Monday 10 March

Tuesday 11 March

Wednesday 12 March

Thursday 13 March

Friday 14 March

Saturday – Sunday, 15 – 16 March

 

Monday 10 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Minister digs in on teachers' pay (page 3)

    "The State Government appears unwilling to budge on its pay offer to teachers and has virtually ruled out cutting class sizes and increasing time away from the classroom for teachers, in a sign the deadlock in negotiations with the State School Teachers Union is far from over.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan yesterday accused the union of releasing "spurious information … not based on facts" to support its demands for more money.

    "Our offer is that ordinary teachers, after nine years of service who are prepared to have done 42 hours of professional development over the preceding five years, will get paid a minimum of $83,357 before allowances," Mr McGowan said.

    "We didn't go for a one size fits all salary offer. What we went for was a more nuanced salary offer and that has meant that we've had some difficulties communicating it."

    "Mr McGowan said reduced class sizes and additional time away from the classroom for teachers would only exacerbate the teacher shortage.

    "We're prepared to continue discussions with the union but they need to be reasonable about what they ask for," he said.

    "The union has demanded a pay increase of more than 20 per cent over three years after rejecting an offer of between 13 and 15 per cent over three years in December.

    "It will face the Industrial Relations Commission tomorrow on whether it broke the law by defying an order to call off the stop-work meeting.

    "The union has refused to rule out further action.

    "A Westpoll survey conducted last week showed 53 per cent of people supported the strike. [emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan accused the union of damaging public education with the "unlawful strike" on February 28 and warned similar actions would be "unhelpful" in future negotiations.

    "But SSTU president Anne Gisborne defended the action, held to report to thousands of members.

    "I think the meeting should be a strong signal to the Government and the Minister that things are not right," she said.

    "She said Government-funded advertisements comparing WA teachers' projected salaries in 2011 with existing salaries in the Eastern States had confused the issue further.

    "What the Government has attempted to do is portray the second offer as one that the members have misunderstood and as a consequence should be accepting it as a great offer," she said.

    "We're saying that our members fully understood the offer and have rejected it outright … it was not sufficient in salary and certainly did nothing to address the issue of workload."

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said admonishing teachers for striking ignored the anger permeating the profession and there should be a cooling off period in negotiations.

    "Teachers don't like taking industrial action - they only do it when they feel that there is no other course of action that is feasible or possible," he said." [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• AFP
  
  
  • Whites fleeing racially mixed schools in Australia: report
    
    Sydney (AFP) — "White students are fleeing public schools in Australia to avoid studying with Aboriginal, Muslim and Asian pupils, a report said Monday.

    "A confidential survey of school principals revealed serious concerns about "white flight" undermining public education and social cohesion, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

    "The findings, described by some teachers as "de facto apartheid," were presented to the New South Wales state government in 2006 but were not released, the paper said.

    "In some remote rural parts of the state, Aboriginal students reportedly fill public schools while white students attend Catholic and other private institutions.

    "Around Sydney, the parents of some Anglo-European students are avoiding what they see as predominantly Lebanese, Muslim and Asian schools, the Herald said.

    "This is almost certainly white flight from towns in which the public school's enrolment consists increasingly of indigenous students," the survey found.

    "The pattern is repeated in the Sydney region. Based on comments from principals, this most likely consists of flight to avoid Islamic students and communities."

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard criticised the attempt to avoid racial mixing in schools.

    "Part of growing up and part of being an adult in Australia today is you have got to have the ability to mix in multicultural Australia," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

    "I would have thought that parents would value as part of the education experience, their child being in multicultural Australia, learning about different cultures, learning about diversity -- because that is the nation they are going to live in."

    "But in a reversal of the bussing of black schoolchildren into white areas in the United States in an attempt to end racial segregation, white pupils are in some cases taking buses across state borders to attend predominantly white schools, the report said."
    
    From AFP / Google News at link
    
    Similar story in today's Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Do the maths and read the new figures
    
    The debate about how well students read fires up academics as well as parents and teachers, writes Anna Patty.
    
    "Australian National University academics recently declared that literacy and numeracy performance of the nation's students had not improved since the 1960s.

    "The economists Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan suggested that increased government funding for education had been wasted for decades.

    "Over the past three to four decades, neither literacy nor numeracy have improved, and may have declined slightly," Dr Ryan said, when the research was released.

    "In numeracy, the typical young teenage student in 2003 was approximately a quarter of a grade level behind his or her counterpart in 1964.

    "Over this time, per-child spending has increased substantially. Yet this additional expenditure does not seem to have succeeded in raising literacy or numeracy."

    "But the conclusions have been challenged by a senior educational academic at Sydney University, Paul Brock, one of the most senior bureaucrats in the NSW Education Department.

    "In a paper prepared for the Herald (see side story [below]), Dr Brock argues that Dr Leigh's conclusions are wrong and that the number of students in years three, five and seven who were below a minimum accepted standard fell in the past decade.

    "In a separate analysis, the educational economist Adam Rorris argues that middle-class literacy rates are admirable in Australia, but the nation needs to spend heavily to improve literacy among the 400,000 young people at risk of never being able to read or write properly.

    "Where Dr Leigh argued that the investment in reducing class sizes and decline in teacher salaries relative to other professions had not improved standards, Dr Brock argues that the data used was dated and more recent surveys by the NSW department provide evidence which disputes the researchers' conclusions.

    "The Leigh/Ryan research compared the numeracy and literacy test results of 13- to 14-year-olds and found a statistically significant drop in numeracy levels between 1964 to 2003. It also found a drop in numeracy and literacy between 1975 and 1998.

    "Data was taken from two national sets of tests. Numeracy results were compared from 1964 to 2003 and literacy scores from 1975 to 1998.

    "The researchers said there was a 10 per cent increase in school expenditure in real terms from 1975 to 1998 and a 258 per cent increase between 1964 and 2003.

    "Productivity was measured in terms of literacy and numeracy points per dollar spent on education. The researchers said the results showed a drop in productivity in the past 30 to 40 years.

    "The researchers said the results were not inconsistent with Australia's strong performance when compared with other countries on international tests.

    "Dr Leigh said previous research suggested test scores in other OECD countries may have flatlined in recent decades.

    "We cannot rule out the possibility that Australian students today are doing better on outcomes that were not measured in the 1960s, such as verbal communication or social skills," he said. "But it is possible the additional education spending over the past few decades was misdirected."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    • Investment can save the children
      by Adam Rorris
      
      "Nearly half of all adults may have difficulty reading and following the instructions on a medicine bottle, a recent Australian Bureau of Statistics study has revealed.

      "The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has said this was the result of years of neglect within the school system.

      "Australia needs a literate and skilled workforce - none of us desires a society where many people can't read to save themselves. But is it a pipedream to think that nearly all children can meet the basic literacy and numeracy standards? The evidence suggests it is possible.

      "There are many schools that manage this remarkable feat every year. They are both public and private schools, but they just happen to be concentrated in upper- and middle-class areas. The challenge is to replicate this achievement across all schools.

      "What lies between hope and reality is investment. In education, as in business, if you miss the opportunity to invest at the right time, you experience an opportunity cost. Australia is struggling with the opportunity cost of a major systemic failure to invest adequately in its schools.

      "The dimensions of the problem? About 400,000 school kids nationwide are at risk of being failed by our education system.

      "More than 220,000 are young children in primary schools who risk not meeting basic learning benchmarks in literacy and numeracy. About 180,000 are secondary students who are not likely to complete year 12 or obtain an equivalent vocational qualification.

      "Schools in poor areas (both public and private) have a hard time. Difficult circumstances at home make for a difficult school environment - a simple truth replicated the world over.

      "In Australia, the bottom end of town is squeezed out of town, incomes are constrained and welfare dependency turns into an intergenerational dead end.

      "Fixing this problem will not be cheap. A 2005 study for all state and federal ministers of education estimated additional annual recurrent cost at $1 billion to meet the basic literacy and numeracy goals for primary schooling and retaining 90 per cent of students in school until year 12.

      "Silver bullet strategies are hard to find. Teacher quality is important but can be improved only gradually. Higher salaries may prove useful to attract, retain and deploy staff effectively, but may not solve the problem for the most needy students.

      "In reality, schools will employ a variety of programs and strategies and they will all cost a good deal. [emphasis added]

      "But why should government invest more in schools that what is leaving 400,000 students at risk? The truth is, school systems the world over experience difficulty improving the lower end of performance.

      "Australian schools have consistently delivered superior results in OECD international standardised tests in mathematics and reading, but we need to strengthen our support for weaker students.

      "Notwithstanding this, our schools are in the first rank of global performance. How many Australian industries are in that position?

      "Even more impressive is the fact that (as a whole) schools are not only effective by international standards, they are also efficient.

      "OECD data from 2006 shows Australia to be middle-ranked in per capita expenditure for schooling. Yet its performance is blue-chip. That's called an investment opportunity.

      "Governments can blame each other for their inaction, or the schools and the teachers. Smarter still would be outlaying funds to fix a serious problem.

      "Otherwise, for too many, it will remain a case of "pass the medicine bottle and hope for the best". [emphasis added]

      Adam Rorris is an education economist.
      
      From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
      
      
      

  • White flight leaves system segregated by race
    by Anna Patty Education Editor

    "White students are fleeing public schools, leaving behind those of Aboriginal and Middle Eastern origin, a secret report by high school principals reveals.

    "The NSW Secondary Principals Council conducted a confidential survey which raises serious concerns about "white flight" undermining the public education system and threatening social cohesion. Some teachers and principals have described it as "de facto apartheid".

    "The findings are backed by research from the University of Western Sydney, which has identified evidence of racial conflict in schools in the wake of the Cronulla riots. It also suggests students of Anglo-European descent are avoiding some schools with students of mainly Asian background.

    "Not only have some public schools lost enrolments; they have become racially segregated. In pockets of rural and remote NSW, Aboriginal students fill public schools and white students attend Catholic and other private schools in the same town.

    "Around Sydney, the parents of some Anglo-European students are avoiding what they perceive as predominantly Lebanese, Muslim and Asian schools.

    "In New England, in towns such as Armidale, white middle-class students are flocking to Catholic and independent schools.

    "In their report, principals say this is so the students can "get away from their local school".

    "This is almost certainly white flight from towns in which the public school's enrolment consists increasingly of indigenous students," the report says. "The pattern is repeated in the Sydney region. Based on comments from principals, this most likely consists of flight to avoid Islamic students and communities."

    "The report, its pages stamped confidential, was based on responses of 163 high school principals, representing a third of the Secondary Principals Council membership. It was presented to the NSW Government after it was completed in February 2006, but has not been released.

    "Principals in New England said 56 per cent of the Anglo-European students who had left their schools had gone to a nearby Catholic or independent school. In North Sydney, 35 per cent of students who had left the public system went to a nearby private school.

    "The report shows the percentage of Anglo-European students in public schools has decreased by a third in western NSW, by 42 per cent in North Sydney and 37 per cent in New England.

    "A University of Western Sydney academic, Carol Reid, has also found that one in four male students surveyed in Sydney's south and west had been involved in ethnic conflict."

    "She had received anecdotal reports from principals about white students avoiding what were regarded as Asian schools on the North Shore and some selective high schools that had high proportions of Asian students.

    "Dr Reid, who is the associate head of the school of education, surveyed 350 high school students aged between 14 and 17 in south-western Sydney, after the Cronulla riots of 2005.

    "I've been involved in education for 30 years and I've never seen this polarisation around class, but also around ethnicity and race," she said.

    "What I have discovered is principals are losing the last of their white kids to Catholic schools across the road. A principal in the Middle Eastern part of the city was saying that he had no white kids in his school.

    "I'm concerned that social cohesion is going to be at risk through this. I see signs of that. You have a lot of segregation going on."

    "The survey of principals reports one saying: "The Asian students are scared off by Lebanese enrolment at our school following the Cronulla riots - we had 18 no-shows on day one in year 11, mostly Asian."

    "Another said: "I'm seen as a Muslim school, so I don't attract very many non-Muslims, whether Anglo or not. I've worked hard to raise the school profile and gradually increase enrolments, but the Muslim label appears to alienate other groups."

    "Noel Beddoe, a former principal in Narrandera for 20 years who is involved in Aboriginal education, said a "de facto apartheid" had developed in some towns in the west and north of NSW, including Mungindi, near Moree, where Aboriginal students attend the public school and whites attend the Catholic school.

    "Busloads of white students from towns including Boggabilla cross the Queensland border every day to attend a Catholic and public school in Goondiwindi. The same is happening in southern NSW, where students are bypassing Balranald Central School and crossing the border to go to schools in Victoria.

    "Up to 15 years ago, Boggabilla Central School, near the Queensland border, had a relatively even mix of white and Aboriginal students. The proportion of white students has dropped from around 40 per cent in the early 1990s to 10 to 20 per cent today.

    'Owen Hasler, the NSW Teachers Federation organiser for the New England region, said: "There has been a significant movement of white Anglo students away from quite a few of the schools in the New England and Western region. It is clearly evidenced by the numbers and proportion of Aboriginal students in those schools."

    "He said around 8 per cent of the 1100 students at Gunnedah High School during the 1970s were Aboriginal. That proportion had grown to about 25 per cent of the 600 students now enrolled.

    "Public schools are becoming de facto Aboriginal schools," Mr Hasler said. "It appears to be a result of the last 10 to 15 years of funding. We can understand people making the choice to send their kids away to other schools when there is a financial incentive to do so. But is that fair to the kids who want to stay in their own local community?"

    "Dr Reid said policies of the Howard government and the Liberal state government that had strongly supported parental choice in schooling, including de-zoning, had contributed to "white flight".

    "Parents were no longer restricted to schools close to home and could use generous government subsidies for transport. Boarding school allowances of up to $6396 per child were also available, making it easier for some families to avoid their local school.

    "The Isolated Parents Association is lobbying to have the $54 million federal government boarding assistance scheme extended to more families in rural and remote areas. It is means-tested and restricted to children of families who live more than 56 kilometres from the nearest government school, or more than 4.5 kilometres from the nearest transport to school.

    "The association's national president, Roxanne Morrissey, said families who lived near a public school should be supported in their choice of another school that offered a wider curriculum choice.

    "The NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the State Government spent $443 million a year on a transport scheme that "encourages travel past local public schools to private schools in other suburbs".

    "It's a recipe for educational segregation," he said.

    "Rick Johnston, director of Catholic schools in the Armidale diocese, said enrolments of Aboriginal students were increasing. In 1985 there were 6557 students in Catholic schools in the Armidale region and of these, 196 were Aboriginal. Last year there were 465 indigenous students out of 5892 students.

    "I am committed to improving education outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students," he said. "I believe that education is the most important key to breaking the cycle of disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people."

    "Sharon Cooke, who is employed by the Catholic schools office in Armidale as an Aboriginal education consultant, said there were 25 schools within the diocese that employed 20 Aboriginal education assistants and two Aboriginal language teachers.

    "We are committed to increasing the number of teachers within our schools who are of Aboriginal heritage," she said."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Study targets 'toxic' cyber-bullying
    by Amanda O'Brien, WA political reporter
    
    "The West Australian Government will spend $400,000 on a world-first five-year study into cyber-bullying, amid growing concern about the damaging effect on children being targeted by abusive text messages, emails and degrading digital photos.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said yesterday that up to 15 per cent of WA students were victims of "vicious" cyber-bullying, which was generally anonymous and had potentially dire consequences.

    "Access to mobile phones and computers had increased the problem, with students using those technologies to "intimidate and harass in a way that has not been seen before".

    "The study, to be headed by child behaviour expert Donna Cross from Edith Cowan University, will examine the extent of the problem and ways in which children, parents and teachers can deal with it and even prevent it.

    "About 4000 children from 40 schools will be involved in the study, and while WA will be the main focus, children from Queensland and South Australia will also be contacted to ensure the results were consistent with other states.

    "Professor Cross said cyber-bullying was far worse than traditional forms of bullying because of its anonymity, which could trigger paranoia among victims who had to return to school each day not knowing who was targeting them and suspecting everyone.

    "We know with traditional bullying that children experience depression, anxiety, they're socially ostracised, they have physical health outcomes that harm them, they drop out of school, they achieve less," Professor Cross said.

    "But with cyber bullying it cranks up to a toxic cocktail."

    "She said it was more pervasive because nasty or embarrassing messages with photos or videos attached could be sent to hundreds of people at a time, increasing the victim's humiliation and sense of isolation.

    "She said victims often did not tell their parents because they were scared they would have their phones or computers taken away, which was like losing a friend.

    "And perpetrators felt empowered to be nastier because they did not have to confront their victim face to face.

    "She said cyber-bullying was most prevalent among 11- to 16-year-olds, and slightly more common among girls. However, remarkably little research had been conducted.

    "The aim of the study was to equip children, parents and teachers with the skills to identify bullying. Parents, in particular, needed to be aware of how to find out if their child was being bullied or was bullying others so they could do something about the problem.

    "Professor Cross said the use of video technologies was particularly worrying.

    "It's enough to have something written about you but to actually have your face associated with it so that people can see it was really you ... means that kids get involved in things like happy-slapping where they set up a situation to humiliate someone and film it and then send it to as many people as possible," she said.

    "Mr McGowan said he was aware of examples where children had even photographed classmates at swimming carnivals and then sent out embarrassing footage of them in their bathing costumes."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Smaller Classes Don't Close Learning Gap, Study Finds
    by Jay Mathews
    
    "For 20 years, a large study of class size in Tennessee, known as Project STAR, has raised hopes that reducing the number of children in inner-city classrooms to 17 or fewer would yield significant increases in achievement. It was by far the most authoritative finding in favor of reducing class size and was generally considered one of the most important educational studies of its time.
    
    "But a Northwestern University researcher, looking closely at the same data on thousands of students from kindergarten through third grade in 79 schools, has concluded that high achievers benefited more from the small classes than low achievers. Since low-income students in urban neighborhoods have lower achievement, on average, than students from more affluent families, the finding in the March issue of Elementary School Journal contradicts assumptions that class size reduction might have a significant effect on the gap between rich and poor students.

    "While decreasing class size may increase achievement on average for all types of students, it does not appear to reduce the achievement gap within a class," Spyros Konstantopoulos, assistant professor at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy, said in a statement released by the university.

    "The $3 million Project STAR study was launched in 1985. It was unusual for the large size of the sample of students, for the long, four-year period in which their progress was recorded and for the random assignment of students to three kinds of classes -- small (13 to 17 students per teacher), regular (22 to 25 per teacher) and regular with aide (22 to 25 students with teacher and full-time aide). Classroom teachers were also randomly assigned, giving the study a scientific validity rarely found in educational research.

    "Several researchers concluded that the results left no doubt that small classes had an advantage over larger classes in primary-grade reading and math. "Given that class size reduction is an intervention that benefits all students, it's tempting to expect that it also will reduce the achievement gap," Konstantopoulos said. Previous reviews of the data, however, provided weak or no evidence that lower-achieving students benefited more than others, and his study, he said, buttressed those findings."

    From The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
    
  • Class Schedulers Think Outside the Blocks
    by Jay Mathews
    
    "In most public high schools in the Washington area, classes last as long as 90 minutes apiece and course lineups for each student alternate every day under the block-scheduling innovation that took root a decade ago. Campuses often use color coding to remind students where to go. Fairfax High School, for one, has "blue days" and "gray days."
    
    "But some schools are switching back to the old routine of 45-minute daily classes as educators and researchers question whether the new approach has led to higher achievement.

    "Block scheduling aims to maximize time for in-depth teaching and opportunities for students to meet graduation requirements. Usually the schedules mean four courses one day and four others the next, although sometimes courses alternate in fall and spring.

    "Skeptics say students lose concentration during long classes and teachers lose chances to reinforce lessons through daily, year-long contact. Faculty support for the block system is declining in many schools, with some fashioning hybrid schedules, part block and part traditional..."

    Full story in The Washington Post at link

Tuesday 11 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Schools face grades overhaul (page 12)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "The introduction of a national curriculum could change the way students from kindergarten to Year 10 are assessed under WA's discredited outcomes-based education system.

    "National Curriculum Board chairman Barry McGaw conceded the link between A-E grades and the eight levels of achievement under OBE could be severed if a national curriculum and assessment system is introduced.

    "The levels system of marking is one of the most fundamental elements of WA's purist model of OBE. It has been fiercely opposed because the levels are so broad, with most children in a year group achieving the same level.

    "The use of levels has been abolished in Years 11 and 12 in favour of traditional percentages and grades. But they are at the heart of the education system from kindergarten to Year 10.

    "Even though levels are banned from State school reports in Years 8 to 10, grades that appear are still based on levels because teachers have to determine a child's level before using a complex formula to arrive at a grade. Grades on primary school reports are also linked to levels.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has said previously WA cannot ditch levels in primary and lower secondary because they are the "standard" to which grades are linked.

    "This could change," Professor McGaw said. "If you have a common curriculum then you've got a common scale and … it needs to be consistent. There's no point in having an agreement about what students should learn and then assessing students on some other basis." Professor McGaw, who was brought to Perth last week by the Curriculum Council to speak to school principals, said the problem with WA's OBE system was that its documents had been written in too general a format.

    "If you order outcome statements in a way where the differences are difficult to discern between one level and the next, and they depend upon the use of adjectives that suggest there is more of the same, a bit more and a bit more, it doesn't give you much sense of what to do," he said.

    "Professor McGaw said he would ensure that new national syllabuses in English, maths, science and history clearly indicated what to teach, without being overly prescriptive.

    "My guiding line is going to have to be that it's clear, it's unambiguous, it's accessible to beginning teachers, it should give them an indication of the content to be covered and it should give them an expectation of the sort of achievements they should expect from students," he said.

    "Mr McGowan last week backed the development of a national curriculum, saying that any curriculum would be underpinned by common standards to ensure comparability between students, schools and States.

    "He said new WA syllabuses for kindergarten to Year 10, launched last year, were developed with national consistency in mind. "In fact, Professor Gordon Stanley, who chaired a national panel of academics, which reviewed and endorsed the K - 10 syllabuses, said they placed WA schools in an excellent position for the introduction of greater consistency in national curriculum," he said.

    "The new board is to produce a national curriculum for kindergarten to Year 12 to be implemented by 2011.

    "Professor McGaw, the director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute and a former education director at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, said the task would not be simple. "We're going to have some big battles in the language area because of the arguments about the way reading is initially taught and the role of phonics," he said. "I think it's clear that kids have got to be taught how to decode words - that's necessary but not sufficient for reading."

    "OECD test results showed that the reading performance of Australia's top students had slipped. This meant that students had to be taught high-level skills to interpret complex texts."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Program seeks to retain teachers [online update]
    by Karen Hodge
    
    "The State Government is ploughing $11 million into a pilot mentoring program for first-year science and maths teachers in a bid to keep them in the classroom.

    "WA Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said today that the program was aimed at curbing the high drop-out rate of science and maths teachers at high schools across the State.

    "Former teachers and university lecturers will be brought in to mentor new teachers and give them weekly guidance.

    "Mr McGowan said they wanted to reduce the drop-out rate of science and maths teachers to avoid shortages in the future.

    “With new graduates straight out of university, they are very well educated and know a lot about their field but they often need a little bit of help in managing students and working out what is the best techniques are for educating students,” Mr McGowan said.

    “What we are doing is providing additional support and assistance for classroom teachers in the early years particularly in science and mathematics to keep them teaching for longer.”

    "Mr McGowan said a number of reports had highlighted a greater need for mentoring among new teachers in science-related fields.

    "Mentoring will be offered to all first-year teachers in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

    "Today’s funding announcement was made at the official opening of a new science teacher training facility at the University of Western Australia funded Centre for Learning Technology.

    "The university’s Vice Chancellor Professor Alan Robson said the state-of-the-art centre should help lure more science teachers to stay teaching.

    "Professor Robson said it was hard getting qualified science teachers because when many scientists graduated they did not always want to become teachers.

    “What we have been seeing is a reduction in the proportion of students studying physics, chemistry and mathematics which is important if we are going to have well trained engineers and scientists,” Professor Robson said.

    "Secondary school science teachers will be able to use the new training facility – built to support the SPICE program launched at the university in 2006.

    "The program – done in partnership with the WA Department of Education and Training – helps secondary science teachers stimulate student interest in the field of science."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    Similar story on ABC News
    
    
    
    
  • Howard education programs face axe [online update]
    AAP
    
    "Literacy and numeracy programs introduced by the Howard government are likely to make way for Labor's education agenda.

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard says Labor's planned programs will take priority over the "ineffective" schemes of the former coalition government.

    "In education we wanted to make huge new investments and when it comes to current programs and schemes we were always going to look to do better," she told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

    "We believe many of the Howard government programs were ineffective.

    "We can't afford to be funding ineffective programs. We want to make sure every education dollar counts."

    "Up to $400 million of programs, introduced by the coalition, may go under Rudd government cost-cutting measures.

    "That includes the $700 voucher scheme for literacy and numeracy tuition, summer schools for teachers and grants for schools improving literacy performance as well as the flags and values education program.

    "Ms Gillard said the government believed there may be better ways to encourage literacy and numeracy development.

    "We want every Australian child to read and write and unfortunately the statistics are giving us all cause for concern," she said.

    "The most recent international statistics suggested we were failing high-achieving students and we still had far too many students who weren't achieving international benchmarks.

    "When you get information like that you have clearly got to be looking to do it better and that is what we are focused on doing."

    "Ms Gillard said she would not comment on the upcoming budget, but education and the education revolution was the "highest priority".

    "It would be a huge investment in a tight and difficult budget because the government believed it was key to future prosperity, she said.

    "And it is key if we are going to give Australian children the best possible chance in life," she said."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • $400m in Howard school programs face axe [online update]
    AAP
    
    "The Rudd government could scrap more than $400 million in programs promised by the Howard government in its last budget.

    "Under threat are plans such as the $70-million summer schools for teachers - which goes to only 0.3 per cent of teachers, Labor had said while in opposition, and a schools literacy and numeracy incentive scheme worth $53.1 million over four years.

    "The coming budget could divert funding for the coalition programs to Labor's Education Revolution policies instead, The Australian newspaper reported on Tuesday.

    "The Australian Education Union supported such a move, saying the money could be better spent in other areas.

    "The total monies allocated should remain but it could be spent more effectively," federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said.

    "There needs to be a smarter implementation of policies, more targeted and more effective policies, with funding for the areas of need, namely primary and rural schools, special education and indigenous students."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (pages 22-23)
    
    
    • Where is your support?

      "Calling WACOT. Is anyone there? The teachers (your members) are locked in a very unpleasant round of negotiations with a Minister for Education and a Premier who are denouncing teachers (your members) as irresponsible and displaying bad-faith, while refusing to release two reports into the teacher shortage. Teachers have been on strike to protest about poor pay, ever-increasing workloads and poor standard government housing in country areas. Teachers have been threatened with knives and are increasingly under threat of abuse and violence from students and parents. Where is your support? How are you helping? Hold it! It's March. You're too busy sending out accounts and collecting money."

      Heather Blackwell, Toodyay
      

      • WACOT's reply
        
        In response to Heather Blackwell’s letter (Where is your support?, March 11) the Western Australian College of Teaching was not established to duplicate the role of a union.
        
        The College is not involved in the current pay negotiations, and it is not the role of a regulatory body to be involved in industrial matters.
        
        It has long been the College’s position that teacher salaries are inadequate and addressing pay rates is a fundamental step in addressing the teacher shortage.
        
        Indeed, the College has delivered a very clear message in numerous forums including its submission to the Taskforce for Education Workplace Initiatives, that without significant pay increases the crisis facing the teaching workforce will continue to escalate.
        
        Brian Lindberg, WACOT Chair
        
        
        
        
    • No sympathy for teachers

      "While enjoying my Saturday morning read of The West Australian I noticed the expansive, and no doubt expensive, advertisements detailing the pay rates of WA teachers.

      "Any possible sympathy I may have had with their cause went out the window. My husband is a nurse with 12 years of experience. Last year he earned around $70,000. That is because he worked weekends, evenings, and nights.

      "He has no choice about what hours he works and there are no guarantees to any requires he makes for days off for special events. Because he works these sorts of hours, I cannot hold a job unless it is school hours only and during the holidays I would lose most of my income to day care.

      "After only five years a teacher can earn up to $85,000 and have the weekends, evening and holidays free, not to mention their nights, freeing up their partners to earn valuable extra income.

      "I'll also bet teachers get free parking. Not so my husband, whose hospital now deems visitors and admin staff more valuable then nurses and plans to charge $60 parking per fortnight for those nurses who are unable to take public transport.

      "Hospital policy makers, please show me how you can take a bus and train combo from Kings Park to Joondalup within a reasonable time frame and in safety when you finish work at 9.30 pm and have to start again at 7 am. Would you be willing to do what you are asking others to do?

      "Teachers, I know your students can be hard to deal with on the 201 days this year that you will actually have to work with them, but look at what other "essential services staff" have to work with. I think you are very well compensated in comparison."

      Natalie Gordon, Heathridge
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
• Axe over Howard schools funding
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "The future of more than $400 million of schools programs is in doubt, with the Rudd Government expected to use its first budget to cast aside John Howard's ideological position on education.

  "Many of the Howard government's pet policies announced in its last budget are under review, with the new Government expected to use the opportunity to redirect the funding into its Education Revolution policies.

  "Under review is the summer schools for teachers, worth more than $70 million in the next three years, which Labor loudly criticised in Opposition for providing places to only 0.3 per cent of teachers.

  "The Government is also reviewing a scheme providing up to $50,000 in rewards to schools that showed an improvement in student literacy and numeracy results, worth $53.1 million over four years.

  "Also in doubt is the future of Teaching Australia, established by the Howard government to promote quality teaching and professional standards, which has been criticised for duplicating the work done by existing state teacher registration boards.

  "The budget changes in education come as Kevin Rudd caved in to an angry backlash from carers and seniors to guarantee they would not be worse off after his Government's 2008-09 budget in May. "When it comes to the bonuses system, carers and pensioners will not be any worse off after the budget," the Prime Minister said.

  "Last week, The Australian revealed the Government planned to scrap a $1600 carers' benefit and a $500 seniors' benefit paid by the Howard government.

  "But Mr Rudd toughened his warnings that the budget would inflict pain on the community. He has savaged the Opposition for ignoring a serious inflation threat created by its own big spending when it was in government.

  "Among the education programs to be retained are the school chaplaincy program, which was recently amended to allow schools to hire a pastoral care worker if they were unable to find a chaplain after six months.

  "The Government will continue this year the national literacy and numeracy vouchers program, which has budgeted funding of $120.9 million in 2008-09, but hasnot committed to extend it beyond then.

  "The program, called Even Start, will begin next month in the second term of school and will provide $700 worth of tuition for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 who fail to meet minimum national standards in literacy and numeracy. Funding worth $262.8million over 2009-11 allocated to the Even Start program is under review.

  "The programs being reviewed for the May budget were closely aligned with the Howard government's ideological stance on education, and its attempt to force the states to implement them.

  "They were loudly criticised by state governments, academics, teachers, unions and the Labor Opposition on their introduction, and dropping the programs is unlikely to upset many if the money is reallocated to other schools programs.

  "The summer schools - held for the first time in January in English, literacy and numeracy, maths, science, and Australian history - were loudly criticised by Labor in Opposition for being available only to 0.3 per cent of teachers.

  "The effectiveness of the program is being assessed by auditing firm KPMG, with a report expected soon.

  "The last Howard budget also included funding for a trial of an aptitude test as an alternative to Year 12 exams for university entry, worth $14.5 million over three years and a project to develop core curriculum standards in Years 10, 11 and 12, worth $13 million over two years.

  "The future of the aptitude test is uncertain but it is expected the core curriculum work will feed into the work being conducted bythe National Curriculum Board announced by Mr Rudd in January.

  "The Government has already announced funding for this budget for the $1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund, giving access to a computer to every student in Years 9 to 12, allocating $100 million this financial year, $400 million next financial year, $300 million in 2009-10 and $200million in 2010-11. Other major funding commitments to be covered in the budget include the trades training centres in schools, providing $500million to the end of December and $2.5 billion over 10 years. The schools partnerships program, to encourage local schools to share facilities and resources, will receive $62.5 million from 2007-08 to 2010-11, and the budget will also provide $489million for schools to install solar power.

  "Education Minister Julia Gillard would not comment on the future of the programs, with a spokeswoman saying they were being considered in the budget context, making it inappropriate for the minister to speculate onthem.

  "The Australian Education Union is calling on the Government to drop the Howard policies and redistribute the funds more effectively.

  "Federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said summer schools funding would be better spent on professional development for a larger number of teachers, while the money given to tuition vouchers could provide additional literacy and numeracy teachers in some schools.

  "The total monies allocated should remain but it could be spent more effectively," he said.

  "There needs to be a smarter implementation of policies, more targeted and more effective policies, with funding for the areas of need - namely primary and rural schools, special education and indigenous students."

  "The Independent Schools Council of Australia said its main concern about current funding arrangements being maintained for the next four years had been guaranteed, and it was prepared to consider any proposals for redistributing other funds."

  From The Australian at link
  
  
  
  
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Editorial
    Schools for the whole community
    
    "The high school principals' report that has highlighted the trend for children of broadly Anglo-European descent to bypass local state schools in favour of private education should concern the whole community; it raises many questions for education administrators, state and federal.

    "Australia's success in establishing a harmonious multicultural society is due in no small part to the education system. After World War II, when immigrants from continental Europe began arriving in Australia in large numbers, state schools, which then educated the overwhelming majority of pupils, brought migrant children into the mainstream. Since then the trend to private schooling, particularly among Anglo-Australians, has undermined this salutary role. In rural towns, a similar trend sees white children in private schools, and Aboriginal children in the state school. The community loses when schools form ghettos.

    "Some have suggested choice of school is to blame. Australia's families have always been able to choose where to send their children, and policies should not - indeed, cannot - remove that fundamental choice. The Herald believes families benefit from being able to choose freely between a strong public education sector and equally strong private schools for their children. But recent policies and funding arrangements may well have worked against an equitable distribution of funds between public and private schools, and so contributed to the trend the principals have outlined.

    "It is up to our education administrators to determine which specific areas of public education need increased funding to ensure state schools can compete effectively with private schools. But some general problems are obvious. The illogical system of school funding, which sees (in broad terms) the states pay for government schools while Canberra funds private schools, is one factor contributing to inequitable outcomes. It has produced the absurd Commonwealth funding formula, which now funds more private schools as exceptions - at an additional cost of $2.7 billion - than according to the formula itself. That must change. In NSW the Treasurer, Michael Costa, should look hard at free travel to school. It is hugely costly - nearly $450 million a year - yet can effectively undermine the appeal of local state schools.

    "There is no need for governments to actively favour state schools; they should, however, recognise their importance and not keep the dice loaded against them." [emphasis added]

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • School advice on diet panned
    
    A lunchtime diet club for overweight girls has been criticised by a children's nutritionist as just one of a number of dangerous kneejerk reactions by some teachers to rising childhood obesity.

Wednesday 12 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Several articles on national education issues, already covered by articles from The Australian and The Age [below]
    
    
    
  • Ability split in maths classes "too negative" (page 50)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Students should not be split into different classes based on their level of maths ability because it reinforces their negative views about the subject, researchers have claimed.

    "Ability grouping puts average and low-achieving students at a disadvantage, though it may benefit high achievers, according to an article to be published later this month in a national education journal.

    "A major impediment to the mathematical learning of students and their beliefs about themselves as mathematical thinkers is the widespread practice of ability grouping in mathematics," Australian Catholic University mathematics professor Doug Clarke and Monash University education associate dean Barbara Dean wrote in EQ Australia.

    "Professor Clarke said international testing data showed that countries which grouped students based on their ability did not perform as well as countries that mixed all levels of ability together.

    "Teachers who had taught low-ability classes often had lower expectations of what students could do. Many schools assigned their least-qualified teachers to the low achieving groups. "Students start to pick up on these low expectations and take them to be a reflection of their capabilities," the article says. "They then, in effect, give the teacher what is expected from such students - little enthusiasm, little effort and often classroom management problems."

    "Professor Clarke said the practice was widespread in secondary schools and becoming more common in primary schools. He was most concerned about the effect of ability grouping on children between 10 and 15.

    "Once students were labelled as low achievers, they were often trapped in the lower-ability class.

    "Putting children in separate classes before Year 10 meant they missed out on course content, giving them less opportunity to move up to high-ability class.

    "The WA Department of Education and Training and the Catholic Education Office do not have a central policy on whether students should be placed in different classes according to their ability, preferring to leave that decision to individual schools. Most private schools group students according to ability in the lower secondary schools.

    "The head of maths at a leading State high school said his students were streamed into different classes from Year 8 because the lower-ability students could not keep up the same pace as the more academically able students. "In mathematics they need to be in classes according to ability," he said.

    "But maths educator and Murdoch University education dean Barry Kissane said streaming was not "optimal strategy" for the first nine to 10 years of a child's schooling because it was difficult to avoid permanently disadvantaging "lower" groups."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • "This fortnight I received two renewal notices. One was from the Department of Planning in Infrastructure which indicated that I could continue to drive a car in WA if I paid $36.60 for one year. However, it did offer me a multi-year registration option of $116 for five years.

      "I also received my renewal notice from WACOT indicating that I could continue to teach in WA if I paid $70 for one year. WACOT also offers a multiple-year registration renewal. I could register for two years for $140 or for three years for $210. Who is in charge of WACOT's marketing?

      Patrick F. Whalen, Yokine
      

      
      
    • Also a Letter from WACOT Chair Brian Lindberg [added to yesterday's news from WACOT's media release]
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Apple Isle to tackle literacy
    by Jill Rowbotham
    
    "Even after decades of bucking the prevailing trend for the whole language method of teaching literacy, Carol Christensen is not inured to the pain of seeing its effects on children.

    "I worked with three Year 9 boys last week who could not read the word 'sat'," said Dr Christensen, a literacy expert.

    "What we are doing to those children is unforgivable. They are suffering."

    "The good news is that the principal of the school those boys attend has promised to continue her good work in sorting out those problems.

    "The other good news for Dr Christensen, a lecturer at the University of Queensland, is that Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon has appointed her to spearhead an all-out attack on the island state's literacy performance, starting with its youngest schoolchildren.

    "The only cloud on that horizon is how her teaching methods will be received.

    "I am very worried the teachers will be terrified," Dr Christensen said. "We are there to help and support, it's not about blame."

    "The literacy wars are notorious. The starkest contrast is between, on one side, adherents of the whole language method, which relies on associating whole printed words with whole spoken words and their meanings; and, on the other, those who espouse a number of methods based on phonics to help decode the sounds of letters and letter combinations.

    "Although Dr Christensen has been studying literacy for 30 years, it was not until 2000 that a secondary school principal approached her for help, having found to his dismay that a relatively large number of his students weren't literate.

    "Six weeks later she had a program up and running, with good results. Word spread and now, eight years later, there are 65,000 school students across the country using Dr Christensen's program.

    "The Tasmanian initative is the most substantial endorsement of her methods so far.

    "Her brief there is quite specific: to apply her method of teaching reading and writing.

    "The Premier wants to begin with prep, which is lower primary. If we put in place efficacious programs, he will not see the result in the national high-stakes testing for a number of years," she said.

    "It's not necessarily going to be good for him in the short term and I think for a politician that's quite remarkable.

    "I think what's happenedin Tasmania and across Australia, is that levels of literacy are appalling and something needs to be done.

    "People have been throwing money at the problem, funding programs that are basically the same approach they are already following and they are getting the same result."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Axe over Howard schools funding
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    

    The future of more than $400 million of schools programs is in doubt, with the Rudd Government expected to use its first budget to cast aside John Howard's ideological position on education.

    "Many of the Howard government's pet policies announced in its last budget are under review, with the new Government expected to use the opportunity to redirect the funding into its Education Revolution policies.

    "Under review is the summer schools for teachers, worth more than $70 million in the next three years, which Labor loudly criticised in Opposition for providing places to only 0.3 per cent of teachers.

    "The Government is also reviewing a scheme providing up to $50,000 in rewards to schools that showed an improvement in student literacy and numeracy results, worth $53.1 million over four years.

    "Also in doubt is the future of Teaching Australia, established by the Howard government to promote quality teaching and professional standards, which has been criticised for duplicating the work done by existing state teacher registration boards.

    "The budget changes in education come as Kevin Rudd caved in to an angry backlash from carers and seniors to guarantee they would not be worse off after his Government's 2008-09 budget in May. "When it comes to the bonuses system, carers and pensioners will not be any worse off after the budget," the Prime Minister said.

    "Last week, The Australian revealed the Government planned to scrap a $1600 carers' benefit and a $500 seniors' benefit paid by the Howard government.

    "But Mr Rudd toughened his warnings that the budget would inflict pain on the community. He has savaged the Opposition for ignoring a serious inflation threat created by its own big spending when it was in government.

    "Among the education programs to be retained are the school chaplaincy program, which was recently amended to allow schools to hire a pastoral care worker if they were unable to find a chaplain after six months.

    "The Government will continue this year the national literacy and numeracy vouchers program, which has budgeted funding of $120.9 million in 2008-09, but hasnot committed to extend it beyond then.

    "The program, called Even Start, will begin next month in the second term of school and will provide $700 worth of tuition for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 who fail to meet minimum national standards in literacy and numeracy. Funding worth $262.8million over 2009-11 allocated to the Even Start program is under review.

    "The programs being reviewed for the May budget were closely aligned with the Howard government's ideological stance on education, and its attempt to force the states to implement them.

    "They were loudly criticised by state governments, academics, teachers, unions and the Labor Opposition on their introduction, and dropping the programs is unlikely to upset many if the money is reallocated to other schools programs.

    "The summer schools - held for the first time in January in English, literacy and numeracy, maths, science, and Australian history - were loudly criticised by Labor in Opposition for being available only to 0.3 per cent of teachers.

    "The effectiveness of the program is being assessed by auditing firm KPMG, with a report expected soon.

    "The last Howard budget also included funding for a trial of an aptitude test as an alternative to Year 12 exams for university entry, worth $14.5 million over three years and a project to develop core curriculum standards in Years 10, 11 and 12, worth $13 million over two years.

    "The future of the aptitude test is uncertain but it is expected the core curriculum work will feed into the work being conducted bythe National Curriculum Board announced by Mr Rudd in January.

    'The Government has already announced funding for this budget for the $1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund, giving access to a computer to every student in Years 9 to 12, allocating $100 million this financial year, $400 million next financial year, $300 million in 2009-10 and $200million in 2010-11. Other major funding commitments to be covered in the budget include the trades training centres in schools, providing $500million to the end of December and $2.5 billion over 10 years. The schools partnerships program, to encourage local schools to share facilities and resources, will receive $62.5 million from 2007-08 to 2010-11, and the budget will also provide $489million for schools to install solar power.

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard would not comment on the future of the programs, with a spokeswoman saying they were being considered in the budget context, making it inappropriate for the minister to speculate onthem.

    "The Australian Education Union is calling on the Government to drop the Howard policies and redistribute the funds more effectively.

    "Federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said summer schools funding would be better spent on professional development for a larger number of teachers, while the money given to tuition vouchers could provide additional literacy and numeracy teachers in some schools.

    "The total monies allocated should remain but it could be spent more effectively," he said.

    "There needs to be a smarter implementation of policies, more targeted and more effective policies, with funding for the areas of need - namely primary and rural schools, special education and indigenous students."

    "The Independent Schools Council of Australia said its main concern about current funding arrangements being maintained for the next four years had been guaranteed, and it was prepared to consider any proposals for redistributing other funds."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Tuition vouchers face axe
    
    The $700 tuition vouchers for students who fail minimum literacy and numeracy standards are unlikely to continue beyond this year after Education Minister Julia Gillard yesterday described the program as ineffective.
    
    
    
  • Union, sector clash on pay
    
    The first National Tertiary Education Union log of claims since 2002 has been served up, requesting a 9 per cent pay rise for university staff each year for the next three years.
    
    
    
  • Support low for weighted funding
    
    Universities less focused on research have rejected calls for them to scale down the demands they make on the federal research training scheme.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Funding boost for primary schools
    by Jewel Topsfield
    
    "Primary schools will get a big boost in federal funding from next year to counter a backlash from principals who say they have been left out of the education revolution.

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard has also hinted that the Government could scrap multimillion-dollar budget programs to give $700 tuition vouchers to young pupils who failed literacy and numeracy tests, and provide summer schools for teachers. A spokeswoman for Ms Gillard said primary schools would get more money from the $42 billion allocated for schools funding for 2009 to 2012.

    "The Rudd Government understands the crucial role played by primary schools in teaching young Australians … That is why this Government has highlighted primary schools as an area of special funding priority," she said.

    "The Australian Primary Principals Association today will present Ms Gillard with a submission calling for the Government to stop short-changing primary schools in the 2009-12 round of funding.

    "Public primary schools would receive an extra $101 million a year if they received the same rate of federal funding as high schools.

    "Australian Government Primary Principals Association president Tony McGruther said he was disappointed that primary schools were not included in the so-called education revolution.

    "Labor promised during the last election campaign to spend $1 billion to give every student in years 9 to 12 a computer and $2.5 billion for trades training centres in secondary schools. "The announcements to date … haven't included primary schools," Mr McGruther said. "We are looking forward to hearing announcements about further funding for primary schools."

    "He said that ending the discrepancy whereby government primary schools received a lower rate of federal funding than high schools would be a "powerful symbolic gesture".

    "Australian Primary Principals Association president Leonie Trimper said disadvantaged primary schools were acutely underfunded. A recent report, In the Balance: The Future of Australia's Primary Schools, found that only 6% of primary principals reported having sufficient resources.

    "Opposition education spokesman Tony Smith said that despite Labor's rhetoric about the importance of primary education, it appeared primary schools had been left out of the education revolution.

    "He said primary schools were already missing out after the Government discontinued the popular Investing in Our Schools program, which provided run-down schools with federal money for everything from toilet-block upgrades to computers.

    "But Ms Gillard's spokeswoman said the Government had already announced additional funding that would benefit primary schools, including $62.5 million for school infrastructure partnerships, $489 million to install solar panels in schools and $15.9 million for the early development index, a checklist by teachers of children's development."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Don't force kids to grow up early
    by John Silvester
    

    "Parents seem to have relinquished their traditional role of setting boundaries.

    "Conventional law enforcement wisdom links violent street crime with economic hardship. Under the accepted model, unemployed youths facing bleak futures descend into substance abuse and then lash out. It is the classic story of the haves versus the have-nots.

    "But, increasingly, police say the growing issue of today's street crime is grounded in exactly the opposite conditions. They believe the economic boom may be at least partially responsible for a breakdown in public standards. The theory goes that a significant minority of young people have been given so much so early that they have not learnt acceptable boundaries of behaviour.

    "The phenomenon can be dressed in the appropriate academic wording, but in another time the description would be simple: spoilt brats..."

    From The Age at link

Thursday 13 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Hotel costs for teachers soar in the bush (page 16)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The number of teachers who are being put up in hotels across the State at taxpayers’ expense because of a shortage of adequate government housing in the bush has soared.
    
    "Figures from the Department of Education and Training show that 169 teachers were forced to live temporarily in hotels at the start of the school year. The bill came to $155,668 for February.
    
    "At the same time last year, 148 teachers had to be housed in temporary accommodation at a cost of $93,040.
    
    "The department’s human resources acting executive director John Serich said demand for all forms of accommodation was extremely high in WA, particularly in regional areas.
    
    "Other reasons for the increase in the number and cost of teachers being housed in hotels included the general rise in accommodation costs in the past 12 months and the fact that some interstate and overseas teachers had to wait for their furniture to arrive before moving in.
    
    “Every effort is made, in conjunction with Government Regional Officers Housing (GROH), to find suitable longterm accommodation for teachers in regional areas as quickly as possible,” Mr Serich said.
    
    "But State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said that putting nearly 170 teachers in hotels for weeks was “just disgraceful”.
    
    "She said the problem had been growing for years and could not be blamed on the resources boom alone. “This is a total failure by Government to recognise that it needs to put significant resourcing into housing for teachers and for other public servants to ensure that people who are going out to work in these locations … are adequately housed,” she said.
    
    “This number of teachers living out of suitcases in hotels is likely to exacerbate resignations, retirements and transfers out.”
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said pouring Government resources into trying to attract teachers to country areas was “totally ineffective” if it could not also provide them with quality housing.
    
    “The fact that the Government continues to spend tens of thousands of dollars on temporary hotel accommodation for teachers indicates just how manifestly it has mishandled this situation,” he said.
    
    "The Education Department subsidises the rent for the 2211 GROH properties occupied by its staff.
    
    "GROH director Will Carroll said the service was prepared to negotiate competitive market rents to secure properties for public sector employees and had negotiated 65 new leases in Karratha and Hedland this financial year.
    
    "Mr Carroll said that from 2001 to the end of the 2008 financial year the State Government would have constructed 286 properties for government workers, including teachers, nurses and police.
    
    "Another 111 are due to be built in 2008-09."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News: Goldfields / Esperance
  
  
  • Kambalda teachers angry over pay ad
    
    "Teachers in Kambalda say they considered walking off the job yesterday over an Education Department advertisement which they say was misleading.

    "In a full page ad in both Friday and Saturday's West Australian newspaper, the department outlined teachers' rates of pay, as part of a part of a pay dispute with the teachers' union.

    "Kambalda teacher Dan Carter says the Government inflated the figures to deliberately mislead the public.

    "He says teachers are so furious they are considering further strike action.

    "It's like a slap in the face to have your employer publish in the state's major newspaper, this is how much we are paying you, and it clearly it is an inflated figure, it shows the department clearly isn't bargaining in good faith," he said.

    "The department has admitted printing the wrong figures on Friday, but says the pay rates published in Saturday's paper are correct.

    "The department did not print an apology or retraction notice after Friday's error.

    "It says if any teacher is not receiving the rates of pay as advertised in Saturday's paper, they should raise the matter with their pay office."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • School book deemed 'degrading'
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "A childhood expert and the Opposition have described a book included in the Premier's Reading Challenge and read in classrooms across Victoria as inappropriate and degrading to women.

    "Craig Hardwick, whose 14-year-old son was set Deadly Unna? in English at Lilydale High, said the book, by Phillip Gwynne, contained more than 100 swear words. But degrading references to a female character were of most concern, such as the lines "dirty rotten whore", "Sharon B gives head", and "she was begging for it".

    "Teaching is to improve the minds of students and to raise their standards," Mr Hardwick said. "If the children used this language at school, teachers would turn around and tell them off, so it sends them mixed messages."

    "His concerns were dismissed by the school and the school council. His son has been given an alternative book to read.

    "Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive Joe Tucci warned schools to be careful not to introduce adult content and ideas prematurely.

    "There's already a lot of messages out there that sexualise interactions between people," Dr Tucci said. "Children's first experiences of relationships with each other shouldn't be accompanied by that kind of sexual imagery, especially the degradation of someone in a less powerful position."

    "Shadow education minister Martin Dixon said the book was inappropriate, with the language unwelcome in most homes and schools. Attitudes expressed in the book were not helpful in developing healthy relationships between boys and girls in schools.

    "Deadly Unna?, Gwynne's first novel, won an older readers category in the 1999 Children's Book Council of Australia awards, and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction in 1999. It was made into a film, Australian Rules.Set on a peninsula in South Australia, the novel covers a year in the life of 14-year-old Gary 'Blacky' Black and his friendship with Dumby Red, an Aboriginal.

    "Last week, concerns were aired about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel that contains the word c--t and which was set for year 7 students at Melbourne Girls' College.

    "An Education Department spokeswoman defended Deadly Unna?. "It's important that students are exposed to contemporary literature that portrays a broad range of themes, ideas and experiences," she said.

    "Young adult literature often explores challenging notions and issues confronted by adolescents. In doing so, it provides a safe environment for teenagers to explore and develop understanding and attitudes to those issues."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Copy US system, says uni chief
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "A confidant of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has urged the Federal Government to emulate America's higher education system if it wants Australian universities to flourish.

    "Warning that Australian institutions do not adapt well to change, Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis has renewed calls to give universities more flexibility and power to increase their revenue.

    "Professor Davis will argue in a speech today that America's higher education system is more stable than Australia's because it is more decentralised, with legal and financial responsibility primarily in the hands of the states. Universities are also given more power to set their own tuition fees, and students are offered a wide range of institutions from which to choose.

    "Apart from a small number of specialised public institutions, diversity in Australia largely means the private sector. In the United States, there is considerable diversity within both the public and private sectors," said Professor Davis, the man selected by Mr Rudd to chair the Government's Australia 2020 ideas summit next month.

    "Australia cannot create a higher education system exactly like that in America," he said.

    "Different histories, cultures, political systems and economies make that impossible … (but) the system stability evident in the United States seems worth emulating."

    "Professor Davis will make his comments at today's Australian Financial Review Higher Education conference in Sydney. Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard will also speak at the event, as will other university chiefs. At the conference:

    • Universities Australia chief executive Glenn Withers will renew pressure on the Federal Government for changes including a national internship scheme, a tertiary student computing fund and a $6 billion HECS fund to prop up university revenue.
    • Ross Williams, from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, will call for a more diverse ranking system by which to compare universities.
    • Australian National University professor Bruce Chapman will argue that hidden interest rate subsidies in HECS-type loans schemes should be eliminated.

  "The Federal Government is working on implementing election promises such as abolishing full-fee places for Australian students, and doubling the number of Commonwealth-funded undergraduate scholarships.

  "Professor Davis said expectations for a so-called education revolution were high, even though "only fragments of future policy direction" had emerged since Labor won last November's federal election.

  "Universities need more flexibility in setting student contributions. The close tie between university finances and the Commonwealth budget is a key strategic vulnerability for universities," he said.

  "Universities are very conscious of the need to keep higher education affordable, but need more options than cost cutting or recruiting more overseas students."
  
  From The Age at link
  
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • 'Principal's choice' begins despite threat
    by Anna Patty
    
    "The State Government will press ahead with its new school staffing arrangements from the end of next month, defying a strike threat by a NSW teachers union.

    "The Education Minister, John Della Bosca, said yesterday the new arrangements, which will allow all principals to choose which teachers they hire, would start from the second term.

    "The NSW Teachers Federation has been in talks to delay the plan and to save the transfer system, which allows teachers to choose where they want to work after serving in a remote area or hard-to-staff school.

    "I can't accept the federation's request to delay the new options for 12 months," Mr Della Bosca said. "Each year we lose talented teachers … because many teachers have previously been locked out of applying for vacant positions."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Gillard announces higher ed review
    by Catherine Armitage
    

    "Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Julia Gillard has announced a major review of higher education.

    "In her first major speech on the sector, Ms Gillard sought to place higher education at the centre of the Rudd Government's economic strategy by linking hospital waiting lists and hurting hip pockets directly to a decade of Howard government "neglect and hostility" towards universities.

    "Ms Gillard acknowledged at a higher education conference in Sydney this morning that Labor's education revolution "will need to go further."

    "She announced a "system-wide rethink" of the higher education system chaired by former University of South Australia vice-chancellor Denise Bradley to produce a blueprint for policy reform over the next decade.

    "The Minister also placed herself at the forefront of a dramatic switch in official rhetoric about universities.

    "She lambasted the Howard era for "highly unsubtle anti-intellectualism” in which the pursuit of knowledge was dismissed as the "wasteful activity of a selfish elite".

    "She instead described universities as "treasured" institutions with a "grand public purpose" central to economic development.

    "While emphasising that Australia had under-invested in the university system, Ms Gillard declined to talk about how much new money the Rudd Government would be willing to invest, or when, saying those questions were "squarely before the review" and she would listen to its recommendations.

    "Ms Gillard said the notion that what happens in universities didn't matter to ordinary Australians was a "dangerous fallacy", and that Australia's standard of living would fall "unless we resource and respect our higher education institutions".

    "She said the Rudd Government would place higher education "at the heart of our efforts to create a more productive and prosperous economy and a more productive society".

    "She blamed the skills shortage on the Howard government's neglect of and hostility towards higher education.

    "If you want to know why investing in higher education is important, simply look at the waiting lists in your hospital or GP surgery, the lack of subject choice in your child's school, the rising cost of items in the shops and at your monthly bank balance", she said.

    "It would be Labor's new long-term goal to guarantee access to higher education or skills training for every young Australian "with the talent and willingness to give it a go".

    "Ms Gillard identified five key objectives for the review to consider:

    • how to create a set of diverse institutions performing to global standards each with a distinct mission
    • how to improve the sector's contribution to higher productivity and labor market participation
    • improved funding arrangements
    • wider access to higher education
    • lifting standards
    • better articulation between universities and vocational education and training."
      

  From The Australian at link
  
  

• Student fees plan for uni services
  
  The Rudd Government will consider compulsory student fees of about $100 to fund services on university campuses, but ban the money being spent for political purposes.
  
  
  
  
• BBC News
  
  
  • Who rules in the classroom? [8 March]
    by Mike Baker
    
    "It is commonplace for teachers and parents to complain that politicians interfere too much in education, constantly making announcements and launching initiatives but often having no real effect.

    "It is rare, though, for a politician to admit the same. Yet this is the position that one very experienced former MP and government minister has reached.

    "Estelle Morris, who was Schools Minister and then Education Secretary from 1997 to 2002, is an unusually candid politician who has thought hard about the relationship between politicians and education reform.

    "She has just delivered those thoughts in a lecture to the National Education Trust, an independent education foundation. It could be the start of a more mature debate on education reform.

    "Although some headlines highlighted her criticism of the government for 'thrashing around' on school reform, the underlying theme was more fundamental than these mildly critical comments of current policy by a former minister.

    "Her argument is that the real change comes from what happens in the classroom

    "Estelle Morris was not arguing, as some do, that politicians should keep their noses out of education reform altogether..."

    Full story at BBC News at link
    
    
    
    
• Mark McGowan media statement
  
  
  • Helping hand for home tutors
    
    Practical advice is now as close as the television for isolated rural families, thanks to a new DVD to help parents who have taken on the role of home tutor.

    Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the Home Tutor Guide DVD was developed in conjunction with the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association of Western Australia (ICPA-WA)...

    Full media statement available at link

Friday 14 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • "Natalie Gordon's uncritical acceptance of the contents of the State Government's advertisement attacking teachers (No sympathy for teachers, 11/3) is a major cause for concern for a number of reasons.

      "First and foremost, Natalie, the next time the Government spends taxpayers' money on denigrating a section of its workforce I hope it's not aimed at your husband and his colleagues in nursing.

      "Secondly, I've been teaching for six years and I don't earn $85,000 so I don't know where you got that figure (I earn much less than your husband). Even if I shifted my family and myself to Jigalong, I still wouldn't be earning that. In fact, there are teachers who have been working for much longer than 12 years and are nearing retirement and are earning less than your husband.

      "Thirdly, the Government in its advertisement forgot the jobs-vacant sign - if you or your husband, or anyone else for that matter, is looking for a job that fits in with school hours and has free parking, "and have the weekends, evenings and holidays free, not to mention their nights" please feel free to apply. We could do with all the help we can get and so could your kids."

      Michael McAllister, Greenmount
      
      

    • "Natalie Gordon, I'm sorry you take the department advertisement at face value. It is a misrepresentation of the situation for the majority of teachers who are not in "hard to staff" or remote schools.

      "I have been teaching for 22 years (10 years longer than your husband) plus the four years it took to reach my B.Ed and last year I earned $64,000 (before tax) - $6000 less than your husband earns. I am almost as high as I can go as a senior teacher level two. Teachers have no capacity for overtime or working better-paid shifts.

      "Last year I taught my class, I stayed after work for the equivalent of another week with no extra pay, I worked more than 40 hours during the Christmas break for no extra pay and spent at least 20 hours each week of the term breaks preparing, marking or engaged in professional learning - that's 60 more hours for no extra pay.

      "True, I don't work shifts, but I do wake up regularly at 3 am to plan and worry about the lives some of my kids lead and how I can help them.

      "The point of the teachers' pay claim is to attract top-class recruits for the future - why be a teacher ( or a nurse, or policeman) with the attendant responsibilities, when a high-school leaver can be earning $80,000 or more, sometimes without even having to complete a degree?

      "I admire your husband and those in the nursing profession, I greatly respect the police who put their lives on the line and I also value the teachers who prepare our children for the future. Let's not fight among ourselves. Let's tell the public what really goes on for us all."

      Doug Klaffer, Mt Barker
      
      

    • "Thank you, Natalie Gordon, for doing what the Government wants - for people in essential services to turn against each other. It saves the Government having to attack us. Nurses, police, teachers and other essential-service people are all underpaid. Focus your gripe at your husband's union and the same Government that underpays nurses as well as teachers.

      "If teachers are leaving in droves and no one is replacing them, how good could it be? The reality is different from the perception. As an experienced secondary teacher, my base salary is $62,500 not $85,000. If you are getting your facts from State Government propaganda, you are sadly misinformed."

      A Arundel, Swan View
      
      
      

  • Homework for kids a waste of time, say experts (page 7)
    by Gabrielle Knowles
    
    "WA education experts have cast doubt on the value of homework for primary school children after a British teachers’ union called for it to be scrapped.
    
    "The Association of Teachers and Lecturers in England claimed homework was a source of family conflict that bred resentment of school.
    
    "The WA Council of State School Organisations and the State School Teachers Union agreed homework could be counter-productive, with WACSSO president Robert Fry saying it should never be given as punishment because it would turn children off school.
    
    "But he and SSTU president Anne Gisborne said homework could provide opportunities for parents to become involved in their children’s learning.
    
    “So if it is a small amount of homework and it involves parents helping, that can develop positive relationships,” Mr Fry said.
    
    "The Education Department does not set homework guidelines for schools. WA education experts said schools had to consider their students’ needs and home situations.
    
    "Poorer children could be disadvantaged if they did not have books, computers and well-educated parents to help. However, children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds could be put under too much pressure to succeed and the conflict would counteract any potential educational benefits.
    
    "Mt Lawley mother-of-three Colleen Bradford said homework created tension because she often had to harass her children to complete it.
    
    “Sometimes the kids are tired and they have other activities . . . they still have to have enough time to just play,” she said.
    
    "Mrs Bradford said reading, spelling and some maths homework were necessary but research projects were often introduced too early. “What you see on classroom walls is often what parents have done to bring it up to the standard they think it should be and so the children aren’t learning,” she said."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Unis drive prosperity: Gillard
    by Catherine Armitage
    
    "Julia Gillard has placed higher education at the centre of the Rudd Government's productivity agenda and announced a "system-wide rethink" to inform policy over the next decade.

    "The Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister told a higher education conference in Sydney yesterday that Labor's education revolution "will need to go further".

    "In a dramatic shift in official rhetoric, she dismissed as a "dangerous fallacy" the idea that what happened in universities was irrelevant to ordinary Australians. She blamed health system failures and bruised hip-pocket nerves on a decade of Howard government "neglect and hostility" towards universities.

    "If you want to know why investing in higher education is important, simply look at the waiting lists in your hospital or GP surgery, the lack of subject choice in your child's school, the rising cost of items in the shops and at your monthly bank balance," Ms Gillard said.

    "The review, to report by the end of the year, will be chaired by former University of South Australia vice-chancellor Denise Bradley.

    "While emphasising that Australia had under-invested in the university system, Ms Gillard declined to discuss how much new money the Rudd Government would be willing to invest, or when, saying those issues were "squarely before the review". [emphasis added]

    "University leaders welcomed the review, provided it led to more funds.

    "We really must see the translation of the rhetoric into action and funding," said Alan Robson, vice-chancellor of the University of Western Australia and chairman of the Group of Eight research-intensive universities.

    "Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne and chairman of the Government's Australia 2020 summit, called on universities to unite to find solutions to the funding problem.

    "He said they "tend to call for bold reforms" but then "retreat to protect their individual interests" as soon as real reform became a possibility. [see Op Ed by Professor Davis in today's Age, below]

    "Professor Bradley, asked whether the review would be pointless without a sustained increase in public funding, would not comment beyond saying: "Clearly, the issue of funding is right at the centre of discussions."

    "Ms Gillard lambasted the Howard government for its "highly unsubtle anti-intellectualism", in which the pursuit of knowledge was dismissed asthe "wasteful activity of a selfish elite".

    "The Rudd Government would place higher education "at the heart of our efforts to create a more productive and prosperous economy and a more productive society", she said.

    "Ms Gillard identified six key objectives for the review to consider.

    "These were how to create a set of diverse institutions performing to global standards, each with a distinct mission; how to improve the sector's contribution to higher productivity and labour market participation; improved funding arrangements; wider access to higher education; the lifting of standards; and better articulation between universities and vocational education and training."

    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar stories in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
    
  • More urgent action needed: Larkins
    AAP
    

    "Increased federal funding for higher education was needed now and cannot wait for the completion of a planned review, the peak higher education lobby group says.

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard has announced an independent review of the tertiary system to become the base for a 10-year reform blueprint.

    "The review board, chaired by Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley, will deliver its final report by the end of the year.

    "Universities Australia chairman Professor Richard Larkins today welcomed the review but said more urgent action was needed.

    "The problem with reviews, of course, is that they take time," Professor Larkins told ABC Radio.

    "There is the need for action, sooner than the findings of the review.

    "We just can't stay competitive with that (current) rate of recurrent funding increase."

    "Professor Larkins, vice-chancellor of Monash University, said student-staff ratios had blown out to record high levels and teaching infrastructure was ageing.

    "There also was highly-competitive university environments in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Korea, North America and Europe, where governments had invested heavily in the sector.

    "There is an urgent problem from next year in relation to just meeting the rising costs," he said.

    "If the Government failed to act, universities may have to consider deregulation of course costs, Professor Larkins said.

    "This isn't something that is common throughout the sector, not all my colleagues would agree with this, but I think there either needs to be very substantial increase in public funding or a deregulation of what the universities can charge."

    "Professor Larkins also called on the federal Government to invest more money in its higher education endowment fund and increase funding for infrastructure and student support in this year's budget.

    "Definitely it (extra funding) should start from this budget," he said.

    "It is not an inflationary step and it's a very good way of spending money."

    From The Australian at link
    
    

  
  
  • Student numbers on the rise
    AAP
    

    "The number of university students studying in Australia reached a record high of almost 900,000 in 2007, new figures show.

    "Figures released today by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations reveal that the number of students studying in the first half of 2007 rose 5.5 per cent on the year before, to 899,021.

    "More than half, or 56.7 per cent, of all students starting in the first half of 2007 were female.

    "While the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students rose by 6.6 per cent between 2006 and 2007, they represented only 0.8 per cent of all students."

    From The Australian at link
    

  
  
  
  • Funding for starved sector
    by Bernard Lane and Catherine Armitage
    

    "New funding compacts for universities are not scheduled to start until 2010 and the Government will do something about declining public investment in higher education "in the medium term", Education Minister Julia Gillard has said.

    "We've put the question of funding squarely before the review, because we recognise that the former government starved our university sector and we have to deal with the consequences of that in the medium term as a nation," the minister said last night on ABC TV's 7.30 Report.

    "The higher education review, led by former vice-chancellor Denise Bradley, is to report by the end of the year.

    "We are going to spend 2009 in compact negotiations with universities with a view to having the new compact structure up and running in 2010," Ms Gillard said.

    "She resisted the suggestion, recently made by Australian National University vice-chancellor Ian Chubb, that the Government should support rather than penalise the small number of top research institutions with true global potential.

    "We're going to get behind all universities and we're going to recognise that there's diversity in the mission.

    "Of course, Ian Chubb at ANU wants to lead a research-focused leading institution. He wants to be globally focused.

    "I want each university in this country to be globally focused, to be able to hold up its head on the world stage, but in the context of the mission that they've defined for themselves.

    "A regional university that is specialising in meeting the needs of its local community will be a very different institution from ANU and both can be successful institutions.

    "Both can be offering a high quality - indeed, world class - education to the people who study there."

    "Ms Gillard said it would be Labor's new long-term goal to guarantee access to higher education or skills training for every young Australian "with the talent and willingness to give it a go".

    "Although the minister suggested university funding was a medium-term issue, she repeated Labor's familiar criticism that Australia's record on public investment compared poorly with the OECD trend.

    "The OECD average increase in investment up to 2004 was almost 50 per cent. That's for public funding in terms of tertiary education. We went backwards by 4 per cent. We have to look at these challenges for the nation, and that's what the review is for," she said.

    "Professor Bradley, former vice-chancellor at the University of South Australia, declined to comment specifically on the funding question but said it probably was "not insignificant" that Ms Gillard had returned to the OECD comparison in her speech announcing the review yesterday.

    "The fact that the minister actually made that statement (about the OECD comparison) is a kind of message," Professor Bradley told The Australian.

    "She was very "heartened" by the Gillard speech, which she said went beyond criticism of the former government and set out a vision for the future.

    "It's a view that higher education is extremely important both for social cohesion and for economic prosperity," Professor Bradley said. It pointed to a great opportunity for Australia if it got the policy right.

    "She said current policy for higher education was "a mess", and the terms of reference for the review were ample and gave confidence of a searching and independent inquiry.

    "They're fantastically broad - I was absolutely stunned when I saw a draft of them,"she said.

    "While welcoming the review, Universities Australia chief executive officer Dr Glenn Withers urged the Government to act on some of the system's more pressing problems now, rather than wait for the review to report. In particular he called on the Government to arrest the backward slide in support for students.

    "Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training Tony Smith said the Government's announcement of yet another review into higher education was proof Labor had no policy or plans of its own for the university sector.

    "Labor promised action in education and so far all we are getting is reviews, talkfests, uncertainty and vague election campaign slogans," Mr Smith said."
    

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    A stable, but flexible, system will ensure universities' success
    by Professor Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne and co-chairman of the Prime Minister's 2020 Summit.
    
    This is an edited extract of a speech delivered to the AFR Higher Education Conference yesterday.
    
    "Why does Australia's higher education policy infrastructure need reforming so frequently? Why is it unable to adapt to predictable challenges? Our experience shows that government support fluctuates, the school-leaver population varies, labour markets evolve and international markets change. These are likely future events as well. The funding and regulatory system should be able to adapt without being re-written.

    "Policy uncertainty in Australia means that, after any change of government, universities may put decisions on hold until they can clearly see the new policy landscape. Uncertainties surrounding bigger changes paralyse medium and long-term planning.

    "Yet a period of doubt can be worthwhile if it leads to an era of stability. Our present higher education policy framework is sufficiently incoherent that a higher education policy revolution is warranted. What we must avoid, if possible, is creating yet another system that, like its predecessors, is found seriously wanting within a few years of implementation.

    "A stable higher-education system would require both institutional and political support. A system that could last would need two crucial attributes:

    • A steering mechanism that would respond to changed circumstances — this could be an intermediary body between institutions and the government to monitor key indicators, report on their implications, and recommend any necessary action.
    • A break in the link between university budgets and the Commonwealth budget — universities must have more power to raise their own revenues when the federal government does not adequately support higher education.

  "These reforms would help higher education institutions adapt to future changes that are reasonably foreseeable — not in their precise detail but in their general character.

  "We know that demographic trends shape the number of people likely to seek higher education; we must be allowed to adjust in response.

  "We know the economy will change; we need to be able to adapt to new labour market requirements.

  "We know the technology of teaching and research will improve; we must be able to keep up-to-date. We know international rankings are here to stay, with consequences for how we organise research. We know governments can no longer shield public universities from competition, that we cannot take either Australian or international students for granted.

  "We know community expectations of universities will evolve over time, and we must think strategically about how to meet them. We know government funding goes up and down over time; universities will always prefer more money but must be able to deal with less. The system that emerged from the Dawkins reforms was too rigid to adapt successfully to the stresses and changes of the 1990s and 2000s.

  "Universities need more flexibility in setting student contributions. The close tie between university finances and the Commonwealth budget is a key strategic vulnerability for universities. The below-inflation indexation from 1995 to 2003 created severe financial pressure, which will take significant additional funds to overcome. Universities are conscious of the need to keep higher education affordable, but need more options than cutting costs or recruiting more overseas students.

  "It often needs a change of government, or at least of minister, to create some distance from the policy past and so make possible a move to a new future. We have that precondition for change, but many political obstacles remain. The current system of the minister allocating places and granting money has obvious political attractions. The government can be seen to be "doing something" about higher education. It can target marginal seats or other strategic constituencies. Both intermediary bodies and market mechanisms would give ministers less discretion than they have enjoyed in the past.

  "A bipartisan consensus around the major policy elements is needed to give higher education providers long-term certainty. But for as long as a change in government can over-turn key higher education planning assumptions, Australian universities will not be confident about planning for the long term.

  "The new system would require broad support from the major interest groups in the sector. There would need to be clear roles, and appropriate mechanisms of support, for diverse institutions.

  "If public and private sector institutions and, through them, their students are to be treated in different ways, there should be clear and defensible reasons why. Major stakeholders in the system, such as employer groups, would need to be comfortable that the new system would ensure the flow of skilled workers they require.

  "This is a promising moment for achieving this kind of consensus. Though the major parties last year resisted suggestions of policy convergence, both accepted the in-principle argument for greater diversity.

  "And we have the added advantage of a minister and shadow minister without constraining histories of past policy positions on higher education. They have clean slates on which a new system can be drawn.

  "The dividend of success, a stable but flexible system that can adapt to change, would be large. It is worth the time and effort to get it right."

  From The Age at link
  
  

• Teaching talks resume

  The industrial battle over teacher wages has brought a breakthrough with the education union and the State Government agreeing to return to negotiations for the first time in three months.
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
• Editorial
  The academic questions
  
  "Julia Gillard's announcement of a far-reaching review of higher education in Australia is most welcome. The Deputy Prime Minister has taken the predictable shots at the Howard government's record of mixed "neglect and ideologically driven interference" - some of it true enough - but concedes that, thanks to the "quality and commitment" of academics, the system has come through this dark age since the last Labor government with reasonable outcomes.

  "The panel under the former University of South Australia vice-chancellor, Denise Bradley, is a good one, and the assignment for report by the end of the year goes into the main issues. The Rudd Government is already applying some measures that address the most obvious problems. The contentious full-fee places for domestic students are being phased out, the number of scholarships doubled for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and more scholarships given for higher degrees based on research. It will look, too, at new ways of funding campus life and enriching the student experience, after John Howard's ban on compulsory student union fees.

  "Principally, the review will be looking at ways of integrating federal and state funding of higher education with private sector contributions, no doubt including a look at ways to encourage more philanthropic endowments. As Ms Gillard says, the university system has come to rely unhealthily on cross-subsidies of local students by full-fee-paying overseas students. This has led to less than satisfactory university experiences for both groups, and some cases of eroded academic standards to meet the demands of paying customers. If the review leads to a network of universities of distinctively different characters, that is all to the good. For too long Australia, with its relatively small population, has tried to maintain 38 full-scale universities, many of them in regional areas. Marginal-seat politics cannot be allowed to skew higher education this way. A rationalisation may concentrate resources and help pull far more of those that remain into the world's top 100 rated academies than rank there now.

  "The one big reservation about Ms Gillard's approach relates to her overwhelmingly utilitarian view of higher education. She blurs universities and vocational training. One part of the tradition of John Dawkins, her predecessor as education minister, in the Hawke government, who brought universities into the market, is unavoidable. The no-fee universities of Gough Whitlam, from which she, Kevin Rudd and their generation benefited, were unsustainable. But the stress on trying to meet current skill shortages in the economy is counter to the whole idea of universities. Australia's future will be sustained by free, analytical and original minds - not by particular skill sets."

  From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
  
  
  
  
• Analysis
  Resigned to an umpteenth opinion
  by Gerard Noonan
  
  "Professor Blind Freddy knows what the nation's university sector needs: a big shot of funding to overcome almost two decades of serious neglect.

  "But it will have to wait.

  "Yesterday's announcement of the Rudd Government's "major review" of higher education is in a long line of such consultations and tea-leaf readings perfected by previous governments as they cynically allowed public support for the sector to slip.

  "Australia, once in the top half of countries spending up on higher education learning and research, has now dipped into the bottom of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's class.

  "Over the past decade, the "knowledge economy Down Under" has distinguished itself by being the only one of 30 OECD countries to spend less on higher education, allowing it to slip by 4 per cent. The rest managed to spend, on average, an extra 50 per cent of public monies during the same period.

  "Perhaps not surprisingly after such a long period of detention, the Australian university sector seems to be suffering from a touch of Stockholm syndrome. Universities Australia - once known as the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee - yesterday welcomed this review, which will not report until at least October. Perhaps they feel it is better late than never.

  "The kindest thing that could be said about Julia Gillard's announcement yesterday is that it holds out the promise of better things to come. Few could have doubted Ms Gillard's sincerity. As she said, people needed to understand of herself and Kevin Rudd that "education made us".

  "There is, perhaps, a case to argue that there is not yet a public groundswell of opinion about the run-down state of university finances that would allow a Labor administration to push through major reforms more quickly or now.

  "This line of thinking says it will take time for momentum to build. Only then will the public accept that its tax cuts or budget surpluses need to be directed to the groves of academe.

  "Maybe. In opposition, Labor had an opportunity to put such a case during last year's election campaign and flunked it.

  "Let's hope for the country that vice-chancellor Gillard has the sort of extraordinary commitment and follow-through that eluded all of her past five predecessors."

  From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
  
  
  
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Panel Urges Schools to Emphasize Core Math Skills
    by Maria Glod
    
    "A presidential panel declared math education in the United States "broken" yesterday and called on schools to focus on ensuring that children master fundamental skills that provide the underpinnings for success in higher math and, ultimately, in high-tech jobs.

    "The National Mathematics Advisory Panel convened in April 2006 to address concerns that many students lack the know-how to become engineers and scientists. The 24-member panel of mathematicians, education experts and psychologists said yesterday that students need a deeper understanding of basic skills, including fluency with whole numbers and fractions. It urged more training and support for teachers and called on researchers to find ways to combat "mathematics anxiety." ...

    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Unis worried about student housing
    
    "Universities say Perth's tight rental housing market could limit their ability to attract overseas students.

    "Thousands of students struggle to find accommodation each year because of a shortage of vacancies and high rental prices.

    "The universities are looking at a range of strategies to tackle the problem, including expanding their campus accommodation.

    "The University of Western Australia (UWA) is hoping to secure a partnership with a private developer to build accommodation on university-owned land.

    "The Director of Student Services Jon Stubbs says the rental market is hitting students harder this year, than in the past.

    "This year has been very, very difficult," he said.

    "We would be very disappointed if international students were turned away from the university because we believe we offer an extremely good education.

    "But an extremely good education has to be accompanied by the necessities of life, and somewhere to live is very very important."

    "Murdoch University has already begun expanding its accommodation, and Curtin is also considering the move.

    "Murdoch's deputy vice chancellor Gary Martin says the extent of the expansion will depend on demand.

    "Initial expansion will be 300 beds, but if demand continues in such a way that it is currently, the university will look to establish an additional 300 beds on campus." he said."

    From ABC News at link

Saturday – Sunday, 15 – 16 March

• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Gillard to end school inequality [Lead story]
    by Paul Kelly
    
    "Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to extend the model of funding private schools on a socio-economic basis to public schools in a move to confront disadvantage across both sectors.

    "The proposal, expected to be addressed at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting, would involve extending the contentious SES funding model designed by the former Howard government to all Australian schools.

    "In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Ms Gillard said it was a "great frustration" that she was able to determine the socio-economic status of private schools but not public ones.

    "As a policy-maker, I cannot look across the nation now and identify within the public and private systems those schools teaching children from households most likely to face educational disadvantage," she said.

    "What I'd like to see is data that tells us, 'These are the kids that are at risk unless government absolutely makes sure they have a great school'. These are the kids who come to school today for the prep year perhaps never having opened a book.

    "I would put this under the banner of education and social inclusion. The schools I am talking about can be public or private schools in those communities. These kids can have great educational outcomes, but we have to make a concerted effort to achieve this."

    "The socio-economic status, or SES, index is the basis for federal funding of private schools. It links students' residential addresses to census data to obtain a profile of the school community and its ability to financially support the private school.

    "Public schools are currently funded through state governments on a per-student basis with little reference to levels of socio-economic disadvantage.

    "Plans for the changes follow a review by the productivity working group, which Ms Gillard chaired.

    "The aim is to redesign the basis of public school funding to better confront inequities. But the Gillard plan would also eventually bring public and private schools on to a similar funding index.

    "Ms Gillard is a strong supporter of the SES index in its pure form. She sees an extension of this model as the best means to confront inequity and disadvantage across the board in Australian schools.

    "If COAG agreed on this approach, the potential would exist down the track to remove much of the different funding policies that now dominate and separate government and private schools.

    "In the teeth of a fierce campaign to reduce private school funding and ditch the SES model, Ms Gillard repeated the iron-clad pledge of the Rudd Government to "maintain the current funding system for private schools for the next quadrennium". This runs until 2012.
    
    "Much of this campaign is driven by a "no losers" guarantee that negates the SES index by protecting many private schools that would otherwise be worse off.

    "Ms Gillard has promised in the coming four years a review of these guarantees to achieve an "open and transparent" system for the period from 2013.

    "Ms Gillard's approach is consistent with Mr Rudd's firm view that he wants to improve all schools, not continue with the old politics of the public-private school divide.

    "The SES system gives you the socio-economic status of private schools," Ms Gillard said.

    "It's a great frustration for me as federal Minister for Education that we don't have that information about government schools.

    "We need to be careful here. The data shows that there is nothing inherent about a low-SES family leading to a poor school outcome. What it tells you is that you need a great school.

    "In this country there are new and growing communities that can easily slip into disadvantage unless the Government actively makes a real difference for them and their schools.

    "I have the opportunity to speak to my state minister colleagues frequently. And my view is that every state education minister would move heaven and earth to address potential sources of disadvantage in the state system."
    
    From The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Spark ignites another education revolution
    
    It was usually a depressing time of year for school principal Anita Painter. A bunch of envelopes had arrived from the education department - the literacy and numeracy results for the 50 or so children at her remote Northern Territory school, Barunga Community Education Centre.

    In most years there is not one student from Barunga who reaches the benchmark - the nationally agreed minimum acceptable standards - for maths, reading or writing. But last year, three Year 3 students reached at least one benchmark. The results, which would represent a dismal failure for most school principals, were cause for celebration.
    
    
    

• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Bad pupils to be kicked out of public school
    Exclusive by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "Violent and disruptive students will be kicked out of public schools more easily under tough new rules that will take effect next term.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan will announce today that he has ordered a drastic cut in the "mountains of paperwork'' and red tape that surround expulsions, so schools are no longer hindered from getting rid of bad students.

    "The minister's crackdown on appalling behaviour will also stop students who have been expelled from shifting to other mainstream schools, where they can continue causing chaos.

    "Instead, from Term Two, when the new Behaviour Management in Schools policy becomes effective, such troublemakers will have to study in alternative programs, outside of mainstream schools.

    "Otherwise they would have to do correspondence lessons from home until they were assessed as suitable to return to normal lessons, Mr McGowan said.

    "He said existing requirements for principals to provide 12 pieces of documentation to an exclusion panel in order to get rid of a bad student would be streamlined and simplified.

    "Every time a principal wants to exclude a student from a public school, they are faced with a mountain of paperwork that takes days to complete,'' he said.

    "I want to reduce that effort, while still maintaining accountability.''

    "The other new policy change, which would stop expelled students from going to another school, would avoid potential problems being transferred elsewhere, while still ensuring unruly students received an education.

    "If a student is excluded from a public school for violent behaviour, they will not be allowed to disrupt another public school,'' Mr McGowan said.

    "There are the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education, where you can do schooling over the net from home.

    "And there are special private schools which are heavily funded by the Federal Government that are actually designed for students who have a lot of difficulty fitting into mainstream schooling.

    "Teachers, like other public officers, must be able to do their jobs without the threat of violence or abuse.''

    "He said if a student was behaving badly and expulsion was the appropriate form of punishment, then a school should not be frightened to do so because it improved the school environment for everyone else.

    "I want parents to be confident that when they are sending their child to a public school, it's an outstanding school.''

    "He said the latest moves were part of an overall school discipline strategy that aimed to raise standards and dispel perceptions that public schools had poor discipline.

    "This included the trial of three new student-behaviour centres in Kalgoorlie, Canning and Fremantle, and a $16.5 million yearly allocation for the Behaviour Management and Discipline program that already exists in schools and districts.

    "Mr McGowan said that in 2007, 28 students were excluded from WA public schools and 10,536 were suspended for anything from hours to months.

    "Rob Fry, president of peak parent group the WA Council of State School Organisations, welcomed the move, but said parents and guardians of bad students had to be held responsible for ensuring those children still received an education."

    From The Sunday Times at link [You can also view / add reader comments at that link]
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
  • UWA gives bonus for languages (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "The University of WA will automatically award extra marks to students who study a foreign language in their final years of school in a bid to boost the number pupils learning a second language.

    "UWA vice-chancellor Alan Robson said in a letter sent to school principals this week that language students would receive a 10 per cent bonus effective from 2011.

    "He lamented the decline in the number of students studying languages at high school, which meant fewer students were equipped for higher language study at university.

    "The university is of the view that such study is significant and should be recognised and rewarded even where students choose not to continue such study at tertiary level," Professor Robson wrote. "The bonus will therefore be applied to the results of all eligible applicants to UWA, regardless of the degree course for which they apply."

    "Under the scheme, students studying a language will have their tertiary entrance aggregate boosted by 10 per cent of their final scaled mark in that course. The improved would then be used to calculate their tertiary entrance rank.

    "Edith Cowan University has used a similar scheme since 1998, but student services director Glenda Jackson said it would drop the bonus this year because it had not led to more high school students studying a language.

    "It's really not making that much difference," she said. "It's confusing, too, for a student to get two tertiary entrance ranks for different universities."

    "Murdoch University vice-chancellor Gary Martin said Murdoch had considered a language bonus but decided against it because it preferred to encourage students to study what they might find rewarding rather than take part in a course simply because they could earn bonus points.

    "Professor Martin said a report commissioned by the Tertiary Institutions Services Centre, released last year, showed that a language bonus introduced in Victoria several years ago had made no difference to the number of pupils enrolling in languages. Curtin University said it was not considering a language bonus.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the bonus was a bold move but he feared it would set a precedent for other subjects with low enrolments. He said more students would be studying languages now if more qualified language teachers were available.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said the Government offered scholarships to teachers studying languages other than English to increase the number of teachers in specialist areas.

    "UWA is a quality institution and I am sure they have good reason for instituting such measures," he said.

    "Australia's Group of Eight universities, which includes UWA, has demanded the compulsory study of languages from primary school to Year 10 and more incentives in Year 12 to counter a nationwide decline the numbers learning a second language."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    If left-leaning teachers offend, why not join their low-paid ranks?
    
    "The conservative double-think on education goes a little like this: such has been the breakdown in discipline in the school system that teachers have lost control over classrooms. But even though teachers cannot keep a whole class sitting down for a full period, they possess magical powers of mind control which they use to convert innocent children into lefties. Hold those two contradictory thoughts in your head simultaneously and you will either fry your brain or become a Young Liberal.

    "Ever mindful of the risks to freedom and liberty posed by totalitarian leftist thought, the Young Liberals have launched a campaign to root out bias in education, asking students to dob in teachers and university lecturers and photocopy biased textbooks so examples can be added to a special list, presumably with a view to denouncing and re-educating bearded, sandal-wearing history teachers who spout radical propaganda suggesting the US actually lost the Vietnam War, as if it were fact..."
    
    "As much as it injures my soul to say it, I think the Young Liberals are probably correct on one count. I would not be at all surprised if the average teacher turned out to be more left-wing than the average citizen. This should be self-evident. Teachers are unlikely to be diehard capitalists or economic rationalists: by definition they have chosen a path which is economically irrational.

    "Teachers waste perfectly good tertiary educations on doing a job with pathetic pay, with little opportunity to exercise entrepreneurial skill, bargain individually or get promoted to a fancy sounding position. It is almost as if they have a warped value system which regards community service as more important than personal advancement. University lecturers are even worse, translating masters degrees and doctorates into a career where they are often employed precariously and casually, only to be baited and tape recorded by Young Liberals looking to bring them down for the injustices committed in the classroom..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    

  • Student fees spark rush of grade disputes
    
    Students are taking their universities to court over grade disputes, motivated by a sense that their complaints have not been handled properly.
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • Are books for kids where little ideas - or big brands - grow?
    
    Product placement — where companies pay to get their merchandise up in lights — is about to make an audacious leap from the screen to the printed page, and cashed-up kids will be the primary target.

    Critics, and there are plenty, are calling it cynical, manipulative and just plain tacky, as HarperCollins in the United States has announced it will publish a series of books aimed at eight to 12-year-old girls full of references to brands who agree to sponsor them.
    
    

  • Elite girls' school cadet ban 'sexist'
    
    An elite girls' school has been accused of sexual discrimination by its own students after banning its army cadet program.

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This page last updated 11 August, 2008 11:47 PM