and tired we are of a pathetic government education system. Bring on Victoria!
      Posted by: Shane of Perth
      
      Somehow I can't imagine this will be any more effective than his attempts to keep his own teachers happy. I have yet to see such a demoralized workforce. They are required to sell a product they don't believe in by an incompetent department which feels nothing for them. Sure Victorians will want that...especially in WOOP WOOP!
      Posted by: fat chance of perth
      
      
      
      
• The Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • Burn-out bonus for teachers
    by Margaret Wenham
    
    "Up to $18 million in "career change" grants will be paid out to nearly 360 older primary school teachers being jettisoned by Education Queensland to make way for new graduates.

    "The figure falls short of an estimated $25 million that would have been paid out if the full quota, set at 500 teachers, had successfully applied for what has been dubbed the "burn-out bonus".

    "Education Minister Rod Welford's spokeswoman said yesterday there had been fewer than expected applicants for this year's round of the $50,000 retraining grants.

    "She said 458 had applied and 359 had been approved.

    "Some were knocked back because they did not meet the criteria," the spokeswoman said. "To be successful, teachers must have accumulated 10 years or more of teaching services, they had to be permanent employees in a state primary school, they had to show a commitment to taking up a new career and they had to demonstrate they had a shortage of contemporary teaching skills.

    "We also had to make sure we had a suitable graduate to replace them."

    "The spokeswoman said full-time teachers were eligible to claim up to $50,000, while part-time teachers received a pro-rata amount.

    "She said the program was a cost-neutral exercise because graduate wages were lower than those of a teacher with 10 or more years' experience.

    "It's a way of getting new blood in the system and we do have an over-supply of primary school graduates," she said.

    "It also provides older teachers looking for a career change with a way out."

    "The average length of service of those who accepted a grant was 24 years.

    "The most recent batch of retiring teachers brings the total leaving teaching via the Career Change program, first offered in 2002, to nearly 1600."

    From The Brisbane Courier Mail at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • WA in effort to poach Victorian teachers
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Western Australia is set to try to poach Victoria's best and brightest teachers, offering better pay and conditions to lure them to the boom state.

    "Western Australia's Education Minister, Mark McGowan, will today launch the campaign in Melbourne after meeting Victorian counterpart Bronwyn Pike.

    "The campaign will target new and experienced teachers, offering graduates annual salaries in excess of $50,000 — about $3900 more than they would earn in Victoria, according to Mr McGowan.

    "The offer comes just days after Western Australia's graduate teachers were awarded a pay rise — and while tense enterprise bargaining talks continue between the Australian Education Union and the Brumby Government.

    "Mr McGowan said awarding graduate teachers a pay rise was part of the scheme to lure teachers to WA, but it was coincidence that the campaign launch occurred during the Victorian negotiations.

    "We've got a problem (of a skilled teacher shortage) and we've got to fix it," he said. "If (the Victorian Government) isn't happy with it, then that's unfortunate."

    "Under the deal, teachers who opt to work at selected country and remote schools will get an additional $19,800 in location allowances and have their relocation costs met.

    "There are also 1300 university teaching scholarships on offer, each worth up to $60,000.

    "Some difficult-to-staff schools in Western Australian are up to 2000 kilometres from the district education office and have a predominantly Aboriginal student population. Mr McGowan said the offer reflected this, but also the dire skills shortage in the state.

    "He estimated that when fourth term begins this month there would be a shortfall of about 130 teachers.

    "Most of the shortage was of secondary teachers, particularly those who teach maths, science, design and technology, home economics, languages other than English, literature and agriculture.

    "A national advertising campaign will target teachers from Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland — all states that pay their graduate teachers less than in Western Australia.

    "The education union's Victorian branch president, Mary Bluett, said Mr McGowan had put the Victorian Government on notice.

    "The campaign would have implications for Victoria, particularly for secondary schools, she said. "The offer of secured, on-going employment as well as better pay and conditions will make Victoria vulnerable."

    "The union has been in weekly negotiations with the Government since March, but little progress has been made on the key areas of pay, workload and contract employment levels. The previous enterprise agreement expired in August.

    "The union is seeking a 30 per cent wage rise over three years. The Government is sticking with its offer of 3.25 per cent a year.

    "A spokesman for Ms Pike said graduate teacher pay had risen by almost 30 per cent since 1999.

    "There is more to consider than just pay — for example, Victorian teachers enjoy lower student-teacher ratios," he said. "Western Australia is a much bigger state geographically with schools that are understandably difficult to staff."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Principals miss the mark on languages
    by Matthew Absalom
    
    "Ahead of the October 1 release of the Australian Primary Principals Association "Charter on Primary Schooling" I was hoping for a visionary document. You know, one that warms your heart and sets your brain abuzz all at the same time. What I got was a disappointing rehash of the usual complaints.

    "If you haven't read it, here's a quick summary: too much is expected of primary schools so we need to identify core elements of the curriculum and focus on those. I bet you can't guess what the core elements are? English (literacy), maths (numeracy), science and social education. Nothing new there.

    "Critics of education in Australia have been calling for a return to the so-called traditional disciplines which has seen the canning of SOSE at secondary level in favour of history and geography.

    "Yet, the APPA has opted for a catch-all core area entitled social education. This is symbolic of staid thinking. The principals scramble to say that "all eight learning areas are worthwhile" but it is clear that this is just talk. They even suggest that the arts, languages, learning technologies, and other activities can all be delivered through "the core areas".

    "I have three main problems with this charter. First, while whingeing and whining about the cluttered curriculum and the "growing trend to load the primary school with every issue that others are unable to solve", the principals turn around and say that primary schooling is the "only means by which every child can gain access to essential learning" and that quality primary schooling is the cornerstone of a "good society".

    "I agree unreservedly with the need for good primary schooling but I think it's a bit rich of the APPA to claim to have a key place in society but only on their own terms.

    "The notion of "essential learning" is also problematic and leads to my second difficulty. Can we accept on face value research carried out "under the auspices" of the APPA? It would appear that this research has happily supported an agenda of stripping down the curriculum. Does this research define "essential learning" as having a narrow focus on four core areas?

    "My definition of "essential learning" would be somewhat different. To begin with it would reflect the fact that we live in a multilingual world, not one dominated by English monolinguals.

    "If we want to look at some research material, a good starting point would be the vast range of work that shows beyond doubt that literacy is not only learnt through English. In fact, learning languages is proven to impact positively on literacy in English.

    "This charter opens the door for schools to scrap logistically difficult curriculum areas like languages. There are already issues for languages in terms of teacher supply and quality, timetabling, resourcing and language choice.

    "The APPA wants schools to have the choice to make decisions on the basis of "an assessment of the needs of students, and the capacity of the school, including the availability of staff members with the expertise to teach the subject, time available, resourcing, support from the local community, the tradition and profile of the school".

    "This clearly would spell the end for languages in primary schools. The APPA says that "for all schools, the charter offers a mandate". If this mandate is to junk challenging learning areas then it is to be repudiated by parents, teachers and students alike..."
    
    Matthew Absalom teaches in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    

  • Would you like an online tutor with that?
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Students who work at McDonald's will be given free access to online maths tutoring, as the fast-food chain tries to stem the number of young people who take time off work to prepare for exams.

    "McDonald's, which claims to be the biggest employer of young people in the country, said the program was for students in years 7 to 11, with the tutoring program tailored to the current high school curriculum.

    "McDonald's Australia vice-president Frank McManus estimated about three-quarters of its 65,000 staff were secondary students. "We believe we have a responsibility to help them perform well in school," Mr McManus said. "We also recognise that some students end their employment around the time they start year 12."

    "He said students often took a four-to-six-week break over the exam period, before returning to work in their holidays.

    "The program, created by www.mathematics.com.au, also supplies year 12 sample exam papers and provides students with feedback and progress reports.

    "Launched last week, the online program will be available to students until the end of the academic year. Mr McManus said more than 1000 staff had already logged on in the first 24 hours. He said if the uptake was positive, the company would consider extending the online tutoring to include other subjects such as English.

    "This is just dabbing our toes in the water to see what the uptake is. It's a competitive labour market out there and if we can offer additional benefits that will attract and retain employees than we would consider extending it."

    "VCE students begin their final exams today, with language and performance students the first to be assessed.

    "Written exams take place between November 2 and November 22. More than 42,000 students will sit the English exam."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Tax breaks at expense of students
    by Ross Milbourne, vice-chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney
    
    "Tax cuts are nice for some, but not for impoverished students.

    "Australia is the second-lowest taxed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the second-worst off in total government investment in human capital. With five consecutive tax cuts from a low-tax position, have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

    "Three diagnostics tell us. First, countries in Scandinavia and northern Europe have higher tax rates than ours, and higher income per head. This contradicts the mantra that low taxes are always good.

    "Second, a key component of living standards is investment (both public and private) in infrastructure and skills formation. Our massive skills shortages tell us we have not invested enough.

    "Third, student-staff ratios in Australian universities are more than 20:1. Compare this to 10:1 in China, 12:1 in Japan and 5-10:1 in the US.

    "Australia needs much more investment at all levels of education. The underinvestment in higher education has been offset by the best piece of social policy in the last 20 years: the HECS scheme, which allows students to defer fees until income is earned. This has substantially reduced the problem caused by Australia having among the highest student fees for public universities in the world.

    "However, while students can defer fees, they cannot defer poverty. They are struggling: caught between restricted earning capacity while studying and the massively increasing rents in most major cities, they are forming the core of the new urban poor.

    "The increasing poverty of students is the ugly face of a low-tax obsession. It has been inflicted by a generation who obtained free university education and almost universal scholarships. For this generation to now, in addition, give themselves large pre- and post-retirement tax cuts is immoral.

    "Consider these tax cuts alongside the recent story of a student who has quit her education degree with one year to go. The reason: she is eligible for child-care assistance for only one year because she is a student. This is absurd. There are thousands of stories like this. Each one adds to our skills shortage.

    "As a first priority, Australia needs a financial support scheme aimed at low socio-economic students. This is better than a reduction in HECS because students can use it to lower HECS debt or to relieve immediate poverty. It also allows an aspiration for post-secondary education for many who cannot currently realise such aspirations.

    "To invest in our institutions and our people we need a tax base. When the next politician promises further cuts in taxes, replace "taxes" with "educational outcomes, infrastructure and productive capacity" and see if the argument is still appealing."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Full-time at TAFE, working four jobs
    
    TAFE students working part-time under Work Choices say they are juggling up to four jobs and being paid for fewer hours than they work, according to teachers and new research data.
    
    
    
    
  • Heckler
    A few more prayers – for tolerance – wouldn't go astray
    by a Sydney high school teacher
    
    [The things teachers deal with, and a sad commentary at that...  Web]
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Bring back Mark Latham
      
      "When universities are unable to meet their intake quotas, they either shop offshore or lower their entry requirements. This has been happening in teacher training for decades. Witness a Tertiary Entrance Rank of 47 (out of a possible 100) at Sydney University for trainee primary teachers.

      "When education “experts” seem bent on fixing things that ain’t broke, the curriculum suffers and standards drop. Witness the dumbing down of English, maths, science, language and music curricula across the country.

      "When teachers are obliged to spend an inordinate amount of “pupil-free” time implementing the “reforms” imposed by these aforementioned experts, classroom delivery becomes formularised rather than engaging. Witness the largest and most referred to document in a school’s arsenal, the Behaviour Management Plan.

      "When education hierarchies prefer to reinvent the wheel, rather than collaborate on these aforementioned reforms, taxpayer-funded dollars disappear into state-run programs that would be better spent elsewhere. Witness the eight (count them, eight) “essential learning” projects littering the nation.

      "Against all this, we have Kevin Rudd (”Rudd to raise the bar for schools”, 6-7/10) on a teacher-bashing rampage because he’d rather get elected than get real. And if he does get elected, sad to say, it will be the continuing saga of old wine in new bottles when it comes to quality education in Australia. Bring back Mark Latham."
      
      Keith Wilson, Bargara, Qld
      
      

    • "I was heartened to read that Kevin Rudd proposes targeting funding to schools in order to raise standards. To think that those schools in more challenging circumstances will get a bigger slice of the cake to help them improve. Er, not. Instead, those that already do well will get more and those that fail, will get less, rather like the pharaoh who told the Israelites they must make bricks without straw.

      "Schools will respond by teaching to whatever test the Government will use in order to meet targets. Many students will meet these targets, but only because they’ve been drilled, not because they have deep knowledge, skills or understanding."
      
      Mary Horrocks, Beaumaris, Vic
      
      
      

  • University adds more to retirement incomes
    
    Young adults hoping to retire comfortably will improve their chances by going to university and saving towards their superannuation now, Citibank says.
    
    
    
    
  • Uni bid to black-list GPs over sick notes
    
    Academics at RMIT University have called for doctors to be "black-listed" if they give out too many medical certificates to students for essay extensions and exam delays.

Tuesday 9 October

• The Australian
  
  
  • ALP to keep private schools funding
    by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
    
    "Kevin Rudd will retain the Howard Government's controversial private schools funding system until 2012 if elected, in a major pre-election pitch to parents.

    "Abandoning plans to introduce a "needs-based" funding model that takes into account private school fees and income in his first term, the Opposition Leader will guarantee parents the existing framework will remain for five years.

    "The policy shift, which was welcomed by private schools, delivers a blow to the Coalition's attempts to run a fear campaign over Labor's education policy.

    "Although Mr Rudd has previously promised to abandon the "schools hit list" policy promoted by former Labor leader Mark Latham, the ALP has until now retained the needs-based formula that underpinned the hit list.

    "The change follows years of Labor criticism that the socio-economic-status model was "dysfunctional and unsustainable" and did not take into account the individual wealth of private schools. It follows similar reversals over the Medicare Safety Net, which Mr Rudd recently announced would be retained if he is elected.

    "The major shift in ALP schools policy also ensures Catholic schools will not lose funding.

    "The strategy, designed to shift attention to the ALP's plans to boost funding to primary schools, was hailed by private schools last night as a breakthrough.

    "Independent Schools Council executive director Bill Daniels said: "It's a huge shift from the past and a clear acknowledgement that the policy they took to the last election was a mistake. We would support that because it provides stability and certainty."
    
    "The ALP's move angered unions, prompting Australian Education Union deputy president Angelo Gavrielatos to describe the policy shift as "indefensible".

    "It is indefensible in this nation that we continue to deliver such large increases to the wealthiest schools," Mr Gavrielatos said.

    "To maintain that indefensible model until 2012 makes a mockery of everything the ALP has said about introducing a needs-based funding model.

    "It ensures private schools will maintain a position of privilege."

    "The federal Government's funding model - known as the socio-economic-status model - does not take private school fees and income into account when determining funding.

    "Instead, it links enrolment details of where students live with census data on average income and education levels.

    "Under current SES arrangements, 60per cent of Catholic schools are guaranteed more funding than they would be allocated if the SES model were strictly applied.

    "The ALP's decision follows lengthy negotiations with the Catholic sector.

    "At Labor's national conference in April, references to the Howard Government's funding arrangements as "unfair and divisive" were removed from the party's new education platform.

    "Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith also sought to dump a reference that criticised the SES formula as having "delivered the largest increases in commonwealth funding to some of the best resourced schools in Australia".

    "However, at the time he did not indicate any plans to retain the SES funding model, instead maintaining that a Rudd government would pursue a needs-based funding model.

    "Labor's new policy platform pledges that public funding should be subject to non-government schools meeting quality standards for curriculum and teaching.

    "Currently, the basic entitlement to commonwealth assistance under the SES model ranges from a minimum of just $989 a student to $5052. For secondary students attending a private school, it ranges from a minimum taxpayer grant of $1277 a student to $6524."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Unis unite to slam 'racist' Andrews
    
    More than 165 leading academics from universities across the country have joined forces to condemn Kevin Andrews over his ban on African refugees, accusing the Immigration Minister of using racially based scapegoating for political reasons.
    
    
    • Academics' Letter to the Editor
  
  
  
  
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Minister blocks Broome school
    by Keryn McKinnon
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has refused to allow a new private school to be built in Broome despite an independent panel recommending that it go ahead.
    
    "Anglican Schools Commission chief executive officer Peter Laurence said he would be seeking a meeting with Mr McGowan to find out why he rejected the panel’s view that a third high school was needed in the booming pearling and tourist town.
    
    “While under the (Education) Act he is entitled to overrule his own panel, I just wonder why you would set up an independent panel to make an independent decision to advise the Minister,” the Rev. Laurence said. “He was advised by the panel three months ago and has taken three months to come to the decision not to take its advice.”
    
    "Mr McGowan said the viability of the town’s existing schools — a public and a Catholic high school — was paramount. “An additional high school at this time would have a negative impact on those schools,” he said.
    
    "But the Rev. Laurence said the commission first started feasibility work on the new school six years ago after being approached by community members keen to have another education choice in their town.
    
    “Primary school education is very well covered in Broome,” he said. “But there are hundreds of people who leave Broome and the Kimberley every year for an education in Perth.”
    
    "The Rev. Laurence said many school boarders in Perth were from the Kimberley and Broome parents wanted another education option so they could keep their children at home. “We are puzzled by the whole decision. We think it has been a big mistake,” he said.
    
    "Mr McGowan said he was bound by the Education Act to set up the panel to consider the feasibility of the new school. The panel’s recommendation was not binding on him.
    
    "Mr McGowan said the two existing schools did a wonderful job providing stimulating learning environments.
    
    “The State Government does not want three half-empty high schools in Broome — that would be a terrible waste of both teaching resources and facilities,” Mr McGowan said.
    
    “It would be reckless to approve another school before it is needed, as that would reduce enrolments and educational programs at the high schools in Broome.
    
    “If it appears that there will be sufficient demand in the future, then of course the Anglican Schools Commission can reapply.”
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (pages 22-23)
    
    

    • Shortage in boom times?

      "What has the WA Labor party got right? Nothing. We have teacher shortage, housing shortage, police shortage, hospital be shortage, doctor and nurse shortage and not enough jails for criminals. We do, however, have a booming economy. Wow!"

      Brian Sutton, Waroona
      
      

    • Health system has more need

      "The Government wants to pay new teachers $50,000 for their first year. A registered nurse in WA would not achieve this until they had five years experience. I agree that teachers need this rate of pay to attract and retain them in the education system. However, the health system has just as much need, if not more need, to attract and retain nurses. Am I missing something here?"

      S. Ford, Busselton
      
      

    • Now what about the nurses, Mr. McGinty?

      "Education Minister Mark McGowan's decision to award pay increases for graduates in great news for beleaguered teachers and gives a nod to the valuable work they do.

      "The Minister boasts that WA teachers will lead the nation and be on par with NSW and the ACT. If only this were so with nurses.

      "Nursing graduates can earn $42,691 a year, teachers now $50,000 and police graduates start at $50,401. Nurses would not reach $50,000 until they were in their fifth year.

      "Nurses take nine years to reach the top of the level one scale but teachers get to the same pay level in four years and the police five years.

      "Our push for wage parity with the other States for WA nurses is looked on by the Health Minister as some sort of ambit claim. These negotiations are a humiliating exercise we are forced to go through every three years and the Dickensian notion that there are too many nurses to pay wage comparable to the other tertiary-based health professions can no longer apply.

      "I am a 59-year-old registered nurse, experienced in working in a high-pressure and stressful critical-care area. Conditions in hospitals and other health facilities are dire and allied with the acute shortage of nurses: the Minister seems to be in a state of denial by not acknowledging that a decent wage for nurses is paramount.

      "Jim McGinty is in his late 50's and in 10 years, when he and I are in hospital recovering from our hip replacements and call a nurse for a bit of pain relief, we may be ringing our bells for a long time."

      Sally Wearne, East Fremantle
      
      

    • It's our turn

      "While I applaud the overdue pay rise for the teachers, I wonder when WA nurses will get a bite of WA's $2 billion-plus surplus cherry.

      "Our profession is renowned for being a caring and ethical one, which is our downfall when it comes to wage and condition negotiations. If nurses decided to strike, I wonder how quickly our EBA negotiations would progress. The majority of nurses shy away from strike action because we know that patients would die or suffer.

      "Jim McGinty attended the ANF conference last month and I appreciated his time. However, I am not sure he realises that nurses aren't "doctors' handmaidens" today. We have science degrees and constantly have to update our knowledge.

      "Where is the financial incentive for young people to join us? The average age of nursing graduates is 32; the average age of the current nursing workforce is 47. The "brain drain" over the next 20 years of experienced nurses retiring or leaving the profession is not to be taken lightly. Who will train and be mentors to our nurses in the future? With chronic staffing shortages putting more pressure on the nurses one must ask: would I or my child like to work under these conditions at this rate of pay?

      "Please, Mr. McGinty, show nurses and the community we are a valuable resource and give us a fair go."

      Janet Allen, Bellevue
      
      

    • Please explain

      "Very nice to see that WA nurses are again being let down by our Health Minister. Does he not realise how low the pay rates are for graduate nurses in this State?

      "Nursing graduates earn $42,691. Police graduates earn $50,401. Nurses complete a three-year degree and police a six-month training course. Nurses would not reach $50,000 until they were in their fifth year ($50,573).

      "Nurses take nine years to reach the top of the level one scale, whereas teachers get to the same pay level in four years and the police reach that in five years.

      "Transit guards earn $50,000 after 12 weeks of training.

      "Mr. McGinty, have you forgotten your roots? Have forgotten your humble beginnings? Your nest is feathered. I implore you to offer wages to the nurses of WA in line with the teaching profession."

      Julie-Anne Neil, Kewdale
      
      
      

• Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith media statement
  
  
  • Federal Labor's $42 billion minimum schools funding commitment: Giving schools financial certainty
    
    Federal Labor today outlined its minimum schools funding commitment ahead of both the Federal election and formal negotiations with the State, Territory, Catholic and Independent school systems.

    As part of its Education Revolution, a Rudd Labor Government has committed to:

    · Adopt the existing Socio-Economic Status (SES) funding model for the next funding quadrennium, from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012; and

    · Make the four year 2005-2008 Funding Agreement and the current schools indexation formula its minimum starting point for the Commonwealth’s negotiations with the States, Territories, Catholic and Independent school systems.

    This amounts to a minimum upfront $42 billion certain funding commitment over the four year period.

    Indeed, only Federal Labor has committed additional investments in the education of our kids – to improve literacy and numeracy, improve our curriculum, set a target for improving our retention rates, and establishing trades training centres in every secondary school in Australia.

    In contrast, the Federal Government has not only dropped the ball on funding certainty for schools, school systems and parents, but has also failed to outline a plan for investing in the future education needs of our children.

    The Howard Government, now driven by pre-election politics, has refused to commit to minimum funding certainty for our schools.

    By not outlining its position in advance of the forthcoming election, the Howard Government is not providing any certainty to the Government, Catholic and Independent School systems.

    Federal Labor understands the importance of providing funding certainty to all Australian schools.

    Federal Labor today challenged Education Minister, Julie Bishop, to provide the same funding certainty for schools, school systems and parents as Federal Labor has done.

    Today’s commitment follows on from previous commitments by Federal Labor, that:

    · Federal Labor will not take a single dollar off any individual school; and
    · Federal Labor will not disturb the current schools indexation arrangements.

    For school systems, Federal Labor’s commitment means that the base funding position will be the same in real terms. For schools, Federal Labor’s commitment means it will not be possible for any individual school to be worse off.

    Put simply, Federal Labor will only make additions to schools funding, not subtractions. Why can’t the Howard Government provide this same certainty?

    But more than certainty is required. What is also required is a greater investment in schools and schooling.

    That is why already this year, as part of our plans for an ‘Education Revolution’, Federal Labor has announced additional positive policy commitments and investments in our schools, including:

    · $2.5 billion for the Trades Training Centres in Schools Program, which will provide Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools with between $500,000 and up to $1.5 million to build, upgrade or enhance trades training facilities;

    · $450 million to give all four year olds an entitlement to 15 hours of preschool or early learning each week, for a minimum of forty weeks per year, delivered by a qualified teacher;

    · $84 million to ensure all vocational education and trades training students get one day a week of on the job training for 20 weeks a year;

    · A new national investment in a National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program to promote the study of languages in high schools; and

    · $60 million to encourage Government, Independent and Catholic schools to share important educational facilities like science and language labs.
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • The Monday Education Section has been updated and contains 12 articles, including:
    
    
    • The great divide
      
      Many Victorian primary schools fall into two camps - the popular and the shunned. Some think the system needs to change, reports Caroline Milburn.
      
      
      
    • Where is my school's report card?
      
      Many parents are unaware of the performance of their child's school, despite a State Government requirement that schools should publish the data in a clear, easily understood way.
      
      
      
    • Op Ed
      Learning to rely on lamingtons
      by Mary Bluett, Victorian Branch president of the Australian Education Union
      
      Education is key to Australia's economic future. Does it not follow that governments would invest in education to ensure the best future for our nation and its people? The answer, sadly, is "no".
      
      
      
    • Smart money is on the science
      
      You may never have heard of him but James Simons is a very, very good mathematician. [He is also the founder and president of Renaissance Technologies Corporation, which controls more than $14 billion, and has averaged after-fees returns of 37 per cent in the past 18 years.]
      
      
      
      
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • The numbers don't add up for teachers

      "Teachers are negotiating their next salary and conditions agreement. The Government is adamant that police, nurses and teachers will receive no more than 3¼ per cent. The difficulty for teachers is that they have little bargaining power. The police threatened to withhold revenue and nurses have threatened to close beds. Teachers do not have this sort of leverage.

      "They could take stopwork action, but this only serves to annoy parents. This lack of industrial muscle has led to the situation where in the past 20 years teachers' salaries have fallen by nearly 30 per cent in real terms. To redress this, teachers would need an immediate pay rise of almost 50 per cent.

      "The reality is that teachers will be forced to accept the Government offer. Soon, even more teachers will leave the profession and it will be harder and harder to attract quality people. It's about time society started looking after teachers."

      Rob Kneale, Ascot Vale

 

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Schools pitching overseas
    
    Schools are employing marketing consultants to help recruit more full-fee paying students from overseas.
    
    
    
• Universities told going with internet flow beats feathering, wins students
  
  Australian universities should be recruiting students through social networking internet sites, according to a leading American education consultant.

Wednesday 10 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Fall in uni numbers as well-paid jobs beckon (page 13)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The lure of well-paid jobs created by the State’s powerhouse economy has led to another drop in applications to study at WA universities, which have fallen for the fourth year in a row.
    
    "Preliminary figures from the Tertiary Institutions Service Centre show that the number of people who have applied for a university place next year has fallen 5 per cent compared with the same time last year, from 15,636 to 14,856.
    
    "The number of school leavers applying has risen almost 7 per cent, from 9155 last year to 9763 this year. But the increase has been more than offset by a staggering 21 per cent decrease in interest from mature age applicants, which dropped from 6481 to 5093. The drop in overall applications followed a fall of 4 per cent last year and falls of 8 per cent and 7 per cent in the two preceding years.
    
    "Curtin University appeared to be hardest hit, with a drop of 8 per cent in overall applications, despite a big increase in interest in engineering courses.
    
    "Student services director John Rowe said he did not have a breakdown between school leavers and mature age people applying to Curtin but attributed the trend to more older people taking advantage of WA’s economic boom rather than committing to study.
    
    "Curtin acting vice-chancellor Greg Craven said the figures were still “rubbery” and he expected to get more late applications from prospective mature age students.
    
    "Applications to Murdoch University showed little change between this year and last, according to deputy vice-chancellor enterprise and international Gary Martin. He said healthy mid-year enrolments meant Murdoch was likely to increase the minimum score required for 2008 entry. This year’s minimum tertiary entrance rank was 65 but he was not sure how many points it would rise.
    
    "Professor Martin said fewer people applied to study primary and secondary teaching or law compared with the same time last year. But prospective students showed interest in a new sports science course, Asian languages, chiropractic science, engineering, media and veterinary studies.
    
    "Edith Cowan University vice-chancellor Kerry Cox refused to provide any figures. “Given the various entry avenues available at ECU it is too early at present to make accurate predictions on our 2008 student profile,” he said. “However school leaver applications appear to be showing positive growth and non-school leaver applications appear to be somewhat reduced at this stage.”
    
    "A University of WA spokesman said even though UWA’s overall number of applications was down 3 per cent, its proportion of first preference applications was up almost 2 per cent."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Inside Cover (page 2)
    
    
    • No truth in advertising: "I'm on a fast track in WA!"

      "This advertisement in a Melbourne newspaper designed to lure underpaid Victorian chalkies across the Nullarbor to take up jobs in rural WA.

      "I'm on a fast track in WA!" says the advert, which also claims that teaching in the country offers a "fantastic lifestyle" where you'll meet "amazing people" and be paid a "generous salary".

      "But the bit we liked most was the photo of a young teacher squatting in the red dirt next to his BMW Roadster convertible. We can't imagine there are too many young teachers in the country driving a BMW Z4, the latest model which costs up to $133,000, or even the older BMW Z3 seen in the ad."
      
      

    I'm on a fast track in WA!
    
    
    Image © Department of Education and Training
    
    

    
    Image © The West Australian
    
    

    • Teachers on end of a paper war

      "The WA College of Teaching is so keen to inform teachers about its inaugural board election that it is sending them multiple copies of brochures and letters about the poll.

      "Sam, from Perth's southern suburbs, has so far received three copies of a flyer and letter about the election. At first she thought it was just a "silly glitch".

      "But no, my sister also received three copies and upon talking to my (potential) father-in-law, he was sent two copies," she said. "Too bad his wife is yet to receive any."

      "Alison, whose husband is a teacher, also emailed IC about WACOT's paper wasting mailout.

      "He received the letter and glossy brochure…not once but three times. Three letters, three brochures in three separate envelopes all on the same day," said Alison, asking that her surname not be published because "the way things are going in this State he may be next on the "hit list".

      "We have received many calls and emails from other teachers who also claim to have received multiple copies of the brochure and the letter."
      
      From The West Australian
      
      

      
      
  • Letters to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • A good idea

      "Business council of Australia president Michael Chaney's comment (report, 5/10) that top-performing teachers should be paid $100, 000 is welcome suggestion in the debated on ensuring that public education does not become a residual system for the poor or those parents with negative views on education.

      "Mr. Chaney, however, ignores the fact that teaching is a collaborative profession, not a competitive one, and that the Department of Education is also having trouble encouraging administrators to become principals because of the workload and lack of support.

      "The current crisis in supply of teachers was predicted in 1994 but ignored by governments of all political persuasions and business, not just in Australia but internationally. This has meant that a number of teachers and principals, perhaps as high as 2 per cent, have not resigned from the system because there is no one suitable to replace them. If the situation is to change, all teachers and principals should be paid extremely well but subject to rigorous professional performance management.

      "If teachers and education are to be valued and given that wages are the biggest single cost in education, the OECD teachers' pay relative to GDP statistic is an important one.

      "Teaching in Turkey and South Korea has a high status and teachers can earn double the average income of the other citizens. Australia comes in only ninth position behind Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Scotland, Spain and England."

      Brian Lindberg, Mosman Park
      
      

    • Back to basics

      "Congratulations to The West Australian for your ongoing reports highlighting the disaster which is the education system.

      "Having had children exposed to the OBE system in Tasmania (now dismantled) and in WA, I think there are lots of so-called academics hiding in education departments around Australia who should be run out of town. They still keep their well-paid jobs while the students and the teachers have to pick up the pieces.

      "Get back to the basics. One plus one will always equal two and without putting in place the basic building blocks of reading, writing and arithmetic how can you go forward? No foundation, no building.

      "I pity teachers today. They are underpaid and have to teach social graces to students (some parents think that is what school is for) in an educations system which is all over the place. Who would take it on?

      "Never fear, there are millions of students in many Asian countries who see education as a way forward, where teachers are revered by the community. Who do you think will step into the void left by our education system?

      "Do not blame the teachers or the students. The blame lies solely at the feet of the Education Department."

      David Layton, Queens Park
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Unions vent anger at Rudd school plan [late update on 9 October]
    AAP
    
    "Labor leader Kevin Rudd has angered the teachers' union by promising to keep the Howard government's funding model for private schools.
    
    "Mr Rudd today announced a Labor government would keep the socio-economic status (SES) model of funding private schools until December 2012.

    "The SES model would be used as a "minimum starting point" for funding to be negotiated between a Labor government and the states, Catholic and independent schools.

    "This amounts to a minimum, upfront $42 billion certain funding commitment over the four-year period," Mr Rudd said in a joint statement with Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith.

    "Labor's commitment means it will not be possible for any individual school to be worse off."

    "While leaving open the door to funding increases, Mr Rudd did not guarantee any extra funding for schools beyond this "minimum starting point".

    "The Australian Education Union (AEU), which represents school and TAFE teachers, said Labor had delivered a blow to families by failing to promise any additional funding for schools.

    "This made a mockery of Labor's claim to fund schools based on need and fairness, AEU president Pat Byrne said.

    "(Labor) will preserve a flawed system which sees the share of funding going to public schools continuing to fall," Ms Byrne said.

    "We do not support Labor's decision to maintain a system which is clearly not needs-based."

    "She said most parents wanted increased federal funding for public schools, where the majority of students were enrolled.

    "Despite the union's anger, Mr Rudd's pledge should prevent the government from running an election scare campaign on Labor's education funding plans.

    "At the 2004 election, the coalition relentlessly targeted then opposition leader Mark Latham over his so-called hit list of private schools from which he planned to strip money.

    "Although Mr Rudd and his predecessor Kim Beazley had declared the Latham hit list dead, they had not outlined exactly how they would fund non-government schools, referring only to do so based on need.

    "Until now, Labor had simply said that no school - public or private - would lose money.

    "Education Minister Julie Bishop accused Mr Rudd of playing a "cruel hoax" on parents by failing to promise any extra money for schools.

    "Current indexation arrangements meant schools would get $42 billion in the next funding agreement anyway, she said.

    "This is further proof that Kevin Rudd cannot be trusted to deliver on his pre-election rhetoric," Ms Bishop said.

    "After promising `massive increases' in funding to schools, Labor has failed to live up to its own rhetoric and has not promised one extra dollar for schools."

    "The AEU has been running an advertising campaign this year accusing the Howard government of neglecting public education.

    "An OECD report last month found Australia spends less on public education than most other developed countries/"
    
    From The Australian at link

    
    
    
  • More students sign up, putting magic million mark in sight
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Australian students are doing their part to alleviate the skills shortage, with increases in the number of enrolments for teaching, nursing and engineering courses.

    "More than 42,949 people started a health course in 2006, up 11.4 per cent on last year, and a further 42,280 chose a teaching degree, a jump of 7.2per cent on 2005.

    "Engineering and architecture courses were also popular among school-leavers but the number of students choosing information technology continues to decline, dropping by 13 per cent.

    "The latest Department of Education, Science and Training figures revealed 984,146 students were enrolled at Australian universities in 2006, up 27,000 from 2005.

    "If the growth pattern continues, overall student numbers in 2007 will top one million for the first time..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Where they stand
    
    [Universities'] Learning and teaching performance fund ranks, 2008
    
    
    

  • Web to sideline role of agents
    
    Today's students will be tomorrow's university recruiting agents on the social web, Swinburne University of Technology vice-chancellor Ian Young has predicted.
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Misleading and damaging
      
      "I must take issue with Keith Wilson’s assertion (Letters, 8/10) that the University of Sydney admits students to its primary education programs with a "Tertiary Entrance Rank of 47’’.

      "In 2007, the minimum TER (UAI in NSW) for admission for aspiring primary teachers at the University of Sydney was 86.50. The mean score was more than 90. It has been consistently over 81 for the past six years. Flexible entry provisions are generally restricted to include those with scores not more than five points below the minimum cut-off.

      "Wilson’s implication that, overall, the entry into primary teacher education programs is very low and that this in turn is reflected in the quality of teachers the university graduates is both misleading and damaging to the teaching profession.

      "Further, a focus on only those students entering pre-service education on the basis of a UAI ignores those who choose to enter the teaching profession having already completed an earlier degree or after one or more careers in other professions."
      
      Robyn Ewing, Acting Dean, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney
      
      
      

• Fallout as WA targets Tasmanian and Victorian teachers
  
  
  • Our teachers targeted [The Hobart Mercury, 8 October]
    
    The West Australian Government will target Tasmania's teachers to help fill a shortage in the state. The plan comes amid tumultuous times for Tasmania's own education department, with teachers threatening to strike over a pay dispute.
    
    
    
  • Teacher, nurse discord simmers [The Hobart Mercury, 9 October]
    
    The State Government faces industrial discord on two fronts after nurses imposed work bans and teachers endorsed a vote on strike action over pay claims... the state's teachers will vote on whether to strike this week after a meeting in Hobart yesterday endorsed a secret ballot on the issue.
    
    
    
  • Vic Govt under increased pressure to respond to WA teacher recrutiment campaign [AEU, 8 October]
    
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Bush Declares His Openness To Revising Education Law
    But He Holds Firm on Testing, Accountability
    by Peter Baker
    
    "Under pressure from the right and the left, President Bush said yesterday that he is open to reformulating his signature No Child Left Behind education law but stressed that he remains unwilling to surrender on its core elements of testing and accountability.

    "As we move forward, we will continue to welcome new ideas," Bush said in the Rose Garden after meeting with civil rights leaders. "And I appreciate the ideas I heard today. Yet there can be no compromise on the basic principle: Every child must learn to read and do math at, or above, grade level. And there can be no compromise on the need to hold schools accountable to making sure we achieve that goal." [emphasis added]
    

    "The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is one of Bush's most significant domestic initiatives but, as it comes up for reauthorization this year, it faces a barrage of criticism from conservatives and liberals who want to rewrite or sink it. Bush invited key civil rights leaders to the White House to emphasize his goal of using the law to reduce the historic achievement gap between white students and their Hispanic and African American counterparts.

    "Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and a prime ally of Bush in pushing through the legislation, plans to introduce a revised version by the end of the month. He repeated his long-standing criticism that the president did not fully fund it.

    "The president is right that we must continue to hold schools accountable for results," Kennedy said in a statement. "But over the past five years of working with this law, we have learned more about what works and what does not work and we should take those lessons into account."

    "Some critics want to make the law more flexible in response to complaints that the program emphasizes test-taking over more creative forms of learning. Others contend that the law represents too much federal intrusion into local matters. And some critics want to adjust the consequences for schools that miss targets, depending on how far they fall short.

    "Bush noted that he favors more flexibility and resources for local leaders. He said he wants to increase access to tutoring and advanced placement courses, as well as to strengthen math and science education. He also argued for rewarding good teachers in low-income schools and providing children stuck in under-performing schools the opportunity to go elsewhere -- ideas that have long stirred debate.

    "Some of the civil rights leaders who met with Bush praised his efforts and promised to help push for reauthorization, although they have their own views on ways the law should be changed. "If this law is not reauthorized, it does send a terrible signal to the country as a whole," said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

    "They urged Bush and Congress to provide more money. Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said Bush's proposed 2008 budget includes $15 billion for the program, $9 billion short of what was needed four years ago. His organization has offered its own 10-point plan for overhauling the No Child Left Behind Act, including revamped performance measurements, full-day preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, and $32 billion to fund the program.

    "You can build the best automobile," Morial said. "If you don't put enough gas in the tank, you're not going to get up to the speed you want to get to on a sustained basis. That's why we're for full funding."
    
    From The Washington Post at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Plagiarism a 'double standards' row at uni
    
    A senior academic has written an open letter to the University of Sydney's most senior staff, calling on them to act on allegations of plagiarism by one of its deans, which sat as an "untreated stain on the conservatorium's character and reputation".

Thursday 11 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Extend fee deadline to avert disaster: teachers (page 18)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Schools may close or teachers could stage mass walkouts unless their professional body extended until the end of the year the deadline for payment of compulsory registration fees, the teachers' union and the Opposition have warned.

    "Despite the teacher shortage that has led to recruitment drives in other States and overseas, the Education Department recently warned that it would sack teachers who refused pay the $70 fee to the WA College of Teaching by October 26. It told principals to draw up contingency plans to deal with resulting teacher shortages.

    "WACOT said this week that about 2600 teachers from State and private schools still had not paid their fees, compared with 2867 two weeks ago. About 600 of those were not teaching at present and another 600 were relief teachers.

    "Most of those who refused to pay said they would do so when a date was set for electing teacher representatives to the WACOT board. But few payments have been made since the election date was announced on Friday.

    "Teachers whose WACOT registration is cancelled could face up to $10, 000 in fines if they continue teaching in WA.

    "The State School Teachers Union, which had previously refused to back teachers who had not paid their WACOT fees, has now written to Education Minister Mark McGowan, director-general Sharyn O'Neill and the WACOT board condemning the Government for failing to hold an election earlier.

    "It also criticised the department for its "heavy-handed" threats to sack teachers and WACOT for pushing ahead with its decision to deregister teachers, which SSTU president Mike Keely labelled as foolish and unnecessary.

    "Mr. Keely claimed the impasse could force schools to close because of a lack of teachers.

    "We won't need to go on strike because there will be a whole lot of schools in the State that won't be able to function," he said. "Teachers don't need this grief and the Government certainly doesn't need to be 200 teachers down on October 27."

    "The union was obtaining legal advice on protection for members sacked for refusing to pay.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier predicted mass walk-outs two days before the Year 12 exams started if WACOT deregistered teachers. He said, "It's amost going to make martyrs of these teachers."

    "The animosity towards WACOT and the whole system at the moment is such that it's quite likely the whole workforce would go out on strike."

    "WACOT director Suzanne Parry said she was not surprised so few teachers had paid their fees since the election was announced.

    "Teachers are on holidays and this is a group of people who have chosen to make a point and I think they will continue to make a point," she said. "I would expect that a lot more of them will pay when they return to school next week."

    "Dr. Parry said the names of teachers who had not paid would be put to the WACOT board on October 26. Two weeks ago she said the board would "effect the cancellation of membership" of those teachers.

    "However, this week she said the board had always had discretionary power under the Act.

    "What the discretionary outcome will be I don't know," she said. Possibilities included deregistering teachers or making "some other arrangement", which could include extending time for payment.

    "Mr. McGowan sought to distance himself from the debacle, saying that WACOT set the deadline for deregistration, not the Government. He blamed the union for the way the registration body had been set up.

    "The schoolteachers union were the principal advocate for WACOT to be established along the lines that it has been," he said. [emphasis added]

    "He was confident that teachers would "see the wisdom of meeting their professional obligations."
    
    From The West Australian
    

    
    
  • Stressed education, training staff cost State $5m in damages (page 18)
    by Keryn McKinnon, FOI Editor

    "The State government has been forced to pay more than $5 million in damages for stress-related illness to nearly 300 Department of Education and Training staff in the past two years, figures obtained under Freedom of Information Laws reveal.

    "The payouts by the department comprise more than half of all stress claims lodged by staff at seven of the biggest government departments in the State. The State School Teachers Union and the Opposition said yesterday the figures reflected the intense pressure teachers were under as a result of outcomes-based education, curriculum and reporting changes and increased workloads.

    "I think those figures are indicative of the general stress that teachers are subject to via heavy workloads and curriculum change initiatives which we would argue have not been appropriately managed," union senior vice-president Anne Gisborne said.

    "Shadow education spokesman Peter Collier said teachers were now expected to be social workers and disciplinarians as well as educators.
    
    "Behavioural issues, substance abuse, all these factors are placing these enormous pressures on class-room teachers," Mr. Collier said. "In any day in the classroom it is quite feasible a teacher could have up to 10 to 12 conflicts (with students)."

    "The FOI documents show Government insurer RiskCover processed a total of 519 stress claims and paid out nearly $8.5 million in damages to staff from DET, the Health, Community Development, Corrective Services, Attorney-General and Planning and Infrastructure departments and the WA Police Service in the last two financial years.

    "But Community and Public Sector Union acting secretary Jo Gaines said the figures were likely to be the tip of the iceberg because many people were reluctant to go through the workers compensation process, and simply quit instead. Many government agencies were facing significant workload pressures, but few were given extras resources to cope with the demands.

    "Acting education director-general Peter McCaffrey said the department took seriously the wellbeing of its staff and had initiatives to support staff, including a confidential helpline and independent counselling.

    "Society is becoming increasingly more complex and the issues that school staff have to deal with are in turn becoming more complex," Mr. McCaffrey said.

    "Premier Alan Carpenter, who is responsible for public sector management, refused to comment on the number of stress-related payouts."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Commonwealth history guide for schools not needed: McGowan
    
    "The Education Minister says Western Australia does not need the Federal Government's guide to teaching Australian history because the state is already making the subject compulsory.

    "The Prime Minister, John Howard, will today release a guide as part of the Federal Government's push to make the subject mandatory for all students in years nine and 10.

    "The states and territories will be asked to incorporate the contents of the guide into their teaching curriculum and it will be tied to the next education funding agreement.

    "Mark McGowan says there is no need for the Commonwealth to threaten the states' funding if they do not comply.

    "We're already doing it," he said.

    "We're already making sure the study of history is an important part of the curriculum, we're making sure that Australian history is a component of modern history. A lot of these things are already being done."

    "Threatening states' funding I never support."

    Union anger

    "The State School Teachers Union says it is outraged by the Federal Government's plan to introduce a compulsory Australian history course.

    "The union's President Mike Keely has described the plan as offensive and says it will give the Government too much control over what is taught in schools.

    "I think teachers would be outraged. This is another attempt to denigrate teachers," he said.

    "We are not doing a good enough job are we? We can't teach history properly without the advice of the Prime Minister. I think that's utterly offensive to teachers."
    
    From ABC News at link

    
    
    
• The Australian
  

  • Howard rewrites nation's history
    by Imre Salusinszky
    
    "John Howard has gone above the heads of state education ministers and bureaucrats and set out a detailed course on the nation's history that he says should be taught to every student in every Australian school.

    "The Prime Minister's guide to the teaching of Australian history, which will be released today, organises the nation's story into 10 chapters, stretching from indigenous settlement 60,000 years ago to the effect of globalisation on Australian life between 1976 and 2000.

    "The document is aimed at parents and teachers, but The Australian understands that the Government will use its four-year education funding agreement with the states, due for re-negotiation next year, to force them to teach a version of Mr Howard's course.

    "Students in the program, which the Prime Minister says should be compulsory across Year 9 and Year 10, will be expected to be familiar with more than 70 "milestone events", along with the biographies of hundreds of characters from 18th century botanist Joseph Banks to former prime minister Bob Hawke.

    "The 10 periods are: First peoples; Early encounters; British colonies (1788-1850); Emerging nation (1851-1900); The new Commonwealth (1901-19); The Roaring Twenties and the Lean Thirties (1920-38); World War II and post-war reconstruction (1939-49); Building Modern Australia: Times of Prosperity and Social Change (1950-75); and Australia and the Shrinking Globe (1976-2000).

    "In addition, students will be expected to analyse the material through nine "perspectives": Aboriginal; regional and global; biographical; beliefs and values; economic; everyday life; gender; environmental; and local.

    "Each period has explanatory notes, with the 1950-75 segment, for example, including the dismissal of the Whitlam government and urging students to "reflect on the emergence of newsocial and protest movements, reflecting changes in gender relations and family structures, in attitudes to race and ethnicity, and to human rights and morality".
    
    "The course is the latest step in the "root and branch renewal" in the teaching of Australian history for which Mr Howard called last year, and follows last year's History Summit, convened by Education Minister Julie Bishop, which delegated a working group to develop an ideal history course based on dates and narrative, rather than abstract themes.

    "The fact Mr Howard has chosen to release the model syllabus now, and brand it with his own authority, suggests he plans to give the so-called "culture wars" a prominent role in his campaign for a fifth term in office.

    "At the moment, with the exception of NSW and Victoria, the states teach Australian history within a larger subject, Studies of Society and its Environment, along with geography, environmental studies and political and other social studies.

    "However, since the summit, Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania have all shown a willingness to return to a more traditional approach believed to be popular with voters.

    "And Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith last night made Labor's support for the push clear.

    "I strongly believe that history, particularly Australian history, is a very important part of the curriculum," he said.

    "Earlier this year, Mr Howard said Australian history, which he insists should be a stand-alone subject, was being taught "as some kind of fragmented stew of moods and events, rather than some kind of proper narrative".

    "Importantly, a suggestion from the summit that the new subject should be taught via "open-ended questions", which was criticised by some conservative scholars, has disappeared from the final draft, which was overseen by a committee that included social commentator Gerard Henderson and historian Geoffrey Blainey.

    "The Government plans eventually to follow the document with specific guidelines on outcomes and assessment and detailed curriculum resources for schools.

    "One of Australia's leading conservative historians, University of Wollongong scholar Gregory Melleuish, last night described Mr Howard's course as "the ultimate camel" because it had been shaped by so many committees. Dr Melleuish, who participated in the summit but criticised its outcomes, said: "The problem with this sort of document is that it tells one very little about how things will actually work in the classroom."

    "He was particularly critical of the "nationalist" drift of the course, which he said did not include enough international context and would not equip students for understanding Australia's role in a globalised world.

    "Anna Clark, grand-daughter of the late Manning Clark and a historian at Monash University, said she was pleased Mr Howard's course "requires not only knowledge of what happened, but how we relate to it".

    "But her Monash colleague Tony Taylor, whose draft version of the course was the basis for the Henderson-Blainey panel, said the final version was too crowded."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar stories in The Age and The West Australian [AAP]; also an Age article on the shortage of history teachers, and an online poll.
    
    Federal Labor media statement
    
    

  • Editorial
    Must try harder
    

    The Government has to articulate a vision for the future

    "On the cusp of a federal election, the launch by John Howard of a Guide to the Teaching of Australian History in Years 9 and 10 will inevitably be seen as an attempt by the Coalition to wrest back control of the education agenda. It would seem no accident that the guide has a foreword by, and a photograph of, the Prime Minister and only a passing reference to Education Minister Julie Bishop.

    "At the last federal election, the then Opposition leader Mark Latham disastrously misjudged the electorate in spruiking his hit-list of independent schools and seeking to play the politics of envy. Since then, Kevin Rudd and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith have shrewdly adopted the Coalition agenda, arguing for higher educational standards and a rigorous national curriculum, and supporting parental choice and public funding of all schools.

    "Mr Howard's history curriculum announcement is designed to remind parents that it was his Government that has worked to restore a coherent narrative of our national history as a way of creating a generation of better informed citizens. He has tied state education funding to the teaching of Australian history. The challenge, however, will be to ensure that the Australian Education Union doesn't stymie its implementation. The Australian welcomes the new curriculum, which is far superior to the porridge of Studies of Society and the Environment that it replaced. But we question why it has taken the Government 11 1/2 years. The report card should say, "Must work faster". [emphasis added]

    "Mr Howard's announcement of $2.4billion to upgrade the Pacific Highway is another unmistakeable sign that an election is imminent. He reminded us himself that his previous commitment to the highway was made in 2004, before the last federal election. The fact that the funding won't be made available until 2009-2014, leaves plenty of scope for it to be announced again at the 2010 and 2013 elections. Mr Howard also reminded us that his Government has been dribbling out $1.3billion to fix the Pacific Highway ever since he was elected in 1996.

    "The electorate is tired of this cynical exercise, announcing funds that have been already allocated but won't be spent any time soon, in marginal electorates along the Pacific Highway. The highway should be fixed now. As the recent Business Council of Australia report highlighted, it is also vital to get pricing signals right. Road operators pay only a fraction of the cost to use the road relative to rail operators, yet one train can replace 150articulated trucks. Subsidising the trucking industry is pushing more heavy trucks on to roads, increasing congestion, road deaths and greenhouse gas emissions.

    "On the eve of the election, the Government is running out of time. Piecemeal announcements in education and roads are no substitute for a clear and coherent vision."
    

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • No extra funding for needy schools
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Half of Victoria's worst-performing state schools have not received any extra cash from the state Government to address their literacy and numeracy problems, teacher quality or welfare issues despite struggling for almost a decade.

    "A damning review by Victorian Auditor-General Des Pearson found 31 of 128 state schools identified in 1998 as performing poorly were still producing student results below benchmarks in 2005.

    "The report found 122 schools in Victoria were failing to meet government standards for student performance in 2006 and the demand for extra help "outweighs" funding provided by the state Government.

    "Mr Pearson found that some department regional offices were forced to place a cut-off on the number of poor-performing schools that received funding for specific problems, resulting in only about half of the 60 schools with "issues of concern" getting extra help.

    "The Auditor-General found that struggling schools lucky enough to get special improvement funding - which includes extra teacher training, access to literacy and numeracy teams, money to upgrade school facilities and extra help for student welfare issues - often had to wait for a "considerable period".

    "At June 2006, only half of the schools from the group of 31 that performed below expected levels in both 1998 and 2005 had received targeted support," Mr Pearson wrote.

    "Failure to initiate timely targeted support risks further deterioration in a school's performance."

    "The review found that although some school-improvement initiatives were having an effect, there wasn't enough help to go around.

    "The Education Department said the review had a limited sample and the results were therefore generalised.

    "The department considers that some care be taken in interpreting the findings of the audit to the extent that it may not reflect the evidence, experience and views across the government school system," it stated in the report."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Schools cast net for fee-paying foreign students
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Public schools are spending thousands of dollars on foreign education agents in a bid to lure fee-paying foreign students.

    "Research has revealed that private and public schools use aggressive marketing strategies similar to the nation's universities to win international students.

    "Tactics used by secondary schools include hiring agents in countries they want to target, promoting themselves at education fairs in Asia and developing links with overseas schools.

    "The research, presented at a conference on international education yesterday in Melbourne, comes as the latest figures reveal almost 25,000 international students are enrolled at state and private schools in Australia.

    "The federal Department of Education statistics show 15,269 foreign students attended private primary and secondary schools in 2006 compared with 9396 enrolled at state government schools. Secondary schools attracted the most foreign enrolments, with 18,696 overseas students doing their final years of school in Australia.

    "Top private schools slap on an extra 20 per cent to annual tuition and boarding fees, bringing the total to more than $50,000 a year at some elite Sydney secondary schools.

    "Government schools also charge international students fees. To go to a state school in Victoria costs international students about $11,000 a year.

    "Griffith University PhD student Mitchell Ross said his research found that schools used the same marketing techniques as universities to recruit international students.

    "He said these marketing techniques included travelling overseas to education fairs as well as setting up exchange programs between schools.

    "But the main things they were using were educational agents in other countries, developing alliances in other countries and using their websites," Mr Ross said.

    "Both government and independents (schools) are ... actively recruiting." Overseas students came to Australia to go to school for a number of reasons including to improve their English, to get a high-quality education and to get into university.

    "Mr Ross said most students came alone and either stayed with family members, boarded or stayed with an Australian family.

    "Schools said their main motivation for recruiting international students was to expand the "depth" and diversity of the student body at the school."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • PM to make Australian history compulsory
    
    Australian history will be compulsory for all students in years 9 and 10 from 2009 in a radical overhaul of the education system as the Howard Government moves to reignite the debate over schools standards on the eve of the election.
    
    
    
  • Dramatic rise predicted in demand for specialist history teachers
    by Farrah Tomazin, Education Editor
    
    "The immediate hurdle for the Federal Government's plans to teach history to all year 9 and 10s will be to find enough history teachers.

    "While history teachers last night agreed Australian history should be a core part of the school curriculum, some warned that making the subject compulsory for years 9 and 10 would require training an estimated 10,000 extra specialist teachers.

    "There would certainly be the challenge of resourcing and there would certainly be the challenge of having sufficient staff with an expertise in history to teach it across the board," said History Teachers' Association of Victoria executive director Michael Spurr.

    "At Camberwell High School, one of Victoria's leading government schools, all year 9 students study Australian history.

    "But head of curriculum Andrew Batrouney warned there could be implications if the subject was mandated in all schools. Those who did not want to study Australian history could become disengaged in the classroom, he said.

    "When you're taking choice away from students, you create some problems. As a teacher, you're there because you have to there, and the kids are there because they have to be," said Mr Batrouney, a history teacher of 10 years.

    "History is also a difficult subject for students because it's multi-disciplinary — you have to know your politics, you have to know your sociology, you have to know your geography and you certainly know your English."

    "Australian history is compulsory for year 9 and 10 students in NSW. In Victoria, history is a core subject, but it does not have to be Australian history.

    "The Victorian Government gave contradictory responses last night when asked if Australian history was compulsory in years 9 and 10. But Associate Professor Tony Taylor from Monash University, who has done a report on the matter for the Federal Government, said it was not.

    "Some educators were concerned the Government's push could clutter an already overcrowded curriculum.

    "Others, such as St Michael's Grammar principal Simon Gipson, suggested the debate about history teaching appeared to be driven by a "reactive approach to curriculum development" rather than what was in students' best interests.

    "At the moment, the response to curriculum development appears to be piecemeal and not addressing fundamental core issues about the sort of society and knowledge economy that we want," Mr Gipson said."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    • Online Poll: Should Australian history be made compulsory for year 9 and 10 students?
      
      
      
      
  • Graduate shortage at future risk
    
    Victoria's professional skills shortage will reach nearly 50,000 within 15 years, with engineering, sciences and health the worst hit, a new study says.
    
    
    
    
• Kevin Rudd and Stephen Smith media statement
  
  
  • Importance of Australian history as part of a national curriculum
    
    Federal Labor believes that the study of history, particularly Australian history, is an essential part of the school curriculum.

    This is reflected by history being a key element of Labor's National Curriculum plan.

    As well, Federal Labor supports history being a compulsory component of the curriculum for parts of the secondary school years.

    Australian history is a critical part of the curriculum and should be included in all years of schooling, not just for a few years in secondary school.

    A Rudd Labor Government will work cooperatively with the States and Territories through Labor’s National Curriculum Board to implement a rigorous, content based national history curriculum for all Australian students from Kindergarten to Year 12.

    Federal Labor welcomes today’s release of the ‘Guide to Teaching Australian History in Years 9 and 10’ by the Australian History External Reference Group.

    A Rudd Labor Government will refer the work of the Australian History Reference Group to Federal Labor’s proposed National Curriculum Board.

    Unlike the Howard Government, whose approach revolves around threatening the States and Territories, Federal Labor will develop a National Curriculum in a cooperative, consultative way that takes the best of what each State and Territory has to offer.

    The importance of history in understanding where our nation has been, where it is going, and what it means to be Australian, cannot be underestimated.

    Federal Labor believes that all young Australians should have a thorough understanding of Australian history.

    History needs to be taught in a rigorous, chronological framework and in an appropriate context in order to allow young Australians to fully understand how and why our nation has developed the way it has.

    Federal Labor is committed to such an approach.
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Voucher Program Puts D.C. Kids at Risk, Study Says
    by Theola Labbé
    
    "A voucher program designed to send low-income children in the District to better-performing private schools has allowed some students to take classes in unsuitable learning environments and from teachers without bachelor's degrees, according to a government report..."
    
    "The controversial voucher program was passed by Congress in 2004 to give low-income families the option of using $7,500 toward private school tuition. The average D.C. applicant is a single parent who makes $17,000 a year and has four children..." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • University clarifies sponsorship rules
    
    The University of Sydney will introduce guidelines on how to balance ethical concerns with commercial interests in response to a series of controversies over its corporate research deals.

Friday 12 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Milestone events to guide history syllabus (page 3)
    by Rhianna King, Canberra

    "The Dutch exploration of WA, C.Y. O'Connor's Perth-to-Kalgoorlie pipeline, the gold rush and the WA Inc scandal have been named by politicians and historians as key WA events that should be included in a compulsory history curriculum.

    "The suggestions followed yesterday's release of a Federal Government guide on the teaching of Australian history.

    "The loose syllabus will be given to all high schools and covers "milestone events," including settlement, the Bodyline cricket controversy, the first Holden car, the dismissal of the Whitlam government and Australia's involvement in war.

    "The 20-page guide recommends the study of nine topics, including First People, Early Encounters, British Colonies, the Roaring Twenties, World War II and Australia and the shrinking globe. It includes more than 70 milestone events and more than 100 identities, such as explorers James Cook and Dirk Hartog, sports legends Cathy Freeman and Don Bradman, actor Chips Rafferty, outback pioneer R.M. Williams and former prime ministers.

    "Each State has been encouraged to include it own local history in the new, compulsory national history syllabus.

    "Politicians and history academics surveyed yesterday by The West Australian said that Dutch exploration and European settlement, the gold rush, the Perth-to-Kalgoorlie pipeline and the local indigenous history should be included in the local component.

    "State Education Minister Mark McGowan played down John Howard's threat to tie the next four-year, $42 billion education agreement with the States to the introduction of 150 hours of Australian history in all high schools.

    "WA was working towards compulsory Australian history for Years 11 and 12 and had retained ancient and modern history subjects in upper school, he said.

    "WA History Teachers Association executive member Tom Loreck said the Commonwealth guide was too crowded, with 75 key milestones canvassed.

    "Seventy-five milestones over 150 hours, that's two hours for each milestone," he said. "It's too crowded and if we go too superficial, you don't get an understanding of everything. You need some balance."

    "University of WA associate professor in history Jenny Gregory said she was pleased with the variety in the history guide.

    "It's interesting that there's a strong sense of the importance of biographies, it's quite an old-fashioned approach but students like to enter the past with someone they can identify with so personalities can be interesting in doing that," she said.

    "She said the guide was "a bit light" on women, with about 30 women included in the list of more than 100 identities.

    "(It's also) a bit light on as far as representing different ethnicities in Australia, it's pretty Anglo," she said. "It's also light on as far as the unions go, but I guess that not surprising."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  • Editorial (page 20)
    PM's history plan welcome, but not threats against States

    "John Howard used his Australia Day speech last year to voice his dissatisfaction with how Australian history is treated in schools and to signal his intention to do something about it. New Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop got the job of looking after the nuts and bold of a policy, in effect, to return Australian history teaching to prominence and to a focus on the basics of facts and dates.

    "More than 18 months on, the Prime Minister yesterday released a guide to teaching Australian history as a compulsory subject in Years 9 and 10. So this could hardly be dismissed as a hastily assembled pre-election stunt by a government with electoral problems, as some critics would have it.

    "Nevertheless, Mr. Howard would have been acutely aware all along of the political attraction of his proposal to impose requirements for Australian history teaching across the nation's schools. For all sorts of good reasons, people want children to have a solid grounding in the history of their nation. The strength of that view in WA was reflected by Westpoll survey in August last year which found that 83 per cent of respondents wanted Australian history to be taught as a compulsory stand-alone subject at some stage of high school.

    "Education fads and perverse ideology in eduction bureaucracies have diminished the status of Australian history in crowded school programs and entangled it with other topics. In WA, history is taught in a Time, Continuity and Change curriculum.

    "Mr. Howard has called for a return to facts and dates being taught, rather than the focus on themes that some education planners favour. He is right. These are the basics of a nation's story, to which young people should be exposed.

    "Australia wants all prospective citizens to be able to show an understanding of Australian values, history and way of life. That's fair enough. But there's a good chance that many Australian-born citizens would not pass even the most elementary test of their knowledge of their nation's history. And that's both a national embarrassment and an indictment of the school systems.

    "Of course, the objection can be raised that what Mr. Howard really wants is for his, or the conservative, view of history to be taught. However, any valid interpretation of history must be based on the commonly agreed facts, and Mr Howard's guidelines focus on teaching those. It stands to reason that people need to know the essential facts before they can draw conclusion from them.

    "A more serious objection is that, yet again, the Federal Government seeks to use the blunt instrument of its funding power to impose its will on the States. Federal funding for schools is to be conditional on the States agreeing to the Howard history plan.

    "This is another blatant intrusion on State responsibilities and it is probably unnecessary. It is possible that an agreement with the States for teaching Australian history along the lines put forward by Mr. Howard could be reached without threats. States would find it politically hard to resist such self-evidently necessary move that would have overwhelmingly popular support. And they should have some flexibility in how they organise history curriculums, particularly to allow for State perspectives to be taught."
    

    From The West Australian
    
    A wide range of similar editorials, opinion pieces, articles and letters, from The Australian, Age and Sydney Morning Herald, follows.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    A forward move in teaching our past
    by Kevin Donnelly
    
    "While critics of the Guide to the Teaching of Australian History in Years 9 and 10, such as the cultural Left's doyen of the history wars, Stuart Macintyre, argue it is overly nationalistic, politically motivated and guilty of copying what is already in schools, the reality is very different.

    "Since the release of the Keating government's national curriculum document Studies of Society and Environment in 1994, history teaching has suffered a radical change.

    "Not only did the subject disappear from the curriculum - with the exception of NSW - but from Queensland to South Australia to Tasmania to Western Australia, students have been given a politically correct, fragmented and superficial understanding of the past.

    "As noted by Anna Clark in Teaching the Nation, that "marked a turning point in educational approaches, whereby traditional academic emphases were increasingly replaced by child-centred, inquiry-based methods of teaching and learning. These two progressive approaches to the discipline were also explicitly ideological."

    "The South Australian curriculum argues that students must be given a "critical constructivist" approach to learning; code for interpreting the past in terms of what is currently viewed as politically correct. Instead of celebrating what we hold in common, the curriculums in Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland emphasise diversity, difference and multiple perspectives.

    "As a result of outcomes-based education, where learning about the past is reduced to what is contemporary and local, and teaching essential content is considered irrelevant, students no longer learned about key events, significant historical figures and the unique narrative detailing Australia's development as a nation. [emphasis added]

    "The proposed history guide, given the Prime Minister's call for a root-and-branch renewal of teaching Australian history, represents a break with the past.

    "Once again, history is treated as a stand-alone subject and students are to be taught essential content represented by specific topics, key milestones and significant figures within a chronological framework.

    "The proposed history guide is based on the assumption that students need to be taught a strong narrative based explanation of past events."

    Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down (Hardie Grant Books)
    
    From The Australian at link

    
    
  • States reject Howard's take on history
    by Imre Salusinszky [Additional reporting: Andrew Faulkner, Sarah Elks, AAP]
    
    "The history wars were subsumed in the federalism wars yesterday as state premiers and education ministers lined up to bucket John Howard's plan for compulsory Australian history in the middle years of high school.

    "Dismissing the proposal as "another desperate last-minute effort by a prime minister who's in electoral trouble", Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told parliament she was prepared to sit down and talk about Mr Howard's plan, "but we're not going to have knee-jerk reactions to things that have become political footballs in election campaigns".

    "NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said his state had mandated compulsory Australian history in schools in 1999.

    "He (Mr Howard) makes these tired threats to cut funding, but he's essentially copying the rigorous NSW curriculum and trying to impose it across the country."

    "The model course released by Mr Howard yesterday, designed to be taught across Year 9 and Year 10, presents the Australian story in 10 chapters with 70 "milestone events" stretching from indigenous settlement 60,000 years ago to the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

    "It requires students to interpret key events through nine "perspectives", including race and gender.

    "Mr Howard confirmed yesterday he would write to all the premiers to urge them to adopt the course, but would reduce their education funding if they refused. He stressed he was not seeking "a Liberal version of history any more than I want a Labor version of history".

    "I just want an accurate version of history," he said.

    "But a spokesman for Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said: "We go even further than John Howard's plan because Australian history is also compulsory in Years 5 and 6."

    "South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said the plan was another attack in the Howard Government's "phoney culture war" and "a stunt during an election campaign with no substance to it".

    "West Australian Education Minister Mark McGowan said Australian history already was part of the state's school syllabus from kindergarten to Year 10.

    "I don't like the idea of the Prime Minister threatening states, particularly when he is so ill informed," he said. But Kevin Rudd took a more nuanced view, saying a Rudd government would support compulsory history "for parts of the secondary school years" and agreed with Mr Howard history should be taught "in a rigorous, chronological framework." [emphasis added]

    "Apart from NSW and Victoria, all the states currently combine history with geography, social studies and other subjects into Study of Society and its Environment - a course Mr Howard described yesterday as "a very unco-ordinated, haphazard, thematic approach".

    "But leading Melbourne University historian Stuart Macintyre said Mr Howard had rejected a consensus approach for "political advantage".

    "Professor Macintyre said the course was "too crowded to work in classes" and questioned why there were no lessons devoted to early settler and wool pioneer John Macarthur or former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam.

    "I agree that all Australians should understand and appreciate their own history, but they will have great difficulty in doing so if it is as solipsistic as this well-meant guide, in which the rest of the world occasionally intrudes," he said. "The best solution would be to leave it until after the election, and start again with the states and the history teachers."

    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar stories in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    

  
  © The Australian
  
  

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    Most Talked About: Howard's History

    • Students should go back to birth of Grecian democracy
      
      "John Howard’s proposed history course is a step in the right direction but it has an over-emphasis on recent events ("Howard rewrites nation’s history’’, 11/9).

    
    "True, Australian history started some 40,000 years ago with human migration from Southeast Asia. But there are records of this only in rock paintings and dreamtime memories, so it’s not surprising that these early times get little coverage.

    "The history of Australia goes back at least to fifth century BC Greece, where democracy – however defined – was founded. Will students be challenged to compare our present political institutions with the Athens of Pericles, where all male citizens were MPs? Will they be encouraged to understand the conflict between king and parliament in 17th-century England that led to the Westminster system of government? I hope so."
    
    Edward Webber, Buderim, Qld
    

    • "As a teacher of history for more than 40 years, mainly Australian history, I should be delighted to see the importance of history teaching in schools being acknowledged again. However, the disquiet I feel over the current history push is due to several factors.

    
    "Before teaching history, we need to ask, "What is history?’’ John Howard appears to have a fixed view about the answer to this question, suggesting that he is unaware of the complexities of the discipline itself.

    "My study and teaching of history has taught me to be very suspicious of governments that take a direct, interventionist and even punitive approach ("teach this or you’ll lose funding’’ wink to school curricula).

    "It is very easy to make the curriculum ideological, as students in 1930s Germany found out with a compulsory lesson in race studies every day. Children in 1960s China were taught that "Every letter in Chairman Mao’s words is gold and every sentence is truth.’’ What are we to make, then, of Howard’s personal involvement in a new history curriculum. What ideology is driving it? Gallipoli was a tragedy but it is an even greater tragedy to use it for nationalistic purposes. By all means give the teaching of history a higher profile in schools, but leave the choice of materials and the nature of the curriculum up to the historians and educators."
    
    Galia Palenschus, Blackwood, SA
    

    • "The release by the Prime Minister of a guide to the teaching of Australian history must be applauded, addressing as it does the tragic neglect and fragmentation of history education in our schools. The danger is that the initiative will be engulfed by the federal election campaign and there will be attempts to portray it in political and sectarian terms.

    
    "This would be tragic if it further empowers the entrenched interests that continue to resist reform in this vital area. These groups will already be contemplating with glee an apparently likely ALP victory as an opportunity to re-assert their deadening ideological hold over the history curricula across Australia. Hopefully, Kevin Rudd will adopt a bi-partisan position on the issue, recognising the high levels of public support for the teaching of history – and especially our national history."
    
    Mervyn Bendle, Townsville, Qld
    

    • "Perhaps the politicians wanting to drag kids through more Australian history should look at the recent history of such moves in NSW. About a decade ago, Bob Carr made Australian history and geography compulsory in years 9 and 10. He didn’t say what should be removed from the curriculum to create the required space. The inevitable result? Elective subjects struggled to survive: the three and often four electives shrank to two. Has the compulsory study of Australian history and geography excited students’ interest? Quite the reverse: when they arrive at years 11 and 12, not many choose history or geography."
      
      Chris Bonnor, Cherrybrook, NSW

     

    • "The extraordinary involvement of the Prime Minister in the determination of the Australian history curriculum should serve to stifle the trendy, knee-jerk accusation of "fascist’’ which is levelled at his every initiative, as this latest contribution to national intellectual endeavour is surely more akin to the actions of the soviets under communism.

    
    "The essence of the world of academic inquiry and education was ably articulated in the US by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s recent passionate stance for the academic pursuit of the truth in the face of political power. I find it hard to believe that the world of academic inquiry and education in Australia just quietly acquiesces to such blatant political interference in its role."
    
    Brian Smith, Glebe, NSW
    

    • "As Cicero once said, "To be ignorant of what occurred before you where born is to remain always a child.’’ Surely, as Australians, we do not want our future citizens to be ill-informed about our history and wander aimlessly through life ignorant of how we became such a great nation.

    
    "John Howard’s plan for a national history curriculum will rectify the inherent problems with how Australian history is taught in most states, namely as a topic amalgamated into airy fairy subjects such as Western Australia’s "Time, Continuity and Change’’. History needs to be a stand-alone subject. It provides future citizens with a wide range of analytical and research skills, a sense of pride in Australia and a knowledge about its place in the world."
    
    Ryan Stewart, Bateau Bay, NSW
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • States mistrust intent of Howard's history plan
    by Jewel Topsfield and Peter Ker
    
    "The states have accused the Prime Minister of waging a "phoney" pre-election culture war and turning education into a "political football" over his plan to make Australian history compulsory in schools.

    "Federal Labor tried to play it both ways. Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith backed the plan, while accusing the Government of trying to score a political point against the states.

    "Declaring it was "quite shameful" that Australian history was not taught as a stand-alone subject in parts of Australia, Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said schools would be forced to teach at least 150 hours to all year 9 and 10 students from 2009. He also released a teaching guide — overseen by a panel including political commentator Gerard Henderson and conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey — of nine topic areas containing more than 70 milestones, which will form the subject's basis.

    "I believe that this country has badly neglected the teaching of Australian history … we have adopted a very indifferent, a very complacent attitude towards it," Mr Howard said.

    "Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said while an emphasis on Australian history was important, the Federal Government should match its rhetoric with financial support instead of threatening the funding of Victoria's schools.

    "Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said she was disappointed to see education become a "political football" and it would be seen by parents as "another desperate, last- minute effort by a Prime Minister who is in electoral trouble".

    "South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith was also unimpressed. "This is just a sort of phoney culture war, whereby a group of people in Canberra have decided their version of history is the best one to be taught," she said.

    "The announcement was laughable, according to NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca, given his state had introduced compulsory Australian history in years 9 and 10 eight years ago.

    "But Mr Howard said he was not seeking to have an argument with the states and he hoped to enlist the support of both sides of politics.

    "Consistent with his new push for Aboriginal rights, Mr Howard said Aboriginal history had been neglected over the years and he did not think he had been taught it at school. "I don't want a Liberal version of history any more than I want a Labor version of history," he said. "I just want an accurate version of history. I want us to understand our triumphs as well as our blemishes."

    "Milestones include James Cook exploring the east coast of Australia in 1770, the 9 x 5 art exhibition Melbourne in 1889, the White Australia policy, the Bodyline cricket controversy of 1932-33, the first Holden car in 1948 and the Mabo judgement in 1992.

    "Shadow treasurer Wayne Swan was happier. He gloated that every single economic milestone in the guide — including floating the Australian dollar and equal pay for men and women — was initiated by a Labor prime minister."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    

    • Students' mixed feelings on history plan
      
      A plan to make Australian history compulsory for year 9 and 10 students didn't get the ringing endorsement John Howard might have hoped for yesterday.
      
      
      
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • History, but whose?
      
      "Whose Australian history does Mr Howard want taught in our schools? The Imperial British version? The noble settler history? The invaded and massacred Aboriginal people's version, including the stolen children and "terra nullius"? The transported English poor's version? History from women's perspective? Multicultural history? Whose history, Mr Howard?"

      Jennifer Glenister, Chelsea
      
      

    • Teaching history

      "The compulsory teaching of Australian history in all our schools is a fine goal. However, I query if we have adequate research going back 40,000 years to properly cover the topic."

      John Edwards, Vermont South
      
      

    • "Communist China had "The Little Red Book" of Chairman Mao. Democratic Australia has Prime Minister John's "Australian History Syllabus".

      Robert Ness, Middle Park
      
      

    • "I agree with John Howard that teaching of Australian history is a must. Particularly the bits about our treatment of indigenous people and how we accommodate refugees."

      Jim Banks, Yarrawonga
      
      

    • "Tell us, PM, will one of the 70 milestones be the stolen generation, or the stolen wages, or the NT intervention?"

      Andrew Carter, Clayton
      
      

    • Higher standards for all schools

      "Bridie Smith writes about the submission by Melbourne High (The Age, 11/10) on the State Government's policy of limiting the number of students arriving at select entry schools from any one school. It should be noted firstly that with the introduction of two new select entry state schools, the student population that can be catered for will be vastly increased. Surely every student has the right to the most suitable education to achieve their personal potential.

      "Secondly, it is up to the state ministry of education and early childhood development to ensure that state schools and teachers are of a standard that encourages so-called top students to remain at the local secondary school rather than transfer to select entry schools. Come on, Jacinta Allan, Maxine Morand and Bronwyn Pike, set the standard high in all state schools so that all Victorian students can achieve their personal best."

      Kerrie Ternes, Wantirna South
      
      

      
      
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Editorial
    Mr Howard's history lesson
    
    "History curriculums have a distinct fascination for some politicians. In Japan, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been in battle for decades with the pacifist-inclined teachers' union to drum into the young a more patriotic message about the country's pre-1945 history. In India, the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party recently delved into pre-history with textbook revisions aimed at showing the Indians' Aryan forebears were indigenous, not invaders from Central Asia.

    "In Australia, the Prime Minister, John Howard, has made history teaching a particular concern, after long railing at a so-called black-armband view of post-1788 Australia. The background of academic infighting and public culture wars around figures such as the historians Geoffrey Blainey and the late Manning Clark have given an unfortunate taint in some minds to what Mr Howard has been about. The NSW Education Minister, John Della Bosca, refused to allow one of his officials to join the Federal Government panel designing a new national history curriculum, even though his former premier, Bob Carr, was an enthusiastic participant in the summit called by Mr Howard in August last year to launch the process.

    "The outcome, announced yesterday is also less of a political rewrite of the original draft by the Monash University historian Tony Taylor than some believe. It leaves the earlier narrative segments largely unchanged, and extends the story a quarter of a century to around 2000. This covers the successful restructuring of the Australian economy in which Labor's Bob Hawke and Paul Keating are the main protagonists, rather than leaving things in 1975 with the economy tanking and the Whitlam government in disarray and ultimately sacked. This may disappoint some fans of Mr Whitlam, who see 1975 as the culminating battle of Australian history, but students should learn that the 1980s and 1990s saw the dismantling of many of the institutions, such as collective bargaining and tariff protection, that they saw erected in earlier chapters. [emphasis added]

    "The new federal policy on history teaching is largely directed at states other than NSW. Thanks to Mr Carr, Australian history has been compulsory in years 9 and 10 in NSW schools since 1999, though the number of hours it is taught will now increase from 100 hours to 150 as a condition of federal funding. School history will always strike some as overly nationalistic, but if Australia's story is not taught in schools, it is not likely to be learned anywhere else."
    

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Teachers united in mockery
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "History teachers yesterday criticised a new history curriculum proposed by John Howard as too overcrowded and politicised.

    "The Prime Minister aims to force all schools to teach 150 hours of Australian history to students in years 9 and 10.

    "Paul Kiem, president of the Australian History Teachers' Association, said students in NSW were already being taught 100 hours of Australian history as a stand-alone subject.

    "It would be an extra 50 hours in NSW which would be at the cost of another subject," he said.

    "We are very concerned about the way it has been released as part of an election campaign."

    "Mr Kiem said the year 9 and 10 curriculum was already crowded and Mr Howard's plan took no account of Australian history already taught in earlier years.

    "In terms of the implementation, it doesn't take into account a kindergarten to year 12 perspective and that is critical to the success of any Australian history course," he said.

    "Tony Taylor, the head of Monash University's National Centre for History Education, was commissioned by the Federal Government to write the Australian history curriculum.

    "Unhappy with the draft, the Federal Government hand-picked a panel, including the conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey and the political commentator Gerard Henderson to rewrite the curriculum.

    "The outcome, Professor Taylor said, had almost doubled the content to be taught. "It has serious problems as it currently stands because it has far too much detail and will be regarded by many teachers as a huge burden," he said.

    "It will remind NSW teachers of [former NSW premier] Bob Carr's syllabus which had to be revised in 2003 for similar reasons. On that basis alone, I don't think it is practical."

    "Mr Howard said he would write to the states and territories, asking them to introduce the history course by the beginning of 2009 as a condition of Commonwealth funding.

    "I believe this country has badly neglected the teaching of Australian history. We have lapsed into teaching it in accordance with a very uncoordinated, haphazard, thematic approach instead of doing it with a proper regard to the narrative and the unfolding and compelling story of Australia," Mr Howard said.

    "The guide will divide the teaching of Australian history into a number of periods, naturally commencing with the period when this country was occupied by the indigenous people of Australia, the first Australians, and culminating with a study of contemporary times."

    "The national curriculum lists more than 70 milestones including indigenous settlement, James Cook's landing, the gold rushes, the White Australia policy, the first Holden car and the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Attempting to decide what our past is
    
    Winners write history, but so far there is no peace in the history war, writes Damien Murphy.
    
    "When Emeritus Professor W.E.H. "Bill" Stanner coined the phrase the "Great Australian Silence" in his 1968 Boyer Lectures, his reference to the concealment of the place of Aborigines in Australian history after European settlement startled many.

    "This was hardly surprising. After all, Stanner's Boyer lectures took place only a year after Australians voted in a referendum to end constitutional discrimination against Aborigines. One fifth of West Australians voted against the referendum, so did 14 per cent of South Australians and 11 per cent of Queenslanders. In NSW 8.5 per cent of voters, one in 12 people, opposed recognising Aborigines.

    "Stanner's was the first shot in the campaign that has become known as the history wars. Battles have raged for nearly four decades over the way the colony was settled and whether or not Aborigines and Islanders were dispossessed or subjected to a form of cultural genocide as academics and politicians sought to impose their views, set the record straight and score points.

    "The decision yesterday by the Prime Minister, John Howard, to impose the teaching of 150 hours of Australian history on junior secondary students as a condition of federal funding to the states is the latest skirmish in the war..."
    
    [A long, detailed article: worth a read, I think.  Web]
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    General Howard finds a new way to go over the top
    by Annabel Crabb
    
    Under the Flag
    
    "A brief frisson ran around the trenches of the culture warriors yesterday morning with the confirmation that General Howard was planning to go over the top.

    "A new history syllabus? A federally-mandated version of Australian history, personally approved by Mr Howard himself?

    "Would this be like Michael Jackson's HIStory, or Robin Morgan's "herstory" - were we about to see the formal emergence of Howardstory?

    "You could almost hear the metallic scrape of pins being eased from grenades, and bayonets being lowered as the members of the glorious cultural resistance prepared for a final stand.

    "What no one will ever admit about culture warfare is that the combatants just love it..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor [on, you guessed it, history!]

Saturday – Sunday, 13 – 14 October

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Getting ahead in school funding
    
    With no Labor plans to change the grant system, private schools will continue to reap the benefits, write Gerard Noonan and Anna Patty.
    
    "It took less than a minute for the tall, stooped figure on the stage at the National Press Club this week to reveal how a multibillion-dollar deal is struck with taxpayers money without a hint of public scrutiny. The former Aussie rules ruckman and now a Catholic Cardinal, George Pell, did not miss a beat.

    "He had been asked what he thought of the announcement earlier in the day that the Opposition was religiously adhering to its policy of me-tooism by planning to continue with the Coalition's controversial system of providing funding for private schools, including the vast Catholic school system, where one in five students study.

    "I had quite a long meeting with the shadow minister, Stephen Smith … I met a couple of times with Mr Rudd. I haven't studied it [the policy] in detail, but to the extent that I understand it, I'm happy to accept that for us, it is of benefit and I'm happy to endorse it," Cardinal Pell said.

    "That was it. A couple of meetings with the leader and one with the shadow minister, and the deal was done. It does not matter whether John Howard or Kevin Rudd are in the Lodge at Christmas; it is a sure each-way bet.

    "This is not just a small victory. Over the present four-year funding agreement between Canberra and the private-school sector, which runs to the end of next year, the National Catholic Education Commission will receive $12 billion.

    "There is no public scrutiny of how this money is distributed: the electronic bank transfer of about $750 million arrives like clockwork each quarter and is rapidly dispersed across the parish-school network.

    "What is almost certain is that the next deal, covering the years 2009 to 2012, will deliver about $15 billion to the Catholic school system. Education inflation is higher than consumer price index inflation: it is typically about 6 per cent.

    "If the influential but low-profile negotiators from within the church hierarchy can push the Government to increase the payments formula to deliver up a long-held Catholic church aim of achieving 60 per cent of the cost of educating a child (from 58 per cent at present), there will be considerably more in the honey pot. And that, of course, could open up the possibility of an auction between the Government and the Opposition, both desperate to woo the Catholic vote in the Federal election.

    "The executive director of the NSW Catholic Education Commission, Brian Croke, acknowledges that the commission expects the forthcoming election period to be a busy one for all concerned.

    "Dr Croke says a closed-door review of the educational funding system undertaken by the Federal Department of Education in 2006 has still not surfaced and the Catholic negotiators do not know whether the Government is prepared to vary the formula applying to the Catholic education system. However, it is a fair bet that a deal will be consummated in the heat and dust of the election campaign.

    "The Federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, told a Christian Schools Association conference last month that it was unlikely the next school funding arrangement would be completed by the time of the election, but few believe it.

    "Even if there was no election on, the decision [about changes to the schools funding model] would have to be made by Christmas so the May 2008 budget could put in place arrangements for the next four-year funding period," Dr Croke said.

    "The problem is that many associated with the so-called Socio-Economic Status model for Commonwealth funding of private schools acknowledge that there are serious deficiencies in the framework, though the recipients of its largesse are reluctant to go public about it.

    "The distortions arose when the Federal Government dumped Labor's old system of calculating how much individual private schools should receive, known by its acronym ERI, or educational resources index.

    "While clumsy and controversial, the ERI system took into account the level of fees schools charged, the investment earnings from endowments and the quality of the school facilities such as gymnasiums, science labs, swimming pools and playing fields.

    "In contrast the Socio-Economic Status system, which has operated since 2001, is based on providing bulk money to individual schools, or in the case of the Catholic school system to the National Catholic Education Commission - after working out the relative wealth of the electoral subdivision where parents of the children attending each school live.

    "The idea is that the poorer the school-parent body, the more the school receives in federal subsidies. Conversely, the richer the parents, the less the school is supposed to receive. When it was first proposed by the then federal education minister David Kemp, the independent school sector and the Catholics were wary.

    "So to encourage schools to agree to the new system, the Coalition offered a guarantee: no school would be worse off even if the new formula said they could lose some of their federal funding. It placed a floor on funding for individual schools.

    "Six years on, two things are obvious. Firstly, about 60 per cent of all private schools are in the "guaranteed" category, meaning that most of the 2710 non-government schools would get less if the formula was applied properly.

    "Even those who most staunchly support the system acknowledge this is a deficiency while others query the fairness.

    "Secondly, the promised cut in private school fees - used as a justification for introducing the Socio-Economic Status system in the first place - never eventuated. In fact in the past decade private school fees have risen between 6 per cent and 10 per cent annually..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Poor shut out of Catholic schools: study
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Low-income Catholic families feel shut out of the increasingly middle-class Catholic school system, an analysis of census data has found.

    "The research shows that wealth plays a greater role than religious background in determining the choice of school.

    "Almost half (47 per cent) of high-income earners enrol their children in Catholic or other non-government schools while more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of low-income earners of all religious backgrounds enrol in government schools.

    "According to a new analysis of data from last year's census, 55 per cent of students from low-income Catholic families attended government schools, compared with 26 per cent of students from high-income Catholic families.

    "The research consultant Margaret Preston found 40 per cent of students from low-income Catholic families attended Catholic secondary schools, compared with 62 per cent of students from high-income Catholic families.

    "Ms Preston said the ratio of low-income to high-income families in public schools was increasing.

    "The Federal Government changed its formula for funding independent schools in 2001, no longer taking into account a school's resources. Instead, it began funding schools according to the wealth of families attending, based on census data.

    "Schools that would lose funding under the new formula were told their funding would be maintained. At the time it was argued this would ensure those schools were more accessible to low-income families. However, the latest census data suggests this has not occurred.

    "Brother Kelvin Canavan, executive director of schools for the Catholic Education Office, Sydney, said he was aware that poorer Catholic families were not seeking to enrol their children in Catholic schools. "We recognise that financial stress and other factors press many Catholic families to look elsewhere for schooling," he said. "Children from poorer families are not being enrolled in sufficient numbers."

    "He said the church needed to be more active in recruiting families with offers of fee discounts and exemptions. "The challenge for the Catholic sector is to get that message across that they can get help."

    "In recognition that fees were becoming out of reach for many Catholic parents, Cardinal George Pell last year restricted fee increases to 2.23 per cent. "We need to understand better the reasons for Catholic parents not choosing Catholic schools," Cardinal Pell said. "Is it just a matter of cost? Or are they not sufficiently interested in what the Catholic school has to offer?

    "The answers to these questions remain unclear."

    "The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, challenged Cardinal Pell's support this week for the Labor Party's backing of the funding formula.

    "Cardinal Pell appears to have forgotten that most of his flock are in public schools," Ms O'Halloran said. "I'd like to see Cardinal Pell talking about extra funding for public schools as an issue of providing the highest quality education for every child."

    "The vice-president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, said public schools served the "most disadvantaged people in the community" and therefore needed more investment from governments. "Poorer Catholics are overwhelmingly represented in public schools. The wealthier the child, the greater the likelihood the child is enrolled in a private school, despite their religious background."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    There's more to academic research than hitting the search button
    by Howard Rheingold
    
    "My daughter started writing research papers at the same time the search engine AltaVista became available in the mid-1990s. When she started using search engines for research, I talked to her about the way the internet had changed certainty about authority.

    "Unlike with the majority of library books, when you enter a term into a search engine there is no guarantee that what you will find is authoritative, accurate or even vaguely true.

    "The locus of responsibility for determining the accuracy of texts shifted from the publisher to the reader when one of the functions of libraries shifted to search engines. That meant my daughter had to learn to ask questions about everything she finds in one of those searches.

    "Who is the author? What do others say about the author? What are the author's sources? Can any truth claims be tested independently? What sources does the author cite, and what do others say about those sources?

    "Talking to my daughter about search engines and the necessity for a 10-year-old to question texts online led me to think that computer literacy programs that left out critical thinking were missing an important point. But I discovered when I talked to teachers in my local schools that "critical thinking" is regarded by some as a plot to incite children to question authority. At that point, I saw education - the means by which young people learn the skills necessary to succeed in their place and time - as diverging from schooling.

    "Constructivist theories of education that exhort teachers to guide active learning through hands-on experimentation are not new ideas, and neither is the notion that digital media can be used to encourage this kind of learning. What is new is a population of "digital natives" who learnt how to learn new kinds of software before they started high school, who carry mobile phones, media players, game devices and laptop computers and know how to use them, and for whom the internet is not a transformative new technology but a feature of their lives that has always been there, like water and electricity. [emphasis added]

    "This population is both self-guided and in need of guidance: although a willingness to learn new media by point-and-click exploration might come naturally to today's student, there is nothing innate about knowing how to apply their skills to the processes of democracy.

    "I don't propose internet media as the solution to young people's disengagement from political life, or claim to know whether or not youth really are disengaged, but I do want to look at a participative media as a possibly powerful tool to be deployed towards helping them engage in their own voices about the issues they care about.

    "For the past several years, I've experimented with teaching students a blogging rhetoric that leads them to exercise their public voice. For example, the first post is to be aimed at a clearly imagined public who could, potentially, join the blogger in some kind of collective action.

    "First, I asked students to provide links that would educate, inform, persuade or motivate that public, and to write a post that gives enough context to the link to enable readers to decide whether or not to click it.

    "Then I asked them to experiment with connective writing by offering two links and their contexts, as well as an overarching description of what connects the links. Analytic and critical posts follow, taking issue with, contesting, debating posts made by others on their blogs. Finally, student bloggers were asked to make posts that advocate a position and provide links to support their assertions.

    "If print culture shaped the environment in which the Reformation exploded and the Enlightenment blossomed, participatory media might similarly shape the cognitive and social environments in which 21st-century life will take place.

    "Assuming a world in which the welfare of young people and the health of democracy are the true goals of education, I believe modern societies around the world need to assess and evaluate what works and what doesn't in terms of engaging students in learning, to look empirically and in a more nuanced way at what civic engagement means today, to better understand what young people are really doing with digital media, and to find ways to help them use their literacies as citizenship skills as well as avenues to entertainment."

    Howard Rheingold is the author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. This is an edited version of a speech he delivered at an education.au seminar in Melbourne.
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    

    
    
  • Op Ed
    The lessons of history teachers ignored
    by Stuart Macintyre
    
    "There is an enormous wellspring of support for restoring the study of history in Australian schools. It was evident at last year's history summit, where participants rescued the cause from ill-judged efforts to pre-empt what ought to be taught.

    "The goodwill remained while the working party established after the summit worked to give substance to the approach that was agreed there. But the broad consensus has been put in jeopardy by John Howard's decision to ride roughshod over the states. By interfering once again in a co-operative endeavour, he risks sacrificing a worthy cause in pursuit of electoral advantage.

    "The latest difficulties arose after the working party's recommendations reached the Prime Minister's office. They were based on consultations with teachers, curriculum officers and historians. They were sensible and practical, and the Education Minister, Julie Bishop, was happy with them. But the Prime Minister wasn't, so he insisted on further change and has now taken the release of the amended guide out of the minister's hands..."
    
    "The Prime Minister's release of the guide on the eve of an election, and the suggestion that acceptance will be a condition of future federal funding, are all of a piece with this pattern. They imperil a good cause.

    "The best solution would be to leave it until after the election, and start again with the states and the history teachers."

    Stuart Macintyre is the visiting professor of Australian studies at Harvard and a professor of history at the University of Melbourne.

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    What history books won't tell you

    "Memo from PM's office to history committee: "The PM is anxious to see that, while the new year 9 and 10 Australian history curriculum is fair and balanced, it does not portray our political leaders in a bad light. Hence you'll see no mention of Billy McMahon, John Gorton, Robert Askin or Joh Bjelke-Petersen on our side. There should be no mention of Mr Fraser's unfortunate episode with lost trousers in Memphis. Menzies' intervention in the Suez Crisis is best forgotten, as with his tribute to her majesty 'I did but see her passing by …' and his application of the Dictation Test, in Gaelic, for the Czech anti-Nazi activist Egon Kisch. We have a problem with business leaders, as much as the PM is keen to play up the role of private enterprise. We've only been able to put up BHP's Essington Lewis. He died in 1961, so is unlikely to figure in court proceedings or corporate crashes. On the science side, myxo is in, but not introduction of the cane toad …"
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link

    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Softer line on teacher fees (page 4)
    by Paul Lampathakis

    "The board that threatened to de-register thousands of teachers for failing to pay a $70 fee looks set to back down.

    "Susanne Parry, director of the WA College of Teaching, now says that whether WACOT would use discretionary powers to cancel registrations, as well as the timing of such an action, were both "open or discussion" when the college board meets on October 26.

    "Previously, WACOT had said teachers had to pay the professional registration fees by October 26 or face de-registration.

    "The backdown come as the Education Department revealed that schools were still short 81 teachers for the start of Term Four on Tuesday.

    "The board needs to take everything into account, the interests of the children's learning…the number of people who have not paid (and) the position of those who have paid," Dr. Parry said.

    "I have no doubt that the board will consider all those things when it makes a decision."

    "Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said WACOT's new softer stance contrasted with the board's previous hard line and a letter from the Education Department to principals last month, threatening teachers would be sacked if they didn't pay.

    "He said the action would have caused a crisis because 1500 teachers still hadn't paid.

    "That would have been a catastrophe for our classrooms, days before the start of the TEE," he said.

    "Teachers have maintained that the fees shouldn't be paid because WACOT hadn't abided by its own Act by not having board members elected by teachers."
    
    From The Sunday Times
    

    
    
    
  • Huge shortfall of vital staff (page 34)
    by Paul Lampathakis and Nicole Cox

    "WA is crying out for thousands of workers in essential services - among them 2400 nurses, doctors, police and teachers.

    "Meanwhile, the number of state government pen-pushers continues to grow.

    "Here's the breakdown:
    
    

    "HEALTH: The Australian Nursing Federation and the Australian Medical Association say at least 1000 nurses and 200 doctors are needed.

    "WA's busiest hospital, Sir Charles Gairdner, is in urgent need of 110 nurses and across the system there is a shortfall of at least 1000 nurses," ANF state secretary Mark Olson said yesterday.

    "The Health Department refused this week to reveal the extent of the staff crisis.
    
    

    "POLICE: WA Police Union president Mike Dean said the state was at least 200 police officers short.

    "It worries me that we have an average of 27 or 28 (officers) a month leaving and we are struggling keeping up replacing those," he said.

    "It is understood WA Police will travel to New Zealand next month to try to recruit officers.
    
    

    "SCHOOLS: The Education Department said this week that 81 teachers were needed for the start of Term Four on Tuesday.

    "But State School Teachers Union vice-president Anne Gisborne said the real figure was about 1000.

    "Ms. Gisborne said that because of shortages, primary teachers, particularly in country areas and district high schools, were having to teach Years 8 to 10.
    
    

    "WA Opposition Leader Paul Omodei said that since Labor was elected in 2001, taxpayers had paid for an extra 17, 000 public sector staff. But most of those staff were bureaucrats.

    "Mr. Omodei said that it was also of great concern that the number of public servants earning between $100, 000 and $200, 000 rose from 1653 in June 2005 to 2358 in December 2006.

    "Premier Alan Carpenter said WA's booming economy was placing increased demand on government services and creating labour shortages."
    

    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    
    
  • Teacher sex offences against children doubles (page 3)
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "The number of teachers accused of sex offences against schoolchildren in WA has more than doubled this year.
    
    "The Sunday Times has learnt there have been 19 cases so far this year, compared with eight in 2006.

    "Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said that, if anything, "this big rise in the number of reports shows that the former complaints management unit wasn't doing its job.''

    "Rob Fry, president of peak parent group the WA Council of State School Organisations, said: "If there's one such offender, that's one too many. We need to ensure every teacher is licensed, so there is an exchange of information between registration boards in other states, to make sure that people who are convicted never get to work with children again.''

    "The Education Department said six teachers had been removed from their schools this year because of such reports and relocated to district offices while investigations proceeded. Four more were in the same situation from 2006.

    "State School Teachers Union vice-president Anne Gisborne said the union was opposed to all forms of harassment and discrimination, whether sexual or otherwise. But she also said a complaint was only a complaint until proven, so the increase had to be viewed with caution.

    "(Complaints) can also be just another strategy that students use and manipulate for their own ends,'' she said.

    "Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the Government was in the process of establishing the toughest professional standards unit in the nation.

    "Mr McGowan said the new Standards and Integrity Directorate, which investigated all such allegations, had 31 staff, including 17 specialist investigators.

    "Anyone facing serious sexual allegations is immediately removed from the classroom and placed in work away from the school, which does not involve any contact with students, while the investigation takes place,'' he said.

    "Very serious cases are suspended from duty without pay.''

    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 63)
    
    
    • "So the Education Minister wants to poach teachers from Victoria and Tasmania ("WA raid on ES teachers", TST, October 7). Will he tell potential teachers that under WA's OBE, they will only be facilitator, not a real teacher?"
      
      Patrick F. Whalen, Yokine
      
      
      
      
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • Teachers pushed into topics they don't know
    by Reid Sexton
    
    "Almost half of Victoria's new state secondary school teachers have taught a subject in which they are not qualified because of teacher shortages.

    "Hundreds of teachers are being asked to take subjects that they have a limited knowledge of — to teach students things they themselves sometimes barely understand.

    "The shortages mean that 147 of the state's 258 government secondary schools have at least one teacher operating in an area outside their expertise.

    "The results come from surveys completed by teachers with five years or less experience and principals, and conducted by the Australian Education Union this year.

    "One teacher with an English and politics background told The Sunday Age that he began teaching VCE psychology at his inner-city school this year because there was no one else to take it.

    "The teacher, who asked not be named for fear of a Department of Education backlash, said it had increased his workload by six hours a week as he researched the subject.

    "It's a massive burden," he said. "I'm learning things as my students learn them. It's time that could be spent doing other things … it's about burnout.

    "This is why so many teachers have quit by the time they get to their fifth year."

    "He said his students suffered because they did not have a qualified psychology teacher.

    "I have taught year 12 politics, which is my background, and I was just able to give those kids so much more than my psychology students," he said.

    "The union's Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said teacher shortages are particularly bad in maths, science, technology and languages.

    "She said this meant schools were increasingly being forced to use teachers who were qualified in other fields.

    "It's bad enough for an experienced teacher … but at least they have the array of teaching skills around student engagement and classroom discipline," she said. "These young teachers starting their careers, it's incredible … to expect them to do something like that."

    "Ms Bluett said it was estimated that Victorian secondary schools would be 500 teachers short for the next three years — leading to more new teachers being made to cover subjects they were not qualified for. [emphasis added]

    "She said HECS-free courses, more scholarships and better paid post-training positions for new teachers from other professions were needed to boost teaching numbers in those areas where there was a shortage.

    "To take someone out of their qualified area or area of expertise is incredibly stressful," Ms Bluett said. "A lot of these people are on contracts and they feel like they can't say no."

    "A spokesman for Education Minister Bronwyn Pike denied there was a teacher shortage in Victoria.

    "He said the Government announced a $3.2 million program last month to attract people with maths, science and engineering qualifications to teaching." [emphasis added] [Don't you just love the attitude of politicians? "I'm throwing money at it so of course that will fix it!"  Web]
    
    From The Sunday Age at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Why the PM's classroom history doesn't add up
    
    John Howard's program is barely teachable and needs an overhaul says Tony Taylor.
    
    "In August 2006, the Prime Minister's history summit agreed on six principles, the first that any core version of Australian history had to be teachable. What this meant was that teachers and students should feel engaged by the course — otherwise the whole initiative would be a disaster. Fourteen months later, John Howard has announced a final version of his guide to the history program. The good news is that the guide is fair and balanced, not at all the ideological sermon some feared. The bad news is that the course, if implemented as it stands, is scarcely teachable and will almost certainly alienate large numbers of both teachers and students, killing off any long-term interest in the subject.

    "To understand why this is the case, we need to move quickly from history to some elementary mathematics. In the first instance, the PM's guide has a decent foundation in the principles of teaching and learning, but it just doesn't add up when it comes to the content. This is because the number of "milestones" (key events to be studied in detail) has tripled since the August summit and has more than doubled since the draft guide in April. There are now 75 milestones and more than 100 biographies to choose from.

    "Each milestone is meant to represent a significant event in Australian history and so needs to be given a context. The PM's course lasts 150 hours in years 9 and 10 (with some possibly covered in year 8), which seems a lot of time for one subject. In this case, not so. Divide the hours by the milestones and you get about a double lesson for each significant event, with no stops for individual research, visits to museums or heritage sites or classroom discussion. Imagine a properly contextualised version of the 1975 Dismissal taught in a double lesson?

    "Let's say we teach the PM's program as he suggests. Each milestone (plus biographies) would normally take at least four or five lessons for proper, inquiry-based coverage. Multiply 75 milestones by maximum five lessons and you get about 380 hours, not allowing for excursions and homework. Run that past the students and staff of your local school and see how they respond.

    "This document was initially based on a consultation process that included teachers. But the post-April deliberations that produced the 75 milestones did not involve any serving teachers. That is the first missing part of the equation. If asked, any experienced history teacher could have put the PM's reference group straight. But, with a committee of two academics, a journalist and a retired principal, no matter how eminent, honourable and diligent, the milestones just seem to have extended themselves in an uncontrolled and unmanageable fashion.

    "The other missing part of an important equation is primary students. In primary schools, a huge amount of important inquiry and learning takes place; students can develop a keen enthusiasm for history uncontaminated by adolescent angst and inspired teachers can successfully introduce students to Australian history. Yet there is no attempt to co-ordinate primary and secondary programs. Which means, among other things, that repetition, the terrible blight of Australian history in schools, will remain firmly with us. Burke and Wills, for example, may have travelled across the interior of Australia on four or five expeditions by the time some students finish year 10.
    
    "The current guide is going nowhere until after the election. If the Coalition wins, there will probably be a bunfight to end all history war bunfights and if the ALP wins, I'm not sure. I see some willingness to consult professionals but not much else. Unlike John Howard, Kevin Rudd has yet to come up with a clear view of the history he would like to have included in a national curriculum.

    "Whatever the case, we need to start over again, working with the states to produce something teachable."

    Tony Taylor, of Monash University, was director of the National Centre for History Education, 2001-06, and a history summit participant.

    From The Sunday Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Uni piece glib and simplistic
      
      "Peter Munro's 2630-word farrago, "University challenge" (7/10), draws selectively on research. By reinforcing the shibboleths of opponents of non-government schooling, Munro is likely to confuse parents considering education options.

      "It is patronising to suggest that parents send their children to independent schools hoping they open doors to "a flash house and lucrative career". This glib description does no justice to parents who want the best opportunities for their child's development while reflecting family, cultural, social or religious values.

      "It's too simplistic to argue that choice of school depends on family income. A substantial group of less well-off families send their children to independent schools and more children from well-off families attend government schools than non-government schools.

      "It's not correct that a disproportionately high number of students from independent schools "lose their way at university". The Australian Government's Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) found that students from government and independent schools had the same university withdrawal rate.

      "LSAY 51 also confirms that neither socioeconomic background nor school sector are significant predictors of university course completion. The strongest predictor of university completion is a high ENTER score, an area where independent schools are consistently high performers.

      "Munro asks if parents and taxpayers are getting their money's worth when they send their children to independent schools. The answer is yes.

      "Parents choosing non-government schools make a big investment in education. On average, each student at a non-government school saves the Victorian taxpayer $4469 a year. That's $1.2 billion in total."

      Michelle Green, chief executive, Association of Independent Schools of Victoria
      
      
      

• The Age [Saturday]
  
  
  • Budget surplus prompts call for more teachers, police
    
    The State Government could have paid for more teachers, police and hospital beds, delivered stamp-duty relief and still had money left to keep the budget in surplus.
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Science seen as essential to WA’s survival [Sunday 14 October addition: website only]
    by Daniel Hatch
    
    "Ensuring WA’s survival after the current boom will depend on the next generation being scientifically literate and finding answers to the climate change problem, according to the State’s chief scientist.
    
    "Delivering the University of WA annual Karrakatta Club address, Professor Lyn Beazley said WA needed to become a “very knowledge-based” State as it faced the future and learnt how to coping with a changing climate scenario.
    
    “Science is a key part of that — science, maths, engineering, technology — all of those are going to be essential to our future so that, for example, we do have the best practice in exploiting our resources in a way that is economic, safe, and has minimal impact on the environment,” she said.
    
    "While urging for science to be prominent in classrooms from pre-primary to secondary schools, Professor Beazley said when the economic boom abated, ingenuity and innovation would be essential. Climate change provided both challenges and opportunities for science.
    
    “Where do we centre our agriculture, what do we grow in particular places, how do we look at our population distribution, if we have rising sea levels, how do we plan for that?” she said.
    
    “Science is going to be an absolute key for that. Science is also going to be a key for how we generate our energy: How much do we generate from wind farms, how much do we generate, for example, possibly by geothermal energy?”
    
    "Professor Beazley said drawing on global best science was important but there were also unique WA situations which would need solving and those discoveries
    would be economic and social drivers because our knowledge would, in turn, be valuable elsewhere in the world.
    
    “For example, in terms of geothermal energy our rocks are deeper and hotter than those in Europe where geothermal is becoming popular,” she said. “I think science is going to be a key to ensuring we stay in a society which is enriched not just economically but socially and culturally.
    
    “For me it is important for economic development but we have to do it in an environment in which we want to live and in which we are not culturally bereft and science is an underpinner of that.”
    
    From The West Australian online at link
    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Raking over the past
    
    Will the new history guide be bedded down in all schools? Kevin Donnelly will believe it when he sees it
    
    "As expected, Prime Minister John Howard's intervention in the culture wars, represented by the proposed Australian history guide for years 9 and 10 of high school, has drawn a chorus of criticism from the usual suspects.
    
    "State Labor education ministers are one in the argument that each of their history curriculum documents represents best practice and that the guide is superfluous and a political stunt.
    
    "Historians such as the University of Melbourne 's Stuart Macintyre, author of The History Wars and a vocal opponent of the Howard Government's education polices, have criticised the guide as well meant but overly detailed, solipsistic and difficult to implement in the classroom.
    
    "As a result of a 1991 meeting of Australian education ministers, the school curriculum was divided into eight learning areas and history was re-badged as "time, continuity and change'', disappearing into the amorphous and politically correct stew represented by the subject known as studies of society and environment.
    
    "While the secondary school curriculum in NSW, and more recently Victoria, gives history special status, treating it as a stand-alone subject and detailing significant events, people and historical forces that must be taught, the subject has not fared as well in other jurisdictions.
    
    "The more conservative view -- where students are taught a narrative associated with significant historical events, individuals and historical forces that shaped Australia's growth as a nation -- has been jettisoned in favour of an inquiry-based issues approach that emphasises what is local and contemporary.
    
    "Teaching what US academic Jerome Bruner has termed the structure of a discipline has given way to so-called generic skills, dispositions and competencies. This is largely as a result of Australia's adoption of outcomes-based education, otherwise known as Essential Learnings.
    
    "The Tasmanian and the South Australian Essential Learnings approach defines curriculum in terms of broad and vacuous categories such as futures, identity, interdependence and thinking and communication.
    
    "In Queensland, the main SOSE values are defined as peace, ecological and economic sustainability, social justice and democratic process, all with a politically correct slant.
    
    "The West Australian Curriculum Framework document describes history as "time, continuity and change'' and, instead of detailing what should be taught, provides teachers with generalised outcome statements, such as: "They (students) can identify the constructive and destructive consequences of continuity and change and describe examples of both evolutionary and revolutionary change.'' [emphasis added]
    
    "Unlike the approach associated with SOSE, Howard's new Guide to Teaching Australian History in Years 9 and 10 treats it as a stand-alone subject, and its authors bite the bullet and stipulate in detail a series of topics, milestones and essential content that all students need to learn if they are to understand and appreciate the nation's past.
    
    "Although it's being attacked as the product of a conservative ideology, it should be noted the new guide is inclusive when it suggests students should study history through a range of perspectives, including those of gender, the environment, and indigenous and everyday life.
    
    "History teaching, and education more broadly, was once based on a belief in essential content, and that some interpretations are closer to the truth than others and that evidence should be weighed impartially. But the SOSE curriculums argue that interpreting the past is subjective and clouded by each person's ideological baggage and that it is wrong to stipulate what must be taught about it.
    
    "In 1992, the new history within the Victorian curriculum was celebrated on the basis that "there is no single version of history that can be presented to students. History is a version of the past (that) varies according to the person and the times ... each generation reinterprets the past in the light of its own values andattitudes.''
    
    "The 2000 edition of the Queensland SOSE document says students should be told "knowledge is always tentative'', that they should "critique the socially constructed elements of text''and understand "how privilege and marginalisation are created and sustained in society''.
    
    "Instead of providing a clear narrative detailing Australia's unique cultural and social growth and valuing what we hold in common, the SOSE approach emphasises diversity and difference. The Tasmanian curriculum, in explaining what is meant by social responsibility, emphasises the need to endorse "multiple perspectives'' and "diverse views''.
    
    "The South Australian curriculum, in outlining the importance of students having an understanding of cultural and global connections, also emphasises diversity and difference, as does the ACT curriculum, under the heading "Australian perspectives'', in saying that students should experience the "diversity of Australian life''.
    
    "The way studying Australian history is described in the Victorian curriculum also stresses diversity and multiple influences. Significant is that the new federal guide, in opposition to the idea of cultural relativism, acknowledges under the perspective "beliefs and values'' the importance of "the influence of Christian churches and the liberal democratic philosophies'' that underpin and safeguard our unique way of life.
    
    "A 1999 report, The Future of the Past, funded by the federal Government and written by historian Tony Taylor of Monash University, concludes that "Australian history in schools is characterised by lack of continuity, topic repetition and lack of coherence''.
    
    "The national history report also includes an observation by Monash University historian Mark Peel that many students enter university with a fragmented historical understanding.
    
    "Peel observed that while they might be strong in terms of questioning interpretations and appreciating the contribution of those voices normally excluded, such as Aborigines and women, undergraduate students lacked an understanding of the larger picture or the ability to place isolated events and issues within the broader context.
    
    "Peel states: "Students seem anxious about the absence of a story by which to comprehend change, or to understand how the nation and world they are about to inherit came to be. They do have maps of the past. Their maps are more likely than mine to focus on particular visual images, those snatches of documentary film or photographs (that) increasingly encapsulate the past. Indeed, their sense of the world's history is often based on intense moments and fragments that have no real momentum or connection.''
    
    "In a speech given at the Queensland Teachers Union conference in 2005, Australian Education Union president Pat Byrne effectively argued that the cultural Left had extended its influence in and through the education system.
    
    "Byrne said: "We have succeeded in influencing the curriculum development in schools, education departments and universities. The conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum.'' [emphasis added]
    
    "Although yet to be translated into classroom practice, the new guide to Australian history suggests that Byrne should not be overconfident."
    
    Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down (Hardie Grant Books).
    
    From The Weekend Australian
    
    
    
    
• Letter to the Editor
  
  
  • Teachers have some insights
    
    "Much of the comment about the Prime Minster’s guide to a proposed national history curriculum focuses on the appropriateness of the content. What remains unclear is how prescriptive the content outline will be and how it will be examined.

    "If it all has to be squeezed into 150 hours and examined at the end, then teachers and students are in for a miserable time and Australian history will be worse off.

    "If anything, the document lacks imagination. While it does speak of the need for history to be enjoyable, it shows little understanding of how this might be achieved in a subject that will be imposed on all students. To this point, actual history teachers have been effectively excluded from the secretive curriculum development process. This is both puzzling and disappointing. Not only will teachers be a significant element in the success of any implementation, they may actually have some worthwhile insights into how to produce a workable syllabus.

    "As Professor Stuart Macintyre suggested on Thursday, it might be time to separate curriculum development from the election campaign and "start again with the states and the history teachers’’.
    
    Paul Kiem, President, History Teachers’ Association of Australia
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to Fire Ineffective Teachers
    by Theola Labbé
    
    "As D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty proposed legislation yesterday that would grant schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee the power to drastically revamp the system's central office, Rhee said she also wants more authority to fire underperforming teachers.

    "It was her first public statement that teachers could be ousted as part of what Fenty (D) called "wholesale changes" to the 49,000-student system..."
    
    "Within a year of enacting the legislation, Fenty said, "I would be surprised if we kept more than a small percentage" of the 934 central office employees.

    "We're not going to tinker around the edges," he said in an interview..."
    
    "Former superintendents have cut the central office before, but employees were reassigned to other jobs. "What we're looking to do is create a system where that doesn't happen," Rhee said in an interview.

    "The central office problems have included lost book orders, misplaced student files and a disorganized system of keeping 4.6 million personnel documents. What Fenty called "decades of mismanagement" has forced parents and educators to work around such problems.

    "In a news conference at which Fenty announced the changes, Rhee said she has started negotiations with the Washington Teachers' Union and is looking to "reward and recognize" high-performing teachers while weeding out instructors who are not serving children well.

    "We have to be able to remove ineffective teachers from their positions," Rhee said. "Absolutely." ...
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link

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This page last updated 7 April, 2009 11:00 PM