Monday 22 October

Tuesday 23 October

Wednesday 24 October

Thursday 25 October

Friday 26 October

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 October

 

Monday 22 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Liberals urge WACOT to stall staff crackdown (page 17)
    by Yasmine Phillips

    "The besieged WA Council [sic] of Teaching should postpone any decisions, including penalties for overdue registration fees, until full teacher representation on its board is restored, according to the State opposition.

    "Speaking after WACOT extended the final deadline from this Friday to December 5 for teachers to pay their annual registration fees, shadow Education Minister Peter Collier defended teachers yesterday, saying those with outstanding annual fees were not rebels or even a minority but held legitimate concerns about the current system.

    "There should be no decision on any way forward before those 10 elected representative sit on the board," he said, welcoming the decision to extend the deadline to avert impending teacher sackings.

    "WACOT director Suzanne Parry confirmed yesterday the $70 annual fee had been deferred to December 5, the date the board was expected to meet.

    "The board would then consider the need for self regulation through a representative board, how the actions of a minority group could disrupt schooling and reported evidence that teachers did not understand the implications of being deregistered.

    "Dr Parry said the board's election was already under way, with nominations closing on Friday.

    "The controversial registration fee - which has become the target of teacher dissatisfaction over their WACOT board registration - was originally implemented to standardise police and qualification checks across the teaching profession.

    "Mr Collier said the cause of the bitter stand off was the result of State Government tardiness and WACOT inefficiency.

    "So rather than shoot the messenger, in this instance a group of teachers that has some quite legitimate concerns, perhaps they (the government and WACOT) need to look in the mirror as to where the problem emanated from as to how we got into this situation," he said.

    "He urged WACOT to postpone discussions on teacher deregistration until after the election to allow for adequate teacher representation.

    "Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said WACOT had made a decision in the interest of students. "I have always maintained that common sense would prevail," he said. "I'd urge the teachers who are not members to join". [They're not teachers who haven't joined, Minister, they simply refused to pay this year's fee until an election has been successfully completed!  Web]
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Blame parents for abusive kids (page 3)
    by Yasmine Phillips
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has laid the blame for disruptive students with their parents after a leaked DET document last week exposed a generation of pupils who do not respect authority.
    
    "Mr McGowan yesterday urged WA parents to stop pointing the finger elsewhere and start looking closer to home by taking an active role in their children's education.
    
    "The behaviour of students is predominantly the responsibility of parents," he said. "People should not blame schools or teachers if children behave badly. The overwhelming majority of parents do the right thing, those that don't need to start taking responsibility."
    
    "Violent and disruptive children make up 1% of the student population, according to Mr McGowan, who said WA students were generally better educated, more capable and brighter than ever.
    
    "Describing schools as a reflection of the wider community, Mr McGowan said the State Government had taken a strict stance on abusive students by establishing three trial behaviour centres this term.
    
    "Students who are violent and disruptive can be removed from the classroom and sent to one of these behaviour centres where specialist staff will work with them and their families with a view towards rehabilitation," he said. "However, all students have the right to feel safe at school and that is why we are taking a hard line approach."
    
    "The trial centres, which will be in Fremantle, Canning and Kalgoorlie districts, are due to open in coming weeks and five more are expected to open for primary schools next year.
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the Government needed a multifaceted attack on behaviour management through comprehensive pastoral care in public schools. "Unfortunately we're getting to the point where the void between public and private schools is widening in that area," he said.
    
    "Mr Collier said the enormous, exorbitant and unrealistic demands placed on school psychologists were made worse by the inadequate student to school psychologist ratio of 2000 to 1. He called for at least one psychologist to be designated to every school. "But the school psychologist is just one string to the bow because a lot of students don't feel comfortable with a psychologist," Mr Collier said."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    • A reply from the PLATO Forum
      
      Mr McGowan is now saying parents are to blame for their children's bad behaviour. True but irrelevant. The parents are not to blame for how schools deal with this behaviour. The problem is not the behaviour per se but our inability to remove it from the classroom.

      Over the last 10 years, teachers and administrators have been stripped of their authority. Is it any wonder students don't respect them anymore? There is a culture of fear which makes administrators and teachers afraid of implementing any real consequences. If a school is suspending students the DO and DET accuse the administrators of having an ineffective MSB system. And if teachers start reporting incidents on a regular basis, the administrators use the same logic on them.

      There are direct parallels between MSB and OBE. The current philosophy of DET is not working and is only propped up by bullying and intimidation.

      These students must be removed from classrooms and it must be the classroom teacher who determines this. DET has to stop making excuses for its 'punishment doesn't work' philosophy that has failed so miserably.

      Consequences and punishment are two separate things. The most effective punishment is one where there is absolutely no doubt that it will be implemented. The consequences should include some sort of intervention to change the behaviour before accepting the child back into the classroom. At present, the students know that there is no automatic punishment for any behaviour and all consequences are negotiable. They can argue their way out of any situation.

      A little birdie told me that the new centres being set up by the Minister will only accept students on the say so of Principals, not classroom teachers. Here we go again! Principals will not refer students because it will reflect badly on their MSB skills. They will try and persuade classroom teachers to change their minds. Was it really that bad? Can't we give it one more chance? What if we move this student to another class? The centres will be poorly frequented, they will atrophy and die and the Minster will wonder what all the fuss was about.

      Until this or any Minister changes the culture of DET, the situation will only get worse.

      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Contracts for teachers do untold harm
    by Peter Job, who teaches at Dandenong High School and is completing a masters in education at Monash University
    
    Making life difficult for dedicated teachers forces them out.
    
    "It's that time of the year. A colleague of mine recently received the news that his teaching contract at the school would not be renewed. He was assured that this had nothing to do with the quality of his teaching. The school was aware of the work he had put in, not only the effective classes he ran, but also the regular sports coaching after school and the numerous ways in which he had encouraged his students in their lives as well as their studies.

    "The school was facing a potential excess of teachers in his subject, he was told, and under the global schools funding arrangements it had no choice but to make this decision.

    "In the last months of the year my friend will be using what spare time he can find between teaching, exam preparation, report writing, staff meetings and other duties to write job applications, address the extensive requirements of selection criteria, attend interviews (when he is lucky), and hang by the phone at the end of the year when potential unemployment looms.

    "If he fails to find employment at a Victorian government school before the start of school next year, he will miss holiday pay, amounting to thousands of dollars.

    "It is a path I know well. Like my friend, I came to teaching well into my adult life, choosing this career because I saw it as a worthwhile one in which I could make a positive difference to people's lives. I made this decision despite what I knew would be hard work on a limited salary in under-resourced government schools.

    "Then I discovered the contract system, a series of contracts in different schools ranging from one term to two years, taking almost six years in total before I was finally granted continuing employment.

    "According to the 2004 agreement between the Victorian Education Department and the unions, teachers should be given continuing employment after three years, but the exemptions granted to schools in applying this are so broad and the global budgeting situation so difficult that schools often have little choice but to resort to short-term contracts for staff.

    "To some extent, individual schools cannot be blamed for the difficult and distasteful decisions they are forced to take. The contract system is rigged that way as schools cannot control their future enrolments, nor the number of teachers on long-term leave.

    "But the contract system undermines the quality of education delivered to students as effective and dedicated teachers are driven from the profession. For a young, newly graduated teacher, uncertainty of employment means carrying a HECS debt despite economic uncertainty, banks refusing loans and financial decisions being postponed. For older teachers entering the profession, it means all this, as well as bringing up a family on a modest salary with the constant prospect of unemployment. Small wonder so many leave the public education sector for work in non-government schools, interstate, or in other professions.

    "A recent survey showed that more than 75 per cent of first-year teachers are on contracts. This often demoralising situation can cause teachers to wonder how the issues relating to teaching practice that inevitably arise in those early years are interpreted by those with the power to re-employ them.

    "An effective school requires staff prepared to voice their opinions in a robust manner and to engage intelligently with management, yet contracts make many afraid to speak out. Some of us are fortunate enough to know we have a principal professional enough not to hold outspoken views against us, but this is simply not true for all and an atmosphere of fear is not conducive to quality teaching.

    "The contract system also deters teachers from moving between schools and having the system benefit from the cross-fertilisation of ideas and experiences this brings.

    "After dipping slightly when Labor came to power, the numbers of teachers on contracts (as opposed to having tenure) has since risen steadily until at 16.5 per cent it is now close to its peak under the Kennett government. This is demoralising for good teachers, undermines staff solidarity, creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and eats away at the quality of public education.

    "This is not the only way to run schools. A system in which teachers are employed by the Education Department and offered transfers to others schools in cases of teacher excesses has existed in Victoria in the past, and continues to operate in other states.

    "Teaching has always been under-rewarded yet before the contract system became so prevalent, competent teachers were at least provided with some certainty about their future. In negotiating its new agreement, the State Government should realise that any short-term financial or administrative advantage the contract system may bring is undermined by the detrimental effect on schools, teachers and ultimately the quality of education delivered to the students."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    • When in doubt, blame the others
      
      [Aimed at Kevin Rudd, but even more applicable to the OBE-at-all-cost crowd.  Web]
      

      "Tortophobia is the paranoid fear of being seen to be wrong. It is characterised by resistance to admission of fault, and, in more extreme cases, by actively seeking to make others wrong.

      "This trait is common in the aftermath of car crashes, divorces, wars and day-to-day domestic accidents.

      "Collective tortophobia was classically embraced by the Catholic Church during the Inquisition, and with the persecution of Gallileo when he proved the Earth was not flat.

      "Political parties are beset by tortophobia. The Kevin Rudd Variant is to agree with virtually everything espoused by his opponents, thus removing any opportunity to prove him wrong."

      John Allison, Kew
      
      

    • Living in hope that sense will break out

      "I agree, Natasha Davis (Letters 20/10) that many people criticising tax cuts probably then keep the money. There are also many who are appalled at this blatant pork-barrelling and who do redirect their bribes into the services where the money should have gone in the first place.

      "The trouble is, a hotchpotch, unpredictable system of personal donation is not an effective way to run our health and education services or to develop them into the efficient and all-inclusive systems we would love them to be. This requires a co-ordinated approach with proportional donations from all of society being used in a unified way.

      "It's called good government and some of us still hope that one day it will catch on."

      Heather Ebb, Tecoma
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Parents face new hike in private school fees
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Parents are paying up to $100 a day to send their children to some of the country's top private schools, and face further hikes with elite schools increasing their annual fees by as much as 8.5 per cent.

    "Independent schools in Melbourne have increased their fees by up to $1300 for next year, and annual tuition has accelerated past $21,000 a year.

    "Some independent school fees do not include extras such as camps, uniforms, computers and sporting costs - and boarding can add up to $18,463 to the annual school fee bill.

    "Many private schools, including some in Sydney and Brisbane, are still finalising fees for next year. They have told The Australian they will release their tuition before the start of first term.

    "The fee hike comes as federal government estimates show it will plough $6.2 billion into non-government schools this financial year.

    "Victorian Parents Council executive officer Jo Silver said the steep fee increases would further stretch parents who were struggling to put children through private schools.

    "However, Independent Schools Council of Australia executive director Bill Daniels said there were several reasons why private schools had increased fees, including the rising cost of education, more capital works and higher teacher wages."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Teachers beat a hard-drive
      
      "If “kids of the future are ... going to have decent educational and employment opportunities” ("ALP to help put 21st-century tool in reach”, 20-21/10), more computers won’t make it happen.

      "Hard-working, dedicated teachers who keep up with what produces excellence in learning will make it happen.

      "Can we find, train and keep them?"
      
      Beth Johnson, Auchenflower, Qld
      
      

    • ALP policy misses the bulls-eye
      
      "In terms of the broader policy picture, I once had more in common with Labor. However, Rudd has lost me.

      "Given all my other costs, I’ve only just finished paying off a computer for my child’s therapy. It took five years.

      "My child and others like mine are being stuffed back into the mainstream education system without enough teacher’s aide support. Is an hour a week enough? Is it fair to make a bright child flounder because he can’t filter out some types of noise?

      "Obviously Kevin Rudd thinks that helping the truly vulnerable of this country is too big an ask. He can unveil pretty hip-pocket and frail-aged care packages, but stay deaf and mute about welfare for other vulnerable groups - just as Howard has failed Aborigines, children in poverty and anyone who needs good medical care.

      "They’re peas in a pod; obsessed with their own security."
      
      Jane Salmon, Lindfield, NSW
      
      
      

    
    © The Australian
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • US gap-year visa expensive and hard for students [20 October]
    
    It will be more difficult for Australian students to take advantage of a gap-year visa in the United States than it will be for their US counterparts to come here, with a greater administrative burden for Australians and slow interest from US organisers.
    
    
    
  • In the deep end: budding teacher goes to school to learn
    
    [21 year old Kellie] Evans is under the guidance of a teacher mentor at Bomaderry Public School on the South Coast and says the hands-on aspect of the problem-solving has been the most valuable aspect of the program. "This is the real thing. It's what you do when you are a teacher and it is not until you are thrown into these situation that you learn how to deal with it."
    
    
    
  • The case of the missing students [more "guide on the side"...  Web]
    
    Technology has given universities and their students the ability to expand on the traditional lecture format with everything from podcasts, PowerPoint, online lectures and virtual classrooms, but despite the whizzbang gadgetry, students are still deserting the lecture theatre.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    HSC? Welcome to my crib
    
    A wry look at exams.
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Rising Scores Might Say More About the Exam Than Student Achievement, Report Concludes
    
    A new report from an education think tank in Washington contends that states are creating a false impression of academic success through, among other tactics, manipulation of passing, or "cut," scores on standardized tests.
    
    
    
    • Knowing State Tests' 'Cut' Scores
      
      With more students taking more achievement tests than ever, one of the most influential but cryptic factors driving results used to rate schools for the federal No Child Left Behind law and enforce state graduation standards is the passing, or "cut," score. Numerous Washington area students and parents said in interviews that they do not know the cut scores, information they say would help them understand the test more and help them do better. Often, the benchmarks turn out to be lower than they might have guessed.

Tuesday 23 October

• The West Australian
  

  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • Why the rejection?
      
      "Yesterday teachers in WA were informed about whether they had received trensfers for 2008. Here is my story of what happened.
      
      "I am a third year primary schoolteacher and obtained my first teaching job through merit selection. I elected to go to the country.
      
      "At university I was told by the Education Department that if I went to the country for two years I would achieve permanency and a guaranteed job in the metro area.
      
      "I have completed three years in the country, obtained 12 transfer points due to completing an extra year in the country, yet I was informed yesterday that I have been unsuccessful in my transfer but, lucky for me, I can stay in my present location for another year and wait to reapply for transfers in 2009. No other options were given to me in my notification letter.
      
      "I phoned the Education Department to find out why I did not receive a transfer and they said it was because I did not put enough schools down (I put down 45 schools) and that I did not have enough transfer points (they said I have six because the computer failed to pick up that I actually had 12) .
      
      "I was asked: "Why did you only put down that you wanted full time work?" My reply was: "Because I want to work full time and I am a first home buyer with a new mortgage!" A computer works through the transfers and assigns teachers to jobs through a criterion, making it very impersonal. I have been informed that I can write letters to apply for temporary location, which does not guarantee me a job, or I can resign.
      
      "I would like to be recognised by the department for completing my country duties and be placed back in the metro area. I've had a wonderful job in the country for the past three years which has been very rewarding, but my partner and I are moving to Perth for a lifestyle change (this reason was not acceptable to the department).
      
      "I have achieved permanency but this has effectively blocked me out of positions that are saved for graduates and fixed term appointments. I have not seen the benefits of the so-called important permanency. So that's my story of yesterday's events.
      
      "I ask anyone to go to the Education Department website to see whether I have misread the section of "the benefits and incentives of working in the country".
      
      "The types of letters are becoming very monotonous in the letters to the editor and this one may not be noticed, but I thought I would add my story. So I ask the question; "What happened to the teacher shortage?"

      E. Morris, Kalgoorlie
      
      

  • Editorial
    Schools need more help with disruptive students (page 20)
    
    "Even if Education Minister Mark McGowan was indulging in some political blame shifting, he had a point when he said the behaviour of students was predominantly the responsibility of parents.
    
    "Schools cannot take over all the responsibilities of parents, and should not be expected to.
    
    "Mr McGowan was right again when he said schools reflected the wider community, but it is also the case that they have been asked to carry a disproportionately heavy burden of society's ills.
    
    "And in general they have had precious little support on this from the education bureaucracy. [emphasis added]
    
    "The proposal for trial behaviour centres is a move in the right direction, but much more has to be done to help schools cope with disruptive children."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Private school fees set to soar (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Parents who send their children to private schools should brace for a big jump in fees net year as competition for new teachers pushes up salaries.

    "Private school chiefs say the recent decision by the State government to pay graduate State school teachers a base salary of $50,000 from 2008 could lead to private school fee rises of more than 10%.

    "Graduates who start teaching at State schools next year will get an extra $4600 on top of this year's rate, taking into account a 2.5% pay rise that all teachers will get in February and an extra $800 graduates' start up allowance.

    "Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Audrey Jackson said pay rises for graduates would have a bigger impact on some private schools than others, depending on how closely their salary scales followed that of the Education department.

    "It's definitely going to impact within the sector to various degrees," Ms Jackson said.

    "It's certainly something that independent schools will have to factor into their budget depending on the nature of their enterprise bargaining agreement."

    "Anglican Schools Commission chief executive the Rev. Peter Laurence said 2008 could see significant fee rises because most of its schools paid teachers 2.5% more than State school teachers.

    "It might mean that schools will have to put their fees up a little higher, with a higher percentage increase in 2008, than they otherwise would have planned to do," Rev. Laurence said. "The fee increases this year in most schools in the non-government sector are likely to be between about 5 and 9 %. Now that's before this $50,000 announcement was made. So I hope they don't get to double digits."

    "He said about 1000 Anglican school teachers would be directly affected by the State pay rise, but that could double if the new graduate entry salary flowed on to second and third year teachers.

    "St Hilda's Anglican Girls School principal Joy Shepherd said even though her school's agreement was not directly linked to State schools teachers' wage increases, salaries would have to keep pace with those in other sectors.

    "Ms Shepherd said the school had not set its fees for next year but they would have to reflect any increase in teachers' wages.

    "Obviously all independent schools will be looking to make sure their teachers stay ahead of the game," she said. "I think you have to say that if teachers are going to get pay rises then they have to come from somewhere."

    "Catholic Education Office director Ron Dullard said Catholic school teachers' salaries would also lead to an increase in State government funding. If not, parents would have to come up with the extra 2% to cover wage increases, on top of the expected annual rise in school fees of between 6 and 9 per cent.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he made no apology for raising graduates' pay, adding: "We are pulling out all the stops to boost our teaching workforce."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • WA Schools struggle to teach migrants English (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "WA schools are groaning under the strain of the State's immigration boom, with new figures showing a dramatic surge in the number of children accompanying their parents on temporary working visas needing expensive English language tuition.
    
    "Fresh figures from the Department of Education and Training show that the number of non-English speaking children of 457 visa holders enrolled at State schools has almost doubled in the past year, ballooning from 480 students in July last year to 904.
    
    "Children who arrive under visa category 457, a temporary long term stay visa that allows their families to live and work in Australia for four years, receive no funding for English teaching tuition.
    
    "This is despite the fact that children of immigrants arriving under other visas receive English language support from the Federal Government.,
    
    "Some 457 visa holders brought in to tackle the State's skills shortage arrive from English speaking countries but many children enrolled in WA schools are from Vietnam, the Philippines, China, India and Korea.
    
    "Acting director of curriculum standards Chris Cook said the department was continuing to seek additional funding to cope with the influx. She said there were more than 1200 school aged dependents of 457 visa holders in WA public schools. Of those students, 801 at city schools and another 103 in the country had been identified as requiring support to learn English. Ms Cook said the department had allocated extra resources to help those children.
    
    "During this semester seven teachers were allocated to metropolitan district offices, either as additional teachers in schools with high numbers of 457 visa students, or to provide support to several schools within a district," she said.
    
    "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the increase in children who could not speak English put unfair pressure on schools and teaches who did not have the resources or specialist training to cope.
    
    "He said the Federal Government had an obligation to look after the children of 457 visa holders.
    
    "I think it is utterly irresponsible of governments to put in place a programme and then say the education system can deal with the consequences," he said. "If you bring family out here and English is a problem, you don't leave the schools to pick up the cost."
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he had requested more funds from Canberra to deal with the problem, but to no avail.
    
    "The commonwealth has a special responsibility to these children considering they have invited them here, and should help the States with their additional education needs," he said.
    
    "But Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the WA government, as a significant employer of 457 visa holders, should meet its responsibility to adequately fund its schools."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• [author and source unknown]
  
  
  • SCHOOL DAZE

    Why today's classrooms are turning good teachers into bad crowd controllers.
    
    Take another deep breath. It won't slow your heart rate or curb the spurts of adrenaline, but it might help conceal the fear in your voice. Where you are going fear is fatal because you can't follow your normal instinct to fight back or run away.

    Inside the classroom your charges await. You can tell by the volume what to expect. Teenage girls bitching, texting, writing nasty letters and flirting with farting teenage boys who are throwing pencils and punches. Soaked with hormones, rampant with adolescent egocentrism, these kids are only interested in improving their lot in the pack hierarchy .... and drawing penises on the whiteboard. The last thing on their minds is learning, yet that is what you, dear teacher, have been entrusted with.

    Marking the roll, you have to shout over their iPods and indifference. Waiting for silence doesn't work on those without conscience or respect. You have designed your lesson to engage all your students, including those of 'diverse abilities' (edu-babble for those with the attention span of a junk-food commercial). But your worksheets are being converted into spitballs, paper planes and confetti faster than you can hand them out.

    Trying to organise the class over the din, you wonder what the hell you are doing there. No-one is listening. No-one cares. The high-minded pedagogic ideals of the education degree you completed are a distant, irrelevant fantasy. Bugger Piaget and Vygotsky; their child psychology doesn't mean a thing now that you've learned the brutal truth: teaching is crowd control. But unlike the sadists who caned you in the 60's and 70's, you're a riot cop without a water cannon; a lion tamer without a whip.

    William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, was a teacher. He understood that, in the absence of authority, the fragile social order of the adolescent world collapses frighteningly fast. We all know authority without consequence is meaningless - that's why we have fines and prisons. Yet today's public-school teachers are expected to manage and teach large groups of adolescents without enforceable rules.

    For the vast majority of public schools, the sacred tenet of Quality Teaching - a classroom environment in which learning of significance and intellectual merit can take place - is pure rhetoric; fancy sounding fluff on the noticebaord in the corner of a dilapidated staffroom.

    Teachers today age one year in just nine-and-a-half months. Either you give in to the madness of the system - selling your soul like a spruiker ignored on a busy street - or you burn out trying to fight the impossible fight. You find yourself struggling to sleep, waking at first light with dread like a brick in your heart: What will today hold? Another 15 year old screaming "Fuck off!" in your face with impunity? Being cast as the lead villain by some vindictive vandal from a dysfunctional family? It's not teachers that schools are protecting by refusing to install security cameras in classrooms.

    You learned all this the hard way, of course. You varied your approach; you worked on making the syllabus as user-friendly as possible; you held meetings with staff, your class and individual students. But undeveloped adolescent frontal lobes are simply not designed for cooperative collectivism. No amount of namby-pamby common sense is going to persuade a pack of adolescents to do only what's in their best interests.

    "To hell with the carrot!" I hear you cry. "Where's the stick?" Herein lies the paradox. When your Department Head agrees that lunchtime class detention would help improve behaviour, but then shrugs his shoulders and says it's probable no-one will turn up, you realise you're in a deeper hole than you thought.

    Stunned, you pay the Deputy Principal a visit. But the touchy-feely bureaucrat you encounter is a far cry from the demagogues of days gone by. Reassured by assertions of how important discipline is to the school, you are smoothly directed back to your long-suffering Head of Department (who now has the look of a hunted vole whenever you approach), wielding the school's thick and glossy discipline policy like Don Quixote's lance. It is full of policy. Beyond the non-existent detentions and 'responsible behaviour' classrooms, there are punitive actions such as sending letters to parents warning them that their child could fail if his behaviour doesn't improve, or her work is not completed. Getting the parents involved sounds great in theory. They should care that their child isn't learning. The school agrees, but then points out that that they can only send one or two letters. In other words, pick on two out of 27 who are just as bad as each other.

    Then it finally dawns on you. What you thought was an institution devoted to education is actually something else. It is a holding pen for youth. Education is second to keeping young people off the streets. Kids with no intention of learning attend so they can get the dole. As one rowdy fellow told me: "I'm only here for my youth allowance, not to learn, so get off my back."

    School executives have betrayed their long-suffering staff by implementing department directives and government policy that directly contradict the discipline policies of their schools. In a monstrous act of double speak, they have made teachers paper tigers; de facto minders for the dysfunctional and disinterested. Those kids willing to learn are hugely disadvantaged because their teacher's time is wasted on management that is doomed to fail.

    No wonder parents are abandoning the public school system and going private in search of discipline. Catholic schools are alarmed at the weight of numbers seeking their services. Twenty years ago, the proportion of non-Catholic students attending Catholic schools in Australia was around 20% - now it's 40% and rising.

    If there's one thing guaranteed to infuriate a teacher it's a non-educator glibly announcing that at least things are much better than they were "in the old days." I'd like to sentence them to one day - no, that would be inhumane - just one lesson teaching a difficult class and watch them implode. Few teachers would suggest returning to the bad old days of the cane - beating kids into submission is not the answer - but if learning is actually to take place in today's classrooms, then something has to be done.

    The funny thing is that when you take one of these adolescent miscreants out of the pack and have a one-on-one conversation with them, they invariably revert to their individual charming selves; the person their parents know and love. You can reach them and you can teach them. But a teacher can only serve the educational needs of the individual when the classroom is under control. Until public schools address this fundamental truth their decline will continue.

    Corporal punishment is not the answer, nor is chucking millions of dollars into better computers or meaningless reports, but perhaps something like a Green Corps is. Unmanageable students could be painting benches, planting trees, sprucing up their school or their local community and learning practical skills that might help them find a job. Some will love it; for those that don't, the trials of the textbook might seem like an attractive option after all. Either way, such meaningful discipline would provide a much-needed life lesson in a system that is dragging schools, teachers and students down to the lowest common denominator.

    
    
    
• Mark McGowan media statement
  
  
  • Western Australian teachers at the cutting edge of science

    A multi-million dollar program has seen a group of science teachers return to university to research and develop new classroom resources for all public secondary schools across Western Australia.

    Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the State Government’s $5million SPICE program had given select public school science teachers the opportunity to work with leading scientists at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

    “The SPICE program is helping teachers bring the latest advances in science into the classroom to inspire students to develop a passion for science,” Mr McGowan said.

    “The resources have been developed by experienced science teachers to ensure they meet the needs of teachers and are interesting, practical and ready to use.”

    The first set of practical science teaching resources developed by the SPICE teachers are now available; more will be available next year.

    The resources include:

    * videos featuring scientists talking about their research and how they go about it;
    * interactive DVDs to help students understand science concepts;
    * fact sheets for students;
    * backgrounders for teachers with more details of scientific research;
    * tips for teachers on how to conduct interesting classroom experiments; and
    * teachers’ guides for each resource.

    Duncraig Senior High School physics and chemistry teacher Jenny Gull took part in the SPICE program and was a teacher-in-residence at UWA during the second half of 2006.

    Ms Gull investigated research on the biomechanics of movement in elite sportspeople as a context for use in Year 11 physics lessons and developed a series of practical classroom resources about vectors, velocity, displacement and acceleration for secondary physics lessons.

    One of the class activities Ms Gull outlined involved teachers encouraging students to video-record the motion of an object, for example a ball or a vehicle, and then data logging the images on the computer to plot them on a graph so students could analyse the motion.

    “The SPICE program was a fantastic professional development opportunity. It was wonderful to be involved in the latest research using cutting edge equipment,” Ms Gull said.

    “The experience has helped me inspire my Year 11 students to make the connection between their physics studies and solving real world problems.”

    Mr McGowan said science was critical to Western Australians’ daily lives and economic future and it was vital students received a solid grounding in science education.

    Public primary schools, district high schools and education support centres will also receive new teaching resources that link science with literacy, called Primary Connections, this term.

    The resources support the Department of Education and Training’s science syllabus for students from Kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    

• The Age
  
  
• NT intervention a crisis for schools
  by Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin
  
  "The Howard Government's intervention in remote indigenous communities is pushing thousands of children into already underfunded schools that do not have enough teachers or facilities, teachers say.

  "We are facing a desperate crisis out here. There's a chronic shortage of staff, support material and teacher accommodation," said Graham McKay, a teacher at the school in Ngukurr, 650 kilometres south-east of Darwin.

  "The teachers here simply can't cope and are angry and sick and tired of promises to fix the problems," Mr McKay said.

  "The Australian Education Union says as many as 7500 indigenous children in the Northern Territory have been missing out on school or preschool and that at least $1.7 billion in additional funding over five years is required to ensure they get the same opportunities as other Australian children.

  "Up to 5000 potential students under the age of 18 in remote areas have no access to secondary or vocational education services, the union says in a report released today.

  "Enrolments have surged in some communities as a result of the intervention, but schools have been left to struggle without additional support. The report says that at least 1360 extra teachers are needed in the remote areas, along with 585 additional staff, including bilingual indigenous assistant teachers, costing around $264 million. It also calls for up to $440 million to be spent on infrastructure.

  "Even before the intervention, under which welfare payments are to be withheld for failure to attend school, many schools in remote areas lacked basic facilities and struggled to recruit and retain teachers..."
  
  Full story in The Age at link
  
  
  

• The Monday Education Section has been updated, and has 12 articles, including:
  
  
  
  • Schools buckle under demands
    
    Primary schools find it "practically impossible" to fit everything into the curriculum yet are under pressure to include more, according to a national study.
    
    
    
  • Trouble in Cyberia
    
    To fight cyberbullying, parents and schools need to better understand the technology, writes Elisabeth Tarica.
    
    
    
  • Time to stop milking the cash cow
    
    We should treat international students as though they were our own.
    

   

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • "The creation of an education market in which poor schools fade and die has been an abdication of society’s responsibility to the children in those schools."

    ‘What a contrast there is between the education minister, who understands that she is responsible for a system (Testing times, 15/10) and the think-tank denizen who advocates more of the market-based failure we have endured over the past 15 years (Charting a new course through schools red tape).

    "Bronwyn Pike’s signal to principals to provide better leadership is recognition of how much the quality of principals declined after 1992 and a step towards putting the “system” back into education. The creation of an education market in which poor schools fade and die has been an abdication of society’s responsibility to the children in those schools.

    "I was the timetabler of a disadvantaged school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne from 1976 to 1980. Its classes typically had fewer than 25 students. The average teaching load was 15 hours 29 minutes in 1979 – well below the 20-hour maximum imposed after 1992.

    "It was sufficiently staffed to employ 13 per cent of its teachers in literacy and numeracy programs. Its staffing allowed a measurable improvement in students’ achievement.

    "There were no performance reviews, no charters, no school-based hiring and firing, no glossy brochures, no box-and-whisper graphs, no short-term contract staff, no principals as tin gods bogged down in administrivia. That school was part of a system, not a stand-alone school left to sink or swim, its teachers were free to concentrate on actual education, and its principals accepted the collegiate professional judgement of the teaching staff.

    "By the time I left, in 1981, the state secondary pupil-to-teacher ratio had improved to 10.9:1, a ratio that would provide almost 2000 secondary teachers more than are provided today. In fact, our secondary schools are worse staffed now than they were in every year between 1976 and 1993.

    "The post-1992 experiment has failed. We need to return the teachers it took from our schools and to rebuild a sense of the system taking responsibility for all children."

    Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge [from The Monday Education Section, 22 October]
    
    

  • Tales out of school

    "I understand what Peter Job (Opinion, 22/10) and many other contract teachers have gone through; I am in my second year of teaching and have been told I am no longer needed at my second school, so am job hunting again. I have applied for 186 positions and this year have had six interviews. These have interrupted my teaching as I have had to take time off work, resulting in loss of teaching and assessment time, and, if I do not get a job soon, loss of earnings as I have used up my leave. This has caused myself, my school and family a huge amount of stress.

    "I hope the Government makes changes soon, as I have given myself five years in which to get an "ongoing" job, or I will leave teaching. The stress, possible loss of earnings and inability to plan my life (for example, to get a home loan) are taking over from the passion for teaching I left university with."

    Alicia Teather, Warrandyte
    
    

  • Hard lesson learned

    "It's not just teachers on contracts who are afraid to speak out. The public education system in Victoria is chronically under-funded and would collapse without the altruism and dedication of teachers.

    "Over the past couple of decades, the workload has increased to the point of lunacy. Most of it revolves around accountability tasks and reports imposed by the Education Department, and numerous extracurricular activities for no pay, a lot them more about attracting prospective students (and the funding that goes with it) than benefiting current students. The lament of most teachers is that they just wish they could be left alone to teach.

    "When I spoke out, my dedication and integrity were questioned. When my two boys were considering options for tertiary study, I advised them strongly against teaching. As for me, I've succumbed to the pressure of years of overwork and consequences of finally speaking out. I no longer teach."

    Alison Crofts, Mount Waverley
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • More Oz lit in schools
    by Anna Patty
    
    "The State Government will introduce more "home-grown" Australian literature into primary and high school curriculums.

    "The NSW Minister for Education, John Della Bosca, yesterday said he would ask the NSW Board of Studies to review the English curriculum to strengthen the study of Australian literature, with recommendations due by next year.

    "He said the primary school syllabus needed to become more prescriptive and he wanted a high level course to be introduced to the Higher School Certificate.

    "The measures will look at how to ensure high-quality Australian texts were being studied consistently across all NSW schools," Mr Della Bosca said.

    "Australian literature is important in providing students with a sense of identity, insight into our diverse culture, historical contexts and our unique place in the world.

    "But, particularly in the primary school setting, the syllabus may need to be more prescriptive to make sure all students are reading Australian authors."

    "The Board of Studies would also be asked to consider the development of an in-depth, high level course in Australian literature to be offered as one of the existing HSC Distinction courses."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Same HSC exam, different days
    
    

A HSC timetable glitch has resulted in students sitting the same examination on two different days, raising teacher concerns about the potential for cheating. [Known as "Doing a WACOT"...  Web]




• The Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Schools funding injustice
      
      "It's sad that some people (Letters, 22/10) seem not to have read or understood your many reports and editorials on where total government funding for schools is spent.

      "Despite the lies put out by education unions, the great bulk of taxpayers’ education dollars collected by the federal Government is handed over to the states and territories and then spent by them in an egregiously discriminatory fashion.

      "Here in the ACT, for instance, for every dollar spent per head on a government schoolchild, less than 18c is spent on a child in a non-government school _ and similar figures apply in the states. This injustice has nothing to do with the Howard Government.

      "The separate direct federal spending on children in non-government schools, many of whom come from poorer families, is still way behind the total per capita government education spending and minuscule in comparison. This is the true ``unfair imbalance in education spending’’ which voters who value fairness in education opportunity for all students should already know about _ and should be demanding that parties in the states and territories work hard to redress it."
      
      John McCarthy, Pearce, ACT
      
      

© The Australian

Wednesday 24 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor (page 23)
    
    
    • We Disagree
      
      "I am very pleased that the WA College of Teaching has been sensible and deferred its plans to de-register 1500 teachers, who refuse to pay their fees until the long-overdue election has been held. But I think it disgraceful that the non-elected WACOT Board has appointed a new chairman just weeks before the scheduled election. Does desperation know no bounds?"
      
      Steve Kessell, Willetton
      
      
      
    • I blame the teachers
      
      "No, Mark McGowan, you should blame teachers... for the day around 14 years ago when every child in this State went home with a ruler showing the police phone number and informed their parents "I can do anything I want, and you can't stop me, because if you do I will tell the police"...
      
      J. Biwer, Boya
      
      I think J. Biwer has missed the point. Teachers did not initiate this campaign; they were directed by the hierarchy of DET to comply.  Web
      
      
      
      
  • Ministers row over fall in uni enrolments (page 18)
    by Bethany Hiatt and Amanda Banks
    
    "The State and Federal governments traded accusations over a fall in university enrolments yesterday after figures released in State Parliament revealed a 27 per cent decrease in country-based students enrolling in university since 2004.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan, who released the figures, said the statistics reflected a "massive policy failure" by the Federal Government, which should take urgent steps to halt the decline.

    "But Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the figures showed that the State Government's botched implementation of outcomes-based education had contributed to a fall in university enrolments by country students. [emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan blamed the fall on inadequate funding for WA under a loading scheme for university country campuses.

    "Students from the country completing Year 12 attend university at roughly one-third the rate of students from the city," he told Parliament.

    "There is a much higher number of students completing Year 12 in country WA who, whilst accepted to go into university, decline to do so."

    "He said that under a regional loading scheme aimed at making it economical for universities to offer courses in regional areas, Charles Darwin University in the centre of Darwin received a 30 per cent financial loading while the Broome campus of Notre Dame received just 7.5 per cent. "It is ludicrous to suggest that delivering higher education courses in Darwin is four times harder than delivering courses in Broome," he said.[emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan said the fact that Queensland universities received $9.8 million for regional delivery this year compared with just $600,000 for WA institutions added insult to injury.

    "Regional participation is going backwards at the very time that we need to get more people into education and training to meet the skills shortages of our booming economy," he said.

    "But Ms Bishop said research showed that the most important factor in whether a student attended university was their achievement in reading, writing and maths at Year 9. "A combination of the WA Labor Government's disastrous implementation of OBE and neglect of its teaching workforce have been the major factors in a decline in standards across WA but particularly in rural and regional areas," she said. [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • $2b schools shortfall in NT: teachers
    
    See very similar story in yesterday's The Age [already in our news archive]
    
    
    
    
  • Anglicans abandon high school plan
    
    The fight to establish a new Anglican high school in Broome has been abandoned after Education Minister Mark McGowan rejected a recommendation by an independent panel that it should go ahead.
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers union denies it's undermining recruiting campaign
    
    "The State School Teachers Union is on a collision course with the Education Minister after writing a letter to its counterpart organisations in other states, warning about the teaching conditions in Western Australia.

    "The Union's President, Mike Keely, says the letter simply advises that teachers considering moving to Western Australia should be careful, get appropriate advice, and ensure that all offers are made in writing.

    "The letter comes during the Government's $80,000 advertising campaign to lure teachers from the Eastern States and New Zealand to WA.

    "Mr Keely denies he is trying to undermine the Government's campaign, but says teachers should be aware that housing and other conditions are still unsatisfactory.

    "We welcome them over here, but the fact is they've got to be aware of the conditions and sometimes we believe that they are not getting an honest appraisal of the conditions in which some of them will be required to live," he said.

    "We don't want people coming over here and finding that it's completely different from what they were told and leaving again."

    "The Education Minister Mark McGowan only heard of the letter today, and spoke out against it in Parliament.

    "It is unacceptable and extremely disappointing Mr Speaker," he said.

    "Mr McGowan says the Union should be trying to encourage teachers to WA to alleviate the pressures on its members."

    From ABC News at link



The President of the State School Teachers Union, Mike Keely,
says the letter simply advises teachers to be careful.
© ABC News



• The Australian
  
  
• Compelling course on Aussie writers
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "Western Australia will become the first state in the nation requiring the study of Australian writers under a literature course to be introduced from 2009.

  "While school curriculums around the nation include in their recommended texts authors such as Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Les Murray and Tom Keneally, no state makes them a mandatory part of study.

  "The requirement to study Australian literature will be compulsory only in the specialist literature course, undertaken by about 3000 Year 11 students and 2000 Year 12 students, and not the more general English course, studied by all senior school students.

  "The literature course will have a set-text list for the university-bound students that includes Australian writers such as poets Murray, Kenneth Slessor and Banjo Paterson; playwrights Louis Nowra, David Williamson and Ray Lawler; and novelists Peter Carey, David Malouf, Christina Stead, Tim Winton and Henry Handel Richardson.

  "The draft course, released to teachers for consultation last week, is the third rewrite and part of the state's troubled overhaul of the Year 12 West Australian Certificate of Education. The latest version discards much of the literary theory and cultural studies in earlier versions, which required students to question the nature of texts and why "cultural value is assigned to one kind of text and not another". [emphasis added]

  "The focus of the latest course is the reading of literature, and the rationale says "one of the main benefits of literary study, particularly in a multicultural and diverse society such as Australia, is exposure to a variety of ways of thinking about the world".

  "The West Australian initiative came as NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca outlined plans to strengthen the study of Australian literature in schools and follows a roundtable on the study of Australian literature hosted by the Australia Council in August.

  "The plans by NSW and Western Australia were welcomed yesterday by the chairman of the Australia Council's literature board, Imre Salusinszky, and the Australian Society of Authors.

  "Dr Salusinszky, who is also a reporter for The Australian, said the board aimed to make Australian writing a sustainable living, and that studying writers such as Richardson and her opus, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney, would ensure it remained in print."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  Reader comments on this story in The Sunday Times / PerthNow
  
  Similar story at ABC News
  
  
  

• Surplus can support sector
  by Brendan O'Keefe
  
  "Australia's resources boom and $17 billion budget surplus should be used to fund the nation's universities, the Australian Democrats say in their federal election policy paper to be released tomorrow.

  "The surplus "shows that extra investment is feasible: all we require is visionary political leadership", education spokeswoman Natasha Stott Despoja says in the paper.

  "In calling for the abolition of full-fee degrees and HECS, the Democrats say they would compensate universities for the lost money with a corresponding increase in base funding.

  "On HECS, the Democrats would first raise the repayment threshold to average male earnings and lower the repayment rates.

  "The Democrats pledge to index grants to account for inflation and to provide a one-off grant of $2 billion over four years to fix the backlog of deferred maintenance on campus.

  "Senate stablemate the Australian Greens would release their education policy nearer to the election date.

  "NSW senator Kerry Nettle told the HES the Greens wanted to abolish HECS, which would cost $2.5 billion.

  "Compare that to $34 billion in tax cuts and it's pretty affordable," shesaid.

  "Senator Nettle said too many students were forced to work to support themselves.

  "We need to increase student support and we would like to see a living allowance (that was enough) to enable students not to have to work.

  "We want students to be able to focus on their university work."

  "The Greens did not have costings yet for raising student support levels.

  "The Democrats would change student support by lowering the age of independence to 18, making commonwealth scholarships tax-free and by pegging student income support measures to the Henderson poverty line.

  "Senator Stott Despoja said the election would be a challenging one for the Democrats.

  "I hope the public will recognise the contribution the Democrats have made over the last 30 years, particularly on higher education policy," shesaid.

  "We have opposed every fee hike. We have fought for students, university staff and universities, and hope tocontinue to do so for the next 30years."

  "Senator Nettle was confident that leader Bob Brown would be returned but that her own fight would be "much more difficult ... about 50-50".

  "The party had high hopes for new candidates in Western Australia and Victoria, and especially for Kerrie Tucker in the ACT.

  "If she can replace (Liberal senator) Gary Humphries, the Liberals will lose their majority in the Senate because ACT senators come in immediately rather than in July next year," Senator Nettle said.

  "Both parties said they would repeal voluntary student unionism legislation, although research by the Democrats found that 60 per cent of young people surveyed were against dropping VSU. Last year, almost the same proportion opposed VSU."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Kevin Donnelly Op Ed [23 October: not available on their website]
  
  "Maybe I saw a different leaders' debate on Sunday night. My gut feeling is that the outcome was too close to call; if anything, the Prime Minister had a narrow victory. According to the post-debate Herald Sun and the Sky News polls, a little more than 50 per cent of respondents agreed.

  "Yet media commentators such as Michelle Grattan and Hugh Mackay disagree, especially criticising John Howard's concluding comments on the need to raise standards and to give students a strong narrative view of Australian history.

  "In contrast, Kevin Rudd's so-called education revolution and his final folksy comments about an idealised past, where mum and dad sent their kids off to the local state primary school for a good education, have gone unchallenged. Rudd's argument that the ALP's commitment, if elected, to spend billions of tax dollars on education on the basis that spending more represents "the essence of an education revolution" also has been accepted as beyond reproach.

  "Wrong. The very Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report the ALP quotes as evidence that the Coalition, supposedly, has underfunded education - a report Rudd endorsed during the debate with the words "I stand by everything the OECD has said" - argues that there is little, if any, relationship between levels of investment and educational outcomes. The OECD report states: "Lower unit expenditure does not necessarily lead to lower achievement and it would be misleading to equate lower unit expenditure generally with lower quality of educational services."

  "Countries that outperform Australian students in mathematics and science spend less on education as a percentage of GDP, and the OECD report argues that the challenge is for "education to reinvent itself in ways that other professions have already done and to provide better value for money".

  "Examples to illustrate the ALP's education revolution, such as creating technical centres in 2650 schools and making sure that all young Australians have access to a computer and the internet, while making good headlines, also fail the reality test. Given the skills shortage and the fact that so many new teachers leave the profession after four to five years, not only will it be impossible to staff such centres, but, since the death of technical schools during the 1970s, education departments have lost the ability to develop viable technical-oriented syllabuses.

  "If Rudd believes Australian students are IT-deprived and that computers and the internet are crucial to raising standards then, once again, there is more spin than substance. A recent Australian Council for Educational Research report concludes that "all Australian students have access to a computer at school and most also have access to a computer at home" and that computer use does not raise standards. "The relationship between student performance and access to computers is ambiguous."

  "As many parents know, home computers often distract students from learning, especially in the key areas of mathematics and reading, and research about how children best learn shows that memorisation and rote learning are crucial if students are to develop higher-order skills.

  "Howard's concluding comments illustrate why he is such a formidable political opponent. Not only is he a conviction politician when it comes to education, somebody who has consistently argued against new-age and politically correct fads such as black armband history and postmodern gobbledegook, but Howard understands the electorate.

  "A federally funded survey noted that only 58.3 per cent of parents with primary school children were satisfied with the quality of education, while at the secondary level, the figure dropped to 39.9 per cent. Two of the top concerns related to fears about the quality of the curriculum and teaching standards.

  "Australia is ranked in the second XI in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study tests. The majority of universities now have remedial programs in areas such as essay writing and algebra. And thousands of Australian parents are flocking to non-government schools in search of a more academic approach to the curriculum.

  "On second thoughts, maybe it is a good thing that the media believes the PM lost the debate. The more he is seen as off-message by the Canberra press gallery, the more he must be in touch with the electorate."

  Kevin Donnelly, a former Howard Government employee, is director of Education Strategies in Melbourne.
  
  From The Australian
  
  
  

• Our universities fail specialist test
  
  Australia does not have one world-class "specialist" university, according to a report on the nation's tertiary institutions.
  
  
  

• Tertiary compo inquiry launched
  
  Every university and TAFE college in Victoria will be investigated by workplace safety inspectors in a bid to reduce the number of stress and injury claims made by academic staff... The audit follows 273 workers' compensation claims in Victoria made by university and TAFE staff during the previous financial year.
  
  
  
  
• Ethics code reaps contempt
  
  Public intellectuals view with "scorn and contempt" a medically biased code of research ethics that would make them wait at least a month for clearance just to make a phone call, according to political scientist Anthony Langlois.
  
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Computers teach nothing
    
    "The politicians’ support of computers for children’s education will be welcome by all parents and most teachers. That is apart from me and few others who see through the whole fraud that is the education technological revolution.

    "The idea that computers are essential to the education of students of compulsory school age is one of those popular myths that seem to have taken hold against all commonsense and the bleeding obvious. An obsession with the electronic has destroyed handwriting and the associated benefits of spelling. Cut and paste from Encarta passes for research and a power point presentation, full of gizmos and sound effects, passes for an assignment. Gone is verified information from a properly researched source. Maths games are substituted for real maths and students spend a vastly disproportionate amount of time fiddling with electronic editing and word art gimmicks instead of considering content. Teachers desperate for some peace can keep a whole class amused for hours fiddling away on a computer doing work that would be much better done the old-fashioned way in less time and with greater educational outcomes.

    "Computer use in schools needs to be assessed by some clear-headed educational researchers fresh from a cold shower. I have no doubt that in the cold light of day we will find that the benefits are small."
    
    Timothy Looker, Glenelg, SA
    
    

  • First byte
    
    "I don’t know who "won’’ the debate, but I do know we need Kevin Rudd’s education revolution. And the first person who should go back to school and learn about when an apostrophe is required is the dill who organised that huge "The Leaders Debate’’ sign behind the leaders."
    
    Alan Stobie, Hester, WA
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Basics lacking in education debate
    

    Kevin Rudd's computer rebate puts symbolism ahead of the needs of our students, writes John Roskam.

    "Kevin Rudd's tax rebate for parents to buy computers is gesture politics at its most meaningless. The reason that 15 per cent of students finish their schooling unable to adequately read or write is not because they don't have broadband at home. A new laptop is not much use to a child being taught by ineffective teachers in a dilapidated classroom.

    "The Labor leader has spoken of the education "gap between the haves and the have-nots". His policy does little to rectify that gap. The students most in need of a better education are unlikely to have parents who will now buy a computer because they'll be receiving a rebate of a few hundred dollars.

    "The families of more than 2 million schoolchildren will be eligible for the rebate. The announcement provided a good photo opportunity with the Labor leader brandishing a laptop as "the 21st-century toolbox". What the ALP hasn't yet been asked to explain is whether tax rebates for computers are the best way to spend $2.3 billion.

    "There's no evidence that the barrier to every household having a computer is cost. Seventy-five per cent of Australians already have a computer at home. International research overwhelmingly shows that attitude is a bigger barrier to learning than is the price of an internet connection. Parents who themselves have minimal education levels are less likely to make a financial investment in their children's education. If Labor had really wanted to target the students who didn't have access to technology, it could simply propose buying the computers and then giving them away free of charge. Instead it is likely that the families taking advantage of the rebate will be those who already have computers.

    "The Prime Minister lost Sunday night's debate. However he made one point to which Rudd doesn't have an answer. It might be old-fashioned but John Howard was correct when he spoke about the importance of students gaining literacy and numeracy skills. Parents would prefer that, instead of government inventing an ever-increasing array of initiatives, it concentrated on making sure schools first got the basics right.

    "A tax rebate for computer purchases is attractive to politicians because it's easy. It satisfies Labor's desire to appear modern. There's nothing more forward-looking than talking about technology. But the policy doesn't actually improve the quality of education.

    "Talking about attracting the best candidates into teaching doesn't attract the same media attention as do announcements about cash for computers. And anyway, the public has heard it all before. It is precisely because politicians prefer the symbolic to the necessary when it comes to education that we are still debating the question of how to attract and retain good teachers in our schools.

    "To be fair, the tendency to the trendy is not restricted to the Opposition. The Federal Government requires any school receiving Commonwealth funds to have a functioning flagpole flying the Australian flag. Under the "Flagpole Funding Initiative", schools can receive $1500 to install, replace or repair a flagpole. A flagpole is nice to have, but maybe there are more pressing issues facing the Australian school system.

    "The tokenism of Labor's policy is demonstrated by considering the other sorts of education expenses on which parents will not be allowed to claim a rebate. For example, school uniforms are an unavoidable expense. It's unclear why the federal government should assist parents to purchase educational software but not uniforms. The cost of school excursions is a problem for many parents. For them, a higher priority than a computer at home is ensuring that their child is not missing out on something that every other child in the class is receiving.

    "If Labor was truly interested in an "education revolution", it would extend the principle it has established beyond tax rebates for computer purchases. There's no reason why tax rebates should not be available to parents who make a direct and immediate investment in their child's education. And of course the way parents do this is by paying school fees.

    "In an ideal world, tax rebates for school fees would be available to all parents, regardless of family income and regardless of whether the child attends a government or non-government school. For the moment, at least, such a policy is too radical for any of the parties.

    "Something more realistic in the foreseeable future would be to limit tax rebates for school fees to families on low incomes. Not only would this ease the financial burden of education borne by parents; more importantly, by reducing the cost of schooling, whether in the government or non-government system, it would give parents a greater capacity to choose the most appropriate school for their child.

    "That is the best way of reducing the gap between the haves and the have-nots."

    John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. He was a senior adviser to the Kennett and Howard governments.
    
    From The Age at link

Thursday 25 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Top teachers' pay should double: Chaney [online only, added 4:55 pm]
    AAP
    
    "President of the Business Council of Australia Michael Chaney has called for a dramatic increase in teachers' pay, saying top teachers should receive almost double the salary.

    "Mr Chaney said the cost of pay increases for both public and private teachers would be about $4 billion.

    "He said the figure was a manageable amount.

    "We should consider such expenditure an investment rather than a cost," Mr Chaney told the annual BCA dinner in Sydney on Wednesday night.

    "He said a changed approach was needed in education by governments at all levels.

    "Mr Chaney's criticism of the current system was part of a broader argument that business needed to talk about social prosperity rather than focusing on economic reform.

    "There was no better time than during the current prosperity to tackle entrenched disadvantage and social problems, he said."

    From The West Australian online at link
    
    
    
    
  • Stay away from WA, union warns teachers (page 4)
    by Ben Spencer and Bethany Hiatt

    "The State School Teachers Union is about to warn teachers Australia-wide not to be duped by a WA Government recruiting campaign.

    "The Government is attempting to lure Eastern States teachers to WA in a bid to ease the chronic teacher shortage but problems have emerged, with teachers claiming they have been sent to remote locations and expected to live in sub-standard accommodation.

    "In an extraordinary move, the SSTU yesterday revealed it would write to teachers' unions across Australia warning them of the pitfalls of teaching in WA.

    "SSTU president Mike Keeley was unavailable for comment but the union confirmed an email outlining its concerns would be sent to teachers unions across the country today.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan launched a scathing attack on the SSTU after learning of its plans, accusing it of trying to "run down its own state" as the Australian Education Union's Victorian branch claimed Eastern States teachers would now be reluctant to move to WA.

    "Why would the schoolteachers' union representing members of the teaching profession in this State be undermining measures to try to improve the number of teachers here?" Mr. McGowan told Parliament. "If it is in fact true it is unacceptable and extremely disappointing."

    "The man charged with reversing WA's teacher shortage says salaries need to be increased, career structures and conditions improved and principals given more autonomy.

    "Lance Twomey, who is chairing a task force set up by the Government to tackle the shortage, delivered a preliminary report to Mr. McGowan last week. His final report is due in December. He said salaries for school and TAFE staff had to reflect the professional nature and importance of teaching. "Allowances need to genuinely compensate for varying living and working conditions," he said in an update on the task force's progress.

    "To encourage ambitious teachers to remain in the classroom, a more comprehensive career structure within the public education sector needs to be developed."

    "Professor Twomey said workloads could be better distributed if more staffing categories were introduced to schools, such as personal assistants for principals and more full-time education assistants. He said principals should have more professional autonomy to lead their schools, underpinned by centralised support.

    "The SSTU's dramatic intervention came after a distraught Victorian couple, lured to WA by the promise of more money for teachers, revealed they would soon return home after just nine months in some of the State's remote communities.

    "Jason McCrae, his partner Samantha and their six-week-old son Jack continue to live with friends in Warburton after rejecting transfer offers to other remote communities near the Northern Territory border. They claim to have been forced to endure substandard living conditions in housing provided by the Department of Education and Training.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said he did not condone the SSTU's actions but understood why the union felt such drastic action was necessary.

    "AEU Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said she was stunned by the revelations of the couple's apparent treatment, particularly given it came just weeks after Mr. McGowan launched an aggressive interstate recruitment drive to lure teachers from Victoria and Tasmania.

    "She said Victorian teachers would be put off by the couple's ordeal."
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor: Education (page 22)
    
    
    • We needed a chair

      "WACOT had no choice but to elect a chairman weeks away from an election (Steve Kessell, Letters, 24/10). The WA College of Teaching Act 2004 states that the chairman must be elected by the board for a 12-month period, meaning the position expired in September. There is no provision in the Act for a temporary chairman. Nor can the college operate without one.

      "There is, however, nothing to stop the chairman or deputy chairman from stepping down part of the way through their term. [emphasis added] To suggest that this was "disgraceful" or an act of "desperation" is wrong. The college is operating within its Act - as it is bound to do by law."
      
      Suzanne Parry, director, WACOT
      
      

    • An act for parents

      "I concur with your editorial (Schools need more help with disruptive students). Education is a community enterprise and the more we work together and share the responsibility the lighter the load will become.

      "There are many factors that influence success of an individual over which the teacher has extremely little or no influence whatsoever. At the bottom line, it is the child who decides when and if he is to succeed and the decisions are based on how he has been raised to regard himself. The school simply perpetuates what has been established by the home.

      "I do not wish to absolve teachers of their responsibility for the factors over which they have no control. They perform the second most important function in society and this places on them tangible responsibilities for which they must be held accountable. Parents perform the most important function in society and this places on them tangible responsibilities for which they must be held accountable. Parents perform the most important function in society. Here again, this function carries tangible responsibilities for which they are not held accountable. Indeed, they are being encouraged to project more and more of their responsibility on to the school.

      "We have legislation that defines the responsibilities of schools. We need an Act for parents that defines their responsibilities and has in it sufficient means for holding them accountable. Perhaps then more parents would become directly involved in their children's schooling and lighten the load in overcoming the disruptive behaviour of students."
      
      Michael Detiuk, Perth
      
      

    • Labor is to blame
      
      "When it was reported that Tony Abbott, referring to the alarming number of teachers who have been the victims of violent attacks by schoolchildren, said in certain cases corporal punishment should be reintroduced, I believe Education Minister Mark McGowan was one of the usual crew who opposed it.

      "Mr. McGowan now blames parents for abusive kids (report, 22/10) when in fact it's the very ideology espoused by his side of politics, cheered along by academics, social engineers and lawyers, which has been so insidiously forced on the Australian people that is to blame for the alarming escalation of violence in our schools and society in general.

      "As a result, teachers and police officers are now rendered helpless as pupils and teenage partygoers run amok. It was the Federal Labor government under the leadership of Bob Hawke that signed the United Nations Rights of the Child Treaty (once again without the consent of the Australian people). It's one of the many treaties we have made with that discredited organisation which should be rendered null and void."

      Ernest Della, Westminster
      
      
      

• ABC News
  
  
  • Unions at odds over teacher recruitment letter
    
    "The Australian Nursing Federation's State Secretary Mark Olson has accused the State School Teachers Union of doing itself a dis-service by writing a letter detailing teaching conditions in Western Australia.

    "The Education Minister, Mark McGowan, yesterday accused the union's President Mike Keely of undermining his campaign to bring more teachers to WA by writing a letter to counterpart organisations in the eastern states.

    "The letter advises teachers who are considering moving to WA to get appropriate advice and ensure that all offers are made in writing.

    "Mr Olson says, while the living conditions in rural areas may be substandard at times, Mr Keely's actions were inappropriate.

    "Whatever problems we have with the State Government I don't think it's going to serve anybody's interests for us to be discouraging nurses from coming to WA," he said.

    "We would provide advice, we would answer questions on a case by case basis but we're simply not going to write and say these are the conditions that exist right across the board. I think it's a very difficult thing to do."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • External exams not always final answer
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Students who do not sit external exams for their final Year 12 assessment and instead do class assignments perform just as well at university as school-leavers who are graded by exams.

    "The "surprising" findings come as thousands of anxious students sit their final exams and the federal Government tries to force external tests on Queensland and the ACT, which use continuous class assessment.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has threatened to withhold 2009 school funding from the ACT and Queensland if they do not institute external exams, saying continuous assessment is unfair and inconsistent.

    "But a study conducted by the University of Canberra has found that continuous assessment or exams make no difference to the performance of first-year business students.

    "Researchers analysed the university marks of 108 NSW and 237 Canberra students and found both assessment systems had "merits" and "demerits" but neither was superior.

    "Study head Monir Mir said the results were unexpected.

    "We had actually heard a lot of anecdotal evidence from colleagues, where one says students who had come from centralised exams coped better at university, while others say the continuous assessment students cope better," Associate Professor Mir said. "But we were surprised by the results. We thought they could go either way.

    "There has been much debate about which system is superior and even suggestions funding be stripped from the inferior system. But the evidence does not support the claim that one system is superior to the other."

    "Professor Mir said the study did not take into account factors such as socio-economic background.

    "Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford said the report vindicated his state's system.

    "And there are other research exercises that demonstrate that in the modern schooling environment, pen and paper sudden-death exams are much less effective for building the skills students need for the 21st century," Mr Welford said.

    "He said Ms Bishop's attempts to make Queensland and the ACT introduce final exams was a "return to the dark ages".

    "But Ms Bishop said the University of Canberra research contradicted previous studies.

    "It goes against a great body of existing research, which has found there is great disparity between various education systems in curriculum content and reporting," she said.

    "NSW Board of Studies president Gordon Stanley said the study was flawed.

    "It supposedly compares a 'no Year 12 exam' system with a 'centralised Year 12 exam system'," Professor Stanley said.

    "And yet it is comparing the ACT system of internal assessment moderated by an external ability test with the NSW system of external exams combined with moderated school assessment."

    "Lake Ginninderra College student Erin Maplesden, from Canberra, said she preferred the continuous class assessment to exams. "You can gradually improve yourself," she said."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Plan for colleges to combat skill crisis
    
    John Howard yesterday promised to build two technical colleges for teenagers in a bid to address the Australian Defence Force's skills recruitment crisis.
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • First Byte
      

      "If Australians can be convinced to vote for a political party in return for half-priced laptops, then compulsory voting needs some serious discussion."
      
      A. Khat, Ryde, NSW
      
      

    • Literary fiction? No thanks
      
      "I was horrified to hear that West Australian high school students are to be forced to read Australian literary fiction as part of their syllabus ("Compelling course on Aussie writers’’, 24/10). I can think of worse fates but not many.

      "I can’t believe that our kids will benefit from being forced to read the tedious drivel of Patrick White and Tim Winton under the guise of literary fiction. Literary fiction is meant to bring people to understand the human condition – we have yet to produce an author who does that in any way comparable to the greats (Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, JB Priestley to name a few).

      "It is not that I suffer cultural cringe, it is that we are not yet mature enough as a nation to produce this type of novel. We have not suffered a civil war, the tyranny of monarchs or the class struggles and revolutions of other nations. As such, we have not yet developed a story to tell. However, we have produced some great literature in the form of crime fiction (Barry Maitland) and action thrillers (Matthew Reilly). Let’s not get hung up about literary fiction. Let our kids enjoy what we do have – in time, we will develop a story to tell."
      
      David Bermingham, Canberra, ACT
      
      
      

• The Age
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • The wider problem

      "The problem of increasing numbers of teachers being on contracts (Letters, 23/10) rather than continuing employment is symptomatic of the wider problems in state education. Schools are provided with a staffing budget which allows them to employ the bare minimum number of teachers. Despite the Department of Education having issued an agreement on maximum working conditions for teachers (class sizes, teaching hours), most schools are forced to exceed these conditions to cover their curriculum.

      "There is simply no room in a school budget for any flexibility, and it would be a brave school which would provide ongoing employment to a teacher when this would quite possibly cause the school to exceed its staffing budget. Schools are understaffed, teachers are exceeding their set working conditions, budgets are inadequate, our ageing schools are crumbling. I guess we can count ourselves lucky that we are under a State Government which has education as its number one priority."

      Keith Fletcher, Alexandra
      
      
      

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Private school funding review
    
    The [NSW] State Government is reviewing how much money it will allocate to private schools, some will get an increase at the expense of others.
    
    
    
    
  • Budget cuts hit private schools
    
    Low-fee Christian schools say they have been caught out by the [NSW] State Government's decision to scrap a $63 million scheme that subsidised the interest private schools paid on loans for building works.
    
    
    
    
  • Unis offer a study in cronyism
    
    Universities have given big contracts to friends and family, wasted millions on defective software, misused corporate credit cards and engaged in deceptive advertising, says Macquarie University's vice-chancellor.

Friday 26 October

• Independent College of Teachers being formed
  
  
  • A group of teachers are in the process of setting up an Independent College of Teachers that will offer the profession a real voice. Unlike WACOT it will be run by teachers and for teachers and will be independent of government. Above all, teachers won't be sacked if they exercise their democratic right not to join!

    Teachers who want more information about the Independent College of Teachers and would like to join can visit our website (http://www.fezfilms.com/ricotwa.html)

    Most teachers regard WACOT as not just a failure in respect to being a voice for the profession but a breach of our right to peaceful assembly and association. Under the UN Declaration of Human Rights:

    (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

    (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

    (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)

    Clearly teachers are being compelled into being a member of WACOT under the threat of dismissal.

    It should be noted that under section 90 of the WACOT legislation that:

    (1) The Minister is to carry out a review of the operation and effectiveness of this Act as soon as is practicable after the expiration of 4 years from its commencement, and in the course of that review the Minister is to consider and have regard to — (a) the effectiveness of the operations of the College; (b) the need for the continuation of the functions of the College; and (c) any other matters that appear to the Minister to be relevant to the operation and effectiveness of this Act.
    
    (2) The Minister is to prepare a report based on the review made under subsection (1) and as soon as is practicable after the preparation of the report, cause it to be laid before each House of Parliament.

    The sooner it is wound up the better.

    Please forward this to your colleagues by sending them this link:
    http://platowa.com/documents/ICT/ICT.pdf

    Andrew Pheasant
    Convenor, Independent College of Teachers
    9 Westminster Court
    Armadale 6112

    Phone 94982108
    Mobile 0439962803
    Email: jfp@iinet.net.au
    
    
    

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teacher union warning slur on State (page 4)
    by Ben Spencer

    "Relations between Education Minister Mark McGowan and the State School Teachers Union have hit a new low after the union warned Eastern States teachers to be wary of a Government recruitment campaign aimed to tackle the teacher shortage.

    "Mr McGowan said the union's warning, in a letter to teachers' unions nationwide, was a disgrace and an outrageous slur on the State.

    "In what has become the biggest fight between the union and the State government since Mr McGowan became minister 10 months ago, Mr McGowan attacked the union in Parliament over its tactics.

    "The email from union president Mike Keely sent yesterday to the Australian Education Union and its branches warned members to be exceptionally careful when responding to the WA DET marketing campaign to attract teachers to WA.

    "It said the SSTU was handling a number of cases in which teachers from other States and countries had struck major difficulties.

    "The advertising campaign is precisely that, an advertising campaign," Mr Keely wrote. "The reality does not always live up to the advertising."

    "Shadow police Minister Rob Johnson asked Mr McGowan to explain how he had allowed the issue to become so serious, telling Parliament t he Government's $80,000 campaign to lure teachers across the Nullarbor was grossly misleading. [emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan told Parliament there was little doubt the union's letter would harm the Government's efforts to address the teacher shortage. The Victorian Government and the State's private schools would now portray WA as a place to avoid.

    "I think what the State School Teachers Union has done in writing to their eastern colleagues, running down Western Australia, is disgraceful," he said. "I think it is an outrageous slur upon this State. No matter how that letter is portrayed by the union here, the way it will be portrayed in the Eastern States by their union colleagues over there is they will say, 'Look at this, don't go to WA, there are all these problems over in WA'."

    "Mr Keely said Mr McGowan had made his disappointment clear at a meeting yesterday. He conceded the email would harm Government bids to address the teacher shortage."
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial (page 20)
    Teacher union idea betrays interests of WA students

    "The State School Teachers Union's idea of trying to deter teachers from other State from coming to WA deserves criticism as contemptible treachery. It is also a tacit admission by the union of its failure to win acceptable conditions for its members.

    "Furthermore, such a move can be seen only as an act of betrayal of WA's public school students, whose rights to a decent education are under threat of being compromised by a teacher shortage. The union appears to have had a longstanding difficulty in deciding whether it is a militant industrial organisation or a representative of teaching as a profession. A compelling argument can be made that it dabbles in both but is noticeably effective in neither.

    "That it has even entertained the idea of telling teachers Australia wide not to be taken in by the WA government recruitment campaign suggests it believes that employment conditions here are substandard. If that is the case what has it done about the conditions of the thousands of teachers who already work in WA schools, which it implies are so bad that outsiders should not have to tolerate them?

    "The union is entitled to draw public attention to the work conditions of its members and to campaign for improvements that it believes are needed. However, it is not entitled to jeopardise children's education in doing so.

    "There is evidence that the union leadership became compromised by its ideological association with the State Government in the disastrous OBE misadventure - until it was forced to take a more critical stance as a result of widespread complaints about increased workloads for its members. There is a perception that the union leadership has been too close to the Government on some matters for the comfort of members. [emphasis added]

    "Perhaps the ill advised plan to warn teachers against coming to WA sprang at least partly from the union leadership wanting to dispel that perception. All it has done, apart from underscoring its inadequacies, has been to draw deserved condemnation.

    "And, ironically, it has given Education Minister Mark McGowan some moral high ground from which to criticise. This might momentarily deflect attention from his problems in trying to staff schools and his apparent inability to force the Education Department to try to overcome its deplorable reputation of being a bad employer by making a genuine effort to become a better one.

    "His recruitment campaign is not helped by a department that has a reputation among teachers of being indifferent to their needs and reluctant to offer them support.

    "There is increasing reason to question whether Mr McGowan is on top of the job of supervising the department. He was clearly embarrassed at the treatment of a Victorian teacher and his family in the Western Desert region. They claimed that they had to endure third world conditions, including an open septic pit at a house that was allocated to them. He had to say he was sorry about what happened with that family.

    "Mr McGowan was fully justified in denouncing the union for damaging the recruitment effort and discrediting WA. However, he should acknowledge the damage done by the appalling conditions endured by some teachers, and hold his department accountable for them." [emphasis added]
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 20)
    
    
    • Look after them

      "I have been at a difficult-to-staff school "country incentive school" for the past six years. I have my permanency and 30 transfer points. That is the equivalent of teaching for 30 years in a metropolitan school.

      "I have enjoyed my time in the country but my family and I have decided it's time to leave. This year I applied for a transfer back to Perth and recently was told that I had been unsuccessful. I was told that I should go to a website and see if I can get a "mobility transfer". This is where two teachers from different schools arrange to swap jobs.

      "I hardly see the point is this because not even the Education Department can fill all the positions at my school. Why would anyone want to give up a job in Perth to come to the country, work in an understaffed school, leave friends and family and then not be able to return to Perth when the choose to?

      "My family and I are moving to Perth anyway, and lucky for me I have the option to extend my parental leave for another year. So, next time you hear the politicians and Education Department say that there is a teacher shortage, you will know why. They should forget about trying to recruit teachers from the Eastern States and overseas and instead look after the ones they already have."

      Annette Martin, Kambalda
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Double teachers' salaries: Chaney [late update, 25 October]
    by Jennifer Hewett, National affairs correspondent
    
    "Michael Chaney, president of the Business Council of Australia, has called for a dramatic increase in teachers' pay, including a near doubling of the salaries of top teachers.

    "Mr Chaney told the annual BCA dinner in Sydney last night that the cost of such pay increases for all teachers, public and private, would be about $4 billion, which he described as a manageable amount.

    "We should consider such expenditure an investment rather than a cost," he said, arguing for a changed approach to education by governments at all levels.

    "Mr Chaney's criticism of the current system was part of a broader argument that business needed to talk about social prosperity rather than focusing on economic reform.

    "He said there was no better time than during the current prosperity to tackle entrenched disadvantage and social problems that were an unacceptable waste of individual talent.

    "His speech, his last as BCA president, reflects the increasing concern of the business community about the adequacy of Australia's education system to meet the social and economic challenges of the future.

    "That approach fits in with the ALP promise of an education revolution but Mr Chaney, the former Wesfarmers chief executive who now chairs National Australia Bank and Woodside Petroleum, also singled out the politically sensitive issue of paying better teachers more money.

    "The federal Government supported performance pay for teachers, a practice bitterly opposed by the teachers' unions and state Labor governments.

    "Federal Labor has been deliberately vague, talking instead about the concept of rewarding quality teaching but with few details.

    "Mr Chaney said teachers should be ranked against national standards of accreditation based on skills and improved educational results, suggesting that could result in the top teachers being paid up to $130,000 a year.

    "Presently, the top rate in most states is just above or below $70,000 a year, with most reaching the maximum salary level after 10 or 12 years in the profession and many either leaving or moving into administration as a result.

    "Mr Chaney said there were still many competent, dedicated teachers but one of the greatest concerns was that Australia's best and brightest young people were no longer entering the profession.

    "It is inevitable that unless we do something about the unattractiveness of teaching as a career, we will see a steady decline in our teaching standards over time," he said. "It isn't necessary to spell out what a detrimental effect this would have on our society and economic prospects."

    "He also argued it was just not credible to suggest it was too hard to determine who the good teachers were.

    "If you go into any school, everyone knows who the best teachers are," he said, emphasising the advantages of giving principals greater autonomy. [emphasis added]

    "There are about 240,000 full-time equivalent primary and secondary teachers in Australia, 160,000 of them in public schools.

    "According to Mr Chaney, the system was failing nearly 300,000 young Australians who were either unemployed or working part-time and had not gone on to further education.

    "He said it should be possible to imagine a society where teachers were revered as the fundamental source of the country's ultimate prosperity and where the education system was recognised as the best in the world. [emphasis added]

    "He called for a national approach to school curriculums as well as teacher training."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • More students prefer business
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "The number of Australians who have studied IT at university or TAFE has jumped 143 per cent in the past 10 years but commerce and engineering qualifications remain by far the most popular.

    "The latest 2006 census data reveals 220,978 people have a computer science qualification, up from 90,704 in 1996, with male students accounting for the biggest increase.

    "The number of women with agriculture and environmental qualifications has also soared, jumping 89per cent to 45,331.

    "But the lure of big bucks has attracted the most Australians, with more than 1.35 million people with a qualification in commerce or management, up 62per cent from 1996.

    "The number with engineering qualifications has jumped 11per cent to 1.33 million. People gaining health and teaching qualifications has also risen significantly with 619,105 going into the classroom and 703,164 attracted to a career in health. [emphasis added]

    "The census figures also show just over 6.5 million Australians have completed a TAFE or university course, up 41per cent on 1996.

    "More men than women have studied at university or TAFE, with 3.4million men having a post-school qualification compared with 2.9million women.

    "But women have made up some ground in the past 10 years, with a 52per cent increase in the number of women having completed a post-school qualification compared with a 30per cent rise for men.

    "Higher education expert Simon Marginson, from the University of Melbourne, said he wasn't surprised to see the sharp increase in IT graduates. He said the 10-year census period saw an IT boom.

    "It was still buoyant when a lot of these people started their degrees. It started to downturn inabout 2004," said Professor Marginson. "The next census will show a decline in this area."

    "The latest Department of Education, Science and Training figures show the number of school-leavers enrolling in IT courses last year dropped by 13per cent.

    "Professor Marginson also said migrants with overseas qualifications would have contributed to the high number of graduates in IT and engineering. He said this would include migrating professionals as well as international students who had stayed on after getting permanent residency.

    "Professor Marginson said the numbers of students flocking to business and commerce courses was also expected. It was a reflection of the increasing number of jobs for commerce graduates. "Business has really been the great growth area across the whole country," he said."
    
    From The Australian at link
    

    • Nation of hairdressers, accountants
      
      
      
  • Extra studies rise by degrees
    
    Growing numbers of Australians are pursuing extra study, with postgraduate degrees recording the biggest rise in tertiary study over the past five years.
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Best and brightest need reasons to choose teaching
      
      "Thank you, Michael Chaney, for acknowledging that teachers are the fundamental source of the nation’s ultimate prosperity (”Double teachers’ salaries: Chaney”, 25/10).

      "Although a considerable improvement in financial rewards is long overdue, such recognition of the importance of the job bolsters morale and may help to stem the defection of Australia’s best and brightest young people to more prestigious careers.

      "Whilst Kevin Rudd has promised an educational revolution and John Howard has asserted the need for establishing sound national standards, neither has addressed how these are to be achieved. Policy papers are one thing, the classroom is another. It’s teachers who are expected to bridge the gap despite low pay, unrealistic workloads and constant denigration."
      
      Rosemary Stride, Wavell Heights, Qld
      
      

    • "It's heartening to read the call by Business Council of Australia President Michael Chaney for better schooling and better pay for teachers. Certainly the creation of education systems and practices appropriate to knowledge societies is one of the greatest challenges today. It calls for nothing less than the re-imagining of schooling.

      "The national conversation about this should be comprehensive and inclusive. It should certainly include teachers who - like business people - know quite a bit about the work they do every day. Simple strategies for solving any complex set of problems are seductive. Differential payment of teachers, for instance, along with widespread measuring and ranking of students, is attractive in its simplicity. But the consequences of both of these strategies might be less palatable.

      "Our brightest young people will be attracted into teaching by good salaries. But, more importantly, they will get their greatest rewards when they belong to a profession which is esteemed and appreciated by the community. A focus on the teaching profession as a whole, on instructional leadership of the highest order, and on an expanding, intelligent, national conversation on what schools can yet become, will highlight the complexity of educational reform. This is the pre-requisite for any simple solutions to have any chance of success."
      
      Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools, Catholic Diocese of Parramatta
      
      

    • First Byte
      
      "I for one would be much happier to know that there are people near the top of either political party with a science or engineering background, as we might then be more likely to get facts instead of spin. According to your list (”Every party needs a cocktail of lawyers”, 25/10), the only such person among the entire Coalition and Labor front benches is a medic, Brendan Nelson."
      
      John Steele, Kirrawee, NSW
  
  
  
  
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Editorial
    Apples for the best teachers
    
    "The businessman Michael Chaney has called for a review of the way teachers are paid, to close the gap between their salaries and the pay of other professionals. It is a good point, not least because of its source: deeper interest from business in education issues is overdue. Education, after all, is what forms the future workforce. His contribution also gives the teaching profession recognition too often denied it.

    "Teaching has become a backwater in the minds of young people looking for a career. The cut-off mark for entry to a teaching degree is, on average, low - indicating low demand. It is well below the mark for degrees that lead to higher-paying professions such as law, medicine or commerce. Pay is much of the reason. Although starting salaries (about $50,000) are relatively good for new graduates, as teachers age they find themselves falling behind peers who chose other professions. Certainly, able young people choose teaching despite the poor return - and for the most honourable and idealistic reasons. But a society that is encouraged, as ours is, to value things only in monetary terms should not cynically exploit such idealism. Nor should parents have to rely on it to ensure teachers of talent are available for their children. Put simply, good teachers should be paid more.

    "Other professions are rewarded according to performance; the same should apply to teaching. It would encourage the most able to stay on, and perhaps motivate the less able to quit. But immediately the suggestion is made, vested interests rush to place obstacles in the way. Not least is the teachers' union's iron grip on salary policy, and its vehement opposition to merit-based pay. Then there is the practical difficulty: though everyone in a school community may know which teachers excel at their profession and which are merely holding down a job, how can a mechanism be set up to turn that information into a pay scale which will reward merit? The answer to both problems may lie in more autonomy for school principals and boards. Those who know the teachers in each classroom are best-placed to decide what they are worth."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Teachers protest over Hockey school visit
    
    Angry teachers waving bright orange anti-Work Choices placards protested against a visit by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, to the private school SCECGS Redlands in Cremorne last night.
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • There's much more to fixing education than just buying computers
      
      "I dare political parties of all persuasions to make us a (core) promise to look after the educational needs of all, from the realistic funding of child care and preschool places up to our TAFE colleges and universities.

      "Public schooling still attracts the majority of students, yet we allow governments to continually erode funding for the upkeep of buildings and proper programs. Class sizes are still as large as ever, despite promises to reduce them, and in fact things are worse as funding for special needs students to be integrated into the classroom continually decreases while students still fill these places, to the detriment of the rest of the students in the class.

      "And, no, the answer is not to fund more and more computers. We need smaller teacher-student ratios and one-on-one care for those who need it. And while you're at it, please release asylum seekers' children from detention centres and give them the same educational opportunities as everyone else.

      "TAFE has been systematically drained of funding over the years, and universities are expected to look to business to fund research. These are also detrimental trends that need to be reversed. We are no longer the clever country, with shortages looming in so many careers covered by these institutions - teaching, nursing and trades to name a few. And the reliance on universities to fund research has the potential for ethical problems. Will the McDonald's-funded scientific breakthrough show that fat is indeed good for us? (Actually, I'm looking forward to that one.) Not good enough. We need proper funding of our education system at all levels.

      "Where would the money come from? Well you can keep your measly tax cuts, and stop funding the obscenely wealthy elite private schools. The parents don't benefit from this money anyway as, rather than subsidising fees, these schools seem to plough the money into more buildings, swimming pools and other facilities.

      "Instead of the "what's in it for me" mentality that has been displayed over the past several elections, can't we please get back to a sense of community and opt for benefits of the many?"

      Margaret Grove, Abbotsford
      
      

• The Age
  
  
  • Teachers now set to take up industrial cudgel
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Industrial unrest among Victoria's teachers looks set to spill over into next year, with an Education Union meeting today expected to endorse further strike action.

    "The union's 100-member council will likely recommend upping its industrial campaign to include a 24-hour statewide stopwork on February 14, 2008 as well as rolling, regional four-hour stoppages throughout next year's first school term. The council has already voted in support of a teacher strike on November 21, when almost 4500 VCE students are due to sit exams.

    "Victorian branch president Mary Bluett justified more strike action, saying there had been little progress on key issues since weekly negotiations with the Brumby Government began in March. The issues are: teachers' pay and career structure, workload and levels of contract employment.

    "While the Government's first industrial showdown with the powerful teachers union hots up, the state's nurses yesterday ended their industrial action over pay and nurse-patient ratios. The work bans closed more than 1200 beds and severely disrupted the state's health system.

    "Under an agreement struck yesterday with the Government, nurses will receive pay rises ranging from 3.8 to 6 per cent.

    "However Ms Bluett said that would not be enough for the state's teachers, who she said were the lowest paid in the nation.

    "The (nurses) package of 3.8 per cent to 6 per cent would not stop the loss of teachers to NSW in particular and other states," she said. "We have to get a package that has the capacity to attract and retain teachers in Victoria and the gap in salary is a very significant one."

    "Ms Bluett's union is seeking a 30 per cent wage rise over three years for its 33,000 members, but the Government is standing firm with its offer of 3.25 per cent a year. A spokesman for Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said the Government's offer struck a balance between a pay increase and having enough money left over to fund other improvements to the education system.

    "Opposition education spokesman Martin Dixon said strike action could still be averted.

    "Now is the time to give teachers a pay rise and avert any industrial action," he said. "This is not the time to be grandstanding."

    From The Age at link

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 October

• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • WA students not ready for 'flawed' TEE english exam (page 13)
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "Teachers fear students are not ready for the looming TEE English exam because they are "guinea pigs" for the new course.

    "The teachers – from government and private schools – said implementation of the Outcomes-Based Education English course in the past two years was a mess that left teachers unsure of what to teach for the exam.

    "Many teachers were not confident that students had been appropriately prepared for an exam that was important for many trying to enter university.

    "WA students in 2007 are the guinea pigs for an experiment that just about everybody now agrees was a wrong-headed experiment,'' the head of English at a top public school said.

    "The history of it is, a sample exam was put out by the Curriculum Council in November 2006 which caused a furore and teachers weren't happy with (it).

    "So the Curriculum Council convened a working party in December 2006, involving all stakeholders, and came up with an alternative design for the exam that everyone was pretty happy with.

    "However, the council, having set up the group, then chose to ignore its recommendations. The result is that, on November 8, English students will be forced to sit an exam that the council's own working party had indicated was inadequate.

    "The English teacher jury also formally declared that the whole course is seriously flawed.'' [emphasis added]

    "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said: "This is first exam to be done under the new course of study and, given how much of a mess this curriculum change has been, teachers have every right to be anxious.

    "Until it's over, I know some teachers will be losing sleep.

    "This is a high-stakes exam, because most kids sit it and the result can mean the difference between getting into law, or commerce at university, or this uni or that uni. Two or three marks can make a big difference.''

    "WA English Teachers Association president Wendy Cody agreed that implementation of the course had been "fumbled'' by the council, but said students were "amply prepared''.

    "She conceded the association's membership was split about 50/50 in terms of teachers who supported the new course and those who didn't. [emphasis added]

    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said though the exam preparation hadn't been "ideal'' it had been "suitable'', and he called for calm, so student stress wasn't compounded.

    "We acknowledge it has not been the ideal preparation, but believe students will find the exam no more difficult than in other years,'' he said.

    "In helping them to prepare for the exam, English teachers have had the sample exam, as well as information provided at marking seminars in July and August.''

    "Seminars had shown teachers how this year's exam would be marked, which would have helped them guide students about what to expect.

    "The council acknowledges this course requires review, in line with the recommendations of the teacher jury, and this process has already started,'' he said."

    From The Sunday Times at link plus Readers' Comments
    
    
    
  • Zeroing in on cheats (page 13)
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "Students who take mobile phones, iPods or MP3 players into next week's exams risk getting a zero score.

    "Police can also be called in if students get someone to impersonate them in an exam, or they get questions beforehand.

    "Such students could also see all their exam papers cancelled.

    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said that last year, there were six reported breaches.

    "Five were for having mobile phones and one for having notes during the history examination," he said.

    "The Breaches of Examination Rules committee decided they should all lose 5 per cent of their marks."

    "He said candidates were permitted to take "a few prescribed items" into exams, which varied between subjects and courses."

    "Anything not on that list is considered a breach of rules and will be reported to the Breaches of Examination Rules Committee," Mr. Wood said.

    "(Penalties can be) up to loss of 100 per cent of exam marks."

    "Mr. Wood said it was the responsibility of all students to ensure they understood instructions relating to exams, which were in the TEE/WA Certificate of Education handbook, distributed by schools to all candidates.

    "He said mobile phones, iPods and MP3 players were a breach in all incidences.

    "Graphics calculators and other types were prohibited in some exams.

    "Notes were not allowed in exams except in maths and only two sheets were permitted.

    "Dictionaries were also not allowed in some exams. And food, cushions and blankets were banned without special permission.

    "Disruptive behaviour and failure to follow instructions could also cost students all their marks."
    

    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    
  • TEE-rific young achiever (page 13)
    
    "At just 12, Matthew Inie is the youngest student in WA sitting TEE exams this year.

    "He will sit his discrete mathematics exam on November 9. He will join about 13, 855 other TEE students, most of whom are at least four years his senior.

    "He is already in Year 10, which is two years ahead of his age group. His school, Murdoch College, decided that doing TEE maths would stope the gifted student from getting bored.

    "Though Matthew is scholastically ahead of many of his classmates, he says he is "pretty much an ordinary kid".

    "I just put a little more weight on the school stuff than others," he said. "I enjoy it an I know it will do me good in the future."

    "Matthew said good teacher also helped a lot.

    "I had a really good pre-primary teacher who got me interested in maths and science, and the interest hasn't left me," he said.

    "His mother, Carol Vasey, said Matthew had natural ability, but she believed his early education at Montessori school had allowed him to develop at his own pace.

    "She said he had always been surrounded by books and spoke like an adult.

    "Matthew recently got a perfect score in a national science competition, but can't attend an awards event in Sydney because it is on the same day as his TEE exam."
    

    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    
  • Schoolie grog will be taken (page 7)
    by Nicole Cox
    
    Police use new laws
    
    "Police will use tough new liquor laws to confiscate stockpiled carton of alcohol from "schoolies" as they head to holiday spots in the South-West this year.

    "The strategy is part of an all-out assault on under-age schoolies' drinking.

    "They will also target illicit drug-use during schoolies' festivities, amid concerns about the increasing use of ecstasy and amphetamines.

    "The new Liquor Control Act has for the first time given police authority to confiscate unopened or packaged alcohol from juveniles.

    "Until now, a loophole has prevented them from seizing alcohol from juveniles during the end-of-year binge unless it was in opened containers.

    "Also from this year, under-age youths caught in possession of alcohol can be given on-the-spot fines of $200.

    "About 7000 school leavers are expected to descend on the South-West - particularly Dunsborough, Busselton and Margaret River - from November 23. More than 2000 will head to Rottnest Island the following Monday.

    "Police will mount roadblocks on the arterial roads, search cars and use sniffer dogs to detect drugs.

    "Dunsborough sergeant Ian Clarke put schoolies on notice yesterday, saying there would be a no-tolerance policy towards badly behaved revellers and under-age drinkers.

    "The best advice to leavers is: 'Don't bring it down and don't consume it in a public place because it could mean the end of your leavers' party'," he said.

    "Rottnest sergeant Michael Wear said the Rottnest Island Authority would not accept any bookings on November 25, so that leavers could not start their celebrations until Monday, the designated schoolies' start date.

    "Peel superintendent David Parkinson, whose officers will stop vehicles enroute to the South-West, said: "Last year, we pulled over a car with four 17 year-olds and in the boot about seven or eight cartons of bourbon and we couldn't do anything about it," he said.

    "We hope this legislation stops drunken juveniles causing harm to themselves and the community."
    

    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 61)
    
    
    • "I am indebted to Kim Beazley Sr, who brought in free education. My family have grown up and got their degrees. Now the grandchildren are having to pay for it. They still get it, but what a cost."

      J. Anderson, Gnangara

      
      
      
• The West Australian
  
  
  • High school staff crisis to worsen, warn unis (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Applications to study secondary teaching at WA universities have plunged by as much as 50 per cent, dealing a fresh blow to the State Government's bids to solve the teacher shortage.

    "Preliminary applications to the State's four public universities and the private Notre Dame University reveal a drop of between 15 and 50 per cent.

    "While there are currently 59 teaching vacancies at high schools compared with just nine in primary schools, the figures reveal more people have applied for primary school teaching courses at most institutions.

    "Compared with the same time last year, WA's four public universities failed to show any substantial increase in overall teaching applications after a big drop the previous year.

    "The latest figures also show a decline in the number of people applying to study medicine, nursing and other health sciences in favour of courses leaning to jobs in the resources sector.

    "Edith Cowan University, which turns out about 850 of WA's teaching graduates annually, received nearly the same number of applications to study next year as it did for this year's course, which was much less than the previous year.

    "We are pleased that there has been no further decrease," education head Greg Robson said. "But in the context of needing to provide teachers we'd always be hoping that we'd be able to attract more students."

    "Professor Robson said the number of people choosing primary teaching had shown a significant increase of 19 per cent but the number choosing secondary teaching had fallen 20 per cent. But expected secondary numbers to rise before courses started in February because of targeted scholarships and advertising campaigns.

    "Notre Dame admissions manager Rommie Masarei said applications for undergraduate courses in secondary teaching had plummeted 56 per cent but those for primary school teaching had jumped 51 per cent.

    'I think WA is going to be in a seriously critical condition for secondary teaching in a very few years, if it isn't already," she said.

    "Notre Dame education dean Michael O'Neill said many students were turned off high school teaching because of concerns about dealing with 'more challenging behaviour.'

    "Demand for secondary teaching at Murdoch University was down 20 per cent on last year's figures and primary teaching down 11 per cent.
    
    "But deputy vice-chancellor enterprise and international Gary Martin said he expected to see strong applications in graduate teaching programs later in the year.

    "Applications for secondary teaching at Curtin University dropped 15 per cent but primary teaching was up 2 per cent.

    "Curtin education head Len Sparrow said he could fill all places in teaching courses with a mid-year intake if he could not fill them at the start of the year.

    "Student services director John Rowe said applications for engineering courses at Curtin were up between 10 and 50 per cent and surveying up by 60 per cent, which he attributed to WA's resources boom.

    "Occupational therapy, physiotherapy and pharmacy were all down about 5 per cent and nursing had fallen about 10 per cent.

    "University of WA admissions centre manager Wayne Betts said there had been a slight drop in applications for teaching but most of its intake was in the graduate diploma course, which had not closed. This was the first time he had seen a 12 per cent downturn in applications for medicine. Notre Dame had also seen a significant drop, attributed to the opening of more medical places in the Eastern States.

    "Final course enrolment numbers at all universities are likely to change after 2007 school leavers get their exam results in January."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor (page 23)
    
    
    • We Disagree
      
      "There is nothing unusual about the State School Teachers Union president Mike Keeley warning Eastern States teachers to insist on employment conditions in writing before coming to WA (editorial, 26/10). The Union, as an affiliate of the Australian Education Union, has always done this because, historically, employers have not always kept verbal agreements. The major role of the union is to protect teachers, not to staff schools."

      Brian Lindberg, SSTU life member, Mosman Park
      
      
      

• The Weekend Australian
  
  
• Teachers to strike for wages hike
  by Milanda Rout
  
  "Victorian teachers will strike on Valentine's Day and embark on rolling four-hour stoppages during the first term of the school year to win better pay and conditions.

  "Just a day after the Brumby Government settled a bitter dispute with Victoria's nurses -- who took action after police won big increases -- the Australian Education Union's council yesterday approved more industrial action after pay negotiations stalled.

  "The new industrial action will follow a 24-hour strike on November 21, the second-last day of Year 12 exams, and could affect up to 8500 VCE students across the state.

  "AEU Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said the strike resolution was endorsed unanimously by members who are seeking a pay rise of 10 per cent a year for the next three years. The Brumby Government has offered only 3.25 per cent a year.

  "We expect that it will be a long campaign," Ms Bluett said, adding that rolling four-hour stoppages would minimise disruption for students and parents.

  "It will mean schools will only be affected for half a day for the remainder of the term," she said.

  "We will roll it out so that every week in some region in Victoria there will be industrial action in at least one school."

  "Ms Bluett said the nurses' strike this week was a reminder of how tough the next few months would be for teachers.

  "It has been incredibly traumatic for them," she said.

  "I have seen nurses who have broken down and they were all under enormous pressure."

  "But Ms Bluett said the teachers had no choice but to strike.

  "Victorian teachers are the lowest-paid in the nation. Our schools are the lowest-funded. Victoria has the highest levels of contract employment," she said.

  "With a national teacher shortage and states like WA and Queensland trying to recruit our teachers, we have to close our salary gap.

  "The kids and the parents are not the target (of the strike action), the Government is."

  "Ms Bluett said a mandatory ballot for teachers to endorse all their industrial action would close on November 12.

  "She said teachers expected their pay to be docked for the stop-work action, starting on November 21, as had been the case in the past."
  
  From The Weekend Australian at link
  
  

  
  
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Dear Student, why not try science
    
    As VCE students prepare to sit their exams, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty explains why science should be part of a broad education, and is a challenging and worthwhile career.
    
    "I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was in high school. Now I am looking back on a scientific research career that has lasted almost 45 years.

    "I've had the great privilege of probing the limits of curiosity and discovery, of being part of a dynamic, international culture that has given me friends all over the world.

    "This has involved a lot of hard work, a bit of luck and plenty of financial and emotional challenges. It has felt worthwhile — and it has never been boring.

    "Science is a meritocracy. Success doesn't depend on whether you're male or female, good-looking or not, black or white, or how influential your daddy is.

    "If your motivation is to lead a comfortable life, find some other way to make a living. There's little scope in science — or in any worthwhile activity — for smug, complacent or self-satisfied people.

    "Not that science and related areas like medicine and engineering don't provide some unique opportunities for living the good life.

    "People find vocations in all sorts of careers — from law, plumbing, economics, banking, carpentry, rock music, and building surfboards. Being persistent and keeping your mind open is the secret to finding your special passion. When that happens, go for it. But some of us will discover different passions as we go through life, and will switch careers.

    "That's one of the many reasons I favour the idea of a broad education, especially at high school. A diverse general training that takes in poetry, history, chemistry and philosophy would broaden our intellectual range, suggest possibilities and provide ideas that can surface later.

    "It worries me that the current Australian educational model can cause young people to become too narrow, too quickly.

    "That isn't their fault, but our education bureaucrats should fix it.

    "I also suggest that thinking in terms of responsibilities rather than personal rights and opportunities leads ultimately to a more satisfying life.

    "After a time of enormous material prosperity and a world-view that emphasises massive over-consumption, narcissism and greed, we are now realising we have been ignoring "the commons" — the idea of the general good. Living in such a thoughtless way has given us global warming and ocean acidification.

    "Southern Greece burned last month. Hollywood is in flames as I write this. Much of southern US is suffering unprecedented, long-term drought. Australian firefighters are bracing for a catastrophe if we don't have substantial rain before summer.

    "Minimising the possibility of climate change will, I believe, be the defining problem for our young generation, and for the generations that follow."

    Peter Doherty explores related themes in The Beginners Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize and A Light History of Hot Air.
    
    From The Sunday Age at link
    
    
    

• The Age [Saturday]
  
  
  • Rudd pushes for stronger FOI laws
    
    Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has released the ALP's policy on Freedom of Information (FOI), proposing to ensure that future governments will be scrutinised for all actions and decisions. Releasing the FOI policy in Perth, Mr Rudd said strong FOI laws were crucial for accountability at all government levels.
    
    I wonder if Alan Carpenter was listening, given his recent attempts to water-down FOI in WA.  Web
    
    
    
    
• A Letter to the State School Teachers Union of WA
  
  
  • Dear Sir/Madam,

    Since I have always been a strong supporter of unions - still am, in fact, though admittedly with the operative word being 'unions' - it is difficult for me to believe I am writing this letter as I wish to cancel my membership with absolute immediate effect. For more than twenty years I have supported you - pity it was not reciprocated.

    It is difficult to say just how abysmal I have found your performance over the years and now on reflection, I wonder why on earth I didn't resign my membership from this micky-mouse union years ago. Time and time again over the years I have questioned your feeble responses to the salary 'increases' proposed by governments who anyone with half a brain would not trust to negotiate openly and fairly, and it is now quite clear that the union dances to the government's tune. Indeed, if anything, today we seem to have a president who has adopted more of a reporter's role, as if he is a mere go-between, telling anyone who will bother to listen that teachers will be annoyed (or this, that or the other) at yet more negative 'developments' in teaching and education, or whatever tomfool nonsense comes to mind.

    I am 65 years of age in September 2008 and retire at the end of that year, a secondary school teacher, classroom-commited for many years and deeply proud of it and of my professionalism and standing with my students. They are the only thing that count for anything in this miserable profession. In large measure because of my union, my superannuation will be poor relative to virtually every other profession, though I agree we are a profession in name only, but to hear today of how the great and impending shortage of teachers is to be tackled by a government immediately and cynically increasing starting graduate salaries to $50,000, while someone like me, at the top of end of Senior Teacher Scale, as I've been for years, receives not even twenty thousand more than someone less than half my age, let alone experience, is a betrayal of everything I think a union should stand for. I have also the unfortunate and dubious honour of being an English teacher, a subject area that has been treated very badly indeed by this oh so contemptible employer. I can hardly believe the lack of support given by you to secondary teachers of English over these last two or three years. It does, actually, although cocooned in OBE certainty, you'll never see this, defy belief. You even endorsed that thing called WACOT, and, yes, I'm one of those teachers still to pay their membership fees, and I wonder, you know, what education means when people who read 'Animal Farm' in their late teens can years later completely ignore any lesson it teaches as if the book is just something to be read, not acted upon. How anyone cannot see the parallels between WACOT and Squealer's propaganda in 'Animal Farm' is beyond me, yet here we have our union blithely endorsing its establishment. Quite incredible.

    And the final nail in my union coffin was the fact of reading last week that wage negotiations will commence soon but with effect to be after the final wage 'increase' next February of TWO AND A HALF PER CENT. The inverted commas and capitals are there because I can still hardly believe that my union can actually ask its members to accept, given the offical annual inflation rate and CPI figures, what in reality is actually a cut in the salaries of their members. I don't know when this pantomime was negotiated - maybe it was last year when I was on long service leave - but tell me, did you not hear the howls of laughter emanating from the Cabinet Room in Parliament House at your rolling over in accepting this deal? That's not a rhetorical question, by the way! The sound must have been deafening. Amazing, to think that in my final year as a teacher the icing on this education cake, as I try to obtain superannaution that will enable me to have at least an enjoyable last few years of retirment, should actually be a decrease in the purchasing power of my salary. I see that as an appalling betrayal, of me and of many thousands of others.

    You know, the buffons in charge of this debacle even then decided to set up a tribunal to work out why enrolments in education were tumbling down, tumbling down almost as fast as universities were lowering their course requirements for entry into education. Yes, it's true, whoops, jug, I love thee, as the Fool in 'King Lear' said in the only intelligent response possible to similar madness. I mean, do you and the other participants in that tribunal circus really need to work out why people do not want to become teachers? Assuming these people (tribunal puppets) have got tertiary qualifications, God alone knows what universities they went to because where I come from, this isn't even 'O' level thinking.

    You couldn't write the script for all of this, you really couldn't.

    And to hear of the president of my union now suddenly jumping up and saying teachers should have an increase of 10% just takes the breath away. Where has he been all these years - oh, yes, I nearly forgot, 'leading' the union!

    I want you to cancel my membership immediately. The few hundred dollars I save can at least go towards helping augment a pension lower than that of any other profession.

    Yours faithfully,

    Clifford Chapman
    
    From the PLATO Forum
    
    
    

• Had it not been for PLATO ...
  
  
  • Just imagine, had it not been for the efforts of PLATO contributors:

    * There would not have been a demonstration on the steps of the WA Parliament House to express teachers' discontent with the change process.

    * The ex-Min of Ed might still be in control of education in WA.

    * The CsOS 'juries' would not have been established.

    * Many parents would have remained ignorant of what was/is happening in WA education.
    
    * There would not be talk about changing OBE and CF in the Primary Schools curriculum to better support teachers in Primary Schools.

    * Many teachers would not have had an open forum to express their ideas/concerns (remember how the CC shut down the website public access forum after receiving many negative comments).

    * The English Teachers' Association of WA open discussion forum would not have been removed by the ETAWA (English) Executive.

    * PD training sessions would have remained stilted and boring with: 'You will do as you are told' and 'Write your comments on a post-it note' messages.

    * The 'New CsOS' (now the old CsOS) would not have been re-written and many would now have been implemented into schools!

    * The management hierarchy at DET would not have changed nor the attitudes of the managers re the concerns of teachers (seems there is still some way to go here).
    
    * The 'Leaders' in WA education would not now be listening so much to the concerns of teachers.

    * The WACOT Board of Management would have now deregistered 'non-compliant' teachers.

    * 'The West Australian' would not have sold so many copies nor received so many 'Letters to the Editor' AND, possibly, the sales contract to advertise the WACOT "World Teachers' Day" eight page spread. (Could be because most teachers read 'The West' and not the 'Sunday Times')

    * The current SSTUWA executive would not have come out of its shell.
    
    * The IEUWA might have come out of its shell.
    
    * The proposed Independent College of Teachers
    
    Bruce Hancy
    
    From the PLATO Forum
    

    • A timely rerun: OBE 2006 as seen by Alston in The West Australian

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

This page last updated 17 April, 2009 11:00 PM