Monday 21 April

Tuesday 22 April

Wednesday 23 April

Thursday 24 April

Friday 25 April

Saturday – Sunday, 26 – 27 April

 

Monday 21 April

"2020 Summit" news and summaries [The Australian]

• Republic, tax & teaching lead debate
  
  A republic for Australia by the end of this decade, radical tax reform and teaching the creative arts in schools has emerged as the big ideas at the 2020 summit.
  
  
• Summit backs Labor's agenda
  
  The 2020 ideas summit has endorsed Kevin Rudd's economic and education policies but demanded the PM lead a fresh push for a republic.
  
  
• Something familiar about these big ideas
  
  Many of the "big ideas" produced by the 2020 Summit are already Labor Party policy or already being implemented by the Rudd Government.
  
  
• Editorial: Risky business in summit outcomes
  
  
• Op Ed: Tough job deciding what to embrace, by Paul Kelly
  
  
• Op Ed: Not a bad idea at all, by Mike Steketee
  
  
• Op Ed: Leader's plate full of big ideas he can't stomach, by Dennis Shanahan
  
  
  Expect similar coverage in most newspapers
  
  

2020 Summit Initial Report [1 MB .pdf file]

One of the "Top Ideas: Teaching first: Establish a national program to attract talented graduates and career-switchers into teaching, and reward teachers for working in national priority areas, including disadvantaged communities, remote areas and in shortage subjects.

Education News

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers revolt against OBE level assessments (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Many State school teachers are rebelling over a key aspect of outcomes-based education, refusing to conform with the controversial "levels" system when assessing students.

    "Under Department of Education and Training guidelines, teachers are expected to assess students against eight broad levels of achievement in each learning area. Those levels are then converted to grades ranging from A to E by a computer program or manually by using a grade allocation chart.

    "But many teachers are bypassing the system by allocating grades based on what the student should get, then working backwards to assign a level that underpins that grade.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has abolished the use of levels in Years 11 and 12 in favour of traditional percentages and grades. But they remain at the heart of WA's education system from kindergarten to Year 10. OBE opponents have criticised levels for being too broad to be used for accurate assessment.

    "Marko Vojkovic, spokesman for teachers' lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, said teachers were not taking OBE levels seriously because they had been discredited and dropped from Years 11 and 12 assessment.

    "A lot of schools are using marks, percentages and grades, and then converting to a level to convert back into the grade they've already given the kids," he said.

    "Mr Vojkovic said levels had been shown to be "completely invalid" as a form of assessment and should be abandoned . "It's one of the last remnants of OBE," he said. "For some reason, levels are like flares in the 70s' they just keep coming back." [emphasis added]

    "The department's official response did not say whether it was aware that teachers were ignoring levels.

    "School support programs executive director, David Axworthy said teachers from kindergarten to Year 10 were required to use a standard template for semester reports. Guides were provided to help teachers align grades to the department's standards framework.

    "This promotes consistency in the reporting of grades across public schools," he said.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said assessment in schools was now a "dog's breakfast" because many teachers were completely ignoring levels and basing assessment criteria on their own judgement. "This makes a complete farce out of equivalence between schools," he said." [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian
    
    

    
    
  • Boycott threatens national testing (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "State school teachers would boycott the first nationwide tests of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 next month under a proposal to be considered by their union tomorrow.

    "State School Teachers' Union general secretary David Kelly said the union executive would consider banning the Federal Government's new National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy tests because they invited unfair comparisons between schools.

    "The threat comes after Victorian teachers revealed they planned a series of strikes during the tests, which are scheduled over three days from May 13, as part of their campaign for higher salaries.

    "But Mr Kelly said a WA ban on administering the tests would be separate from any industrial action related to the union's pay dispute with the State Government.

    "We object to these tests but we've not made a formal decision," Mr Kelly said. "Banning it is going to be part of the discussion."

    "The union has urged members to refuse to administer the WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessments for the past 10 years and strongly opposes publicising schools' results, which The West Australian has published for the past two years.

    "We think it's grossly unfair on schools and students and its part of our concerns that once we start comparing schools, we're not actually comparing same to same," Mr Kelly said. "It's given people the opportunity to beat up on schools and teachers and the national testing, as I understand it, is going to be an extension of that. It's not going to improve the quality or resourcing of education."

    "Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said she was concerned that teachers were threatening to disrupt the national testing program.

    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said: "I have faith in WA teachers and do not believe they would jeopardise our students' education and the national testing program."

    "This year is the first time that students in all states will sit the same tests in maths, reading, writing and language conventions at the same time.

    "Independent Education Union secretary Theresa Howe said it opposed compulsory testing because it had no identifiable benefits for students. But it was not planning to ban Catholic and independent school teachers from supervising the tests."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Insiders (ABC), 9am Sunday, 20 April 2008 [excerpt from the interview]
    
    BARRIE CASSIDY:
    Just finally on performance based pay for teachers, that came up during the week at another summit, that assumes doesn't it that the base rate will rise for some and it certainly wouldn't, I would imagine wouldn't fall for any. That again assumes overall there will need to be more money for salaries?

    JULIA GILLARD:
    Well, the issue of performance based pay, of rewarding merits and excellence in teaching, is coming up through the summit process, but Barrie, it was also the subject of a very direct discussion at the ministerial council I had on Thursday and Friday with the ministers of education right around the country. And we've agreed to work together towards entering a national partnership arrangement at the end of this year, a national partnership payment arrangement with new resources, to look at how we reward quality teaching.

    The Commonwealth is going to invest some money in research of different models. The point you make is right. No one is talking about taking away what is there now, but people are talking about how do we keep the best teachers in front of classrooms, rather than having them go off to other careers, or go into administration, which is what tends to happen now, because it's the only way of getting a salary advance.

    Now, teaching is a vocation. People do it because they love it. But they've also got to make a living and in most professions, we say excellence should be rewarded, performance should be rewarded, and we need to think through how that can happen in teaching. Because once again, if I can talk about the research, at the risk of sounding like a scientist for the course of the interview, but the research is very clear. There is nothing more important to the quality of learning outcomes in a school than the quality of the teaching. If we want kids to have a great education, we've got to have great teachers.

    BARRIE CASSIDY:
    Again that implies, more money. Will that responsibility fall to the states, or will you take up some of that responsibility?

    JULIA GILLARD:
    Well, we've signalled to the states that this is an important reform project. And like in other areas of public policy and public life, where the Commonwealth has been prepared to bring some resources to secure reform, we are prepared to bring some resources to secure reform, and to ensure that we've got the best possible quality teaching in our schools.
    
    Exactly how that's going to be done is going to be the subject of a conversation between me and my state ministerial colleagues and ultimately, of course, between treasurers and first ministers, the Prime Minister and the Premiers at COAG. But it's a big job that we've got to get right. [Is that a “maybe”, Ms Gillard? Web]

    From Julia Gillard Media Release at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Teachers in transfer race
    AAP
    
    "A controversial new scheme allowing principals to directly hire staff will not undermine the current teacher transfer system, according to the NSW Government.

    "The NSW Teachers Federation said a last-minute flood of transfer applications lodged with the Department of Education showed teachers were fearful of the new system's impact.

    "The union said the changes would undermine the longstanding incentive transfer scheme, allowing teachers in hardship posts such as remote areas to go to the top of the transfer list for a more desirable posting.

    "The Education Department has received a rush of transfer applications from teachers in tough postings, before the new system's introduction at the end of the month. In the six weeks leading up to the end of term one last year, 58 new transfer applications were lodged. During the same period this year, 624 applications were received, federation president Maree O'Halloran said.

    "Ms O'Halloran said hard-to-staff and remote schools would be disadvantaged.

    "Education and Training Minister John Della Bosca said the incentive system would remain alongside the new scheme.

    "The incentive transfer system and service transfer list will not be dismantled or abolished," he said in a statement."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • HECS discount plan for volunteers
    by Sid Marris
    
    "A community corps" of volunteers who get a discount on their university debts, new scholarships for higher education and training, and special savings accounts to pay for a life of learning should be in place by 2020.

    "Kevin Rudd last night singled out the idea of boosting the numbers of trained workers in much-needed areas as one of the key ideas from the productivity stream of the 2020 Summit that he might implement.

    "The idea of, for example, this community corps - that is, where young people would go out and provide voluntary service in the community in exchange for reducing their HECS debt - I think that's a very practical trade," he said.

    "We need more volunteering in the community and students are emerging from university with a whole lot of debt. That is one we want to consider. (I) hadn't really thought of that one before."

    "A proposal, backed by Innovation Minister Kim Carr, for doubling private and public investment in research and development by 2020, fell off the table during the discussion stages but then reappeared later.

    "The productivity stream also praised new efforts to raise the pay of teachers through performance bonuses.

    "The ideas presented at the conclusion of the summit included Mr Rudd's pre-summit proposal of one-stop early childhood education and health centres and Julia Gillard's idea that the top 100 companies "adopt" the nation's 2650 high schools.

    "Queensland Premier Anna Bligh endorsed the proposal for a single national school curriculum, arguing it could save money that could be spent elsewhere on innovation. [emphasis added]

    "The productivity stream said that by 2020, Australia should maximise its wealth and equity by driving up productivity through "equipping" the nation with a world-leading education system, "deploying" human capital in the most innovative way, and "connecting" the community.

    "The stream emphasised a need to increase collaboration between business, researchers, and educators, as well as breaking down institutional barriers between different types of education.

    "As a practical example, retired workers could be enlisted to provide training and mentoring in small- and medium-sized firms. Or scientists could visits schools to talk about what they do and what the study of science and maths can do.

    "Higher levels of information and globalisation create unprecedented opportunities to increase productivity growth," the Productivity Agenda report says.

    "Productivity growth requires excellent social and physical infrastructure, flexible, fair and equitable labour markets, and a world-leading education system.

    "Material resources are finite but intellectual capital is unlimited. We therefore need a 2020 strategy to invest more in our capacity for knowledge and imagination, and to ensure that we generate sustainable higher returns from that investment in the form of productivity growth."

    "Summing up the deliberations, Ms Gillard said many participants had observed that learning would increasingly become "non-linear" by 2020. While children would always go to a school, in the future education options would begin at birth and people would move in and out of different types of education throughout their lives, she said.

    "The idea that received the warmest endorsement during the reporting to the main committee, by co-chairs Ms Gillard and former Liberal minister Warwick Smith, was a discount on Higher Education Contribution Scheme debt for university graduates who worked in regional and remote communities.

    "And under proposed "learning for life" accounts, a child would have a superannuation-style account created for them, with seed funding from government, to fund education costs."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Teaching the teachers
      
      "It's only on rare occasions that one is moved to agree with Kevin Donnelly. However, in his article “Rudd’s cycle of promises is more spin than revolution” (Inquirer, 19-20/4) he made sound points.

      "Firstly, in planning to provide senior secondary students with computers and internet access, the federal Government should have paid more attention to infrastructure and maintenance costs in schools as well as to the professional development of teachers implementing information and communications technology across the curriculum.

      "Secondly, public education would greatly benefit from moves to release schools from bureaucratic and inflexible controls operating at head office and regional levels.

      "With respect to teacher training, Donnelly has little to add of a positive nature. In recent times, universities have been instructed to provide increased professional experience opportunities for trainee teachers. That is an admirable idea but little additional funding has been provided for schools to share in the role of teacher training. Experienced teachers need more financial and professional advancement incentives if they are to take a greater role in teacher training."
      
      Neville Jennings, Kingscliff, NSW
      
      

      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • State to seek closer ties with Catholic schools
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "The Brumby Government is considering aligning Catholic schools with the state system, in what could radically shift the way public and private schools have operated in Australia.

    "In an interview with The Age, Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said she believed Catholic schools — particularly in socially disadvantaged communities — had similar problems to many public schools.

    "While the Government had no intention of stamping its authority over Catholicism, Ms Pike said she wanted to explore how the public system could forge stronger "partnerships" with Catholic schools to improve areas such as school infrastructure and maintenance, student welfare and possibly even funding. "In New Zealand, they've moved to a model where the Catholic system has come much closer to the public system," she said. "That would necessitate conversations with the Commonwealth about how you fund, but I believe it's worth exploring.

    "The Catholic system in low socioeconomic areas is facing a lot of the same issues that the government system is. Capital is an issue for them, and they're often dealing with a lot of the refugee communities.

    "I'm not interested in diminishing their role in Catholicism at all. They have, clearly, a mandate around their religious framework. But I think there are opportunities for partnerships and I think we ought to be really open to what these might be."

    "Ms Pike's idea draws on overseas practice. In countries such as Canada, Britain and New Zealand, private schools, including church schools, are part of the public system..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • It's high time for later starts [online update from 20 April]
    by Sarah Price, Education Reporter
    
    "High schools are ditching the traditional 9am to 3pm school day for senior students amid research showing that "adolescents learn better later in the day.

    More than 45 public high schools and senior colleges in NSW are offering flexible start and finish times.

    "As well as fitting in better with teens' sleep patterns, Education Minister John Della Bosca said varied timetables gave students more flexibility to do vocational training..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

 

Tuesday 22 April

• The Age
  
  
  • Bright ideas overshadowed by big-ticket items
    
    In the stampede to compress ideas from the 2020 Summit into just a few big-ticket items, it seems many ideas simply got buried...
    
    Australian National University economist Andrew Leigh conceived of an innovative way to settle the long-running ideological wars over education methods: set up controlled trials — just as we do to test the effectiveness of new medicines. [emphasis added]
    
    
    
  • HECS man doubts volunteer proposal
    
    The architect of the HECS loan scheme has cast doubt over the summit proposal to allow university students to pay off their debt through community service.
    
    Similar story in The Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Blair's son to join teachers on strike [21 April]
    by RIchard Garner
    
    "Tony Blair's son Nicky is planning to join the National Union of Teachers in its first national strike for more than two decades. Nicky Blair, 21, is teaching at a comprehensive school in the West Midlands under the Teach First scheme, which aims to place talented graduates in inner-city schools.

    "A union source said that he would be joining the nationwide stoppage and may also attend a rally being staged in Birmingham to protest over teachers' pay.

    "His involvement emerges as Britain's biggest private teaching agency announced it would refuse to offer supply cover for striking teachers on Thursday.

    "The decision by Select Education, which supplies around 5,000 teachers to state schools every day, is bound to increase the number of schools likely to be forced to close for the day. Its stance is also likely to be followed by most other private teaching agencies.

    "John Donne, chief executive of Select Education, said: "We're aware of the sensitivities of the people that work in schools. What we don't want to do is to take sides in a situation like this and if we offered supply teachers to cover for those on strike it was felt that might be considered as taking sides. Of course, we rely on heads being honest as to why they want supply cover." [emphasis added]

    "A survey of teachers carried out for the Times Educational Supplement revealed nearly half believed their school would be shut for the day. If that happens, more than 10,000 schools will close with about three million children being sent home. The NUT is striking over a 2.45 per cent pay award."
    
    From The Independent at link
    
    
    

• The West Australian
  
  
  • PM impressed by 'work to pay off uni debt' idea (page 6)
    by Chris Johnson

    "Kevin Rudd likes the idea of letting university students pay off their HECS debts through community service, but the students are not so sure.

    "The Prime Minister's weekend 2020 summit threw up the idea of creating a Community Corps to help students reduce HECS and HELP debts with volunteer work as a means of improving the nation's productivity and expanding the higher education base.

    "Mr Rudd was surprised when he was informed of the suggestion and said it was an idea that hadn't crossed his mind. "I think that's a very practical trade-off. We need more volunteers in the community," he said.

    "But the National Union of Students asked where students would find time to do the unpaid work. NUS president Angus McFarland said the proposed scheme would not help most students, who already had to juggle study and part-time work just to get through university.

    "They just simply wouldn't have the time to provide the volunteer work hours and it would actually be the more wealthier university students who are able to access these discounts," he said.

    "No details have emerged about how the scheme could work and the Prime Minister is yet to decide if the Government will adopt the suggestion as policy.

    "But with medical students facing loans in the high tens of thousands of dollars, community volunteer hours for such degrees would be substantial."

    From The West Australian

    
    

  • Student's high school bomb plan thwarted (page 26)
    Washington

    "A student collected enough supplies to carry out a bomb attack at his high school in South Carolina and detailed the plot in a hate-filled diary, according to US authorities.

    "Ryan Schallenberger, 18, was arrested after his parents called police when 4.5kg of ammonium nitrate was delivered to their home in Chesterfield and they found the journal, police chief Randall Lear said on Sunday.

    "The teenager had planned to make several bombs and had all the supplies needed to kill dozens of people at Chesterfield High School, depending on where the devices were placed and whether they included shrapnel, Mr Lear said.

    "Ammonium nitrate was used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people.

    "The only thing left was delivering the bombs," Mr Lear said.

    "The teenager kept a journal for more than a year that detailed his plans for a suicide attack and included maps of the school, police said. The writings did not include a specific time for the attack or the intended targets.

    "He also left an audiotape to be played after he died explaining why he wanted to bomb his school. Mr Lear would not say what was on the tape, only that "he was an angry young man".

    "He seemed to hate the world," Mr Lear said. "He hated people different from him - the rich boys with good-looking girlfriends."

    "In his writings, the student said he admired the two teenagers who killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 before committing suicide. The attack happened nine years ago on Sunday but Mr Lear said the investigators did not know if there was any link between the anniversary and the latest plot.

    "Principal Scott Radkin said that Ryan Schallenberger was one of the top students at the school, which had 580 students, and had not caused any serious problems before his arrest.

    "The school website says the student is a member of the 2007 academic bowl squad. He won an academic award from Newberry College in the last school year.

    "The teenager was in the Chesterfield County jail on Sunday, charged with possessing materials to make bombs, the police chief said. A bail hearing was scheduled for yesterday.

    "Other than the bomb-making material, no other weapons were found at his home.

    "Mr Lear said the teenager did not have a lawyer.

    "Security was tightened at the school when students returned yesterday.

    "Students walked through metal detectors borrowed from a courthouse and bomb and drug sniffing dogs were called in. Mr Lear said he did not expect any problems."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Top uni 'begged' for Saudi funding
    by Richard Kerbaj
    

    "A prominent Australian university practically begged the Saudi Arabian embassy to bankroll its Islamic campus for $1.3million, even telling the ambassador it could keep secret elements of the controversial deal.

    "Documents obtained by The Australian reveal that Griffith University - described by vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor as the "university of choice" for Saudis - offered the embassy an opportunity to reshape the Griffith Islamic Research Unit during its campaign to get some "extra noughts" added to Saudi cheques.

    "The revelation comes despite a claim last year by Ross Homel - then director of Griffith's key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, which manages the Islamic unit - that the university did not chase money from the embassy and that the $100,000 down payment was offered with "no strings" attached.

    "While the Brisbane university says its unit, run by director Mohamad Abdalla, is designed to promote moderate Islam, the Saudi Government espouses a hardline version of the faith, policed at home by the Mutaween, the country's religious police notorious for enforcing strict Muslim laws. Women are subjected to particularly harsh treatment in Saudi Arabia, and foreigners face severe punishment for not obeying the religious laws..."

    Full story in The Australian at link

Wednesday 23 April

• The Age
  
  
  • Teachers on brink of big pay win [but see the follow-on articles !]
    by Farrah Tomazin with David Rood
    
    "Victorian teachers would become the best-paid in the country under a landmark deal being negotiated between the education union and the Brumby Government.

    "Well-placed sources have told The Age that after months of bitter negotiations, teachers are on the brink of a deal that could result in higher pay than in NSW, where staff at the top of the scale now earn almost $10,000 more a year.

    "The development comes as hundreds of teachers will today rally outside Education Minister Bronwyn Pike's electorate office, to mark the final day of a five-month industrial campaign in pursuit of better wages and working conditions.

    "An Australian Education Union bulletin yesterday notified members that the Government had moved on its wage offer of a 3.25% increase a year, while Government insiders said that making Victoria the best-paid teaching state was "something that we're working towards".

    "It is understood that, before an agreement is sealed, the parties must overcome key sticking points, including the union's push to have fewer teachers on contract employment, and the Government's refusal to give teachers extra holiday time on top of the present 11 weeks. The Government also wants to abolish pupil-free curriculum days.

    "Ms Pike confirmed last night that she was seeking to reach an agreement as soon as possible — and certainly in time to avert a planned strike during Australia's first national literacy and numeracy test on May 13-15.

    "I'm obviously really pleased that we are making some progress in salaries, in career structure and in contract employment," Ms Pike said. "For us, it's always been about more pay for teachers, but also about improving the quality of teaching for our children."

    "Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu recently promised to make Victorian teachers the best-paid in the country if the Liberal-National Coalition won government in 2010.

    "Victorian teachers are the lowest-paid in the country, earning $65,414 at the top of the classroom scale, compared with %$75,352 in NSW. Teachers asked for a 30% rise over three years, but the Government was adamant it was prepared to pay only 3.25% a year, with anything above that to be met by "productivity trade-offs".

    "Two weeks ago, the union softened its 30% pay claim to one of pay parity with NSW, and signalled it would give ground on its claim to lower class sizes to 20 students a class.

    "After a two-hour meeting with Education Department negotiators last night, union chief Mary Bluett said there had been "significant negotiations over the last week and we are making progress on key areas".

    "Victorian teachers walked off the job for three statewide school strikes, and five weeks of targeted half-day stoppages. Public and Catholic-school staff also threatened to walk out next month during the national literacy and numeracy test, in a move that would potentially disrupt tens of thousands of students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

    "Nationals leader Peter Ryan said new laws that come into effect in NSW next week allowing principals to advertise jobs to Victorian teachers would compound the state's teacher shortage unless the Government acted immediately. "Is it any wonder why these people are looking north?" he said." [emphasis added]

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Online Update [The Age]
    Union fury as teacher pay deal in doubt
    by Bridie Smith, Education Reporter
    
    "Hopes that an end is near to the bitter dispute between the state's teachers and Brumby Government have been dealt a blow, with the teachers' union claiming negotiations have gone backwards.

    "The Age this morning revealed there had been "progress on key areas" following months of bitter negotiations with the Government.

    "But Australian Education Union branch secretary Mary Bluett has today accused the Government of moving the goal posts.

    "She told a crowd of more than 200 striking teachers rallying outside education minister Bronwyn Pike's North Melbourne electorate office that her optimism had been replaced with despair.

    "Ms Bluett's said comments made by Ms Pike in a morning radio interview went against "all the protocols about how to negotiate in good faith".

    "In the interview, Ms Pike said increased productivity would be an important component of any pay rise, saying three pupil-free days would be removed.

    "The three pupil-free days have to go, they are inconvenient for the parents and they rob children of three extra days of teaching time .... teachers need to engage in shared professional development before the students come back to school," Ms Pike told ABC radio.

    "Ms Bluett accused Ms Pike of moving the goal posts.

    "She said that unless the dispute was resolved soon, there would be further industrial action, including strikes to coincide with next month's national literacy and numeracy tests.

    "Acting Opposition Leader Peter Ryan called on the Government to negotiate in good faith and resolve the dispute.

    "Victorian parents and teachers should not endure a situation where our teachers continue to receive the lowest levels of pay in Australia," he said.

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Also [ABC News]
    
    
    • Negotiations in teachers dispute turn sour
      
      "The Education Union says it is virtually impossible to resolve the teachers pay dispute with the Victorian Government after the Minister put new conditions on the bargaining table.

      "Speaking on ABC Radio, Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said the dispute was close to being resolved but that teachers would have to give up three pupil free days.

      "Education Union spokesman Mary Bluett said she was gobsmacked to hear the Minister's comments because that issue has never been on the bargaining table.

      "She said it was professionally insulting to say that the pupil free days are just a holiday.

      "I thought we had made progress I was hopeful of an outcome but that sort of chest beating by Bronwyn Pike will simply make an outcome impossible to get," she said.

      "Earlier Ms Bluett had expressed optimism that the issue was close to being resolved.

      "The Government was offering teachers a salary increase of 3.25 per cent.

      "But the Minister says they could become the most highly paid teachers in the country if they give up the pupil free days.

      "They will have increased pay because that gives us 480,000 extra teaching days and it's that kind of productivity weve been talking about," she said.

      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Students mark down party line
    by Bernard Lane
    
    "Beccy Marzi, 20, says the critical analysis in her teacher training degree turned out to be not so critical.

    "The only viewpoint that was accepted was the social justice/progressive viewpoint," she says.

    "Critical analysis means developing your own perspective, doesn't it? If you're just told how to think, how are you developing your critical analysis skills?"

    "She abandoned her education degree at the University of Sydney and went down the road to the University of Technology, Sydney, to study business/law. She won't be a teacher after all.

    "Last Friday she joined 20-odd Young Liberals in a demonstration against bias in education outside the Surry Hills headquarters of the NSW Teachers Federation. Some wore pantomime prison garb, suggesting they were captives of leftish education unions. One student held a placard proclaiming: "Make Love not Bias."

    "They passed around a megaphone in order to broadcast litanies of bias at one another. They were watched with bemusement by a jovial policeman, a minuscule media contingent, a truckie bringing in beer supplies for the Teachers' Club, and the occasional union worker nipping out for a smoke in the rain.

    "Noel McCoy, federal president of the Young Liberals, says they want a charter of academic freedom to promote intellectual diversity.

    "He denies any wish to quash opinions distasteful to Young Libs: "We're saying the whole range of views should be put."

    "McCoy lacks faith in the existing procedures to deal with complaints of bias on campus: "What we're seeing from the examples on our website (makeeducationfair.org.au) is that the processes don't work." Sometimes students who complain become targets, he says.

    "At one point Marzi threw out the narrow reading list set by her teacher trainers. "It was entirely from one radical perspective. (And in the set text) other ideologies were all decried as bad and wrong, they were not given a fair shot," she says.

    "She did her own research and put the rhetoric of critical analysis to the test. In fact, the result was not all bad.

    "Some (lecturers) realised that I'd done a lot of work and rewarded me ... some marked me down very harshly for it," she says."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    A battle we must not lose
    by Richard Larkins, vice-chancellor of Monash University
    
    Until now, the declared education revolution has focused on the importance of early childhood education, and on curriculums and computer access in schools. Without diminishing their importance, there has been little appreciation so far of the urgency of addressing the university sector and no mention of what a revolution may look like.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Suitable jobs better for HECS debtors
    
    Of all the suggestions coming out of the 2020 Summit's productivity stream, a community corps financed from HECS-HELP attracted most attention. In his closing speech, Kevin Rudd singled it out, to applause from summit participants. The media liked the proposal, too, giving it wide coverage.
    
    
    
• Academics, unis drive summit aim
  
  Universities were barely mentioned as a sector at the 2020 Summit in Canberra last weekend, although academics attended in force, contributed many of the ideas and will be crucial in their eventual implementation. But they can still take heart from its deliberations, according to sector lobby groups and associations.
  
  
  • Student's calls fall on deaf peers
    
    
  • Editorial: Risky business in summit outcomes
    
    
  • Bright ideas fade under controversy
    
    
    
• University 'an agent of extreme Islam'
  
  
  • Editorial: Independence matters

Thursday 24 April

• Minister for Education Mark McGowan Media Statement
  
  
  • Government releases long-term projections for teaching workforce

    A report into long-term teacher supply and demand across all sectors has revealed both public and private schools will continue to face significant challenges over the coming decade.

    Releasing the ‘WA teacher demand and supply projections’ report today, Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the report analysed trends and projections to 2017.

    “For the first time, we are releasing detailed workforce projections 10 years in advance so all sectors can plan ahead,” he said.

    “The report shows a major shift in teacher distribution between the primary and secondary sectors over the coming years.

    “Due to changes to the school starting age announced in 1996 and implemented in 2001, the student group now in Year 6 is half as big as a normal year group. This group is known as the ‘half cohort’.

    “As this group moves into secondary school and the primary sector experiences a full class load across all year groups, the demand for primary school teachers is expected to increase substantially.

    “At the same time, the demand for secondary school teachers is expected to decrease as the half cohort moves through Years 8 – 12. This means we expect to have an excess of secondary teachers in 2010.”

    Mr McGowan said the modelled outcomes were based on current trends continuing and no action being taken.

    “The Government now has two years to ensure that the situation is resolved for the start of the 2010 school year,” he said.

    “Over the past year, the State Government has been strongly focussed on addressing teacher supply and demand in the public school sector, with 17 separate initiatives recently being implemented.”

    Some of these initiatives include:
    • early recruitment of graduates and giving them a pay rise, making them among the highest paid in the country (outside the current EBA process);
    • offering 1300 university scholarships valued at up to $60,000 per individual;
    • recruiting teachers interstate and overseas; and
    • bringing in changes to the Government Superannuation Scheme to allow teachers aged 55 and over to access their super while continuing to work.

    In addition the Department of Education and Training is also modernising its recruitment processes and practices and simplifying selection processes as part of the implementation of the Gerard Daniels review carried out last year.

    “As a result, the Government established a special unit at the department to develop a dynamic workforce planning model, which has resulted in the development of this report,” Mr McGowan said.

    Mr McGowan said the data in the report showed more needed to be done over the coming years to deal with workforce planning into the future.

    “There is a need for increased flexibility in the way we staff our schools,” he said.

    “I have instructed the Department to look at ways in which we can address the challenges of the future while keeping students as the first priority.”

    Mr McGowan said the Government wanted to pay teachers much more.

    “The Government wants to pay teachers more and offered pay increases ranging from 13.6 to 22 per cent, plus increased allowances of many thousands of dollars at hundreds of schools around the State,” he said.

    “What this report clearly shows is that demands by the State School Teachers Union for smaller class sizes and increased time away from teaching will exacerbate the teacher shortage.

    “Their demands would mean that public schools would need at least 350 additional teachers in the immediate future. With a growing student population in WA (as forecast in the projections) the impact of these union claims will continue to grow, making the teacher shortage even worse into the future.”

    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Ten years more of teacher shortages predicted
    

    "The Western Australian Education Minister Mark McGowan says new figures which project teacher shortages over the next decade are "sobering".

    "The figures show a shortfall of more than 2,000 teachers in the year 2015 across the private and public school sectors.

    "The Minister Mark McGowan says the report will help the Education Department plan for the future.

    "Anne Gisborne from the State School Teacher's Union says she is pleased the state government has been so forthcoming with the projections.

    "But she says it is likely the real figure could be more than the predicted two-thousand.

    "We know that some of these predictions are also based on possible retirements, people have got choices about retirements, and if the conditions and circumstances under which they work and the salaries were attractive enough, people may choose to or could be encouraged to extend their professional lives," she said.

    "Even though vacancies are expected to rise overall, in 2010 there is expected to be a one-off excess of 1,400 high school teachers, because of changes to the age that children start school."

    From The ABC News at link

• Minister reassures regional schools over merger plans
  

  "The Tasmanian Education Minister, David Bartlett, has moved to reassure small regional communities - such as Levendale in the southern Midlands - over the government's plan to close up to 35 schools.

  "A report by the state's Demographic Change Advisory Council predicts schools will fall to about 50 per cent of their capacity by the year 2020.

  "It also shows the number of students is expected to drop by more than 6,000 in the next decade.

  "Mr Bartlett says that means some schools will have to close.

  "This paper and this strategy is much more about urban schools than it is about regional schools," he said."

  Full story in The ABC News at link

• Teachers' pay offer is competitive: NT Chief
  

  "Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson says a pay offer being offered to teachers is competitive.

  "The Commissioner for Public Employment has offered teachers an 11 per cent pay rise and more than $6,000 in remote allowances.

  "But the Education Union wants a 15 per cent pay rise and is planning a strike on Monday.

  "Mr Henderson says the revised offer is reasonable.

  "The offer that's with the union at the moment keeps our teachers as the second highest paid teachers in the country and by any definition of competitive, it's certainly a competitive salary," he said.

  From The ABC News at link

 

• The Australian
  
  
  • Cost of education outstrips inflation
    AAP
    

    "The cost to parents of educating their children has reached record levels, new figures show.

    "Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show the annual cost of education has again outstripped the official rate of inflation.

    "Education costs in the March quarter rose 5.2 per cent, compared to 1.3 per cent increases in inflation.

    "Tertiary education costs rose from 2.6 per cent to 3.8 per cent in the year to March 2008, the ABS figures show.

    "Financial services company Lifeplan Funds Management has calculated that a family can expect to pay more than $150,000 to privately educate a child from reception level to Year 12.

    "The figures highlight the increasing need for Australians to start saving for education even earlier, taking advantage of compounding growth, as this quarter we have seen education rise by a staggering 5.2 per cent," said Lifeplan's general manager of strategy and development, Matt Walsh.

    "More and more Australians are recognising the importance of setting savings goals and ... education savings plans are starting to appear at the forefront of the national psyche."

    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Age at link
    
    

  • Uni defends Saudi grant
    

    Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor has defended a $100,000 grant from the Saudi Arabian embassy, rejecting accusations the money was given to propagate a hardline Muslim ideology espoused by al-Qa'ida.
    

     

• The Age
  
  
  • Training-day view riles teacher union
    by Bridie Smith
    

    "Plans to make Victorian teachers the best paid in the nation collapsed yesterday after Education Minister Bronwyn Pike angered the education union by insisting pupil-free training days would "have to go".

    "Her comments, made on morning radio, caught Australian Education Union branch president Mary Bluett off guard, just as speculation was mounting that an agreement was imminent following 14 months of sometimes bitter wage negotiations.

    "Ms Pike yesterday said the Government was willing to offer a wage increase in excess of 3.25% a year if teachers gave up three pupil-free curriculum days as part of a bid to boost productivity.

    "They are inconvenient for the parents and they rob children of three extra days of teaching time," she told ABC radio. "Teachers need to engage in shared professional development before the students come back to school."

    "However, The Age believes that while fewer pupil-free training days were always an area that could potentially be traded in exchange for greater pay, losing three pupil-free days had not been discussed in formal negotiations.

    "The minister's comments prompted Ms Bluett to go on the attack at a highly charged stopwork meeting where up to 200 teachers rallied outside Ms Pike's North Melbourne electoral office.

    "If the minister persists with what she said on radio, there is no potential for resolution of this dispute," Ms Bluett said. "Teachers and principals haven't had a pay increase for 18 months and it looks like it's going to be a long time before they will get one."

    "She said making the comments on radio was inappropriate because it "put things that were not put to us in negotiations" and the minister had "alienated her workforce" at a sensitive stage of negotiations.

    "Teachers, who asked for a 30% rise over three years, have since softened their claim and are instead calling for pay parity with NSW. In turn, the Government has allowed its negotiators to move on salary, career structure and contract employment, but the sticking points of contract employment levels and additional holiday time remain.

    "Ms Bluett yesterday warned that unless the dispute was resolved soon, there would be further industrial action, including strikes to coincide with next month's national literacy and numeracy tests. The tests, the first national testing of students in grades 3, 5, 7 and 9, are scheduled for May 13-15.

    "The Victorian Independent Education Union, which represents teachers in Victoria's Catholic schools, is also set to strike on the testing days in support of their state school peers. Teachers in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia are also planning to strike as part of their own enterprise bargaining negotiations.

    "That will mean we will not get that national picture that the ministers were expecting," Ms Bluett said.

    "However, Ms Pike said the Government had always been clear that professional development should occur out of term time and not in the pupil-free days. She said plans for further industrial action to coincide with the national testing days were disappointing.

    "I'm mystified as to why they would set a date so far ahead when I thought they shared my aspirations to have this concluded quickly," she said.

    "Acting Opposition Leader Peter Ryan called on the Government to negotiate in good faith and resolve the dispute.

    "Victorian parents and teachers should not endure a situation where our teachers continue to receive the lowest levels of pay in Australia," he said. "Victorians cannot afford a minister who is more concerned with chest-beating on radio than achieving outcomes."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    

• The Daily Mail
  
  
  • Striking teachers 'feel no guilt' over disruption as one in three schools close
    by Laura Clark and Nicola Boden

    • More than 300 London schools closed or part closed
    • Around 160 schools in Birmingham closed
    • Only six primary and one secondary in Liverpool fully open
    • 69.5% of Newcastle schools closed or part closed
    • More than 140 Cumbrian schools closed or part closed

    "Defiant teachers today insisted they felt "no guilt" about going on strike and forcing more than one million children to stay at home.

    "Up to 400,000 teachers, lecturers and other public sector workers went on strike, leaving one in three schools in England and Wales shut for the day.

    "The walk-out provoked wide-spread problems for working parents who had to either stay at home or arrange emergency child care.

    "But teachers on the picket lines refused to apologise and insisted protesting against their pay deal was justified..."
    
    "Around 8,000 schools were affected and more than 50 rallies were also planned across the country with striking teachers joining civil servants involved in separate rows over pay.
    
    "Unions said it was the biggest wave of strikes since Labour came to power.

    "NUT officials claimed up to 90 per cent of schools had been closed in some areas, indicating the action had been far more "disruptive than anticipated..." [emphasis added]
    
    "All three main political parties have criticised the strike, with ministers arguing it is "not credible" to revise their pay offer.

    "But the NUT has already warned that today could be just the start of a long-term campaign over pay..."

    Full story in The Daily Mail at link

   

Friday 25 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teacher shortage may hit 2000 (page 3)
    by Yasmine Phillips

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has warned that the school system faces a shortage of more than 2000 teachers within seven years and used the forecast to attack a push by State schoolteachers for better conditions, saying it would only exacerbate the problem.

    "Releasing long-term projections on teacher numbers yesterday, Mr McGowan blamed the shortage on the State's booming economy for attracting teachers into other jobs, the ageing population and a fall in the number of students entering the profession. He said a report by the Department of Education and Training showed teacher shortages were expected to worsen and by 2015 there would be a potential shortfall of more than 2000.

    "The modelling that we've done is sobering," he said. "It shows that without any action, without any further steps being taken, we could at various points in the future have a greater shortfall of teachers in our public and private school workforce," he said.

    "He said the State schoolteachers' push for smaller class sizes and more time away from the classroom would make matters worse. "Their demands would mean that public schools would need at least 350 additional teachers in the immediate future," he said. [emphasis added]

    "State schoolteachers are campaigning for a 20 per cent pay rise over three years along with better conditions.

    "State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne attacked the Minister for using the figures to comment on ongoing negotiations.

    "I don't think the Minister can afford to have worsening teacher conditions if he wants to be able to go out and make this profession attractive and actually overcome those projected figures," she said.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the problem was much wider than Mr McGowan had acknowledged. "Having travelled the length and breadth of this Sate, the Government has underestimated the depth of this problem," he said. "The cosmetic solutions that the Government has implemented over the last 12 months won't resolve the situation. The Government must create teachers, not poach them from interstate and overseas."

    "Morale within our teaching fraternity is at an all-time low, teachers feel completely undervalued." [emphasis added]

    "WA Primary Principals Association president Steve Breen said staff shortages extended into the entire public service and the community had a role to play in lifting the profile of the State's education system.

    "Independent Schools Association of WA chief executive Audrey Jackson said there was no easy solution to the teacher shortage and it would require more extensive overseas recruitment and greater consultation with universities.

    "Mr McGowan said the Government had tackled teacher shortages with 17 initiatives in the past 18 months. He said more initiatives would be implemented next year."

    From The West Australian

    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Pay more to help teacher shortage: academic
    
    "The Dean of Education at the University of Western Australia says he is not surprised at projections showing WA will be more than 2,000 teachers short in the next seven years.

    "A report on teacher demand and supply released by the state government shows teacher retirements will peak by 2015.

    "Professor Dean Louden [sic] says the shortfall is a simple labour market question and employers need to make the profession more attractive.

    "30 years ago there were relatively few occupations that required people to have degrees before they could work in them and now many occupations employ graduates," he said.

    "What has to happen is that employers need to look at that graduate labour market and make the case to people that teaching's a good profession for them to enter."

    "Professor Louden says the teaching shortage is a national problem as the competition for university graduates increases.

    "Right across the country employers are going to need to pay teachers more."

    "Pay's not the reason why people join teaching but you can't expect people to join the profession when they see it as poorly paid." [emphasis added]

    From ABC News at link

  
  

• The Guardian
  
  
  • Strike over teachers' pay closes thousands of schools
    by Polly Curtis, education editor
    
    • More than a million children are affected
    • NUT leaders will meet to discuss further action
    
    "Schools could face more strikes on the scale of yesterday's teacher walk-out if the government does not improve its pay offer, the National Union of Teachers has warned.

    "The union's leadership will meet within weeks to discuss what steps to take next, with further national strikes an option.

    "There are warnings today that the strike has damaged teachers' reputations after a poll suggested that parents have little sympathy with their cause.

    "More than a million pupils at 8,000 schools were expected to miss school yesterday, and those predictions may have been exceeded. Several local authorities reported more than twice as many schools closed or partly closed as expected.

    "The action amounted to the most widespread strikes since Labour came to power in 1997, with college lecturers and civil servants joining in a "day of discontent" over public sector pay. More than 50 rallies took place across the country..."

    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
    
  • 'New teachers are being driven out'
    by Martin Wainwright
    
    "It was cold and raining, but the car horns kept the Lawnswood teachers' picket going: driver after driver honking, more support than most of the strikers had expected.

    "Schools are everybody's business, not just ours," said Richard Raferty, who normally teaches humanities at the Leeds comprehensive, but was on the picket line with a "Where's the money, Darling?" placard.

    "We've been criticised in some of the media for walking out, but newly qualified teachers especially are being driven to walk away from the profession altogether. Most of them have got student loans whose interest payments have just been doubled. They can't make ends meet."

    "His young colleague Lola Okoloasi, who teaches English at Lawnswood, agreed under her umbrella that she was a case in point. With a salary around £20,000 and a £16,000 loan debt accruing £500 a year, she said: "I've no way of paying off a sum like that at this rate - at least not for about 25 years."

    "Okoloasi and the other dozen teachers on the picket line, out of 23 who went on strike at Lawnswood, don't want to leave a job which they see as a vocation, but temptation hits them virtually every day.

    "Everyone I graduated with is earning £2,000 a year more than me, at least," she said. "And I've had to do an extra year of training compared with most of them too."

    From The Guardian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Uni draws more fire over Saudi cash
    by Richard Kerbaj
    

    "Griffith University's attempts to justify accepting large donations from the Saudi Government by citing similar arrangements at Oxford and Harvard have been undermined by revelations British and American authorities have begun examining the growing influence of Muslim benefactors on tertiary institutions.

    "English language students Fahad al-Amer, Muna el Herbi and Manahel al-Sudais from Saudi Arabi. Picture: Patrick Hamilton
    Britain's MI5 director-general, Jonathan Evans, reportedly told the Brown Government this month that the Saudi Government's multi-million-dollar donations to universities, along with other funds from Muslim organisations in countries such as Pakistan, had led to a "dangerous increase in the spread ofextremism in leading university campuses".

    "The warning came just days after the Higher Education Funding Council for England held a special meeting to confront fears Saudi donations were unduly influencing universities.

    "And the US Congress is also examining Saudi donations to American colleges..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Internet degree factories pump out diplomas
    by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
    

    "At least 25 counterfeit diploma factories are willing to sell University of Sydney MBA certificates over the internet, and many routinely sell fake parchments and transcripts from universities around Australia.

    "But often employers do not check the bona fides of job applicants' qualifications, and universities are unable or unwilling to prevent scammers from ripping off their qualifications, a specialist in degree fraud has found.

    "Dr George Brown, over three years of research for his PhD, identified 46 websites that claimed to sell fake degrees and another 52 that closed down before they could be contacted..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    

Saturday – Sunday, 26 – 27 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers angry as McGowan hides report (page 6)
    by Yasmine Phillips

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan came under renewed pressure yesterday to release a five-month-old report hailed as the solution to WA's alarming teacher shortage after he revealed Cabinet had not yet considered the tax payer-funded review.

    "Mr. McGowan said thee report, completed by teacher shortage task force chairman Lance Twomey late last year, would be released publicly once Cabinet had considered it.

    "The Government spent almost $480,000 on the 12-member task force which was charged with investigating WA's teacher shortages by assessing teacher salaries, workloads and regional concerns in February last year.

    "But Mr. McGowan blamed the five month delay yesterday on the Government's moves to develop a comprehensive response to the report before it is released.

    "The Twomey report is expected to support the union's claim for significant pay rises and better working conditions.

    "Pressure has intensified on the Government since Mr. McGowan released new figures on Thursday which predicted a shortage of more than 2000 teachers within seven years across the public and private school sectors.

    "State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne accused Mr. McGowan of being short-sighted for not releasing the report during the union's increasingly bitter pay negotiations with the Government, which include demands for across-the-board pay increases of 20 per cent over three years and better working conditions.

    "This type of information really should be on the table so a proper and thorough consideration of all the possible strategies can be considered," she said.

    "Ms. Gisborne said addressing teachers' salaries was the fundamental key to tackling the teacher shortage.

    "University of WA education dean Bill Louden said teachers would need significant and sustained pay rises if the predicted long-term crisis was to be avoided.

    "It's absolutely clear that teachers will have to be paid more and that's part of the story of increasing the supply of prospective teachers," he said. "That goes for this pay claim but also for future pay claims.

    "Australians are just going to have to get used to the idea that they're going to have to pay more for teachers because if they don't we're not going to have teachers in schools." [emphasis added]

    "WA Secondary School Executives Association president Rob Nairn said the sector needed to start working with the State Government to determine how it could best attract staff and maintain its existing workforce."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Hickey cool on school ball gay couples (page 62)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Gay students who attend Catholic schools should not be allowed to take same-sex partners to Year 12 school balls, the head of the Catholic Church in WA says.

    "Archbishop Barry Hickey said: "If a school is conducting a partners-only ball, the partners should be mail and female."

    "His comments came after it was revealed that a prestigious Brisbane boys' college insisted that its students had to take female partners to a school dinner dance.

    "Catholic Education Office deputy director Mary Retel said it was up to individual school principals to manage the issue, but they would not condone anything that did not fit with the Church's teaching on any kid of relationship outside marriage.

    "If I were a principal I'd be saying that any student that's living a lifestyle outside that of which the Church would be proud of and promote, we would pastorally care for them and talk to them, it doesn't matter what," she said.

    "If a girl were living with a boy, for example, we would take that as our pastoral responsibility to work through and say that is not appropriate."

    "Ms. Retel declined to comment on whether a gay student would be permitted to take another gay student to the ball. "The CEO would be saying to principals, you need to be working with your community, you make the rules," she said. "But no principal would be condoning anything the Church does not condone."

    "The executive director of the Anglican Schools Commission, the Rev. Peter Laurence, said it was up to individual principals to decide who was allowed to attend schools balls, irrespective of gender.

    "Nothing within the guidelines of how we operate Anglican Schools would prevent a principal from making the decision that that could happen, were it raised with them," he said. He did not know whether any principal had dealt with such a query.

    "Department of Education and Training school support programmes executive director David Axworthy said individual schools decided how school balls were run. But they were encouraged to discuss arrangements with students and parents and to consider principles of inclusivity "in which diversity is valued and discrimination is strongly discouraged."

    "Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson said privately run religious schools were exempt from sexual discrimination claims."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Tick for account course (page 7)

    "WA's new high school accounting course - which came under fire from professional bodies last year - has finally been accredited.

    "Accounting and Finance was the last of the 52 new courses awaiting Curriculum Council approval.

    "The new accounting course would start in schools in 2009 for Year 11.

    "Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said the accreditation meant the timeline to implement all new courses was now firm and old TEE subjects would be examined for the last time in 2009.

    "The Institute of Chartered Accountants and Certified Practicing Accountants Australia withdrew from a Curriculum Council reference group in September, fearing it would not give students the grounding they needed for university business studies."

    From The Sunday Times
    
    

    
    
  • Ban on parties after balls (page 4)
    by Hayley Bolton and Anthony DeCeglie

    "Perth high schools are banning "after-ball" parties because of rampant underage binge drinking, drugtaking and sex.

    "Reports have emerged of students being assaulted and brawls sparking police action.

    "The Sunday Times understands that St. Hilda's Anglican School for Girls in Mosman Park is one of several to enforce bans. The school would not comment yesterday.

    "Police Supt David Parkinson said that after ball parties were plagued by risky behaviour that had led to sexual assaults in the past.

    "Intoxicated teenagers, especially girls, put themselves at risk of sexual assault.

    "They can get themselves into situations and do things they would normally never dream of," he said.

    "One high-school student boasted that her after-ball party was total chaos.

    "I remember waking up on a piece of wood and I think I was still completely smashed," she said. "I had vomit on my shirt and there were others passed out around me."

    "Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said he knew of several private schools that enforced bans.

    "Some schools have forbidden them," Mr. Collier said.

    "Some high schools are sending letters to parents warning them about the parties and others hold assemblies to plead with students to go straight home after the ball.

    "WA Council of State Schools Organisations president Rob Fry said high schools sent letters out urging parents to know what their children had planned after their ball.

    "Normally, school balls go off without a problem," Mr. Fry said. "Where the schools have no control is the after-ball parties that crop up."

    From The Sunday Times
    

    
    
    
  • Mark McGowan email link to Brian Burke
    by Sunday Times education writer Paul Lampathakis
    
    "The future of the Premier's right-hand man, Education Minister Mark McGowan, hangs in the balance after revelations of his links to Brian Burke.
    
    "Mr McGowan has repeatedly denied involvement with Mr Burke – telling parliament and the media that the former Labor premier even prepared a campaign against him at the 2005 election.

    "But explosive emails obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that aspiring premier Mr McGowan was working with the disgraced lobbyist at that election.

    "Using the email address of Mr McGowan's wife, Sarah, the pair exchanged emails where Mr Burke advised Mr McGowan about campaign fundraising strategy.

    "Other emails show Mr Burke also wrote a fundraising letter and newspaper ads to get Mr McGowan re-elected.

    "Shadow attorney-general Christian Porter called for Premier Alan Carpenter to sack Mr McGowan.

    "What makes it a dismissable offence is that by using his wife's email it has been clearly done with the intention to deceive . . . as to the true nature of his relationship with Mr Burke," Mr Porter said.

    "The emails were sent when Mr McGowan was parliamentary secretary to then-premier Geoff Gallop, during Dr Gallop's ban on ministers and their staff meeting Mr Burke and lobbyist Julian Grill.

    "Mr Carpenter – who also has a ban on ministers contacting the lobbyists – forced out ministers Norm Marlborough, John Bowler and Tony McRae over their dealings with Mr Burke and Mr Grill. He could not comment because he was abroad.

    "Acting Premier Eric Ripper would not comment.

    "Emails in February 2005 – just before the election – show Mr Burke guiding Mr McGowan on strategy. They involve Peel MLA Norm Marlborough, Fran Logan – who is now Energy and Resources Minister – ALP state secretary Bill Johnston and former federal Labor leader Kim Beazley.

    "Dear Mark . . . it is absolutely essential that you keep Norm (Marlborough) fully informed about the funds raised in response to the (Kim) Beazley letter," said Mr Burke's email to Mr McGowan, at 10am, February 1, 2005.

    "This frank sharing of information is important in any team situation and I will explain to you when I see you why it is so critical.

    "Norm mentioned to you a fundraising dinner with Kim – as discussed, we need to get dates from Kim, and Norm is ringing him today. I would hope to sell 25 to 30 tickets at $1000 each – what do you think about including Fran (Logan) or someone else?"

    "Mr Burke's email also invited Mr McGowan and his wife to a barbecue at his house.

    "Mrs McGowan responded first, saying she would "pass on" the email, then Mr McGowan emailed back the next day, saying: "Dear Brian . . . I will pass on to Norm (Marlborough) today a list of donations I have received so far as a result of the fundraising letter.

    "The fundraising dinner is an excellent idea if Kim (Beazley) has the time.

    "I am comfortable about including Fran Logan, but would also like to see the ALP and Bill Johnston receive some of the proceeds."

    "Another email shows Mr Burke telling a designer how to word slogans on Mr McGowan's, Mr Logan's and Mr Marlborough's election ads.

    "In an email about a fundraising letter written by Mr Burke, Mr Burke asks that a party staffer tell Mr McGowan that "ALL of the donations will go to his campaign".

    "The aim of the exercise is to maximise the donations received," Mr Burke's email said.

    "The Sunday Times phoned Mr McGowan yesterday and asked whether Mr Burke helped him in the last state election.

    "Mr McGowan responded: "It's not true mate, there's no emails. Look, I'm. Look I'm. This isn't my email address. Can I just, can I talk to my wife . . . Can I call you back because I have no recollection of this?"

    "The questions continued: "I mean you would remember if Brian helped you in the last state election."

    "Mr McGowan said: "I've had nothing to do with him."

    "We asked: "So you're emphatically denying that Brian helped you at the last state election?"

    "Mr McGowan answered: "Let me talk to my wife, it's not my email. I'll call you back."

    "A statement from him later said: "I never sought nor received direct assistance from Brian Burke during the 2005 election campaign.

    "However, assistance provided to another member of parliament may have helped with my campaign.

    "I was the beneficiary of a fundraising letter signed and sent by Mr Kim Beazley, which assisted my campaign.

    "My wife received an unsolicited email from Mr Burke in early 2005 inviting her and I to a barbecue at his house. I politely declined the invitation and have not had any contact with him whatsoever since."

    "Mr Burke said yesterday: "I'm not disputing the authenticity of the information, but I'm not going to comment."

    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
  • ABC News
    
    
    • Opposition demands WA Govt dump Minister over Burke emails
      
      
    • WA Minister denies assistance from Burke
      
      
      
      
• The Age [Saturday]
  
  
  • Teaching Australia's future in doubt
    by Jewel Topsfield
    
    "Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard has refused to guarantee the future of a body set up by the Howard Government to improve teaching.

    "Many teachers and states said the establishment of Teaching Australia in 2005 was an ideologically driven exercise in teacher-bashing, its role in representing teachers and school leaders too broad, and that it duplicated the tasks of state teacher registration boards.

    "The former government allocated $30 million until 2009 to fund the institute, but Ms Gillard refused to comment on its future at a private meeting with principals' groups earlier this year. Her adviser, Tom Bentley, said that budget issues would pressure the decisions about Teaching Australia, according to notes from the meeting published on the Australian Secondary Principals Association's website.

    "Mr Bentley reportedly told the principals a review of Teaching Australia was needed.

    "A spokeswoman for Ms Gillard said the Government would not speculate on budget matters. But Ms Gillard has hinted the Government could scrap a tuition vouchers scheme for young pupils who failed literacy and numeracy tests.

    "Last month she described the four-year $457.4 million program, which was announced in last year's budget, as "ineffective". And the Rudd Government is also likely to ditch a contentious $101 million summer school program for teachers, which was slated to continue until 2011.

    "Although a $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund for university infrastructure was the centrepiece of last year's budget, sources have told The Age there is unlikely to be a windfall for universities next month.

    "Ms Gillard has appointed former University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Denise Bradley to chair a review OF higher education. Professor Bradley is not due to report until the end of the year, which means major funding decisions will be delayed until future budgets.

    "But the Government will need to fund its election promises. These include a $1 billion four-year program to provide every student in years 9 to 12 with a computer, $25.9 million to build three new boarding colleges for indigenous students in the Northern Territory, the phasing out of domestic full-fee degrees from next year, new maths and science scholarships and the $2.5 billion trades training centre in schools plan.

    "Australian Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos said Teaching Australia purported to speak on behalf of teachers but there was no union membership on its board."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • It is teachers who have been robbed

      "Accusing teachers of being greedy (Letters, 25/4) is like accusing the victims of a burglary of being greedy because they demand back what was stolen from them and insist that they do not have to hand over something else in return.

      "Teachers have had their pay cut, relatively speaking, by $28,788 since 1979. They have had the staffing of the average secondary school cut by five teachers since then. They have had permanent employment stolen and replaced by short-term contracts. They have had their teaching loads increased, the pool of deductions from teaching loads for leadership positions abolished, and their professional say reduced.

      "If the sticking point in this dispute is teaching time, then the Government and the union should agree to undo the 12-minute cut made to the secondary teaching day in 1991. This would add eight days of teaching time in a year, whereas taking away pupil-free days would add only three. Restoring the length of the school day is Labor Party policy. Cutting pupil-free days is not."

      Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge
      
      

    • Not just a job
      
      "Paul Bugeja (Letters, 25/4) is indicative of the general ignorance of teachers' situations that is rife in the community and the present State Government. Although not a teacher myself, I am married to one and know many others. I experience first-hand the workload teachers have and the kind of commitment and dedication required, not simply to survive as a teacher, but to excel.

      "Cameron Bell (Letters, 25/4) mentioned the preparation and administration done during the 10 weeks of student-free time (what some call teachers' "holidays"); he also mentioned the weekly after-hours work during term time. However, he missed the regular weekend work and the relentless concern most teachers show in their search for the best resources for their classes.

      "Teaching is a mode of life, not a job. And the State Government's miserly offer of a pay increase for an increase in "productivity" is insulting."

      Jason Hobba, Narre Warren
      
      

    • "Thirty per cent of Australians illiterate, Jo Rogers (Letters, 25/4)? What utter rubbish. This country has one of the highest rates of literacy and the best education systems in the world."

      Gordon Drennan, Burton, SA
      
      
      

  • Teachers have to LOL — or they'd cry
    from The New York Times
    
    "As emails, text messages and social-network postings become ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their school work.

    "Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board's National Commission on Writing.

    "About half said they sometimes omitted proper punctuation and capitalisation and a quarter said they had used emoticons such as smiley faces. About a third said they had used text shortcuts such as "LOL" (laugh out loud)..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Far too much to lose
    by Zoe McCallum
    
    "A decade has passed since the World Health Organisation stated that childhood obesity was a new global epidemic. Here in Australia, data from the most recent nationally representative survey of schoolchildren, the 2004 NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey of 5400 children, indicates that 8% of boys and 6% of girls are obese, with a further 17% of both overweight.

    "It is a similar picture in Victoria. If the current trajectory continues, then half of all Australian children will be overweight or obese by 2026 — putting them at increased risk of a range of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and mental health problems.

    "In December last year, Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced a new Medicare item, the Healthy Kids Check, with the aim of ensuring that all four-year-olds are healthy, fit and ready to learn before they start school. The check is to be conducted by GPs or practice nurses and linked to immunisations. Clearly this is an opportunity to ensure the health and wellbeing of our little citizens, and arguably the family doctor is well-placed to perform this check — with, hopefully, knowledge of the child's family context. Given that at least one in four of these children will be above their healthiest weight, I would hope that GPs or practice nurses would be provided with the training, allied health staff and remuneration for the time required to be spent discussing healthy weight and healthy lifestyle issues with these families.

    "Without skilled professionals to address the myriad issues raised, I fear that categorising kids into underweight, normal, overweight and (God forbid we use this word) obese categories could be potentially harmful..."
    
    Dr Zoe McCallum is a pediatrician at Royal Children's Hospital, specialising in clinical nutrition and weight management.
    
    Full story in The Sunday Age at link
    
    
    

  • University sports suffer from outlawing of compulsory fees
    
    Scrapping union fees puts many teams on the bench.
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Op Ed
    It is poor discipline, not low pay, that drives teachers to quit the classroom
    by Deborah Orr
    
    "My small son has managed to survive his first involvement in industrial action quite well, with a trip to the Science Museum, a sunny-intervals romp in the park, and an impressively thorough drenching in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. That's what I was told anyway, as A N Other mum took him off my hands for the day, while I got on with work as usual. Lucky me. Lucky him.

    "Still, the strike undermines one's inclination to believe those bossy letters that schools are wont to send out these days, assuring us that even a single afternoon off is a major threat to the progress of a child's education, and that the permission of the head teacher must be sought in writing prior to attendance at the dentist. Never mind, perhaps next time a little pink slip thrust into his book bag, offering 24-hour notice of his absence, like it or lump it, will suffice.

    "I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that teachers should be well remunerated, nor, more widely, to the idea that pay should keep pace with inflation. But I'm not sure how well the resort to downing tools plays to other problems that teachers face, such as the unfortunate lack of professional esteem in which they are held. Are teachers learned and dedicated pedagogues, or down-trodden recalcitrant workers? Actions like that of the National Union of Teachers this week throw up the queasy suggestion that even they cannot quite make up their minds. Certainly, the lack of support from their colleagues in the other, smaller teaching unions is at least partly inspired by similar concerns.

    "I'm unconvinced, too, by the NUT's argument that pay is the primary reason why lack of retention of teachers remains such a difficulty. People understand what teachers earn when they decide to train for the profession. While low pay in comparison to others with similar levels of qualification is certainly a factor in the decision of teachers to quit, after years of investment in their training, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is by no means the single most important clincher.

    "When I talk to disillusioned teachers, the single issue that upsets them most is the effort it takes to maintain discipline in large classes that tend to accommodate an element of low-level disruption that must be borne, and which makes teaching all pupils more difficult. One teacher I interviewed spoke of her inability to stretch the brightest pupils in her class because she had to carry the others along as well, while at the same time expending a huge amount of energy on mollifying those who didn't want to be there. Even the average children lose out in this situation to the extent, she blushingly admitted, that the pupils who were neither stars nor undesirables were referred to in the staffroom as "the wallpaper".

    "Alongside this frustration runs teachers' bitterness at the level of prescription to the national curriculum, and the culture of testing. Since 25 consecutive reports have now confirmed this deadening problem, especially at primary level, it would be churlish to dismiss such complaints.

    "Teachers also find that they are in something of a cleft stick when it comes to pursuing a career path that can lead to much higher salaries. A common observation is that teaching is hampered because of the system whereby the most outstanding teachers tend to be fast-tracked into management, if they wish to increase their earning power. The best teachers, therefore, are often the ones who teach least and manage most.

    "The trouble is that one cannot strike in order to demand pupils who value education, or parents who will support them in that aspiration. The strike may be focused on money, but the niggling feeling is that this is no more the central difficulty facing teachers who are manfully struggling to cope with a bureaucratic system than it is for the ones who are tempted to give up. As for those parents who are least inclined to support their children in their life at school, the concern there is that their own damaging attitudes will be confirmed rather than assuaged by the spectacle of striking teachers. The teachers' strike is a miserable development, and one worries that after the initial bullishness that comes of Doing Something, it will only make the already precarious commitment of many teachers more fragile."

    From The Independent at link
    
    
    • You can't blame teachers for quitting when entire families are hostile to education [Deborah Orr Op Ed, 26 March]
      
      
      
      
• The Telegraph
  
  
  • Op Ed
    We need higher pay for better teachers
    by Simon Heffer
    
    "One of the least appealing sights of the year is the television coverage of the National Union of Teachers at its Easter conference.
    
    "It requires only the briefest acquaintance with these people to see not merely that our children can only be imperilled by contact with such a crew of Marxists, sectarians and anti-elitists, but that it might have been a mistake to stop transporting trades unionists to the colonies.

    "Yet I have some sympathy with the teachers who went on strike this week, and are threatening more of the same unless they get a better pay offer.

    "When one hears - as I did the other day - of a highly qualified young woman who holds down a job with serious responsibilities in a comprehensive school and is paid £19,000 a year for it, only a fool could make the case that she is adequately paid.

    "Yet we have a Government that finds the money to waste, on an epic scale, on countless socially unproductive jobs for its clients, and which is now selling off assets to help fund its profligacy.

    "If I were a teacher, I should be angry as well.

    "Yet some of these people are their own worst enemies. The exhibition they provide at their annual conference is almost, it seems, calculated to disgust..."
    
    Full story in The Telegraph at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Study Suggests Math Teachers Scrap Balls and Slices (25 April)
    by Kenneth Chang
    
    "One train leaves Station A at 6 p.m. traveling at 40 miles per hour toward Station B. A second train leaves Station B at 7 p.m. traveling on parallel tracks at 50 m.p.h. toward Station A. The stations are 400 miles apart. When do the trains pass each other?
    
    "Entranced, perhaps, by those infamous hypothetical trains, many educators in recent years have incorporated more and more examples from the real world to teach abstract concepts. The idea is that making math more relevant makes it easier to learn.

    "That idea may be wrong, if researchers at Ohio State University are correct. An experiment by the researchers suggests that it might be better to let the apples, oranges and locomotives stay in the real world and, in the classroom, to focus on abstract equations, in this case 40 (t + 1) = 400 - 50t, where t is the travel time in hours of the second train. (The answer is below.)

    “The motivation behind this research was to examine a very widespread belief about the teaching of mathematics, namely that teaching students multiple concrete examples will benefit learning,” said Jennifer A. Kaminski, a research scientist at the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State. “It was really just that, a belief.”

    "Dr. Kaminski and her colleagues Vladimir M. Sloutsky and Andrew F. Heckler did something relatively rare in education research: they performed a randomized, controlled experiment. Their results appear in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

    "Though the experiment tested college students, the researchers suggested that their findings might also be true for math education in elementary through high school, the subject of decades of debates about the best teaching methods.

    "In the experiment, the college students learned a simple but unfamiliar mathematical system, essentially a set of rules. Some learned the system through purely abstract symbols, and others learned it through concrete examples like combining liquids in measuring cups and tennis balls in a container.

    "Then the students were tested on a different situation — what they were told was a children’s game — that used the same math. “We told students you can use the knowledge you just acquired to figure out these rules of the game,” Dr. Kaminski said.

    "The students who learned the math abstractly did well with figuring out the rules of the game. Those who had learned through examples using measuring cups or tennis balls performed little better than might be expected if they were simply guessing. Students who were presented the abstract symbols after the concrete examples did better than those who learned only through cups or balls, but not as well as those who learned only the abstract symbols.

    "The problem with the real-world examples, Dr. Kaminski said, was that they obscured the underlying math, and students were not able to transfer their knowledge to new problems. [emphasis added]

    “They tend to remember the superficial, the two trains passing in the night,” Dr. Kaminski said. “It’s really a problem of our attention getting pulled to superficial information.”

    "The researchers said they had experimental evidence showing a similar effect with 11-year-old children. The findings run counter to what Dr. Kaminski said was a “pervasive assumption” among math educators that concrete examples help more children better understand math.

    "But if the Ohio State findings also apply to more basic math lessons, then teaching fractions with slices of pizza or statistics by pulling marbles out of a bag might prove counterproductive. “There are reasons to think it could affect everyone, including young learners,” Dr. Kaminski said.

    "Dr. Kaminski said even the effectiveness of using blocks and other “manipulatives,” which have become more pervasive in preschool and kindergarten, remained untested. It has not been shown that lessons in which children learn to count by using blocks translate to a better understanding of numbers than a more abstract approach would have achieved.

    "The Ohio State researchers have begun new experiments with elementary school students.

    "Other mathematicians called the findings interesting but warned against overgeneralizing. “One size can’t fit all,” said Douglas H. Clements, a professor of learning and instruction at the University of Buffalo. “That’s not denying what these guys have found, whatsoever.”

    "Some children need manipulatives to learn math basics, Dr. Clements said, but only as a starting point.

    “It’s a fascinating article,” said David Bressoud, a professor of mathematics at Macalester College in St. Paul and president-elect of the Mathematical Association of America. “In some respects, it’s not too surprising.”

    "As for the answer to the math problem at the top of this article, the two trains pass each other at 11 p.m. at the midway point between Stations A and B. Or, using the abstract approach, t = 4."

    From The New York Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Schools to Study Grading Practices
    
    Parents Argue System Hurts Children
    
    Fairfax County school officials have agreed to review their grading policies in response to parents' concerns that relatively stringent standards mean their children are losing out on scholarships and college admissions.
    
    
    
  • Schoolyard Face-Offs Blamed on Facebook Taunts
    
    Twice this month, students at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda have used their fists to settle disputes that arose on Facebook.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • It's six degrees of deprivation [online only]
    by Sarah Price
    
    "Poverty among university students is at crisis point, with students in desperate need of short-term relief...
    
    "[National Union of Students president Angus] McFarland said a Universities Australia 2007 report showed that 40 per cent of full-time students found work commitments adversely affected their studies, while 22 per cent regularly missed class to work..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald online at link

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This page last updated 11 August, 2008 11:48 PM