Monday 5 May

Tuesday 6 May

Wednesday 7 May

Thursday 8 May

Friday 9 May

Saturday – Sunday, 10 – 11 May

 

Monday 5 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Internet the new classroom (page 15)
    by Bethany Hiatt and Beatrice Thomas

    "WA's teaching shortage is forcing more TEE students to study over the internet as specialist teachers become increasingly scarce.

    "The Flexible Learning in Schools program, in which students use computer technology to join in classes taking place in city schools, started with 17 pupils in three State high schools two years ago.

    "This year the program has been extended to nine schools and 80 students studying six TEE subjects, including physics, chemistry, geography, economics and mathematics.

    "Lance Twomey, who chaired a wide-ranging review into the teacher shortage last year, said it was another option that could help overcome the shortage of specialist teachers in areas such as maths and science. He said he could not pre-empt his report, which is still to be released by Education Minister Mark McGowan more than four months after completion, but it is expected to recommend extending flexible learning to other schools.

    "I think these are wonderful programs," he said. "From that perspective, it would be a bit strange if it wasn't in my report." [emphasis added]

    "Department of Education and Training Schools of Isolated and Distance Education director Jan Little said flexible learning provided a wider range of TEE subjects to Year 11 and 12 students.

    "Flexible learning differs from correspondence packages provided by SIDE in that the curriculum is taught by teachers using a "virtual classroom" instead of students working at their own pace through printed and computer resources supplied by SIDE. In a virtual classroom students and teachers talk to each other using video link-ups. Students are supervised at their own school by a non-specialist teacher and lessons recorded for future reference. They can also communicate with the specialist teacher by email, phone or post.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the scheme was just another way of hiding the true extent of the teacher shortage.

    "WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said while it would be ideal for every class to have its own teacher, it was better to study a course online than not to have the option of studying the subject at all.

    "The State School Teachers Union yesterday used a May Day rally in Fremantle to step up its campaign for better pay conditions by declaring it would take its message to the streets.

    "Speaking to a crowd of about 100 teachers before the May Day March, union president Anne Gisborne described the Government's handling of the teachers' pay dispute as short-sighted and in no way reflective of an Education Department in crisis.

    "The union also launched a new bus under the banner "teachers have had enough", which from tomorrow will pick up teachers after school and take them to marginal metropolitan and regional electorates for the next five to six weeks.

    "Mr McGowan yesterday maintained that the Government wanted to make sure WA teachers were among the best paid in Australia.

    "We are attempting to enter arbitration so that we can resolve this matter as soon as possible," he said."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • 'Melbourne model' woos State's top students (page 17)
    
    WA's brightest are chasing tertiary degrees with a difference
    
    The University of Melbourne is continuing to attract WA's top TEE students with large scholarships and its American-style liberal arts curriculum.
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Victorian teachers to be nation's best-paid [online update]
    by Farrah Tomazin [with AAP]
    
    "The education union has hailed a deal that will make Victorian teachers the highest-paid in the country as the best deal for its members in more than 25 years.

    "The agreement between the State Government and the Australian Education Union (AEU) resolves a 14-month industrial row, which included three statewide teachers' strikes and weeks of rolling half-day stoppages.

    "The unions had threatened to walk off the job from May 13 to 15, disrupting during the first national literacy and numeracy tests. The resolution of the industrial dispute means those tests are now likely to go ahead without disruption.

    "AEU Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said it was the best enterprise bargaining deal for teachers that she had seen in 25 years with the union.

    11% rise for some

    "However, there appears to be some contention over the increases announced by Premier John Brumby and Education Minister Bronwyn Pike this morning.

    "The Government says the deal will equate to a 4.9% pay rise in the first year and 2.7% in the second and third years of the agreement.

    "But the union believes some of biggest beneficiaries of the deal will get between 8% and 11%. [emphasis added]

    "It's a complex arrangement, but the least any teacher is going to get out of this is somewhere between five and six per cent per annum,'' Ms Bluett said.

    "This is the best outcome in terms of salary and career structure in my history as a union official of 25 years standing,'' Ms Bluett said.

    Pupil-free days to stay

    "A key sticking point in negotiations was the issue of pupil-free days, which the Government had originally wanted to abolish.

    "Under the new deal, three pupil free training days will be brought to the start of the term and become professional training days and only one will be held mid-term, in a bid to minimise disruption to parents.

    "It also includes an exits strategy to remove disengage teachers from classroom and find them new jobs.

    "Secondary students will get an extra six days of tuition each year under the deal, Mr Brumby said, describing it as a win for students and teachers.

    "A graduate teacher in Victoria currently earns $46,127 and under this agreement will become the highest-paid graduate teacher in the country earning $51,184, while an experienced classroom teacher will receive a $10,000 pay rise to $75,500."

    "Mr Brumby said the pay deal was consistent with the Government's wages policy of a 3.25% rise every year, plus increases off-set by service improvement.

    One-off payments

    "Teachers would keep one marking and report writing day at the end of semester one, Mr Brumby said.

    "Teachers also will receive a one-off payment of $1,000 and principals $2,000 at the agreement's start.

    "Ms Pike said the deal would increase all teachers' pay, make teacher graduates the highest-paid in the country, give high-performing principals executive contracts and create six more days tuition a year for secondary school students.

    "She said teachers would now implement a school reform process encouraging the best teachers to move to schools where they were most needed and encouraging high-performing graduates in other fields to enter teaching.

    Battle over

    "Victorian teachers had demanded that the Government match their salaries with those of NSW teachers.

    "They had sought a 10% pay rise each year for the next three years and a reduction in short-term contract employment.

    "But the Government had stuck to its offer of a 3.25% annual rise, in line with its public sector wages policy.

    "After a statewide strike earlier this year and weeks of rolling stoppages, teachers threatened to sabotage the national literacy and numeracy tests with a series of four-hour stoppages.

    "The Australian Education Union also won public support after an advertising campaign showing the disparity of incomes between teachers and other professionals and their interstate counterparts.

    "State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu last month vowed to spend $396 million over three years on teachers' wages to boost them from being the lowest-paid teachers in the country to the highest-paid."
    
    From The Age at link

  Key points * State-by-state teacher salaries: * Maximum for a classroom teacher * Victoria - 2007: $65,414, 2008: $75,500 * NSW - 2007: $72,454, 2008: $75,352 * Queensland - 2007: $69,225, 2008: $71,994 * South Australia - 2007: $68,422, 2008: $68,422 * West Australia - 2007: $67,446, 2008: $71,206 * ACT - 2007: $71,767, 2008: $74,279 * Northern Territory: 2007: $70,047, 2008: $72,849 * * Graduate Entry * Victoria - 2007: $46,127, 2008: $51,184 * NSW - 2007: $49,050, 2008: $50,522 * Queensland - 2007: $46,950, 2008: $48,829 * South Australia - 2007: $49,605, 2008: $49,605 * West Australia - 2007: $44,618, 2008: $45,733 * ACT: 2007: $50,781, 2008: $50,781 * Northern Territory: $49,944, 2008: $49,944 * * Source: Victorian Government

  
  Similar AAP story at The West Australian online at link
  
  

  • The Monday Education Section has 12 stories (many offering advice to TEE students), including:
    

    • Larger classes not the answer
      by Geoff Maslen
      

      "Only an academic, safe in his book-lined office on La Trobe University's green campus, could argue that class sizes in schools should be enlarged almost 50 per cent and that teachers should confront 35 hormone-charged and often obstreperous teenagers for six or more hours every day.

      "You have to wonder whether Dr John Hirst (as reported in The Age, 23/4) has ever taught in a school or been in a classroom since he left one 50 or more years ago. To suggest that children's education would be improved by cramming 35 big or even little children into a room, just to increase teachers' salaries, ignores the effect this over-crowding has on teacher and taught.

      "Dr Hirst argued that class sizes were not a "strong determinant of good education: the key factor is the quality of the teachers". He said the importance of good teachers was now generally acknowledged, as was the need to pay them much more; so he proposed that if class sizes were increased from 25 to 35, teachers could be paid 50% more from existing funds, without any strain on the state budget.

      "But no adults, outside the military or prison, would tolerate being forced to squeeze behind a desk and told to be quiet and get on with their work for hour after hour each day. Only because children are not grown-ups and have no rights can society condone them being incarcerated in school for 40 weeks a year for 13 long years.

      "That more young Australians don't rebel against the restrictions school places on them - the demand that they wear uniforms, to line up before going into class, to sit in not always quiet, ordered rows, to accept the knowledge meted out to them in steady doses by their teachers - is because they have been taught passivity. They have come to accept that being there is part of the business of stepping across childhood's threshold, even if the relevance of school to their present needs or their future aspirations remains obscure.

      "Dr Hirst backs his argument for bigger class sizes by claiming research shows class sizes are not a strong determinant of a good education. That depends on what a "good" education means and how it is assessed; if the measure is success in tests or examinations, then it ignores the effect of a crowded classroom on children's emotions, on their creativity and spontaneity, on their capacity to grow and develop as individuals, to become independent learners and thinkers.

      "More than 20 years ago, the then Australian Schools Commission called for more effective schooling, not approaches that were aimless or lacking in concern for excellence, or which might be regarded as soft options. The commission rejected the idea of students as empty vessels to be slowly filled with knowledge, instead noting that people - not just children - learn only when they are actively engaged by what is being taught.

      "But actively engaging students in what is being taught gets harder the more students the teacher has to confront. I began my teaching career in front of 45 wild-eyed boys at Footscray Tech in the late 1950s and continued taking large classes for mathematics in the years that followed, before the teacher unions began forcing a reluctant Education Department to accept smaller class sizes.

      "I was rated an outstanding teacher by the teams of inspectors that used to visit schools in those days but I never believed that good teachers could achieve as much with 40 or 50 students as with 20 or 30. How could you spend more than a minute or two helping a child when you had to watch what the other 35 or 40 were doing all the time?

      "How could you possibly get to know something about each student, what their learning problems were, how to boost their enthusiasm for learning when, in secondary school, you might only see them for a few hours each week and then not for an extended period?

      "Few academics and few parents can really appreciate the sorts of demands a large class makes on a teacher, or the effect being in one large class after another has on the youngsters. Academics protest when their tutorials have more than 15 students and become alarmed if the number exceeds 20, arguing it is impossible for a genuine intellectual exchange to take place. And, of course, they are correct.

      "Parents panic when their child announces that 20 other children are coming to the birthday party. A couple of hours of celebratory, sugar-charged juveniles is enough to exhaust most adults, so imagine what it is like for teachers who have to face that exuberance every day.

      "No, bigger classes are not the answer, although different ways of organising schools could be. As the commission argued all those years ago, schools should be liberating institutions, places that set their students free rather than shackle them to images of their own inadequacy or mistaken perspectives about the nature of learning."

      Geoff Maslen is a former education editor of The Age and now edits University World News - a global online higher education newspaper.

      From The Age at link

    
    
    • GAT - a form of protection
      by David Philips
      

      "Each year, with the mid-year VCE examinations, comes the General Achievement Test, known as the GAT. You are required to take the GAT if you are enrolled for even one VCE Level 3-4 sequence, including a Level 3-4 VET (vocational education and training) unit.

      "If you begin your Level 3-4 studies in year 11, you will take the GAT in that year, and again in year 12 if you take more Level 3-4 studies in year 12.

      "International Baccalaureate students also sit the GAT, and their notional ENTER score can be calculated from it.

      "Because the GAT is the only VCE assessment common to all students, the VCAA can use it to protect you against misfortune in the assessments that matter most to you.

      "You can gain advantage from good GAT results, but your overall standing in the VCE will not be affected if your results are poor.

      Essential information

      "This year the GAT will be held at 10am on Friday, June 13. It will run for three hours plus 15 minutes of reading time. It consists of three sections:

      • Writing Task 1, in which you will be asked to put into your own words the main information in material given to you in written and graph form (suggested time 30 minutes);
      • Writing Task 2, in which you will be asked to express a point of view on a particular topic, and to present reasons and arguments in support of your view (suggested time 30 minutes);
      • Seventy multiple-choice questions, covering mathematics, science, technology, humanities, the arts and social sciences.

    "The questions will not require any specific knowledge. Questions are presented in groups, usually of four or five. Each group of questions will be based on information presented as text, or in pictures, graphs or tables, and will test your understanding of the material presented, and your ability to reason and to draw appropriate conclusions from it (suggested time two hours).

    "All responses to the GAT, including responses to multiple-choice questions, should be written in the GAT Answer Book.

    "Before you start to write any responses, carefully read the instructions on the cover of this book which may be seen on the VCAA website (see the link under the heading "latest new" on the home page).

    "Managing your time is important, so don't allow one section to run overtime, at the expense of others. It is important to answer every question, even if you're not sure of the answer. "

    From The Age at link

    
    

• The Times
  
  
  • Fishing head’s job on the line [2 May]
    by Irena Barker
    
    He awaits decision on fitness to run school after angling licence expired

    "The relaxing burble of a river, coffee from a flask and the satisfying sensation of catching a really big one. What could beat an afternoon of fishing after an active week as an urban primary headteacher?

    "That is what Bob Yeomans thought as he set off with his rod to his favourite spot on the River Dove in Derbyshire last summer.

    "Little did he know that his innocent weekend outing would result in an experience he has described as “child protection gone mad” – and which has still not been resolved.

    "As he fished, Mr Yeomans was spotted by a water bailiff, who pointed out that his rod licence had expired. Horrified at the oversight, he came clean, pleaded guilty and later paid a £50 fine and £70 costs.

    "Nearly a year later, the offence popped up on an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check.

    “The chair of governors was notified that there could be an issue with a CRB check in the school and rang to tell me,” said Mr Yeomans, head of St John’s CofE Primary School in Walsall, West Midlands.

    “I said, ‘Is it a member of staff?’ and he said, ‘No, it’s you.’ I was shocked. He had to visit me, and in effect, he was being asked if I was fit to work with children for forgetting to renew my rod licence.”

    "The chair then submitted a form to the local authority panel that decides whether a member of staff can continue teaching. The school is still waiting for clearance to retain Mr Yeomans as head, although he has not been suspended.

    “It’s a bit of a joke in the school now,” he said. “But if you think of the amount of time that was wasted filling in forms and on the phone, you’d have thought someone would have had some common sense at an earlier stage. It was just child protection gone mad. It was clear the offence was irrelevant.”

    "Mr Yeomans is by no means the first teacher to be left red-faced by such a check. One teacher, who was reported to police by a neighbour for walking around his house naked, later found the incident recorded on his enhanced check, even though no criminal proceedings were brought.

    "A Home Office spokesman said there was no way for situations such as Bob Yeomans’ to be avoided.

    “If you have an enhanced CRB check, everything will appear and it is then up to the employer,” he said. “It’s better and safer for any contact the person has had with the police to be mentioned. Otherwise, where do we know to draw the line?”

    "The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) is today calling for more clarity on the checking of employers who offer work placements for diplomas.
    
    "The work-related qualifications will mean many more pupils carrying out long-term work experience, which the association fears may lead to an explosion of adult employees needing expensive checks."
    
    [Perhaps as long as he doesn't teach fishing???  Web]

    From The Times at link
    
    
    
    
  • Determined to head for the private path [4 May]
    
    More middle-class parents are opting for private schools, despite the huge costs, viewing it as a necessity
    
    Figures published last week show private school numbers at their highest level for five years. Despite fee rises of more than 6% last year, which pushed the average annual cost of private schooling to more than £11,000 [A$23,400], the number of pupils has climbed to a record 511,677.
    
    
    
    
• The Daily Mail [UK]
  
  
  • Parents are 'dumping' children on schools as Labour pushes for longer working hours, say teachers
    by Laura Clark
    
    "Ministers were yesterday accused of promoting a back-to-work culture where parents dump their children on schools and nurseries.

    "A head teachers' leader warned that plans for a massive expansion of childcare and a 50-hour week in schools encouraged parents to hand responsibility for bringing up their children to teachers.

    "Mick Brookes said: "Some parents do abdicate responsibility for their children. They dump their children early in the morning at school and are late picking them up at the end of the day." ...
    
    Full story in The Daily Mail at link

 

Tuesday 6 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Students face travel for classes (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "State high school students could be forced to travel between schools to study a range of Year 11 and 12 subjects under a desperate plan presented to principals yesterday as a way to cope with an expected worsening of the teacher shortage.

    "Education director-general Sharyn O'Neill called 185 high school principals to a crisis meeting and admitted that more schools would not be able to provide a full program of traditional academic subjects within four years.

    "She also conceded that, by 2010, without urgent action, half the State's high school students would be educated in private schools as parents continued to abandon the State system.

    "Principals were urged to find "local solutions" and adopt innovative programs used elsewhere - which could include "clustering" schools to offer a selection of TEE subjects at different schools within the same local area. Students would travel by bus between schools.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said such proposals were an acceptance of defeat and showed up the Education Department's complete lack of foresight and planning.

    "There is going to be a very real push on behalf of some schools to counsel their students into some subjects," he said. "Students are going to be seriously restricted in their subject choices."

    State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said plans for teachers to work flexible hours so students could attend classes at other schools had been raised in pay negotiations. "There is no doubt that there is a desire to be able to operate in a more flexible way," she said. "We have some concerns ... about industrials conditions for teachers and ... duty of care for students."

    "WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said the department had told him of the proposal to rationalise classes.

    "Transporting students would raise challenges. "Some parents won't be happy with it," he said. "It's no different at the moment when they go to the local swimming pool for some of their sports activities, I think it can work like that."

    "Ms O'Neill said the department could deliver more as a system than as a collection of autonomous schools but stressed she was not advocating clusters as the sole solution. "Strategies will vary between districts and depend on the location of the school," she said. "My guiding principle is one of co-operation between schools, rather than competition."

    "Principals were also told the teacher shortage in high schools would ease in 2010, when fewer Year 8s than usual would enrol because of the change to the school starting age in 2001. It is understood Ms O'Neill told principals that hundreds of teachers would not be required that year.

    "The department said Ms O'Neill had told principals expected savings of about $30 million caused by the need for fewer secondary teachers in 2010 had already been spent by Treasury on building new kindergarten and pre-primary classrooms.

    "By 2011 we will have serious shortages of both primary and secondary teachers," Ms O'Neill said in an email to schools yesterday."

    From The West Australian
    
    

  • ABC News
    
    
    • Radical new plan to address teacher shortage
      
      "Students in Perth may have to travel between different schools to study a range of year 11 and 12 subjects under a new plan put forward by the Education Department.

      "The idea was one of a range of strategies put forward at a meeting between the department and high school principals to address the teacher shortage.

      "The Education Department's Director-General, Sharyn O'Neill, says the idea could help students whose schools are not able to provide a full range of subjects.

      "But she says the proposal will only be adopted in situations where it is best for the students.

      "Decisions and solutions will all be based on what's best for students," she said.

      "We're moving forward, we have a positive opportunity here to address some issues and we're going to do it with parents, we're going to do it with schools, and we're going to do it together with students as the focus point."

      Desperate plan

      "The Opposition Education spokesman Peter Collier says the plan demonstrates just how desperate the teacher shortage has become.

      "Mr Collier says it will have a negative impact on students.

      "We are being told that we are going to have to clusters of schools that are going to be forced to combine to offer a full raft of subject choices," he said.

      "Now inevitably students will be counselled against taking particular subject that are not available at their school. Now these subjects will almost be exclusively be the more difficult TEE subjects."

      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
      

  • New pay deal for Victorian teachers beats McGowan's offer, says union (page10)
    by Kim MacDonald

    "A generous new pay deal for Victorian teachers has put further pressure on Education Minister Mark McGowan to boost the Government's pay offer to WA State school teachers.

    "The Victorian Government said yesterday that most of its long serving teachers would get $81, 806 annually by early 2011.

    "State School Teachers Union general secretary David Kelly said the gap undermined claims by Mr McGowan that the Government's offer, if accepted, would have made local teachers Australia's best paid.

    "Mr Kelly said that up to three-quarters of the State's 22,000 teachers were paid according to an automatic pay scale, which was capped at the seventh year.

    "He claimed only a relatively small number of local teachers were able to meet requirements to move beyond the automatic pay scale. Mr McGowan said WA teachers could make thousands more than those in Victoria with the same experience if they did a professional development course to qualify for a higher pay scale, known as the senior teacher level.

    "His office said only 40 hours of professional development was needed to qualify."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • ABC News
    
    
    • Teachers pay win in Victoria set precedent: SSTU
      
      "The State School Teachers Union (SSTU) says it hopes the state government takes note of a pay deal for teachers in Victoria.

      "A long-running industrial dispute in Victoria has ended with teachers winning significant pay rises and a one-off bonus of $1,000.

      "Teachers in Western Australia want a 20 per cent pay rise over three years and improved working conditions.

      "The President of the SSTU, Anne Gisborne, says the teacher shortage in Western Australia puts them are in a strong position to negotiate.

      "Teacher supply problem in WA as we speak is worse than any other state in Australia and the predictions that we have on the table certainly indicate that that problem is only going to grow," she said.

      "They're getting ahead of the game in Victoria and we would certainly be urging our government to look at this decision and reconsider the position that they're in at the moment which is putting ourselves in a stalemate." [emphasis added]
      
      [Wow – what a STRONG stance!  Web]

      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
      
      

  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • "I believe the State's teachers richly deserve improved pay, conditions, career structure and, most of all, status. That said, any deal reached must do away with the iniquitous and socially disruptive pupil-free days.

      "No other essential-service group just blithely takes a day off from its responsibilities. No matter how they wish to dress them up, pupil-free days are virtually indistinguishable from rolling strikes in the problems they cause for working parents.

      "A patient-free day for nurses? A blaze-free day for firemen? Come on!"

      Ian Nowak, Subiaco
      

      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • School's in as teachers strike a deal
    by Farrah Tomazin and Bridie Smith
    
    "Victorian teachers will jump from being the worst paid in the country to the highest paid under a landmark deal designed to lure more talent to the profession and stem the tide of those leaving for other jobs.

    "After three statewide teacher strikes, five weeks of rolling stoppages and 14 months of negotiations, public school teachers at the top of the classroom scale will now get an annual salary of $75,500 a year — an increase of about $10,000 — while graduate teachers will earn $51,184 — a jump of $5000.

    "To boost productivity, secondary school students will get 10 minutes of extra instruction a day, while three out of four pupil-free days — which currently take place in the middle of the term — will be replaced by professional development days at the start of the term.

    "Secondary principals yesterday warned that it would not take long before interstate teachers, some of whom are also locked in wage negotiations, struck new agreements and overtook their Victorian peers as the nation's best paid.

    "But Premier John Brumby, Education Minister Bronwyn Pike and Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett hailed the agreement, believed to be worth about $2 billion, as the best enterprise bargain since state Labor won office nine years ago.

    "The move means some of Victoria's newest teachers will get a wage rise of 38% over the next 3½ years, and senior teachers will eventually earn almost 33% more as the Government creates a new salary increment for "expert" teaching staff. [emphasis added]

    "They've been long negotiations, but I think they've been worth it," said Mr Brumby.

    "This is, I think, the best EBA by a long way, that we've signed in government. It's about building a better education system. It's been about rewarding teachers properly too. I've been a teacher, Bronwyn's been a teacher — so we know about teaching, we know about the demands … it's important that we pay our teachers well, and that's what this EBA does."

    "Ms Bluett said the package would help attract more people to the profession, and reduce the number of teachers leaving for the private sector or interstate. The deal, starting on May 11, also includes:

    • A one-off bonus of $1000 for teachers and $2000 for principals.
    • Executive contracts for high-performing principals.
    • A $10.5 million package to help principals provide "exit strategies" for disengaged teachers.
    • A guarantee that teachers on short-term contracts will find it easier to move to full-time employment if the person they are replacing does not return to the school after 12 months.

  "The Government and the union spent the weekend locked in negotiation, with both parties keen to stop a potentially crippling strike during Australia's first national literacy and numeracy test, involving more than 1 million children from May 13 to 15.

  "Until now, Victorian teachers were the worst paid in the country, earning $65,414 at the top of the classroom scale, compared with about $75,000 in NSW. Publicly, the Government argues the average increase will effectively be around 4.9% in the first year of the agreement and 2.7% each year thereafter — closely in line with its public sector wage policy of 3.25% a year.

  "However, under the deal, the lowest two bands on the teachers' salary scale will be removed and a new level introduced for the state's most experienced teachers, allowing for some increases of more than 30% during the life of the agreement.

  "Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals president Brian Burgess said his initial reaction to the agreement was "whoop-de-do".

  "He said teachers had not had a pay rise for 18 months and that the one-off payments of $1000 for teachers and $2000 for principals were minimal.

  "It's taken far too long for too little achieved," he said.

  "Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu accused Mr Brumby of dragging his feet during negotiations."
  

  From The Age at link
  
  

• Editorial
  After the pay must come the performance, by all
  
  Common sense prevails and Victoria's teachers win a much-needed salary increase. Now for a lift in performance.

  "The two sides of the education war — the State Government and the teachers' union — may have both hailed the declaration of peace yesterday, but the breakthrough will mean nothing if it is not followed up with a sustained, well-resourced campaign of improvements.

  "The deal has delivered to the highest tier of Victoria's classroom teacher $148 more than his or her NSW counterpart. It has been long overdue.

  "The Age has argued forcefully that one of the planks in improving Victoria's education system is to pay its teachers on a par with teachers elsewhere. For years Victoria's teachers have languished as the worst paid in the country, both in their immediate graduate entry salary into the profession and as they progressed up the ladder. This scheme of things, first, meant that there was little incentive to go into the classroom and second, for those who did, little encouragement and incentive from their employer, the State Government, to see it as a career.

  "Under yesterday's deal, a graduate teacher's salary will rise from $46,127 to $51,184 and the top category of classroom teacher will earn $75,500. The increases are, on average, 4.9% for the first year of the new arrangement, then 2.7% for the following three years. The Government had been sticking to a 3.25% annual increase; the union to 10% annually. The agreement lifts teachers' graduate salary above that of the police force and nursing. However, even allowing for the extra money, a constricting factor in keeping teachers doing what they do best, and motivated in doing what they do best, is the narrow band from entry to top of the class: just $24,000 from entry to ceiling. After that, teachers must take themselves out of the classroom or take on extra duties to earn more.

  "The breakthrough ends more than a year of, at times, acrimonious negotiations between the two parties, which have spilled onto the streets in teacher protests and strikes, and threats from both sides. Facing what it believed to be an intransigent Government, the Australian Education Union embarked on a five-month industrial campaign that involved rolling stoppages, demonstrations outside the electoral office of the Education Minister, Bronwyn Pike, and the latest, a threatened walk-out during the national literacy and numeracy tests this month that would have disrupted thousands of children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

  "That negotiations had descended to such a level brings credit to no one. The ultimate, driving goal of all concerned is this: how to best provide an education for children. Lamentably in the past few years, both at a state level and federally, education has been hostage to ideology where, for instance, funding is linked to flagpoles, or dialogue is shut down because of a government mentality derived from purely public service scales of vision.

  "The teaching of children is an investment unlike any other that a government provides. The Premier, John Brumby, must know this. He was, after all, a teacher for three years in the 1970s in Bendigo.

  "Mr Brumby says he has placed education as one of his top priorities, and it is laudable that he has done so. (As has the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.) The State Government's five-year blueprint, unveiled last month, is an ambitious reform of the system, and its second in five years. Perhaps the two most startling aspects of this latest revamp are the state encouraging bored teachers to leave the profession, and the demand for greater accountability of a school's academic achievements to parents. Now that a pay deal has been struck, the first point may be less of a problem.

  "Another element of yesterday's deal and equally important in bringing certainty to teaching is the agreement to move away from contract employment. A statewide survey last year found that 75% of first-year teachers were on short-term contracts and that 60% of teachers who had been working for three years were still on contracts.

  "A career path cannot be forged in such conditions and, more broadly, the future of the profession, as a consequence, is put at risk.

  "While the dispute may be over, it does not resolve the wider question of how to measure a school and its teachers' performance. There are valid reasons relating to resources as to why a blanket approach to performance and pay is wrongheaded, and equally valid reasons why some sort of performance pay structure should be considered. The Brumby plan to give teachers financial incentives to work in underperforming schools is worthwhile, and a move in the right direction.
  

  From The Age at link
  
  
  
• Wage deal a step in the right direction
  by Farrah Tomazin
  
  "Yesterday's wage deal might not be the silver bullet for solving teacher shortages, boosting teaching quality and improving students' results. But it will certainly help.

  "Four years ago, when Victorian teachers brokered their last enterprise bargaining deal, some received pay rises of up to 21%. The latest agreement goes even further, with graduate teachers set to earn 38% more over the life of the 3½-year deal, and some of the state's most experienced teachers earning up to 33% extra over the same period.

  "How that is possible — given that the Government's public sector wage policy tries to keep increases to about 3.25% a year — is through a very complex overhaul of teacher pay scales in Victoria, and some well-targeted productivity "trade offs".

  "As part of the new deal, the Government will remove the two lowest bands on the salary scale, immediately giving teacher graduates the best starting wage in the country. It will also create an entirely new "expert teacher" band at the top of the scale, in which the most experienced staff can earn up to $81,806 a year.

  "In return, teachers will be required to do at least 25 hours a week of face-to-face teaching, and three pupil-free training days will be moved to the start of the school year, in a bid to minimise the disruption to parents and students.

  "The result is a win-win for the union (which wanted higher wages, better career structures and less contract employment), the Government (which wanted teachers to be more productive) and, most importantly, students (who get extra teaching time, less disruption due to pupil-free days, and slightly happier teachers).

  "Graduate teacher wages will increase to $51,184, in an annual salary that could help encourage more people into the profession. Those at the top of the classroom scale will get $75,500, eclipsing NSW — the nation's highest-paid state, and one that was becoming an increasingly attractive option for teachers near the border.

  "Teachers on contract employment should also find it easier to move into full-time employment. And in terms of the bigger picture, the Government can now go ahead with its crucial "education blueprint" — a five-year shake-up of schools that teachers had threatened to boycott unless they were given a better wage deal.

  "Not everyone will be happy with the deal; in fact, some secondary principals said yesterday that it did not go far enough.

  "But most would agree that, in dollar terms alone, it's a good starting point to stop the so-called hemorrhaging of the profession, to attract and retain more talent, and to move — united — towards the bigger goal: a high-performing public education system in Victoria."

  From The Age at link
  
  
  
• Pay deal ends the teacher rumblings
  by Bridie Smith
  
  "Primary teacher Andrea Halden will be almost $10,000 a year better off under the wage deal struck yesterday between the State Government and teachers' union.

  "It's enough to keep the 34-year-old in the profession that she considered abandoning a few years ago..."
  
  "In recent years Victorian schools have weathered a teacher shortage and recruitment campaigns from the private sector, interstate and overseas.

  "As the lowest paid teachers in the country, earning $65,414 at the top level compared with $75,352 in NSW, Victorians were prime targets for recruitment. As a result, yesterday's agreement came too late for many teachers. Miss Halden said that at her school alone, five teachers left last year, either to pursue overseas teaching jobs or leave the profession..."
  
  Full story in The Age at link
  
  
  

• The Australian
  
  
  • Teachers' rise a risk to inflation
    by Brad Norington and Milanda Rout
    Additional reporting: Ashleigh Wilson, Siobahn Ryan, David Uren
    
    "Victoria's 43,000 public school teachers will receive immediate pay rises of up to 15.2 per cent, fuelling a potentially inflationary wage push as public sector unions across Australia make catch-up claims.

    "The Brumby Government yesterday caved in to union wage demands after a 14-month battle that will take Victorian teachers from the nation's lowest-paid to the highest.

    "The Australian Education Union's Victorian president, Mary Bluett, described the pay deal as the best in 25 years, with experienced teachers receiving an extra $10,000 and new graduates an extra $5000.

    "Victorian Premier John Brumby conceded that the agreement, which will carve $2billion out of the state budget, would breach his Government's policy of pay rises averaging 3.25 per cent a year for state public servants.

    "But Mr Brumby said the rises would be offset by some productivity improvements, with teachers required to spend an additional 10 minutes a day in classroom time.

    "The Victorian pay deal comes as public servants across several states, including Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania, get set for negotiating new pay rounds. Teachers in NSW are due for a new agreement in January.

    "Tasmania's Government was confronted yesterday with a 20 per cent pay claim for 17,000 public servants, amid union demands for parity with other states and threats of industrial action if rises were refused.

    "West Australian public servants are campaigning for a 23 per cent pay rise over three years, and plan a protest rally on Thursday after the state Government offered them 11.5 per cent. While NSW nurses and some other state public servants want an annual 5 per cent increase, university staff are seeking 9 per cent.

    "The Victorian teachers' pay rises are far outside the current inflation rate, riding at 4.2 per cent, and also outside the Reserve Bank's inflation target of 2 to 3 per cent.

    "The bank has been forced to raise interest rates four times to a 12-year high since the middle of last year in an effort to contain inflation, which economists fear could be fuelled by excessive wage claims across the economy.

    "Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson said the Victorian public teachers' wage increase had to be kept separate from other sectors and states, as well as from the private sector.

    "Any significant increase in public sector wages would need to be justified and economically responsible," he said. "And while we need to value our teachers and make sure that we retain good teachers, it's equally important that our industrial relations system does not allow leap-frogging off one public sector into other states, other sectors or other jurisdictions without their specific circumstances being applied."

    "With the Rudd Government warning that pay rises should be matched by productivity gains to stem inflation, Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard last night urged restraint across the economy.

    "A spokeswoman for Ms Gillard said wage rises should be based on productivity gains, but signalled that the Government would not directly intervene to temper demands for higher wages, even from public sector staff.

    "Access Economics director Chris Richardson said public sector wage settlements had already been higher than in the private sector. He said the latest figures showed commonwealth and state public sector workers were awarded increases of 4.2 per cent in enterprise deals struck in the December quarter, compared with 3.8 per cent for the private sector.

    "Under yesterday's Victorian pay deal, the state's most experienced teachers will get a pay rise of $10,000 a year, to $75,500, from next month.

    "Salaries for graduate teachers will increase by $5000, to $51,184.

    "The agreement includes a restructure of teacher pay scales and will result in an average wage increase of 17.8 per cent over four years, with graduate teachers getting up to a 20 per cent rise.

    "All teachers will also receive a one-off payment of at least $1000, with principals receiving $2000.

    "In return, secondary school teachers will work the equivalent of an extra six days a year, with two pupil-free days moved to the start of the school year to minimise disruption to parents.

    "The wage deal follows a lengthy battle between the Brumby Government and the Australian Education Union that included statewide strikes by 25,000 teachers and demands for improved pay after significant increases given to nurses and police. In September, the Victorian Government agreed to give police pay rises of between 14 per cent and 31.4 per cent over three years and eight months.

    "Ms Bluett said she was thrilled with the pay agreement. "This is the best outcome in terms of salary and career structure in my history as a union official of 25 years' standing," she said. "The combination of salary increases and changes in the conditions of contracts provides an incentive to stay in Victoria to teach.

    "It also helps provide encouragement for university graduates to consider becoming teachers."

    "Teachers in Victoria's Catholic private schools will now seek the same deal, after their union demanded "parity".

    "Mr Brumby said the deal would include removing the lowest two classifications on the teaching salary scale and providing more money for principals who work at struggling schools.

    "Defending an apparent breach of his Government's wages policy, Mr Brumby said the average 3.25per cent annual rise would still be met because of productivity offsets, with staff teaching for an extra 10 minutes a day, which equated to six days a year.

    "Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu, who last month vowed to make the state's teachers the highest paid, claimed Mr Brumby had been shamed into the wage deal."
    
    [I'm sure all FIVE authors of the story have volunteered to take an immediate pay cut to help fight inflation!  Web]
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    

  • Victorian teachers get $1000 bonuses
    
    Teachers will get a one-off $1000 bonus and principals $2000 as part of a new pay deal the Brumby Government has struck to end a long-running industrial dispute.
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Teachers alone to gain
    by Kevin Donnelly
    
    "In justifying taxpayer-funded largesse to pay teachers more, the Victorian Government argues that parents and students will be the winners.
    
    "In giving into the demands of the Australian Education Union, which consistently mounts campaigns to get ALP governments elected, Education Minister Bronwyn Pike suggests that standards will improve as teachers do a better job.

    "Wrong. While research shows that teachers - along with a rigorous and effective curriculum - are critical to improving standards, the reality is that paying teachers more, while failing to tie any increase to improved performance, is a recipe for dumbing down the system.

    "Parents and students know there are dud teachers, and the word quickly gets around every school's community when children suffer because of ineffective teaching and slack classroom management and control.

    "The present system for dealing with underperforming teachers is excessively bureaucratic, time consuming and cumbersome. Instead of the rights of students being paramount, an antiquated industrial relations system and teacher union power ensure that teachers' rights are pre-eminent.

    "One need only take note of the NSW Teachers Federation's opposition to government plans to make the statewide staffing system more open and flexible, by giving school principals the power to hire staff, to see how the union places teachers before students.

    "No wonder a review of staffing carried out by the NSW auditor-general concluded that teacher promotion appeared to be automatic, as so many teachers were successful in moving up the pay scale and little was being done to identify and deal with underperforming teachers.

    "Julie Bishop, as education minister in the Howard government, put performance on the agenda when she argued that not enough was being done to make teachers accountable.

    "Before the 2007 federal election, as part of Kevin Rudd's education revolution, the ALP argued that it would address the issue and ensure that any increased education spending would be tied to monitoring and evaluating learning outcomes.

    "As part of Federalist Paper 2, the education blueprint endorsed last year by state and territory ALP governments, the statement was also made that individual teachers and schools had to be held accountable for their performance.

    "Fast forward to this week's pay rise in Victoria - with the inevitable flow-on effect to teachers in other states and territories - and it is obvious that ALP governments' talk about accountability and putting students first is more about spin than substance.

    "Instead of a blanket pay increase, a real education revolution would focus on raising standards and improving learning outcomes by identifying the best way to deal with underperforming teachers and to attract and reward successful teachers. [emphasis added]

    "Overseas practice in the US and Britain provides several models, ranging from rewarding teachers who are able to lift standards - as measured by improvements in test results - to paying more to those teachers who act as mentors to others or who take on additional qualifications.

    "An essential aspect of overseas innovations, whether the British city academies or the US-inspired charter school movement, is to empower school communities by giving them control over staffing.

    "Closer to home, it's no secret that parents are voting with their feet in turning to non-government schools, a critical aspect explaining that such schools' success is their autonomy when it comes to staffing.

    "It makes sense that, instead of imposing on schools teachers who may not agree with the school's educational philosophy, the power to hire, fire and reward staff should be at the local level, allowing those most affected by decisions to have a say.

    "Publications such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Education at a Glance 2007 and McKinsey and Co's report How the World's Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top agree that investing more in education, by itself, is not enough.

    "Stronger-performing education systems, as measured by international mathematics and science tests, spend less on education as a percentage of gross domestic product than those countries they outperform.

    "Investing an additional $2 billion to pay teachers more smacks of a return to the old ways, symbolised by the John Cain-Joan Kirner years, when Victoria outspent other states on education but with little, if any, return in terms of higher standards or confidence in the public school system."

    Kevin Donnelly is the director of Education Strategies, based in Melbourne.

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Real education revolution
    by Helen Hughes
    

    "Marion Scrymgour, the Northern Territory Minister for Education, is to be congratulated for taking responsibility for the crisis in Northern Territory indigenous education by directing her Department of Education, Employment and Training to post national literacy and numeracy test results on its website.

    "All Australian children will be sitting years 3, 5, 7, and 9 literacy and numeracy tests from May 13 to 16. In the past most children in remote areas did not sit these tests because their teachers knew that they could not pass them. In May, all children will be required to sit the tests. By insisting that the numbers of children enrolled, the numbers who sit the tests and their pass rates are posted on the internet, Scrymgour is leading Australia. This school-by-school information will provide essential data for school reform, and will enable Kevin Rudd to give his promised report about the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students on the first day that parliament sits in 2009.

    "Scrymgour's education plan unfortunately does not include curriculum and teaching reforms that are essential to ensuring that indigenous children's test results start to move towards those of non-indigenous children. But she has also taken a brave step in promising to establish community partnership education boards that will presumably replace existing school councils, whose main function seems to be to collect fees for the councillors. If the new education boards consist of volunteer mums, dads, and others concerned with community educational outcomes, Scrymgour will learn what concerns remote parents.

    "Mums and dads in remote communities are worried because, despite attending school for years, their children still cannot speak English, read, write or count. These children are being shut out of jobs in remote communities and in nearby mining, tourism, and other industries. Non-indigenous staff are still being recruited for semi-skilled jobs, and they dominate all skilled employment.

    "Mums and dads want their children to be able to take jobs as teachers, nurses, and real rangers and also as lawyers, doctors, and administrators.

    "The new education boards will soon convince Scrymgour that except for a small dysfunctional minority, parents try to send their children to school, but ineffectual, often chaotic classes kill off attendance.

    "Competent teachers do not have attendance problems, but they complain they have to teach decent curriculums surreptitiously. Mums and dads in remote communities are illiterate, and they cannot count very well, but they are not stupid.

    "The recognition that there is a crisis in Northern Territory education is due to their concerns. They know that their children have to learn English from preschool to get decent jobs, and they want disciplined schools open for full school days, weeks, and terms, with sport, music and other after-school programs.

    "Most remote communities have some internet communication. As the mums and dads see the test results for each of their schools posted on the Education Department's website, they will be able to judge their school's performance. Scrymgour should not be surprised if they insist on curriculum and teaching reforms and want their children to attend mainstream secondary schools alongside non-indigenous children instead of being relegated to ghetto "community education centres".

    "The weakest component of Scrymgour's education plan is the 'rithmetic. Scrymgour's budget includes $4 million to turn two remote "learning centres" into primary schools.

    "The $2 million needed per school indicates the parlous state of these learning centres. But there are more than 50 of these centres, and with a budget of $4 million a year, Scrymgour's plan would take more than 10 years to give children in all of them basic facilities such as ablution blocks and resident teachers.

    "Scrymgour's proposal confirms that no thought has been given to housing for the 200 additional teachers for whom Jenny Macklin, the commonwealth Minister for Indigenous Affairs, has contributed funding to 2011. Most additional teachers in remote schools will continue to drive in or fly in. Many children will still only be taught for 25 to 30 per cent of each school term. Can reasonable benchmark passes be expected from these children? No budget has been allocated to the 10,000 teenagers and young men and women in their 20s whose schooling was so negligent that they are illiterate and innumerate, and hence not employable. A request to Julia Gillard, the commonwealth Minister for Education, to let the $700 tutorial vouchers available for children that do not pass benchmark tests be used in remote communities, did not even elicit the courtesy of a reply. This scheme is evidently to be ended. Yet remedial teaching for these youngsters is urgent.

    "As a supplement to public funding, student and "green nomad" volunteers could be mobilised for literacy and numeracy campaigns. Students could camp in remote communities during their vacations. Green nomads could pull up their caravans for two or three months of literacy and numeracy tutoring in remote communities so that there would not be housing problems. But the Northern Territory Department of Education strongly discourages volunteer efforts.

    "Mainstream schools that want to help remote schools by student, teacher and parent interaction are asked to enter into such detailed and complex legal agreements with the Northern Territory government that twinning mainstream schools with remote ones is not possible.

    "Qualified and experienced teachers volunteering for remedial teaching for three months in a remote community have been prevented from doing so by the Northern Territory Department of Education.

    "The illiterate and innumerate indigenous youngsters who have been failed by past education cannot be allowed to become a "lost generation". Surely Gillard, Macklin, and Scrymgour, the federal and territory ministers responsible for education and indigenous affairs, have the wit, the energy, and the political power to ensure that a campaign to rescue literacy and numeracy in remote communities is budgeted for and that federal, state and territory bureaucrats are told to stop obstructing volunteer efforts to supplement it."

    Helen Hughes is a senior fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies. Her report Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory is available at www.cis.org.au.

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Top uni's peace corps subject
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    

    "All students at a leading university will have to undertake volunteer work and study subjects from the arts and sciences under an overhaul of its curriculum designed to provide a broader education and more socially aware graduates.

    "In a first for an Australian university, Macquarie University vice-chancellor Steven Schwartz today will announce a partnership with Australia Volunteers International that will create a mini peace corps, giving undergraduate students the opportunity to do volunteer work overseas.

    "Called the Global Futures Program, it will develop programs with local communities throughout Australia, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Some form of community work will be compulsory for all undergraduate students at Macquarie under the new curriculum, to start in 2010.

    "In addition, the university will require all undergraduate students to study subjects from the humanities, social sciences and sciences so that arts students must take science subjects and science students must take arts subjects.

    "The university, in northern Sydney, had also considered making the learning of a foreign language compulsory but it was not feasible at this stage.

    "Professor Schwartz told The Australian that the new curriculum was based on three themes of place, planet and participation, and was designed to provide students with a broader education than one geared solely to a vocation and getting a job..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Hi-tech children tuning out
    by Karen Dearne
    

    "Education is stuck in the days of the horse and buggy to the detriment of schoolkids who live in a world of virtual gaming, YouTube and Google, says Jim Goodnight, co-founder of business analytics leader SAS.

    "We either take all the electronics away from the kids so they'll be interested in school, or you have to put the electronics in the school and I don't think you're going to take their iPods and cellphones away," he said.

    "Today's kids are so used to this interactive world, but when they go to school they have to leave all that behind and watch a teacher at a blackboard.

    "It's very boring, and it's not going to get anything other than more boring."

    "Dr Goodnight said the school system was a product in need of an overhaul.

    "School hasn't changed in 100 years," he said. "You can't continue offering the same product; people's expectations change over time and you have to constantly update and come up with new offerings. The problem is that the consumers, the kids, are not finding it to be a very good product right now.

    "Unfortunately, it's a government monopoly for the most part, and they don't have to respond to changing consumer demands."

    "Dr Goodnight established a private school, Cary Academy, in Cary, North Carolina, for grades 6-12, to experiment with new forms of schooling based on smaller class sizes and the use of technology. Every child has their own tablet computer - the note-taking and stylus format is better than screen and keyboard for classroom work including maths and science projects.

    "The kids are all crazy about it," he said. "Even 12 years ago, when we built the school, it was very clear that this generation was very technically savvy.

    "I see that even more of today's kids think about their experiences with MySpace and YouTube, their SMS and text messaging, their Nintendos and Wiis, the online games they play with kids around the world.

    "Quite frankly, this generation of kids is very bored with the education system, and many are dropping out."

    "Dr Goodnight said the US was ranked 13th or 14th in the number of students graduating from high school, compared to other developed nations.

    "And in a world where technology is advancing as rapidly as it is, we don't need kids who haven't even graduated from high school," he said.

    "We need kids with college degrees. We need to have a workforce that understands the technologies available to us and can truly grasp the potential that data provides, and do things quicker and better."

    "Dr Goodnight warned that hi-tech, high-paying jobs would "move to where the talent can be found, and if it can't be found in the US or Europe, those jobs will migrate to countries where people have the skills".

    Karen Dearne travelled to London as a guest of SAS

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Scandinavian lesson
    by Maria Rankka
    

    "Universal child care? Increased taxes on alcohol? Is Kevin Rudd trying to turn Australia into the Sweden of the South Pacific? Scandinavian social democracy with sunshine? If Rudd wants to take a leaf out of Sweden's book he should take a look at the Swedish school voucher system, which gives parents the right to choose between public and independent schools.

    'It differs markedly from the Australian system that features publicly financed public schools and largely privately financed private schools. The voucher system is designed to make choice possible for all, regardless of a family's financial situation. Authorised independent schools are tax-funded and extra fees are not allowed.

    "Although the reform was simple in structure and didn't affect most pupils when first launched in 1992, it has had an enormous effect and opened the Swedish education system to entrepreneurship, new ideas, alternative educational approaches and choice. Indeed, it is the most interesting reform carried out in Sweden since the beginning of the1990s.

    "It is important to understand that school choice is more about power - that is, shifting power from politicians and bureaucrats to parents and pupils - than anything else. This power dimension has made the reform strong and resistant to efforts to water it down.

    "The proportion of students attending independent schools has grown considerably since the voucher system was introduced, although public schools still dominate. In the school year 1990-91, less than 1 per cent of all Swedish pupils in compulsory education (ages 7-15, approximately) were enrolled in independent schools, whereas today the number has increased to about 10 per cent. The same trend may be observed in upper secondary education (ages 16-18, approximately), where the share has grown from 1.5 per cent to 15 per cent during the same period. An even bigger share of families exercises the right to choose a public school other than the one closest to where they live.

    "Authorised independent schools are financed by a voucher system, by which the local council provides school resources equivalent to those provided to its own schools, on a per-pupil basis. For pupils who require extra resources (children suffering physical or mental disabilities and those with learning and behavioural difficulties), extra funding may be provided at the discretion of the local school board, which may refuse on budgetary grounds and refer the child to one of its own schools.

    "The National Agency for Education processes applications to found an independent school in two stages. First, to begin activities as an authorised school, then to obtain funds through the voucher system. The main criteria are that independent schools conform to a nationally provided curriculum and that they espouse the same democratic values as schools run by the school boards.

    "When an independent school starts teaching, its performance and the quality of its education are evaluated against a nationally provided curriculum, through nationally provided tests and through inspections. Within this framework, schools are free to organise their own programs and timetables.

    "Where comparisons have been made, independent schools have performed better in terms of knowledge and skills than local council schools. This has inspired some local community schools to improve their organisation and teaching in order to improve results.

    "Recent research shows not only that the independent schools produce the best results, but that school choice and the mere existence of independent schools (read: competition) has improved the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the school system.

    "Opponents often claim that independent schools have drained the public schools of resources as well as motivated students and teachers, but the fact is that the existence of independent schools and the establishment of competition have helped public schools to improve.

    "It is very rare that public schools have had to close due to the establishment of one or several independent schools in a certain area. It would probably be beneficial to overall quality and efficiency if schools that produce mediocre results actually had to close at some point. But so far the pressure brought to bear by competition has been insufficient.

    "Another common argument offered by school choice opponents has been that independent schools increase the average per-pupil cost. That also has proved to be incorrect. There are regions with independent schools where the average cost has decreased as well as those where it has increased marginally.

    "A great deal of the debate about independent schools has been about segregation. Proponents have argued that independent schools are the key to breaking down school segregation. Opponents have pointed to the fact that it is very often the best students in an area with one socioeconomic structure who exercise their right to choose a school in another area with another socioeconomic structure. The truth is that the independent schools have neither increased nor decreased school segregation. For instance, if an excellent student living in an area dominated by immigrants chooses a school in a wealthy area dominated by ethnic Swedes, has segregation increased ordecreased?

    "Students are not the sole beneficiaries of school choice. Teachers now have more than one employer to choose from. Salaries are competitive in the independent schools and they often offer better working conditions.

    "Are independent schools uncontroversial in Sweden? Not at all. With exception of the debate on the Swedish EU membership in the beginning of the '90s, the independent schools have probably been the most discussed political issue of the past 15 years.

    "Politicians and opinion-shapers either hate them or love them, yet there is no scientific evidence to support the objections of opponents to the school voucher system.

    "Governments of varying political hues have left the school voucher system relatively intact. There have been marginal changes, but the fundamentals are unthreatened. This could stem from the difficulty of stripping power from people once they have grown accustomed to it. This irreversible aspect of the school voucher reform makes it especially interesting."

    Maria Rankka is president of Timbro, a Swedish free-market think tank and worked for thegoverning Moderate party in the '90s.

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Rhee Moves To Dismiss Up to 30 Principals
    
    [Washington] D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, continuing a series of aggressive personnel moves, has started notifying principals -- possibly as many as 30 -- that they will not be reappointed for the 2008-09 academic year, officials said yesterday.

Wednesday 7 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • New 'super schools' to tackle lack of teachers (page 7)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "The State education system would be radically reshaped to create "super schools" for Years 11 and 12 students under a new proposal to alleviate the teacher shortage.

    "The plan would enable high schools to offer subjects to students without having to resort to transferring them between schools because there' were not enough teachers to cover each subject at every school.

    "University of WA education dean Bill Louden said yesterday other options could include closing some smaller schools, selling their sites and sending the students to bigger schools and expanding the number of schools in which students studied TEE subjects over the internet.

    "The West Australian revea1ed yesterday that education director general Sharyn O'Neill told 185 high school principals on Monday that many schools would be unable to offer a wide range of subjects within a few years because of a lack of teachers and, from 2010, a big drop in student numbers.

    "She urged principals to find solutions to fit local circumstances, which could include schools working together as clusters to offer a range of subjects across several schools, forcing students to travel to a neighbouring school for some classes.

    "Professor Louden said that it was most important that all students had the chance to take academically difficult subjects, no matter where they lived.

    "Building a limited number of a new sort of super school with very big upper school populations was an option, he said.

    "I think we're going to end up with some confederations of schools, that's what is more likely," he said.

    "Three schools might operate separate middle schools or lower schools but operate a common Years 11 and 12 program with some subjects being offered on some campuses and some on others.

    "Schools like Mirrabooka and Morley are quite close together - it ought to be possible to run some common upper school (timetable) grids across groups of such schools."

    "Professor Louden said consolidating schools by closing some and turning others into middle schools catering only to Years 8 to 10 was unpopular but sometimes necessary if they did not have enough students to offer a full range of subjects.

    He said the problems had not arisen because of a lack of planning but because populations served by schools changed over the years, so big school buildings were left in neighbourhoods that no longer had many children.

    "I think there needs to be some balance of consolidation of school sites, which is electorally difficult but important, confederations of schools so you can hold a big upper school (timetable) grid together and building of some new big super schools that offer everything," he said.

    "Ms O'Neill said a range of options was possible and schools and their communities would decide how best to tackle the problems caused by the worsening teacher shortage.

    "Some strategies could be in place as early as next year.

    "This is about Years 11 and 12 subject choices, specialist courses like calculus, physics and chemistry," she said.

    "Where only a few students choose to study that subject, we're going to find other ways to make sure they can continue to study that subject and in fact, to have more choice."

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said the department had to be flexible in its approach."

    From the West Australian
    
    

    
    
  • 'Poor school' scores for upgrade (page 17)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    Julia Gillard says good work of teachers and schools in disadvantaged areas may be acknowledged by scaling scores

    "Results of the first national reading, writing and maths tests, which begin next week, could be manipulated by the Federal Government to take into account the socioeconomic backgrounds of students in poorer suburbs.

    "Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said yesterday that information from the program would inform the Government about the best way to help schools that might be struggling.

    "Asked if the Government would manipulate results to show the "value adding" supplied by schools in disadvantaged areas, Ms Gillard said conversations with States and Territories would continue.

    "We're going to have that as part of a broad set of conversations about teacher quality, about improving the circumstances of disadvantaged schools," she said.

    "What we can certainly say is that the testing results will be available to schools and to parents so that they know how their child is going."

    "But Ms Gillard refused to reveal when the results of the tests of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students would be released.

    "Labor election commitments included publishing the individual results of primary and secondary schools as part of a "comprehensive, sophisticated reporting system which shows how well schools are doing and reflects the different circumstances in which they operate".

    "We have got a series of discussions afoot with our State and Territory colleagues about education," Ms Gillard said.

    "We have the schools agreement to renew at the end of this year, we want to have two new national partnership arrangements around disadvantaged schools and teacher quality.

    "We'll be talking about national testing and the publication of-data in the course of those discussions.

    "But the time cycle for the discussions is all of those agreements need to be concluded through the COAG process at the end of this year."

    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said last year that he backed plans to allow parents to compare results of State, independent and Catholic schools, provided they were adjusted to determine the value added by schools.

    "He believed comparisons of raw scores were unfair.

    "The Department of Education and Training has published individual school results for WA tests for the past two years.

    "The new national tests replace the WA testing program.

    "A department spokesman said the national testing data would also be available online. "When we get the data we will publish it," she said."

    From The West Australian
    
    Full transcript of the interview available at this link
    
    

    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • For the Record

      "Your report ('Melbourne model woos States top students, 5/5) does not tell the full story. It ignores the many hundreds of top students who chose to stay in WA and the significant number of Eastern State students who choose to move to WA to study.

      "In fact this year, WA's top TEE student - Beazley Medalist Neil Thomas - turned down a Melbourne scholarship choosing instead to study at UWA.

      "The University of Western Australia annually provides more than $20 million in scholarships. Unlike some Eastern States universities we do not offer a small number of students very large scholarships, preferring instead to reward many hundreds of excellent students with smaller scholarships.

      "In addition, your readers might be interested to know that there were 287 WA students with TER above 99 in 2007, of which nearly all are studying at WA universities. If you were to look at the top 5 per cent of school leavers in WA, almost 1400 students, again the vast majority, are staying in WA.

      "What is also worthy of note is the big number of high-quality students from the Eastern States seeking to study here. Some 171 students with TER over 99 from the Eastern States sought to study in WA this year. We can all take pride in the academic success of our young West Australians.

      "We can also be proud of the fact that the State's Universities are of a quality and reputation that so many students from the Eastern States want to study here."

      Alan Robson, vice-chancellor, the University of Western Australia
      

      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Angry teachers slam pay deal
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Victoria's powerful education union and the State Government are facing a backlash from angry teachers who say they were "screwed over" in this week's $2 billion wage deal.

    "A day after Premier John Brumby announced that graduate teachers and senior classroom staff would jump from being the worst paid in the country to the best paid, many other teachers have lashed out or quit the union.

    "Under the agreement, hailed by both parties as the best enterprise bargain in almost 10 years, graduate teachers will get an annual salary of $51,184 — about $5000 more — in a bid to lure more people into teaching. Those at the top of the classroom scale will get a $75,500 pay packet — about $10,000 more — as the Government tries to stem the tide of teachers leaving the job.

    "But some younger teachers and staff in senior "leading teacher" positions yesterday said they had been "sold down the river" because their increases did not amount to parity with NSW, or could lock in wage rises below inflation in the final years of the 3½-year agreement.

    "Leading teachers are senior teachers who take on extra responsibilities such as curriculum co-ordination or timetable management.

    "At Carwatha College in Noble Park, student services manager Adrienne Koss, a single parent, said she went on strike several times in the push for more pay, but felt she had been dudded. "What I was hoping for was a more considerate deal for every level of teaching," she said.

    "Her colleague David Wakham was equally outraged. "Leading teachers are the ones who are supposed to drive through all the education reforms the Government wants, and yet we're being royally screwed," said Mr Wakham, Carwatha's personnel manager.

    "Ms Bluett defended the deal, saying no teacher in Victoria would get a pay rise of less than 15% over the next three years."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • If that's the best my union can do, then I quit
      
      "While delighting in expert teachers receiving some pay justice, spare a thought for our most senior classroom practitioners, the leading teachers level 2. These are the staff who not only teach but have major leadership roles. They are sub-school co-ordinators, daily organisers, timetablers, student welfare co-ordinators, curriculum co-ordinators — these people do essential tasks within schools, as well as delivering exceptional teaching.

      "We celebrate the $10,000, or 15.4%, rise achieved by the expert teachers. However, the leading teacher level 2 received $3855, or 4.9% — barely above inflation. This is really a relative pay cut, as presently they receive about $51 a day above the expert teacher, but will now receive only $27 a day more — all before-tax dollars. Why would anyone undertake these tasks? So while Mary, John and Bronwyn engage in their self-congratulations, I would like to say on behalf of all leading teachers — thanks for nothing. What you have given us is nothing short of insulting.

      "Mary, you can take this as my resignation from the union — you certainly do not represent the interests of senior staff who have proven their abilities and skills over many years."

      Lynne Ramsay Bedford, Port Melbourne
      
      

    • In reality, it's a pay cut
      
      "During our campaign for better conditions, I've been hurt by the Government's refusal to acknowledge the value of Victorian teachers. The proposed agreement has not resolved this and I now also feel betrayed by my union's willingness to comply with what is, in reality, a pay cut for the majority of teachers.

      "It's easy to be seduced by the Government's offers, but under careful consideration they don't provide true value. The agreement locks in 2.7% increases in 2009 and 2010, significantly below the consumer price index rate, which is rising by 4.2% a year. It's true that in 2008 first-year teachers will be the highest paid, and teachers at the top of the regular pay scale will be paid $148 a year more than their NSW colleagues. But apart from those two categories, all other Victorian teachers will be significantly worse off than NSW.

      "This is particularly concerning as the majority of people leaving teaching are in these categories. While the agreement may attract new teachers, it will do nothing to retain experienced teachers who are dissatisfied with salaries that don't compensate their efforts. I have been a proud union member since I began teaching, but if this agreement is signed I will no longer be proud of the union."

      Laura Barbuto, Mount Evelyn
      
      

    • Numbers don't stack up
      
      "Despite Mary Bluett's unbecoming cries of triumph, teacher salaries are still far below the level required to access the high-quality end of the employment market. Monday's deal takes Victorian teachers less than a third of the way towards matching the wage growth that has occurred in the Australian economy overall in the past three decades. In 1975, teacher salaries started at 118.8% of Victorian male average ordinary time earnings, rising to a maximum of 166.6%. The new wages start at 86.4% of November 2007 MAOTE, rising to 127.4%, for relative pay cuts of 27.4% and 23.5%.

      "Teaching will remain a low-status profession, and teachers will still be considering career changes to boost their household incomes. As for productivity, 10 minutes extra a day is neither here nor there — not to mention that all Victorian teachers have been busting a gut for years to implement government blueprints. Surely the best way to improve productivity is to offer a salary that stands a chance of attracting and retaining more highly capable teachers. This is what our teachers deserve, and it is what our kids deserve."

      Russell T. Edwards, Whittlesea
      
      

    • Brumby's on a winner
      
      "If the Age's editorial (6/5) is correct, John Brumby must be laughing all the way to the bank at having conned teachers into accepting an average 3.25% a year rise over the next four years, when inflation is 4.3%. Even more amazing is the report that they have also accepted an increase of nearly 5% in their teaching loads. That means that, in four years' time, they will be, in real terms, nearly 10% worse off than they are now. Indeed it seems to prove the old adage that if you pay peanuts …"

      John Kerley, Belgrave
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Wage increase can't flow on: Gillard
    by Brad Norington and Justine Ferrari [Additional reporting: Alana Buckley-Carr]
    
    "The Rudd Government has cautioned unions against trying to spread big pay rises for teachers and other public servants from state to state, as pressure mounts to match wage standards in the private sector.

    "The day after the Victorian Government's 15.2 per cent wage deal to make its teachers the nation's highest paid, Julia Gillard warned yesterday that workplace agreements struck for "one entity" could not flow to others.

    "The Deputy Prime Minister said the Government was dedicated to fighting inflation - running at 4.2 per cent - after inheriting the worst rate in 16 years, and wanted pay rises based on productivity gains.

    "Speaking in Western Australia, where labour shortages have led to inflationary wage pressures in the mining industry, Ms Gillard said Labor remained committed to enterprise bargaining.

    "That means that wage agreements struck for one entity, whether it be teachers in Victoria or whether it be somone working in a mine here, can't flow through to other enterprises," she said.

    "Western Australia's education union yesterday declared it would follow the Victorian lead with a deliberate strategy to make state school teachers the highest paid in the nation.

    "State School Teachers Union of Western Australia president Anne Gisborne said a 24 per cent pay rise claim was the key to alleviating a staff shortage and necessary in the face of inflation caused by the resources boom.

    "West Australian public servants will rally tomorrow in support of their claim for a 23 per cent pay rise over three years, after rejecting the state Government's offer of 11.5 per cent. [emphasis added]

    "Public sector unions are set for pay campaigns in Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.

    "Ms Gillard, as Workplace Relations Minister, insists legislation to be introduced later this year to replace the Howard government's Work Choices laws will not allow wage settlements to spread across industries or states.

    "Her Opposition counterpart, Julie Bishop, said the actions of unions contradicted Mr Gillard's claims. Ms Bishop said documentation showed the Maritime Union of Australia was trying to spread wage rises won in the resources industry on the North West Shelf to the east coast.

    "There is nothing in Labor's planned rollback to prevent that," she said. "There is no wages accord with the unions, and nothing to stop these ambit claims."

    "Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson said significant wage rises in private enterprise, particularly in resources and construction, posed some risk of flow-ons or catch-up claims in the public sector.

    "The risks shouldn't be exaggerated but there are some, especially where there are inter-linkages in the professions, where the highly skilled are capable of moving into the private sector," Mr Anderson said. "The concern we have is that, as we move closer to state elections, governments tend to be afraid of a backlash from public servants, which strengthens their hand."

    "Teachers in Western Australia are seeking pay rises of 24 per cent over three years, after rejecting an offer of 13 to 22 per cent. The Government's offer would raise teachers' starting salaries from $50,025 to $56,627, leapfrogging the Victorian pay rate of $51,184.

    "With allowances of up to $20,000 a year for working in remote areas and other incentives to enter teaching, West Australian teachers can earn $100,000 a year in their early years in the job. [emphasis added] [$56,627 + $20,000 = $100,000 ??????  Web]

    "Teachers in South Australia are seeking 21 per cent. In NSW, Treasurer Michael Costa is trying to impose a 2.5 per cent rise a year across all public sector employees, including teachers.

    "NSW Teachers Federation senior vice-president Gary Zadkovich said teachers wanted 15 per cent over three years, plus other benefits for those in the top band.

    "Teachers in the Northern Territory plan to go on strike next Tuesday, the day of the federal budget, in pursuit of their pay claim of 15 per cent over two years, having rejected the Government's offer of 11 per cent over three years."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    • Tanner denies teachers will fan prices [late update from 6 May]
      
      Massive pay rises to teachers in Victoria would not spark a national wages outbreak and are unlikely to fuel inflation, according to federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner.
      
      
      
    • Treasury slams Labor's IR plan
      
      Labor's industrial relations changes are likely to trigger job losses and higher inflation that will ultimately create "wage-price spirals" and drive up interest rates, according to Treasury's official analysis of the plan to scrap Work Choices [according to a Federal Treasury Minute obtained under FOI].
      
      
      
    • Editorial: Wages threat defined
      
      Labor faces conflict over IR and interest rates
      
      
      
      
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • God help us when teachers are begrudged a pay rise
      
      "When the “free market’’ desperately needs workers in the mining industry, it pays disproportionate six-figure salaries and Australia enjoys a mining “boom’’.

      "Inflation? Steel prices? Not a mention. When house prices soar and homeowners enjoy price gains from nowhere, who blinks? But when teachers – who are so scarce now that in Western Australia kids must be bussed from one school to another to find them and other states scour the world to recruit them – seek a legitimate pay rise based on the work they actually perform, they are “a risk to inflation’’ (“Teachers’ rise a risk to inflation’’, 6/5).

      "And what about “merit pay’’? Do its political proponents really want the best teachers in front of our kids, or is it just another subterfuge to ensure the majority of teachers remain on peanuts? God help the “clever country’’ as long as teaching is so undervalued. And God bless the diminishing band of dedicated teachers who remain at the chalkface in such a hostile political climate."
      
      Garry Bickley, Elizabeth Downs, SA
      
      

    • "Good luck to Victorian teachers for achieving pay justice through a sustained, well-supported industrial campaign. However, there is a way out of this kind of argy-bargy. That is to index the pay of teachers, and indeed all public sector workers, to that of politicians. Whenever the pollies vote themselves a pay rise, everyone else gets one too."
      
      Mike Puleston, Brunswick, Vic
      
      
      

    • "It appears that the Victorian courts were a little late in the banning of Underbelly, because Victoria’s teachers have obviously studied it online and decided that an extra 10 minutes in the classroom each day was an offer John Brumby couldn’t refuse. Victoria’s new rego plate logo? “Victoria: state of extortion’’. Methinks the Brumby honeymoon is over."
      
      Mike Yalden, Kiama, NSW
      
      

    • "Economists braying negatively about the potential impact of significant pay rises for Victoria’s 43,000 public school teachers wouldn’t even be able to spell inflation without the assistance of a good teacher."
      
      Sandra K. Eckersley, Marrickville, NSW
      
      
      
      
  • $592m package to upgrade ageing schools
    
    Victoria's most dilapidated schools will get a much-needed renovation under a $592.3 million package to replace or upgrade ageing facilities across the state.
    
    
    
  • Hope wavers on budget for the future
    
    Universities are facing Treasurer Wayne Swan's first federal budget amid fears the Government either does not understand the gravity of their situation or thinks it has snowed the sector with a blizzard of reviews and inquiries.
    
    
    
  • Kids' sex in school 'not sign of abuse'
    
    Social workers did not believe Aboriginal children as young as seven who were simulating sex in the classroom after watching pornographic films at home were victims of child abuse.
    
    
    
  • Drug use teacher keeps her job
    
    A junior teacher who helped a teenage student buy a slab of beer, talked about her sexual encounters and described a sporting opponent as a "c..t" has been allowed to remain in the classroom. And despite claims the teacher also talked about using marijuana to "wean herself" off painkillers, the price of cocaine and losing her virginity, Victoria's teaching watchdog has found she deserves a second chance.
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Fee shift: unis will recruit overseas
    by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
    

    "University students will no longer be able to buy their way into prestige courses under changes introduced by the Labor Government, but universities say the end to full fee-paying places will force them to recruit more international students.

    "The federal Department of Education last week wrote to universities to provide details of its election commitment to replace full fee-paying domestic students with government-funded places.

    "But universities warn that the government-funded places will not make up for the lost revenue and they may need to take in more international students - who pay up-front fees for their courses - to compensate.

    "More than 200,000 foreign students are enrolled in Australian universities and almost all pay full fees for their courses. About 11,000 local students pay full fees and are typically enrolled in subjects such as veterinary science, law, medicine and dentistry.

    "Most universities cashed in on the Howard government policy that allowed them to accept students with up to 10 marks lower than the official cut-off for each course, and charge them the full cost of their degree.

    "They now stand to lose millions of dollars when the new government's ban on full-fee students comes into force next year..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Busy parents sending children to board
    by Anna Patty Education Editor
    

    "Tired of fighting the Sydney traffic and with little spare time, busy working parents are sending their children to boarding schools despite living in the same city.

    "Up to a third of students boarding at Sydney Church of England Grammar School are weekday boarders and include the children of busy working Sydney families, the senior boarding house master at the exclusive North Sydney school, David Anderson, says..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• The Daily Mail [UK]
  
  
  • Truancy reaches record high as 60,000 children go missing from class EVERY DAY - despite £1bn crackdown
    
    Truancy is running at record levels with almost 60,000 children skipping lessons every day. The number of truants under 12 is rising particularly sharply - up 17 per cent on the previous year, official figures have revealed.

Thursday 8 May

• SSTUWA Statement on the State Budget
  
  
  • A Budget of Contempt and Deceit
    Statement by SSTUWA President Anne Gisborne
    
    When the Carpenter government exposed its budget today it showed nothing more than deceit and absolute contempt for education.
    
    Last November the Government made an offer to teachers that totalled and extra $639 million, and, after allegedly continuing to negotiate in good faith with the union since that date, the figure in the budget is still $639 million.
    
    This shows clearly that the Government had already decided to ignore the 90 per cent rejection of that offer by teachers and simply bulldoze over them - and our education system.
    
    Worse still, the Government have shown absolute contempt for the Commission and any decisions that the independent umpire might make. The Treasurer made it absolutely clear that any decision by the Commission other than to side 100 per cent with the Government against the union would create difficulties for the budget.
    
    There was no extra money in the budget for school maintenance, no new money for teacher housing, no sign of funds to cover any reduction in class sizes – but an additional workload of mandatory reporting dumped on classroom teachers. Nothing in this budget will do anything to alleviate the current/future teacher shortage- or encourage existing teachers to stay.
    
    And while no money could be found for education, they found $1.1 billion for a football stadium. The future of football seems assured – the future of our children is in doubt. Of the five Priority Services in this State, education received the smallest increase in funding.
    
    As for the Government’s $1.88 billion surplus; the people of Western Australia need to know that there is no surplus. One only has a surplus after all requirements have been fulfilled – and they still have a long way to go in providing this State’s educational requirements.
    
    Authorised by David A Kelly, General Secretary, SSTUWA, 150 Adelaide Terrace, East Perth
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers' test boycott under fire (page 7)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "WA's education chiefs have taken legal action to try to stop State school teachers boycotting national reading, writing and maths tests next week.

    "The Department of Education and Training has applied to the WA Industrial Relations Commission to have the boycott lifted.

    "Deputy director-general Margery Evans said yesterday that schools were obliged to carry out the national benchmarking tests.

    "Any boycott of the tests by teachers could affect the quality of the national data," she said. "Our experiences here in WA show that parents value greatly the feedback they receive from testing ... It would be disappointing for them if this was disrupted."

    "The State School Teachers Union last week directed its members not to take part in the National Assessment Plan Literacy and Numeracy tests, which students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are due to sit over three days next week. It is the first time they have been held and replace similar State based tests. The union says it has philosophical objections to the tests, claiming they narrow the curriculum and results could be used to make unfair comparisons between schools.

    "SSTU president Anne Gisborne said the parties had met yesterday and were due back in the commission this afternoon. "This is a position that we've held as a matter of principle for nine years, as long as the WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessment has been in place," she said.

    "The Independent Education Union has dropped plans to boycott the tests in private schools after a survey of members failed to gain enough support.

    "The row over the tests came as the Federal Opposition said Commonwealth plans to manipulate the results to take into account the socioeconomic background of students at schools in poorer suburbs amounted to "sugar coating".

    "State and Territory governments last year committed to develop ways to report school-by-school success in the benchmarking tests by using statistical adjustments to separate the value added by the school from the influence of students' backgrounds.

    "Discussions are continuing with the States and Territories about how that would be done.

    "But Federal shadow education minister Tony Smith said parents should be told the truth about how their children performed.

    "Schools and education departments should not be sugar-coating results," he said. "This is just an attempt ... to mask the poor performances of schools. The whole reason for this test was to provide consistent, accurate scores across the nation - not a standardised version of what we'd like the scores to be."

    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said he expected the Federal Government to release the test results, as WA had done for the past two years, so parents could compare their child's progress with students around the State and nation.

    "However, schools should not be judged by test results alone because direct comparisons can be misleading," he said."

    From The West Australian
    
    Related story on ABC News
    
    

  • Also from ABC News
    

    • Government urged to spend more on education
      
      The State School Teacher's Union says today's budget must include significant increases for education if Western Australia's prosperity is to continue.
      
      
      
      
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • They're worth more

      As an experienced WA educator who has grandchildren in WA schools, I supported the first part of your editorial (Teachers tax the public's sympathies, 2/5). I, too, support national testing. I mainly support a national curriculum so we can get rid of this "touchy-feely" OBE fiasco. However, I do not support the second component of your editorial. Let us not play on emotions on the cancellation of Country Week. My children, when they were in a country school, loved participating in Country Week many years ago. It was a highlight of their year. However, being responsible adults and now parents themselves, they also love to have the teachers of their children, my grandchildren, paid a reasonable salary.

      Patrick F Whalen, Yokine
      
      

      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Pay lure for principals
    by Farrah Tomazin, Education Editor
    
    "Top school principals from Australia and overseas are to be offered lucrative performance-based contracts to take on jobs in some of Victoria's worst-performing state schools.

    "The State Government will head-hunt principals from private and public schools and offer them "executive contracts" in a bit to lift standards in struggling schools.

    "It is believed principals could be offered packages worth between $150,000 and about $200,000 a year to take on roles in poorly performing schools. The maximum now offered in public schools is about $150,000.

    "Pay levels and contract renewal prospects for the "super" principals will depend on their ability to meet targets.

    "It is believed they could be offered bonuses of about 10% on top of their basic packages for achieving targets such as lifting VCE results and improving literacy and numeracy skills. "Soft" targets such as boosting staff morale will also be counted.

    "The size of base packages will vary according factors such as the size of the school, whether it is primary or secondary and the qualifications of the principal.

    "It will be the first time that a performance-based pay system of this type has been offered in Victoria's public education system, and could spark renewed debate over whether teachers should also be offered financial rewards for performance.

    "The initiative was negotiated as part of the $2 billion teachers' wage deal announced this week...."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    • Teachers should wait till the deal is done

      "It is a pity that correspondents to yesterday's letters page did not have the full facts before going into print to decry the salary component of the agreement for public school teachers.

      "It is true that there are bigger winners than others in this agreement, as there were in the last agreement, but when the details of the agreement are revealed people will see that every teacher and every principal in the state will get salary increases that far outstrip inflation. I just ask people to reserve their judgement until they see the agreement, which is being finalised in intensive discussions with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development."

      Mary Bluett, branch president, Australian Education Union
      
      

    • The role of parents

      "With their recent pay deal teachers are again in the news. Will better-paid teachers perform at higher levels? Will children's results improve as a result? Recent discussion on factors that affect children's results has focused on smaller class sizes, the need for ongoing assessment and standards, an overcrowded curriculum and of course, teachers' pay and performance.

      "Research has found that these factors don't have a significant impact on a child's learning. I believe what does have an impact and is not discussed is the role of parents. Why is it such a taboo topic? Too often children are sent to school hungry, tired, having just watched hours of television, emotionally fragile and with poorly managed behaviour. The negative behaviour of these children has the biggest impact on the learning environment in the classroom.

      "My school child tells me much time is wasted at school because of the "noisy boys" and the "silly boys". Research has also revealed that academic results have not improved in the past 30 years. Teachers with all their skills and resources must find it difficult to achieve improved results while dealing with disruptive children. I feel for the teachers." [emphasis added]

      David Rooks, Cowes
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Wage rises based on promises should be ruled out
      MOST TALKED ABOUT: PAY BARGAINING
      
      "The response by Wayne Swan ("RBA boss in rates warning’’, 7/5) and Julia Gillard ("Wage increase can’t flow to others: Gillard’’, 7/5) to Treasury’s belatedly revealed warnings in April 2007 of Labor’s workplace relations policy is that this policy will only allow wage increases based on productivity.

      "Two questions arise.

      "First, how will it be ascertained that productivity in a particular sector has increased? The large increase in salaries of Victorian government teachers appears to be based on promised rather than actual productivity increases - and the latter are by no means assured given the uncompetitiveframework in which the government school system operates. Wage increases based on promises should surely be ruled out.

      "Second, as Fair Work Australia is not to commence until 2010, who is to determine whether proposals for wage increases between now and that year are productivity-justified? At a time when unions are already flexing their muscles in both the public and private sectors, and when Labor supports collective bargaining, it will be particularly important to prevent the emergence of inflationary wage pressures Treasury warned about in commenting on Labor’s policy.
      
      "However, given the dismal historical record of regulatory authorities in preventing wage "outbreaks’’, it would be a mistake to attempt to deal with this situation by bringing forward the legislation to establish Fair Work Australia. What Swan and Gillard should acknowledge is that monetary policy will be tightened if inflationary wage increases occur."
      
      Des Moore, South Yarra, Vic
      
      

    • "The alarmism of your editorial ("Wages threat defined’’, 6/5) is not justified by the first serious pay rises Victorian teachers have had in 25 years. Relative to average earnings, the salary of a Victorian teacher at the top of the scale has been cut by $37,161 since 1975. The proposed increase of some $10,000 this year is long overdue, easily affordable and well worth having, but it still leaves teachers some $27,000 short. Add in the facts of an almost 10 per cent cut to the secondary staffing ratio since 1981, a more than 10 per cent increase in teaching loads since 1983 and an explosion in short-term contract employment since 1992, and you will see that teachers are still exploited.

      "It is past time for those who bang on about militant teacher unions, provider capture and the supposed squandering of GST revenues on public-sector pay increases to present an evidence-based argument for their claims."
      
      Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge, Vic
      
      

    • "Well may Julia Gillard warn that workplace agreements struck for "one entity’’ cannot flow to other enterprises, but already it’s reported that the Western Australian teachers union will follow the Victorian lead to make state school teachers the highest-paid in the nation. How does Gillard intend to stop this snowball effect?"
      
      N.Bailey, Murrumbateman, NSW
      
      
      
    • "Teachers have been blamed for many things but this is the first time I have heard them blamed for inflation ("Teachers’ rise a risk to inflation’’, 6/5).

      "Despite Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett’s unbecoming cries of triumph, this pay deal takes Victorian teachers less than a third of the way towards matching the wage growth that has occurred in the Australian economy overall in the past three decades.

      "In 1975, teacher salaries started at 118.8 per cent of Victorian male average ordinary time earnings (MAOTE), rising to a maximum of 166.6 per cent. The new salaries start at 86.4 per cent of November 2007 MAOTE, rising to 127.4 per cent. This is only a modest improvement over the previous figures of 77.8 per cent to 110.5 per cent. In contrast, salaries for MPs have far outstripped the growth in MAOTE, trebling in relation to teacher wages over this interval.

      "In spite of the new pay deal, teaching will remain a low-status profession, and teachers will still be considering a career change in order to boost their household incomes. As for productivity, an extra 10 minutes per day in the classroom is neither here nor there. Surely the best way to improve productivity is to offer a salary that attracts and retains more highly capable teachers. Quite apart from making economic sense, this is what our teachers deserve and it’s what our kids deserve too."
      
      Russell T. Edwards, Whittlesea, Vic
      
      

    • "Kevin Donnelly ("Teachers alone to gain from pay rises’’, Opinion, 7/5) argues that only a small proportion of the best performing teachers should receive salary increases. Presumably this means that the majority of the nation’s teachers, those who teach most Australian kids, should see their buying power progressively eroded by inflation. It hardly sounds like a good plan to boost quality recruitment, morale and the overall performance of the teaching profession.

      "To support his view, Donnelly suggests that we should imitate models of teacher pay to be found in the US and Britain. This is curious since, in the international tests that Donnelly is so fond of citing, our much-maligned education system regularly outperforms these two countries. Could it be that Donnelly’s views are guided more by ideology than by genuine evidence?"
      
      Garry Collins, Stafford Heights, Qld
      
      
      

  • UWA to appeal Federal Court ruling
    by Bernard Lane
    

    "Research that benefits the community is likely to suffer unless a contentious Federal Court ruling on the ownership of inventions is overruled, the University of Western Australia's vice-chancellor Alan Robson has warned.

    "Professor Robson announced today that UWA would appeal judge Robert French's ruling last month, in a bitter and protracted dispute, that former professor of surgery Bruce Gray was employed to research but not to invent.

    "UWA had gone to court to assert its ownership of promising cancer therapies developed by Dr Gray and others. In a landmark judgment of 544 pages, Justice French found for Dr Gray.

    "Commentators said universities would have to check their intellectual property regimes to ensure the validity of any claims they made to inventions devised by academics on staff..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Age outruns recruitment (late update from 7 May)
    by Guy Healy
    

    "Increased recruitment of academic talent by universities anxious to address the problem of an ageing workforce has failed to stem a further greying of academe, unpublished data shows.

    "The percentage of the academic workforce aged over 50 increased from 26 per cent in 1991 to 39.8 per cent in 2006, University of Adelaide professorial research fellow Graeme Hugo has found.

    "Mr Hugo incorporated 2006 census data into his previous benchmark analysis to conclude that during the 15 years to 2006, there was an increase of more than 80 per cent in the academic workforce aged over 50.

    "Mr Hugo's new figures on the outlook for Australian academic staff follow the release of groundbreaking new data from Universities Australia on the disciplines most affected by the looming wave of academic baby-boomer retirements.

    "UA has produced graphs to show the areas most at risk: where there is an ageing workforce and not a lot of younger people to replace them, and where more than 50 per cent of the academic workforce is over 50.

    "Agriculture (60 per cent over 50), general education (60 per cent), teacher education (60 per cent) and curriculum and education studies (59per cent) have been identified as the disciplines, and thus professions, most vulnerable. However, maths (53 per cent), information systems (54 per cent) and nursing (51per cent) are also identified as at risk.

    "Mr Hugo told the HES there was a general appreciation of the ageing of the academic workforce, but administrators might have felt an increase in recruitment during the past five years had offset ageing.

    "But this is a very large group of baby boomers moving up into retirement age and the academic workforce has continued to get older (faster than recruitment)," he said.

    "Mr Hugo said baby boomers constituted about one-third of the workforce and they would be retiring during the next 15 years. But the issue for the universities was even sharper than that faced by the general workforce, since the academic workforce was older than the general population and the professional population.

    "The real crunch will come in 10 to 15 years when on current projections we will have lost 20 per cent to 25 per cent of academic workers," he said.

    "While this might seem plenty of time to develop strategies to counter the growing shortfalls, talented PhDs took a minimum of eight years to complete training from the start of their undergraduate years and, even then, they couldn't replace lecturers and researchers with 30 to 40 years experience, he said.

    "Australia needed to implement a range of recruitment, retention and return strategies to avoid an unhealthy reliance on overseas postgraduate students or those without proper qualifications.

    "In the wake of the UA discipline data, Mr Hugo called for an even further disaggregated analysis, by subject area, by university and by present patterns of Phd research.

    "We have done detailed studies in a few universities and there are some patterns emerging from this, such as the fact that education and health teaching staff are especially concentrated in older ages in those universities," he said. But Australia needed to establish in which discipline areas, in which years and in which universities specific shortages will arise.

    "Heidrick and Struggles education partner, Asia-Pacific, David Pumphrey said the half-dozen academic recruitment firms that had sprung up during the past 10 years highlighted the shortage.

    "We mainly recruit for university leadership positions, but we have to search internationally simply because there's a smaller pool of talented professors to recruit from," Mr Pumphrey said.

  From The Australian at link
  
  

  • Unions defy Rudd on pay deals
    
    Unions have launched a direct challenge to the Rudd Government and the ACTU by pursuing wage claims of up to 19 per cent to offset rising inflation and to "catch up" on pay rises lost under the Howard government.
    
    
    
  • Students want lecturers with work experience [late update from 7 May]
    
    Students are more interested in the industry experience of lecturers and whether courses will help them in the job market, according to new research from the University of Queensland. The confidential report, obtained by the HES, disputes long established student recruitment strategies among the Group of Eight universities, which emphasise their research reputations.
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Payrise sealed ... with a kiss [Teacher bashing at its best... Web]
    by Neil Mitchell
    
    "When John Brumby leaned across to kiss the president of the teachers' union this week to seal their pay deal the most surprising thing is that she didn't grab him in a bear hug and race him off for a night partying.

    "True, the Premier was pleased.

    "He had been keen to settle before the State Budget to kill any continuing industrial embarrassment, while his spin doctors lined up photographs with babies.

    "That is why negotiations ran through the weekend and that is why the deal was announced even though it is not yet final.

    "But the huge winners here are the teachers. Like the protesting taxi drivers, they looked this Government in the eye and won.

    "Teachers like to grizzle about being overworked, underpaid and barely appreciated. For any good teacher that may be true, although for some lazy drongos in the profession it is an understatement.

    "But any grizzling now shows they are either greedy or do not understand what they have won.

    "Because the deal is not final, they will not know exactly what that is until next week. But broadly, what did they get?

    "There's a $40 million sling for a start. The majority of teachers will get a $1000 cash catch-up and principals $2000. Some will get $10,000 pay rises.

    "Union president Mary Bluett, still recovering from the puckered-up Premier, said yesterday some teachers did not yet understand how good the deal was:

    "No teacher or principal will get an increase less than an average five per cent each year over the next three years," she said.

    "Those teachers who feel the world should fall at their feet will probably still argue they'd be better off eating turnips in Greenland, but in this climate the deal is good.

    "It puts Victorian teachers ahead of the rest of the country and gives greater recognition to the value of their work.

    "It is also roughly 15 per cent over three years at a time when the government says it will not move from 3.25 per cent maximum each year.

    "In broad terms that puts the teachers on average 5.25 percentage points ahead of the government "maximum".

    "Now, the spin. The Government needed concessions to justify the pretence this was a productivity deal. So the teachers get the money.

    "What do they give back? Not much.

    "The government boasts there are six extra days of tuition a year.

    "Nonsense. That's based on 10 minutes extra teaching time per day.

    "First, that doesn't apply to all teachers. Primary staff are exempt and many secondary teachers are already at those limits.

    "Second, the deal will at best add three minutes to each class for secondary students. In most classrooms it takes three minutes to open the books and stop throwing spit-balls at the dorky kid in the front row.

    "This is meaningless political number-juggling. It's about selling the package to the public, not improving the deal for the kids.

    "The same applies to the three "pupil-free days" which teachers now sprinkle through the year to suit their social life.

    "Two of those days will be tacked on the end of the Christmas school holidays. So the teachers have not given up the days, and the kids will simply start school later than they would have otherwise.

    "Where's the productivity? The Premier offered this: "There is not a change in productivity in schools but it is a big change in productivity for parents who are quite inconvenienced by pupil-free days during the year."

    "Terrific. All this money and we get three minutes per lesson in some classes and a better schedule for parents.

    "The problem here is confusion caused by government marketing. Nobody, including the teachers, really knows what is going on.

    "Potentially, the best news will come if they genuinely support Blueprint 2, which looks like fair dinkum reform aimed in part at bringing schools properly into the computer age.

    "But that's a while off.

    "The truth is that the Government was feeling the political heat from the union protests, they wanted that cooled before the Budget, and the teachers had a strong case for a pay rise.

    "The voters were not trusted with that truth, and even the $2 billion cost had to be dragged from the ministers like a rotten tooth.

    "So now, suspicions are raised, and the fallout continues. There are warnings the deal is inflationary, and it is difficult to see why it is not.

    "The Premier's kiss was barely dry on Ms Bluett's cheek and the Australian Medical Association was saying "we're next" on behalf of doctors in public hospitals.

    "So how does Mr Brumby tell doctors that the teachers can have 15 per cent over three years, but they can't?

    "And frankly, their president, Dr Doug Travis, looks far less kissable."
    
    From The Melbourne Herald Sun at link [also post / view Reader Comments at that link]
    
    
    

• The Daily Mail [UK]
  
  
  • State education is 'offensive to parents' who pay taxes, says public school leader [7 May]
    by Laura Clark
    
    "The low standard of state education is "offensive" to parents who pay taxes, a private schools leader declared yesterday.

    "Chris Parry, the newly-appointed chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said thousands of parents were forced to pay for private education because the quality of state schools was "very poor".

    "But he said ideological hatred of independent education ran deep and fee-paying parents were caught in a "Cold War".

    "Mr Parry, a former Royal Navy rear admiral, said the Government had aimed "missiles" at independent schools by threatening to strip them of charitable status.

    "He compared new laws which could force independent schools to raise their fees to "a flashpoint on the Berlin Wall".

    "The attack came as Mr Parry, who has led the ISC for just seven days, gave evidence to MPs on the Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee.

    "Committee chairman Barry Sheerman, Labour MP for Huddersfield, said Mr Parry's description of private education as "paid for" schooling was "offensive", saying parents of state school pupils pay through their taxes..."
    
    Full story in The Daily Mail at link
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • School uniforms banned in shops
    

    Children have been prevented from boarding their school buses by a new policy that aims to ban truants from a Western Sydney shopping centre.

  
  
  • University life dying without union fees, study says
    

    More than 90 per cent of submissions to an inquiry into voluntary student union laws say campus life is in decline and changes need to be made if sporting, cultural and student organisations are to survive.
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Test Scores Suggest Success In Middle School Instruction
    
    Middle schools, forever castigated as the weak link in public education, have made steady progress on Maryland's standardized test, and well over half of the students at the top campuses in the state's Washington suburbs have earned the highest rating on the exam.

Friday 9 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Union told to cancel its boycott of school tests (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The teachers’ union was last night ordered to lift its boycott of national reading, writing and maths tests.
    
    "The Education Department took the State School Teachers Union to the WA Industrial Relations Commission last week to stop teachers from disrupting the tests after the union directed its members to boycott them.
    
    "Commissioner Jennifer Harrison said the interests of students would be compromised if the boycott was not lifted because a “significant number” of teachers had indicated they would abide by the directive.
    
    "SSTU president Anne Gisborne said the union’s executive would consider the order today.
    
    "The National Assessment Plan Literacy and Numeracy tests, which students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are due to sit for the first time next week, replace similar State-based tests.
    
    "Deputy director-general schools Margery Evans welcomed the decision last night. “Our teachers are very professional and we’re always confident they will put the needs of students first,” she said.
    
    "In a separate development yesterday, a senior Catholic school principal launched a scathing attack on the State Government’s failure to supply enough teachers and other services to rural areas, even though they provide much of the nation’s wealth.
    
    "WA College of Teaching board member and former Trinity College principal Peter Bothe told a recent Pilbara conference the Government had abandoned its responsibilities to put a teacher in front of every class.
    
    "Mr Bothe, who has also been a president of the Catholic Secondary Principals Association, is the principal at St Luke’s College in Karratha. He said the town was desperately short of health, police and education services.
    
    “Fifteen per cent of the gross domestic product of the country comes out of Karratha and we can’t provide enough incentives for teachers, or police, or nurses to come to this town,” he said after the Riding the Boom Conference in Karratha last week.
    
    "He added: “This is the richest part of WA and yet people here go to the hospital and they have to go up to Port Hedland or get flown to Perth.”
    
    "Mr Bothe said education was now in the worst state it had been in for years. Trying to find enough teachers was “diabolical”.
    
    "St Luke’s had been down two teachers since the start of this year and teachers were “running themselves ragged” trying to cover classes.
    
    “I had a girl last year miss out on medicine by 0.2 points, and for six months she never had a physics teacher,” he said. Education Minister Mark McGowan said the Government was well aware of the challenges involved in staffing regional schools. “What this illustrates is that the private sector is facing the same challenges as the public sector in attracting and retaining staff in country areas,” he said.
    
    "He added that teachers in Karratha received thousands of dollars in allowances and subsidised housing." [emphasis added]
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    Related story on ABC News
    
    
    
    
  • Teachers unhappy (page 8)
    
    A short, unauthored item based on yesterday's SSTUWA press release.
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • "Having bled the existing pool of teachers dry through the OBE debacle, and failing to recruit enough staff for the future by neglecting teachers' pay and conditions, educrats are now desperately revisiting the failed super-school model, rejected so convincingly by communities half a decade ago, to deliver upper-school courses. At least the education budget won't have to spend unnecessary dollars on remedial help for poor achievers in the basics, because the plan now appears to be to disguise the results by scaling (read manipulating) the scores from low socioeconomic schools."

      George Wittorff, Bunbury

      
      
      
• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers will still refuse to test: Union
    
    "The State School Teachers Union (SSTU) says it is inevitable that some teachers will boycott national literacy and numeracy tests, despite an order by the Industrial Relations Commission not to.

    "The union had instructed its members not to take part in the tests for years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students next week, because of concerns about how the results could be used.

    "The Industrial Relations Commission has ordered teachers to lift the ban and this morning the union's state executive agreed to comply but SSTU President, Anne Gisborne, says she expects some teachers to boycott the tests.

    "This matter was discussed in the commission," she said.

    "It may be that some members feel that they are unable to comply with the lifting of the ban, and we will deal with those matters on a case by case issue."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• Two unpublished items, worth including
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    Most of the time, the West is a strong supporter of rational education debate. Now and again, its editorial strays into negative teacher stereotypes like a reformed alcoholic who goes on a yearly bender.

    Friday's editorial states the public image of teaching will take another hit if its ban on unpaid overtime results in Country Week being scrapped. I ask the author to take a deep breath and read what that statement actually says. It is asking teachers to work for nothing or the public will think less of us.

    I may only be a lowly teacher but I thought the gist of employment was I work and my employer pays me. Obviously the editor doesn't believe that applies to teachers.

    For too long now, teachers have provided free supervision, manpower and expertise for any number of extracurricular activities. If you want to know why that goodwill has evaporated, you need look no further than the penny-pinching attitude of successive state governments who refuse to recognise these activities as worth paying for.

    Marko Vojkovic

    
    
  • "Our best teachers should be working in our lowest performing schools, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve."

    Our best policemen should be working in our highest crime rate locations, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve.

    Our best politicians should be working in our poorest performing portfolios, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve.

    Our best nurses and doctors should be working in our most overcrowded and under-resourced hospitals, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve.

    Our best public servants should be working in our most dysfunctional Aboriginal communities, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve.

    What a simplistic and cretinous furphy; designed to disguise the fact that governments simply refuse to pay teachers an adequate wage.

    The only solution is targeted and continuing industrial action and an outright refusal to volunteer time and labour for no extra payment.

    Boxer
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Missed chance to really shake up education
    by John Roskam
    
    The teachers' deal fails to encourage professionalism or reward success.

    "The announcement by the Brumby Government that it will hire the best school principals, pay them up to $200,000 a year and send them to improve the state's worst government schools is an important reform. The next step is to expand it to include teachers.

    "Our best teachers should be working in our lowest performing schools, and they should be paid according to the outcomes they achieve.

    "To implement such a plan requires the recognition of three things; that some teachers are better than others, that there are low-performing schools, and that part of teachers' pay should be linked to their performance.

    "Thankfully, after decades of debate it is now accepted that some government schools achieve better outcomes than others. And it's also accepted that something should be done about this. What hasn't been accepted is that one way to fix the problem is to pay our best teachers more if they go to work in low-performing schools.

    "Unfortunately, this week's deal between the Government and the teachers' union will not help improve the academic results of students in low-performing schools. And it does nothing to overcome the shortage of teachers in key subjects.

    "The $2 billion extra spending on teachers' salaries could have been used to transform the teachers in government schools from a workforce into a profession. This week was a missed opportunity for Victorian education. The deal doesn't recognise good teachers, doesn't fix teacher shortages in key subjects, and doesn't ensure that students most in need of a quality education are taught by our best teachers.

    "The Government had a once-in-a-decade chance to begin a real education revolution. We could have had a revolution based on the notion that the best teachers deserve the biggest pay rises. Instead, the Government took the easy option and decided that every teacher should get a pay rise, regardless of their merit or performance.

    "The Government did win some minor concessions. Pupil-free days have been cut to one a year. This is an improvement, but pupil-free days should have been eliminated entirely. Pupil-free days are an anachronism of the 19th century. Given the number of weeks during school holidays when teachers are at work and there are no students at school, there is more than enough time for teachers to fulfil their administrative and reporting responsibilities.

    "The deal allowed the Government to proclaim that Victoria's teachers will now be the best paid in the country. This is a hollow boast given that within months it is likely that teacher salaries in some other state will overtake those in Victoria. The state's teachers should be the best paid in the country only if they are, in fact, the best teachers in the country — but there's no evidence that they are.

    "Victoria's teachers may well be the best in the country — we simply don't know. And the reason we don't know is that no education minister has been willing to confront the teachers' union and actually measure the quality of our teachers. The test scores in literacy and numeracy for Victorian students are among the lowest in the country.

    "Not surprisingly the teachers' union described the deal as the best outcome for the union in 25 years. The union got everything it wanted. For years the union has campaigned against any attempt to measure teacher performance. According to the union, all teachers are of equal ability, all teachers do the same job, and therefore all teachers should be paid the same.

    "The union's approach protects poor teachers but penalises good teachers. This week's deal perpetuates the notion that teachers' pay should be determined according to their qualifications and years of service instead of their performance.

    "The top salary for a classroom teacher will now be $75,500 per year. On most measures this is a good salary. However, there's nothing magic about this figure. The top salary for a teacher could have been $85,500 or even $95,500.

    "All teachers in Victorian government schools will also get a one-off bonus of $1000 and every principal will receive $2000. Spending of this sort has very little justification. Paying every teacher a bonus, regardless of the quality of their contribution to their students' learning is an insult to the professionalism of teachers. In any school, there would be some teachers who deserve bonuses of $5000, some who deserve bonuses of $2000, and some who deserve no bonuses at all.

    "It's no wonder that few ambitious, eager and smart young people yearn for a career in an industry in which regardless of how hard they work and how good they are at their job, they will get exactly the same bonus as everyone else. Young people entering teaching know that they are joining a workforce, not a profession." [emphasis added]

    John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs.
    

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Leadership no use without the team

      "Your report (The Age, 8/5) that special salaries and incentives would be given for principals to transfer to the lowest performing 20% of Victoria's state schools is predicated on a number of false assumptions about schools.

      While leadership is important, the way in which a school is resourced and staffed is equally so. The most successful schools are those with the most highly qualified and experienced staff. After all, who spends more time actually educating students? Private schools recognise this and this is why they continue to poach whom they consider to be the best teachers from the state school system. But private schools have also been well-resourced with generous federal grants in recent years.

      The role of the principal may have been over-romanticised in films starring Julie Walters, yet the reality is that teaching relies on teamwork and student learning is enhanced by improved facilities.

      David E. Spratt, Burwood
      
      

    • Principals let down

      "As a former principal of some 15 years in disadvantaged areas of the northern suburbs, I am astounded that the Australian Education Union would support the headhunting of private school principals from around Australia and overseas (The Age, 8/5). The AEU and the government should concentrate on supporting the overworked and underpaid local principals, many of whom have achieved outstanding results despite chronic underfunding and lack of support in dealing with very difficult communities.

      "To watch a private school recruit try to turn around some of the schools in Broadmeadows and West Heidelberg under current funding and staffing arrangements would be amusing to say the least. The critical shortage of quality applicants for vacant principal positions in so-called underachieving schools and the attrition rate among existing experienced principals is a direct result of the lack of support for school leadership by both the government and the AEU over many years."

      Terry Howard, Rosanna
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Heat on Swan as WA surges on
    
    A booming West Australian economy bulging with royalties from the rampant resources industry and continued strength in the jobs market have increased pressure on Tuesday's federal budget to rein in inflation.

    As Wayne Swan prepares for his first federal budget, another $2 billion state surplus in the West, revealed in yesterday's state budget, has underlined how the unprecedented mining boom is fattening public coffers, even with increased pain in the domestic economy.
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    The eye of the boom
    
    The WA Government has an election in its sights
    
    

  • Welfare curbs on parents
    
    A national welfare card that will allow the Government to control payments to negligent parents across the country will be unveiled in Tuesday's budget.

    The debit card - to be introduced in selected indigenous communities before being rolled out across Australia - will ensure half of the cardholders' welfare payments are spent on approved goods and services, such as food and clothing for their children, rather than wasted on alcohol and drugs.
    
    

  • Indigenous school serves as fine model
    
    Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson yesterday called for all indigenous students to be offered scholarships to allow them to leave their communities and attend schools such as Djarragun College, a private school that has become a remarkable indigenous education success story in less than a decade.

Saturday – Sunday, 10 – 11 May

• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Teacher pay row worsens
    
    "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan has signalled that teachers will struggle to get paid more than the offer they previously rejected.

    "Treasurer Eric Ripper this week allocated $639 million for the teachers' enterprise bargaining agreement in the State Budget -- which matched the offer knocked back by teachers in December.

    "Yesterday, when asked whether there would be movement on that amount, Mr McGowan would say only: "Money has been set aside in the Budget in line with what was approved by Government for the second offer. The matter is now before the Industrial Relations Commission.

    "The offer rejected by the union is far better than the offer recently accepted by Victorian teachers.''

    "The WA State School Teachers Union rejected Mr McGowan's claim about the Victorian offer being worse.

    "President Anne Gisborne said the union was exploring what industrial action teachers would be prepared to take -- including strikes -- in the wake of Thursday's Budget, which allocated $3.6 billion to education.

    "We were advised by the Treasurer that no additional money has been put into dealing with the teachers' EBA, on top of the money that was available at the second offer,'' Ms Gisborne said. ``So effectively, the message to us is that there is no extra money in the face of a strong `no' vote to the provisions in the second offer.

    "We're getting ready to put a survey out to our members around the types of industrial action that they would be prepared to participate in. It would include strikes.

    "We're extremely disappointed that in a period of time where (economic) growth is running at 6 per cent plus, up to 7 per cent during 2008-09, the education budget has only been increased by 3.9 per cent.''

    "Mr McGowan said spending on education had increased over the term of the Labor Government to a point where it was providing 12 per cent above the national average a student and more than almost every other state.

    "The union is pushing for a 20 per cent-plus pay rise over three years. It wants smaller classes, more preparation time for primary teachers and ``appropriate'' administration time for principals and their deputies.

    "The Government's last offer, which it withdrew, was nearly 14 per cent, rising with allowances and other factors.

    "Ms Gisborne said teachers would now target class overcrowding by complaining at a school level, with potential action involving the commission in future. [That will have the Government shaking in its boots!  Web]

    "The union would also take threats of sanctions against teachers who boycott national reading, writing and maths tests to the commission on Monday. The commission ordered on Thursday that the union lift its boycott on the tests."

    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
    • Government Priorities Department
      
      Government moves to secure V8 Supercars future in WA
      
      Perth may have secured a V8 Supercars future, with the government agreeing to look at building a new circuit as local hero Garth Tander led at Barbagallo.
      
      
      
      
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers to lose pay for refusal on literacy tests (page 14)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Teachers who refuse to take part in national literacy and numeracy tests next week will have their pay docked as the Department of Education and Training turns the heat up on its staff.
    
    "The State School Teachers Union lifted its boycott of the tests yesterday after it was ordered to do so by the WA Industrial Relations Commission.
    
    "However, general secretary David Kelly claimed that even though they were legally required to implement the tests, many teachers would have such passionate professional objections that they would not do it.
    
    "Some teachers will feel so oppressed by this they just in all conscience won't be able to put themselves through that process," he said.
    
    "The union believes the tests will lead to unfair comparisons between schools but it has tried to keep the issue separate from its pay dispute with the State Government.
    
    "In a move that could prove inflammatory, the department's human resources executive director John Serich, said any teacher who failed to administer the tests to students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 would have their pay docked until they resumed full duties.
    
    "An employee who is required to administer the National Assessment Plan Literacy and Numeracy test, but refuses to do so, is deemed to be engaging in industrial action," he stated in a letter sent to schools yesterday. "In accordance with legislative requirements, any employee who refuses to administer the NAPLAN tests will not be paid for the time equivalent to administering the tests and for any further time until the employee resumes performance of their full duties."
    
    "Mr. Kelly said that in the past, teachers who objected to the State-based tests which the national tests will replace had simply been assigned other duties.
    
    "I think they're out to punish the workforce and to make a point," he said.
    
    "They're just hardening their line in regard to their employees."
    
    "He said it was another nail in the coffin of goodwill towards the department. "The day they lose the goodwill of the teachers, schools will roll to a stop," he said.
    
    "Mr. Kelly said the union would consider how to support members who refused to take part in the test.
    
    "The union had "grave concerns" that teachers had been ordered to lift the union boycott and it would continue to push opposition to the tests at a Federal level."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    

  • Alston: State Budget
    
    
    

  • Rush for places at elite schools (page 19)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "WA's booming economy and dissatisfaction with the State School system have fuelled a big increase in demand for places at Perth's prestigious schools as cashed-up parents rush to buy their children a top education.
    
    "Waiting lists stretch to 2021 and beyond at the State's most expensive schools, which are reporting ballooning demand for preschool and primary school places, as well as the traditional high school entry point.
    
    "A third of WA children now attend private schools but education director-general Sharyn O'Neill told principals last week that by 2010, without urgent action, half the State's high school students would be educated in private schools as parents continued to abandon the State system.
    
    "Parents are encouraged to put their children's names down at birth to increase their chances of getting a place at elite schools that charge as much as $15,000 in annual fees.
    
    "They pay between $75 and $120 to get on a list.
    
    "Guildford Grammar School registrar Geoff Hickling said disenchantment with the State system was pushing many parents to enrol their children in private schools at a younger age.
    
    "Parents (are) scraping up their money to put their children in earlier," he said. "Some of them had planned to put them in at first-year high school but now they're saying, we can't tolerate the local State primary school any more." [emphasis added]
    
    "Mr. Hickling said some parents even registered their children before birth. "I've even had them down at conception," he said.
    
    "Hale School has a waiting list of 66 children for 24 Year 1 places in 2013 and 10 babies born since July last year are on the list.
    
    "Headmaster Stuart Meade said demand for junior primary places had soared in recent years, especially in Year 1. But he said waiting lists could be misleading because families' circumstances could change in the years between application and the child starting school.
    
    "Wesley College headmaster David Gee said there had been a dramatic growth in waiting lists for kindergarten to Year 5 in the past four years.

    "Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Audrey Jackson said the influx of wealthy professionals moving to WA because of the booming economy was a contributing factor to growing waiting lists.
    
    "High Wycombe mother Malinda Blair plans to register the twins she is expecting next month for a private school soon after they are born. A former Perth College student, she wanted the same sort of private education for her own children.
    
    "We'll send them to a local State school for primary," Mrs. Blair, 28, said. "I know the community atmosphere at Perth College was fabulous and I want them to have that as well."
    
    "Mrs. Blair who also has a four-year-old daughter, said she and her husband hoped the fees to educate the three children would not prove too great a strain."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Hidden fees add to parents burden (page 19)
    by Stephanie Painter
    
    "Parents of private school students are being slugged thousands of dollars a year in extra expenses, putting more pressure on scholarship recipients and low-income earners to "keep up with the Jones" for fear of their child being singled out.
    
    "An analysis by The West Australian found that on top annual tuition fees of as much as $16,000, parents were paying up to $110 to apply for a place, $4500 for non-refundable admission or endowment fees and $1500 for uniforms.
    
    "Then there were the books, camps, awards, busfares, sport, music lessons and instrument hire, and voluntary donations to building funds.
    
    "One mother who has children at public and private schools said that while private schools had second hand book and clothing shops, extra costs were still much higher.
    
    "We pay for any awards they get and we have to pay for extension programmes - maths camps, creative writing camps, science lectures," the woman, who asked not to be named, said. "There's a lot of hidden costs. There are a lot of families here that struggle to pay the extras.
    
    "There's a huge concern that if they don't come up with the money, their child will be singled out. It's very awkward for them if they feel they can't afford the music camps. They feel it will be difficult for their child if they can't keep up with the Jones."
    
    "The parent of a student at another private school said donations to the school were not compulsory but automatically appeared on statements. Badges for excelling in extracurricular activities cost $70 - $200 to be embroidered on blazers.
    
    "Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Audrey Jackson said only about 20 of the association's 150 members were high-cost schools.
    
    "She advised parents to investigate additional costs thoroughly before accepting a place and said many schools had second-hand book and clothing shops with buy-back schemes."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Results back principal's return to instruction
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Principal John Fleming advocates a dramatic shift in the way primary school children are taught. And educators are listening because his results are impressive.

    "Mr Fleming supports a teaching method called explicit instruction, in which teachers closely direct student learning. It differs from the dominant inquiry model, where teachers guide students and encourage them to discover answers for themselves. Mr Fleming, head of Haileybury's Berwick campus, has a track record that suggests explicit teaching works.

    "Last year, his year 3 students recorded results well above the state average in literacy and numeracy — they were about two years ahead of their peers in reading and three years in maths. Two years earlier, when Mr Fleming arrived at the school, the year 3s were six months ahead of state benchmarks.

    "Before Haileybury, Mr Fleming was principal at one of the state's most disadvantaged schools, Bellfield Primary School in Ivanhoe West. Its students were drawn largely from single-parent families and homes where English was not the first language. More than 80% of parents did not work and more than half were illiterate.

    "In 1996, 80% of Bellfield students were performing well below the state average in literacy and numeracy. By the time Mr Fleming left in 2005, the school was one of the best performing in the state. "It's about taking the kids through whatever it is they need to do, step by step, so that they understand," Mr Fleming says. "Give them the tools to learn. Otherwise, if there is not a solid foundation and you try to build on that, then things come tumbling down."

    "Haileybury's Brighton and Keysborough campuses introduced the explicit instruction model last year and other schools are taking note.

    "Carey Baptist Grammar in Kew sits in the inquiry-based teaching camp. But principal Phil de Young wants to know more about the method. "We'll have a good look at the outcomes that are being achieved through explicit instruction and we'll have a close review of what we're doing and then out of that we will possibly introduce some changes," he said.

    "The Australian Council for Educational Research suggests it would be a smart move. "The evidence is pretty much overwhelming," said Steve Dinham, the council's research director for teaching, learning and leadership. "Direct instruction and explicit teaching is two to three times more effective than inquiry-based learning or problem-based learning."

    "Professor Dinham said the inquiry model had dominated since the mid-1960s, but it was largely a "romantic concept" no longer suited to an information-rich age, through which children needed structured, directed teaching "more than ever". Explicit teaching was time-efficient and gave students skills, knowledge and cognitive ability, he said. However, "the swing to explicit teaching is just getting started". [emphasis added]

    What's the Difference?
    
    Inquiry-based teaching: Student-centred with less emphasis on teacher direction. "Teachers should be the guide by the side rather than the sage on the stage."

    Explicit: The teacher takes an active role and structures learning. Learning is teacher directed but student centred.

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Poaching principals is good policy
      
      "Attracting high-performing school principals away from the private and into the public sector is a cost-effective and urgent need. Faced with the daunting task of replacing their school leader, selection panels presently find themselves sifting through a list of inexperienced teachers and assistant principals with little or no academic training in leadership. Worse still, this pool is frequently lacking in individuals with a general education in the basics of child psychology.

      "Often they possess only the most scant understanding of present trends in pedagogical research, and the notion of the entire broader field of the sociology of education is a murky depth of which they know little. Teachers' tales of inept and ineffective principals are rife. That they should be so commonly associated with underperforming schools is simply tragic. This is an education initiative that should be embraced by all."

      Patrick Hockey, Warrnambool

      
      
      
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Handout not enough: teachers [late online update from 9 May]
    by Alana Buckley-Carr
    
    "The State School Teachers Union of Western Australia has attacked Eric Ripper's $3.6 billion education handout, saying it does not allow any additional money for teachers' salaries beyond the pay offer teachers rejected in December.

    "Union branch president Anne Gisborne said the allocation of $639 million over four years for teacher wage agreements showed the Government was not taking education seriously. The union is seeking a 24 per cent pay increase over three years, but the Carpenter Government has offered pay rises of between 13.6 per cent and 22 per cent.

    "The message to teachers out there and the teachers' union is that we haven't listened to your rejection of the second offer and we don't appear to be interested in providing an additional response to that," Ms Gisborne said.

    "She pointed out the Brumby Government this week negotiated a wage deal that included rises of up to 15.2 per cent, making Victoria's teachers the nation's highest paid. This was despite the state not having the teacher shortage that WA faced.

    "Mr Ripper said expenditure on education had increased by $135 million, or 3.9 per cent, to a record level. The funding will go towards the construction of nearly 30 new schools next financial year, as well as recruitment measures.

    "The Treasurer has allocated $61 million for 4400 more places for apprentices and trainees, bringing the total number of places to 39,000, double the number available in 2001.

    "Another $71 million has been allocated for the recruitment and retention of teachers. Graduate teachers will receive a start-up bonus of $1600 each year for two years, while more than $62 million will go towards increasing graduate teacher salaries.

    "The Government is also providing a $3 million low-interest loan to Notre Dame University -- the only tertiary institution in the state that has had an increase in teaching applications -- for it to expand its teaching program.

    "More than $340 million will be spent on educational infrastructure, including $43 million on the redevelopment of the Perth Central TAFE campus.

    "In the troubled town of Fitzroy Crossing, where the Government was severely criticised over a lack of services earlier this year, $16 million has been allocated to complete construction of the new Fitzroy Crossing District High School."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Parents back teacher who posed nude
    
    The NSW Government is ducking for cover after it dismissed a popular primary school teacher for appearing nude with her husband in a magazine interview in which the couple described their sex life.... Asked why the [NSW Education] department had dismissed Ms Tziolas and then held an investigation rather than the other way around, [spokesman] Mr Thorpe was unable to answer. [emphasis added]
    
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Reading skills' 'virtuous circle' (9 May)
    
    "Schools are responding positively to the recommended phonics method of teaching reading, suggests a snapshot survey by inspectors.

    "Ofsted inspectors say there is a "virtuous circle" of improved reading skills and higher expectations.

    "The report from inspectors also concluded that children were enjoying phonics lessons.

    "This survey tested the progress of the Rose Review of reading, which called for a more systematic use of phonics.

    'Raised expectations'

    "Ofsted inspectors found schools using the recommended phonics method had "raised their expectations of how quickly and well children could learn to read and write".

    "Teachers have been 'surprised by the joy' shown by children as they master phonic skills," says the report.

    "The principle behind phonics is that children learn the sounds of letters and of combinations of letters and use them to decode words.

    "The report, based on visits to 20 schools and responses from a further 43, found that teachers were putting into practice the recommendations for improving the teaching of reading.

    "In 2005, the government-commissioned review of reading by Sir Jim Rose called for "relatively short, discrete sessions, designed to progress from simple elements to the more complex aspects of phonic knowledge".

    "Phonics had already been taught in many primary schools, but the Rose Review emphasised the need for a rigorous and systematic use of from the earliest years.

    "And this snapshot survey shows that in 16 of the 20 schools visited such sessions of teaching phonics were taking place every day.

    "It also found that 19 of these schools had adopted a systematic approach to phonics teaching.

    "However, it also found that this was not an easy subject to explain to parents.

    "Meetings for parents about phonics were poorly attended and teachers said there were difficulties in "conveying the subtleties of the programme".

    From BBC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Children being failed by progressive teaching, say Tories (9 May)
    by Polly Curtis, education editor
    
    "Generations of children have been let down by so-called progressive education policies which have taught skills and "empathy" instead of bodies of knowledge, the shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, said yesterday.

    "A Conservative government would reinstate traditional styles of fact-based lessons, he told teachers at a conference at Brighton College in Sussex yesterday.

    "Gove condemned "pupil-centred learning" theories that gained currency in the 1960s for "dethroning" the teacher. "This misplaced ideology has let down generations of children," he said. "It is an approach to education that has been called progressive, but in fact is anything but. It privileges temporary relevance over a permanent body of knowledge which should be passed on from generation to generation ... We need to tackle this misplaced ideology wherever it occurs."

    "Gove's speech yesterday echoes comments in a Guardian interview today, in which he claims the advent of progressive education had reactionary outcomes, and that "if you come from a poorer household where you don't have your own bedroom, where the only printed material is the Daily Star, then school is the only place you learn, and progressive methods let you down".

    "His comments set the Tory party on a collision course with teachers. The National Union of Teachers has long argued for a return to a more liberal style of education..."

    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Principal unsure of school vandals' motives
    
    "The principal of an independent school in a Perth suburb says he is not sure if recent attacks on the school are racially motivated.

    "The Damla College was vandalised and two buses were torched in the latest attack early this morning.

    "It is the third since the school was opened a month ago.

    "Principal Sukan Alkin says the school community has been shocked and upset at the damage that has been done to the school.

    "I can't be suspicious but I'm hearing that they saying that this is a Muslim school," he said.

    "It's not a Muslim school, it is a non-denominational school, that's open to all community members.

    "I'm an Australian, I have Australian teachers, Australian students as well. The only difference is [the] majority of the students are [from a] Turkish speaking background."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Daily Mail
  
  
  • Pupils to get more time to complete SAT tests because 90% are failing pilot tests (9 May)
    
    "Children are to be given more time to sit revamped Sats after it emerged nine in ten failed one of the trial exams.

    "Ministers will change the tests to allow children more time to answer the hardest questions.

    "In addition, pupils will only be allowed to take the tests when teachers think they are ready.

    "The revamped English and maths exams for primary and secondary pupils are being trialled in 411 schools and could replace the current Sats in 2010.

    "But the Government has been forced into a rethink after only one in ten pupils passed the higher reading level test in trials in December.

    "As a result, the time allowed for level 6 tests will be increased from 50 minutes to an hour, according to the Times Education Supplement.

    "The Tories say the alterations show the plans are in disarray and have accused ministers of undermining public confidence in Sats.

    "Education experts have also criticised the Sats system, saying children are being tested too much and that the exams are ruining teaching.

    "In a BBC Panorama programme entitled Tested to Destruction to be shown on Monday, Barry Sheerman, Labour chairman of the Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee, will say: "The pendulum has swung too far in terms of the amount of testing that we do with children."

    "Tory education spokesman Michael Gove said the Government's changes to primary school tests were "in chaos", adding: "Education Secretary Ed Balls is undermining public confidence in our exam system."

    "The revamped regime gives pupils two chances a year - in December and June - to move up a level in the National Curriculum system.

    "Currently, children must wait until the end of a Key Stage to find out which level they are at.

    "A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families stressed that the tests were still under evaluation."

    From The Daily Mail at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Students chosen on good works
    by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
    

    "A national university will select up to half of its intake next year on a combination of students' school performance and involvement in cultural, sporting or religious activities.

    "The Australian Catholic University will guarantee places to students before they receive their Higher School Certificate results if they can demonstrate a history of community work. The unorthodox selection procedure follows a Macquarie University initiative that will require all undergraduate students to participate in volunteer work before they graduate.

    "Professor Greg Craven, vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, said the program sent a signal to students about the type of people the university wanted and a signal to employers that it was turning out well-rounded graduates.

    "HSC marks alone did not indicate if somebody would be a good student or employee..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
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This page last updated 11 August, 2008 11:48 PM