Monday 9 June

Tuesday 10 June

Wednesday 11 June

Thursday 12 June

Friday 13 June

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 June

Monday 9 June

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Reports banned in school pay row [Front Page Headline]
    by Bethany Hiatt

    “State school teachers have dramatically escalated their bitter pay campaign against the Carpenter Government, banning the release of student report cards and refusing to roll out more than 30 long-planned Year 11 courses due to start next year.

    “Only a day after the State School Teachers Union voted to disrupt classes with half-day strikes, the union's State Council endorsed a plan yesterday to withhold students' end­of-semester reports until the Government released a six-month-old report it commissioned into WAs alarming teacher shortage.

    “The report, by respected academic Lance Twomey, is believed to recom­mend significant pay rises for teachers.  Education Minister Mark McGowan has had the report since December but is refusing to release it.

    “Under the report card ban, teachers would refuse to use the Education Department's computerised report­ing system and parents would not receive written reports. But they could still discuss their child's pro­gress with teachers.

    “The West Australian understands union members also voted to halt implementation of new Year 11 cours­es such as geography, history, literature and chemistry which are due to start next year.

    “Teachers say it is impossible to write programs, lesson plans and assessment items for the new courses during normal school hours and they can't do the work after school because of the union ban on unpaid overtime imposed at the start of the year.

    “Many of the Year 11 courses under threat have already been postponed twice because of teachers' concerns they lacked content and that outcomes-based education assessment methods were imprecise. The rewritten courses have overcome most of those concerns.

    “Tensions between teachers and the Government intensified late last week after the W A .Industrial Relations Commission agreed to an Education Department request to arbitrate the long-running pay dispute. Teachers are seeking pay rises of more than 20 per cent over three years.

    “Union president Anne Gisborne called a media conference on Saturday to announce that half-day strikes would start at selected schools within weeks. But yesterday she refused to confirm the boycott of reports and courses, saying information should be communicated to members before it appeared in the newspaper.

    “Mr McGowan said the Twomey report would not be released until it was fully considered by Cabinet, which was unlikely to be before school reports are due in the next few weeks.

    "If the union does withhold school reports and bans the implementation of the new Years 11 and 12 courses it would only serve to hurt students and anger parents," he said. "Until the union executive confirms this, I have no further comment to make."

    “Mr McGowan also said strike action would be counter-productive. "If the union leadership proceeds with this course then the Government will examine its options to protect the education of students," he said.

    “WA Council of State School Orga­nisations president Rob Fry said for­mal written reports were not essential if parents could talk to teachers.

    “Boycotts and strikes would make children suffer and further alienate parents but the Government had left teachers with little choice.

    "If we don't pay (teachers) more, people are not going to enter the profession, it is as simple as that," he said. "We support their venture but we don't support some of their tactics."

    From The West Australian
    
    Also see the reports from ABC News

    
    

  • Letter to the Editor (page 23)
    
    
    • Cleaners lament

      “As a cleaner in charge at a primary school, I echo Kim Craig’s lament (Letters, 3/6) regarding a dearth of school cleaners, and the convenient subterfuge of the Education Department being “unaware” of this situation.

      “Might one of the major reasons for using this façade be a virtual acknowledgement that the hourly rates of pay, which fall short of what cleaners are currently paid elsewhere, are insufficient to attract quality staff? This situation is further compounded when replacements are needed (covering for sickness or absenteeism).

      “This is just a more localised example of problems endemic within the department, in its interface with schools, and the greater dysfunction which is characteristic of the Carpenter Government.”

      K.Crotty, Dianella

      
      

• ABC News
  
  
  • Release teacher shortage report, says Buswell
    
    "Western Australian Opposition Leader Troy Buswell says the public has a right to know what is in a report into the state's teacher shortage.
    
    "The Twomey report was presented to the Education Minister in December and is believed to recommend significant pay increases for teachers.
    
    "The Government and the teachers' union are heading into arbitration to resolve a pay and conditions dispute.
    
    "The Premier says the report will not be released until the union's industrial action is resolved. [emphasis added]
    
    "Mr Buswell says it is a disgrace the report has not been made public.
    
    "For the Government to sit on it is completely unacceptable, this Government operates in a web of political spin," he said.
    
    "Obviously there are things in the Twomey report that the Government don't want school teachers and/or the broader public to know in Western Australia."
    
    From ABC News online at 4:12 pm [but no longer on the ABC News website at 7:35 pm]
    
    Footnote: As of 9:07 pm, the story is available on the Channel 7 [Yahoo] news site, attributed to ABC News, at this link
    
    
    
    
    
  • Teachers to hold back report cards amid pay dispute
    
    "Parents of state school students will have to contact teachers directly for their children's term two results because of an industrial ban on report cards in Western Australia.

    "Under the new action, members of the State School Teacher's Union will compile reports for all primary and secondary school students, but will refuse to issue hard copies of the information to parents.

    "The WA Government and the union have been at loggerheads over pay negotiations since November last year.

    "Teachers want a 20 per cent pay rise over three years.

    "The matter has now been referred to arbitration.

    "The union's Anne Gisborne says parents and students will not unfairly suffer because of the action.

    "In many instances the teacher's actually run report meetings for parents at the semester break," she said.

    "We'd expect that that may well go ahead."

    "She says the move to withhold report cards will form just one part of a broad range of tactics.

    "The half day rolling strikes - executive will be meeting on Wednesday to determine the program for that and we will communicate with our members later in the week," she said.

    "The resolutions around continuing campaigning - that's the lobbying and the work around marginal seats and community awareness raising will continue."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • [NT] Teachers to strike again this week
    
    The Australian Education Union has announced another three days of rolling strike action this week. Twenty-eight schools, mostly outside Darwin, will be affected from Wednesday.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Poor get priority in school funding
    by Patricia Karvelas, Political correspondent
    
    "Children from the poorest and most disadvantaged backgrounds will be given first access to preschool services under the Rudd Government's carve-up of education funding.

    "Projects to receive funding include mobile preschools and buses to drive toddlers to and from existing early childhood education venues.

    "Education Minister Julia Gillard and the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education Maxine McKew will today announce the first $10million round of funding to improve access to high-quality early childhood education programs over the next year.

    "The Government is partnering state and territory governments to ensure all children have access to an early learning program in the year before formal schooling by 2013.

    "The Government is investing $533.5million over the next five years to improve access toaffordable early learning programs across Australia, including to indigenous children living in remote communities.

    "Within five years, all Australian children will have access to 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, of high-quality, play-based learning and development programs in the year before school.

    "Ms Gillard said that research showed disadvantaged children benefited the most from high-quality preschool. Currently these are the children most likely to miss out.

    "Up to 20 per cent of all Australian four-year-olds do not go to preschool in the year before school, and crucially about half of all indigenous four-year-old children miss out," she said.

    "Ms Gillard said the first projects to receive funding would conform to long-term planning in the delivery of universal early childhood education and childcare.

    "Funding would be increased each year until 2013..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Banned teacher 'stripped of justice'
    
    The NSW Education Department was yesterday accused of denying natural justice to a teacher and damaging her career after it temporarily suspended her for posing nude for a magazine.
    
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • First Byte
      
      "Fancy that, a country that can’t organise a national health or education system, or drivers’ licences, is now proposing to create an Asian Union."
      
      John Van Gorp , Holland Park, Qld
      
      
      
      
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Academies are creaming off best headteachers, research suggests
    by Polly Curtis, education editor
    
    · Study shows increase in £100k salaries for heads
    · Neighbouring schools cannot match incentives
    
    "The government's flagship academies are today accused of creaming off the best headteachers from neighbouring schools by outbidding them with six-figure salaries.

    "New research seen by the Guardian reveals a surge in headteacher posts advertised above the £100,000 mark, fuelled by the expansion of the academy programme. The schools secretary, Ed Balls, will tomorrow announce plans to drive up standards in 638 of the worst-performing schools which will include a new wave of academies and trust schools.

    "Ministers say academies have nearly doubled the proportion of their pupils getting five good GCSEs from an average of 22% to 42%. But teacher unions claim this has been at a cost to other state schools, which are helpless to compete against the high wages and prestige of academies..."

    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
  • College lecturers go on one-day strike over pay
    
    Lecturers in London have gone on strike today after unions representing staff at further education colleges rejected a pay offer of 3% from employers.
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • State schools are best for progress
    by Richard Garner, Education Editor
    
    "State schools in Britain offer pupils a better chance of improving their test performance than those in the independent sector, according to an international study.

    "The results of tests for 14-year-olds in English, maths and science show the gap between the state and independent sectors is wider than anywhere else in the world. On a ranking system, private schools are 80 points ahead of the state sector."But this gap is wiped out when the results are adjusted to take into account the social background of the pupils and compared with what could be expected from them when they first arrived at their school. The figures then show that state school pupils do slightly better than those in the private sector.

    "The findings, from a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development comparing test results in 30 member countries, were revealed at a conference at London University's Institute of Education..."

    From The Independent at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Minister's job on line: Premier seeks account
    by Andrew Clennell and Paul Bibby
    
    "The Education Minister John Della Bosca's future in cabinet was in doubt last night after the Premier demanded he produce a full written account of his actions at a nightclub amid accusations he abused his power and threatened staff on Friday night.
    
    "Mr Della Bosca is under pressure to resign after the verbal altercation at Iguanas Waterfront in Gosford in which his wife, the federal MP Belinda Neal, is alleged to have told an operations manager the club would have its "f---ing licence" taken..."
    
    "Six staff members, including two managers, swore statutory declarations on Friday night, alleging the couple were abusive and threatening..." *
    
    "The Herald has learned the minister spoke at least four times by telephone to the owners of the nightclub on Saturday night and yesterday morning, before they issued an apology withdrawing the versions detailed in statutory declarations signed by several staff detailing the actions of Mr Della Bosca and Ms Neal.

    "Despite the apology, last night two of the club's staff, Thomas Crocker and Paul Trotter, told the Herald they stood by their statutory declarations.

    "The phone calls from Mr Della Bosca to the owners raise concerns that the minister may have pressured the club into changing its version of events..."

    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    *  The SMH website has gone so far as to reproduce the six hand-written statutory declarations by members of the nightclub staff (plus two sidebar stories)!
    
    See also the AAP story in The Age (and other newspapers)

 

Tuesday 10 June

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Again the call goes out for the Twomey report (page 20)
    
    “There are two possible reasons for the failure of the State Government to produce the Twomey report into WA’s alarming teacher shortage. One is that Education Minister Mark McGowan has not had the political skill or clout to ensure that the report made its way through Cabinet in the six months since it was handed down.

    “The other, more likely reason, is that it contains information that Mr McGowan does not want in the public arena as teachers escalate their campaign for better wages and conditions.

    “Whatever the reason, the result is the same. A report paid for by the taxpayer and containing material self-evidently relevant to the exodus of teachers from the profession sits uselessly on a Government-guarded shelf.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  • Online Blog [reader responses invited]
    Why all the secrecy with the teacher shortage report?
    by Pam Casellas
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has dilly-dallied long enough. He must release the Twomey report.

    "He keeps peddling the line that it cannot be released until it has been scrutinised by Cabinet. Fine. So he must hand every Cabinet member a copy of the vexed report and tell them to take it home for bedtime reading. How hard can that be for him to achieve?

    "The report into WA teacher shortages, which was paid for by the State’s taxpayers, was handed to him in December last year. The State Government is in the middle of bitter negotiations with teachers over a new enterprise bargaining agreement. Information acquired by Lance Twomey in compiling the report clearly is essential in considering how teachers should be remunerated, given that low pay is an obvious cause of teacher dissatisfaction.

    "Cabinet scrutiny of the report, if indeed it is essential before release, should have been expedited by Mr McGowan. How can it take more than six months for a document to be examined, particularly when the document is extremely important to the future of education in this State?

    "It is perfectly obvious to all of us that the report contains information which will not be useful to Mr McGowan and his negotiators. But that is not for him to decide. It is a report paid for by taxpayers and they have every right to know what it says. [emphasis added]

    "The teachers’ union has threatened to withhold school reports until the report is released. Mr McGowan says he will take the teachers to the Industrial Relations Commission if they do so.

    "But really, wouldn’t it be simpler all round if he just released the report?

    "The action threatened by the teachers is perfectly justified. Restrained, in fact.

    "Mr McGowan is behaving shamefully and taxpayers have every right to be furious with him. He is exacerbating tensions in the long-running dispute.

    "He must release it and allow the community to assess what it says. If its findings are relevant to the EBA negotiations then they should considered in that light.

    "Mr McGowan’s intransigence, or plain stupidity, serves only to inflame tensions in an already difficult situation. But more than that, he is withholding from the community information for which it has paid and which will help address the pressing problem of teacher shortages.

    "He is selling short the future of WA education." [emphasis added]
    
    From The West Australian online at link [post your comments at the same link]
    
    
    

  • Fines threat to teachers over strike (page 19)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    “Education Minister Mark McGowan has threatened to punish the teachers’ union if it pushes ahead with strike action by taking it to the State’s industrial umpire.
    
    “Mr McGowan yesterday attacked the State School Teachers Union’s decisions to disrupt classes with a series of half-day strikes and to withhold students’ reports as part of its wages campaign.
    
    “I will take the union to the Industrial Relations Commission, the independent umpire, if it proceeds with any action that damages students’ education,” he said. “That includes any of these sorts of actions that they’re proposing, because whilst this matter is before arbitration it is entirely inappropriate that they undertake these sorts of threats of industrial action which can only hurt students in schools around WA.”
    
    “Penalties the union could face for taking industrial action could include deregistration or a fine of up to $2000.
    
    “The commission could also decide to prosecute the union without Mr McGowan’s intervention.
    
    “The union was fined $1500 for going ahead with a half-day stop-work meeting in February after the commission ordered it to call off the rally.
    
    “Relations between the union and the Government plunged to new lows last week after the commission agreed to a Department of Education and Training request to arbitrate the pay dispute.
    
    “Teachers are angry that after eight months of negotiations the Government has failed to meet its demands for a 20 per cent pay rise over three years, smaller class sizes and more preparation time.
    
    “The West Australian revealed yesterday the union would withhold students’ report cards, which are due to be sent home in the next few weeks, until the Government releases a report with it commissioned into the teacher shortage.
    
    “Mr McGowan received the report by respected academic Lance Twomey six months ago but is refusing to release it.
    
    “The union claims the commission needs the information contained in the Twomey report to be able to make decisions on conditions and salary.
    
    “In a fax to schools late yesterday, the union directed members to refuse to release written information on students’ progress until the Twomey report was released. Teachers could still discuss children’s progress with parents.
    
    “Shadow education minister Peter Collier said threats to penalise the union were counter-productive. “It’s just going to inflame the situation further,” he said.” [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Pressure on as low wage jumps (page 15)    
    by Peter Kerr
    
    “The State Government is under increasing pressure to sweeten its current pay offer to public servants after the WA Industrial Relations Commission granted a 5.5 per cent pay rise to the State’s lowest paid workers.

    “The increase is well in excess of the 3.9 per cent the Government has offered the State’s teachers.
    
    “Unions WA secretary Dave Robinson welcomed the tribunal’s decision, saying it was a great result for the State’s lowest paid but added that it set a solid benchmark for the protracted negotiations between the Government and its workers.
    
    “Anyone in WA knows how much prices for things like food and petrol have jumped, so the wage rise does help those low-income earners to a significant extent,” he said.
    
    “It’s very clear from what the commission was saying in their decision that we’ve got a buoyant economy, it’s hard to attract and retain people and this was part of the reason for the increase. Those are the arguments that public servants and school teachers are running as well.”
    
    “The WAIRC yesterday announced that the State’s minimum wage would increase from $528.40 per week, to $557.40. The $29 per week or 5.5 per cent rise takes effect from July 1.
    
    “Employment Protection Minister Jon Ford said the rise was sustainable and affordable, reflection the continuing positive outlook for WA.
    
    “The decision will automatically flow on to all State awards but does not affect current enterprise bargaining negotiations, including teachers, because public sector employees subject to these negotiations are already earning well above minimum rates,” he said.
    
    “State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said the decision would be used as part of its talks with the Government. “As decisions come down that reflect increases significantly more than the one that was on the table from the Government – which was around 4 per cent – it certainly bodes well for the strength of our case,” she said.
    
    “The union is seeking pay rises for teachers of more than 20 per cent over three years. Members of the Community and Public Sector Union are fighting for a 23 per cent pay rise over three years. [emphasis added]
    
    “The CPSU has claimed that under a second recent Government offer most workers would get an increase of 4.3 per cent a year, which was only the same as the inflation rate.”

    From The West Australian

    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (page 24)
    
    

    • In Short

      “My retired ex-truckie grandfather is thinking about returning to the workforce as a school teacher. He is willing to be patient and undertake the new 12-week crash course. Can anyone help and steer him in the right direction? God save our kids!”

      Ken Finch, Helena Valley
      
      

    • Fast-track to chaos

      “At the end of 2007 I retired after completing 10 years of supervising student teachers (known as pre-service teachers) in the schools. Before that I was a teacher/principal for 43 years. I believe I am well qualified to comment on Mark McGowan’s ridiculous fast-track teacher training proposal (Fast-track scheme to train more teachers, 7/6).

      “There seems to be an assumption in some circles that because a person has completed a university degree they know how to teach. I do not wish to denigrate some fine teachers who have completed the one-year Dip Ed course but I believe most of them would agree that they would have benefited from more time on practice in the schools.

      “I supervised many of these students and after a five-week practice they were just coming to grips with the skills of motivation, questioning and control. Another five weeks would have seen them blossom into more capable practitioners.

      “This belief was held by mentor teachers, practice co-ordinators, school principals, university staff and the students themselves. The proposed summer school program from November to February would lack the practice element that is so sorely needed.

      “I am pleased that Greg Robson at Edith Cowan University doesn’t wish to “ram people through a six-week course” and that Anne Gisborne at the teachers’ union has a major concern if the minister thinks that the skill of teaching can be watered down.

      “If the Director-General and the university people can’t convince the minister that the Dip Ed course is already short enough, then his proposal will have caused further damage to our schools.”

      Ken Waters, Maida Vale
      
      

    • It’s an insult

      “Mark McGowan continues to disrespect the teaching profession and yet clearly can still not understand why there is a problem gaining and retaining staff.

      “I worked hard to achieve my qualification and I am proud of the work that I and many others do. To insinuate that anybody with another qualification could step into our shoes after only three months of training is an insult and again undermines the public image of teachers.

      “Teaching is consistently undervalued, both financially and socially, and this to me is the key reason we struggle to get quality people into the profession. Entry requirements have dropped in recent years, yet teaching still competes with cleaning on a mine site as a career. I acknowledge there are problems and a solution must be found, but perhaps the Government needs to start recognising what an important job is being done and appropriately reward staff.

      “Can someone adequately be given the vast content knowledge plus the education psychology background and the teaching practice skills in three months? Absolutely not!

      “Could I work as a “geologist” after only three months of training – or how about a neurologist? Would Mr McGowan trust the health of his family with someone who has trained in the field for only three months? Surely the education of our children is just as valuable and those who educate them should also be treated with value.”

      Heather Brett, Geraldton
      
      

    • Set example

      “Mr McGowan has now come up with yet another idea to ease the teacher shortages. May I suggest he leads by example and resigns from Parliament, completes a six-month Diploma in Education and becomes a fulltime “political and legal” teacher in some hard-to-staff school on a base salary of $52,000 a year – or maybe he will just stay where he is on his six-figure salary and expect those in the mining industry to do what he is not willing to do himself.”

      Brendan Hart, Bicton
      
      

    • Why should I?

      “If the Education Minister thinks that I am willing to give up great pay, including housing, cheap utilities and travel, to become a teacher he is off with the pixies.

      “Teaching is by no means an easy job and it is an unbelievable insult not only to teachers but parents and students to say that teaching is a “lifestyle” choice.

      “When is this Government going to its eyes and see that the reason there are not enough young school leavers going into teaching and the experienced teachers are leaving in droves is because of the working conditions and poor level of pay that is heaped on them. Why be a teacher when you can earn better money elsewhere? This goes for all our services.

      “Politicians are constantly saying “pay peanuts and get monkeys” when they get a pay rise. Well, I for one don’t want monkeys teaching my kids or nursing me in hospital and I certainly don’t want them brandishing Tasers or guns in a police uniform.”

      Tanya Hunter, Canning Vale
      
      

    • Big report

      “So, Mr McGowan won’t avert the pending industrial action that now threatens the release of students’ reports. He tells us that he won’t release the Twomey report until Cabinet has a chance to study it (it must be a pretty big report if it has already taken seven months and they still haven’t read it).

      “It appears to me that the report will be as difficult to get released as was Nelson Mandela or the fellows at Guantanamo prison camp. So much for open and transparent government.”

      Andrew Bell, Woodvale
      
      

    • Speedy solution for Cabinet

      “How much time does the State Cabinet need to read the Twomey report?

      “Why not send the members of the Cabinet and their partners on a weekend down south on a “speed reading course”. That’s what Cockburn City Council did.”

      Mary Jenkins, Spearwood
      
      
      
      
• Peter Collier Media Statement
  
  
  • Premier joins Education Minister in not respecting teachers
    
    Refusing to release the Twomey report until wage negotiations with teachers have been completed underlined the Opposition’s continual criticism of the Carpenter Government’s Education policy.

    Premier Alan Carpenter and Education Minister Mark McGowan have defended keeping the report, charged with identifying the areas of need with regard to the state’s teacher shortage, a Cabinet secret since last December.

    While the Education Minister has repeatedly said the Twomey report would not be made public until considered by Cabinet, it appeared his leader had another excuse.

    Yesterday, the Premier said the report would not be released until the state schoolteachers’ enterprise bargaining award was finalised:

    ‘It’s a report that doesn’t just sit in the Education portfolio, it goes across a whole range of activities in government and has to be done properly. In the context of an industrial dispute, we need to resolve that first’

    Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier said failure to release the report would continue to provide a stumbling block in stalled wage negotiations.

    “The Premier and his Education Minister don’t appear to have got their stories straight,” Mr Collier said.

    “Dissatisfaction is rife in WA teaching and, for whatever reason, the government’s refusal to release the Twomey taskforce report has become the meat in the sandwich of the pay negotiations.

    “Teachers felt grossly undervalued awaiting this report and feel even less valued now because of the Carpenter Government’s intransigence by not releasing its contents.

    “By its refusal, the government continues one of the teachers’ major concerns - a lack of transparency in Education.

    “For its part, the government will not release the report because it almost certainly exposes basic flaws with the Department of Education and Training or it feels it will lose face in the negotiations.

    “How can teachers feel on an equal footing in wage negotiations when a report is kept from them?

    “The Carpenter Government has continually failed to show respect towards its teachers and the Premier’s arrant refusal to provide them with access to Prof. Toomey’s report continues this failure.”
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Minister critical of teachers union campaign
    
    "The Education Minister Mark McGowan believes latest round of industrial action by teachers will impact on students.

    "Members of the State School Teacher's Union plan to withhold hard copies of student report cards from all primary and secondary school students.

    "The move is the latest in a growing list of industrial action the union has taken while it negotiates a new teacher pay deal.

    "Mr McGowan says many teachers will be acting on the union's directive whether or not they agree report cards should be withheld.

    "All the teacher's union will do by its action is damage our students education, damage public education and bring down the reputation of our schools around Western Australia," he said.

    "It's really not a very good strategy on their behalf."

    "The President of the WA Council of State School Organisations Rob Fry says the move will be inconvenient for parents.

    "However he says parents should not be relying solely on report cards for information about their children's progress.

    "Our advice to parent's is that if parent's are genuinely concerned about their child's progress they would be actively involved in the school and obtaining that information on an ongoing basis."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Govt paper could prompt higher education shake-up
    
    "The Federal Government has released a discussion paper for its review of higher education, which will be finished by the end of the year.

    "The discussion paper shows it will focus on issues like funding, research, links to industry and social inclusion.
    
    "Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says the review will allow universities to specialise in particular areas.
    
    "We think for too long the country has treated universities as if they were a one-size-fits-all job," she said.
    
    "They're not. Each university in this country, in my view, is straining to define its distinctive mission, its distinctive role in the nation's future."
    
    "Ms Gillard hopes the review will lead to one of the biggest shake-ups of the sector in decades. [emphasis added]

    "We're interested in a genuine collaboration, the best of ideas brought together to define the future for Australian universities," she said."

    From ABC News at link
    
    Julia Gillard's media release
    
    
    
  • 'Gang activity, bomb threats' at NT school
    
    "The Northern Territory Government has revealed disturbing disciplinary problems involving bomb threats at Casuarina Senior College in Darwin's northern suburbs.

    "More than 50 students have been suspended at the school this year.
    
    "Headlines have focused on Casuarina youth gangs for much of the year, and with law and order emerging as a major election theme, Opposition Leader Terry Mills adopted the issue in Question Time.
    
    "We have received information that numerous children have been suspended from Casuarina Senior College for gang related activity," he said.
    
    "Can you state how many student suspensions have been made at that school?"
    
    "Education Minister Marion Scrymgour then revealed this disturbing problem at the school:
    
    "There have been a number of bomb threats, Madam Speaker and the police are investigating," she said.

    "The Government says the actual figure is 51 suspensions since the start of the year."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • School English too hard: principal
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The head of one of the nation's elite private schools has questioned whether English should be compulsory for the senior years, saying the courses being taught are beyond the intellectual ability of most students.

    "The headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) in North Sydney, Tim Wright, told a symposium on a national curriculum in English at the weekend that parents felt alienated from the English syllabus and were deeply cynical about it.

    "In his speech, Dr Wright said the NSW English course for Years 11 and 12 was a major challenge for many students.

    "The intellectual challenge is, in fact, beyond many students," he said.

    "It is seen as arbitrary and from time to time the anguished cry comes: 'Why can't we just read the book?'

    "I question whether it (English) ought to be compulsory ... at senior level. It is not enough to simply say that like cod liver oil, English is good for you."

    "The symposium, hosted by the University of Sydney's Arts English and Literacy Education Research Network in the education faculty, was opened by NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca and also heard from the NSW representative on the National Curriculum Board, Tom Alegounarias.

    "Mr Alegounarias said the content of any national curriculum had to capture what the community - not teachers - thought was essential for students to learn.

    "The test for inclusion of content will not be what the teaching profession wants, or teacher educators or bureaucrats for that matter," he said.

    "Its contents should be measured against its purposes, which are to meet the community's interests. It is an expression of the community's intent and expectations."

    "Mr Alegounarias dismissed the idea of a curriculum as a technical document or specialised product for teachers alone.

    "The curriculum should be direct, transparent and accessible," he said. "Informed parents and community members need to be able to understand and recognise what learning will be required."

    "The point was echoed by Dr Wright, who said one of the difficulties in developing a national curriculum was that developments of the past 15 years had failed to win over the community.

    "Everyone is an expert. There is no subject upon which any school parent body feels more qualified to give an opinion," he said.

    "Opening the symposium, Mr Della Bosca said he agreed with recent comments by federal Education Minister Julia Gillard that school curriculum be based on the traditional disciplines.

    "Mr Della Bosca rejected the idea of a separate curriculum of utilitarian knowledge focused on employment skills for the bottom one-third of students, saying all students had a right to core knowledge."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Furniture please, says bush school at Hermannsburg
    
    Teachers in central Australia have resorted to bringing their own furniture for students to sit on as their under-funded school struggles with an explosion in attendance.
    
    
    
  • Deafness calling for young who pump up the volume
    
    New research shows more than two-thirds of young Australians may have suffered some degree of hearing loss from listening to loud music. Despite warnings of the danger that MP3 players, including iPods, pose to hearing, 60 per cent of Australians who use them have the volume up sufficiently high to damage their ears.
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Restaurant blues
    
    NSW power couple are an embarrassment for Labor
    
    
    "For a federal Government that claims to understand the concerns of working families, Labor MP Belinda Neal's reported altercation at a NSW central coast restaurant on Friday is deeply embarrassing. Ms Neal's husband, NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca, was quick to negotiate a withdrawal of six statutory declarations made against the couple by restaurant staff. Despite this, serious questions have been raised about Ms Neal's use of her parliamentary position to intimidate people with whom she was having a disagreement. Most concerning is the claim that Ms Neal threatened to have the restaurant's liquor licence cancelled.

    "Given Mr Della Bosca's factional strength and the tightly balanced issue of NSW power privatisation, taking disciplinary action against the couple is a sensitive issue for Labor. Nonetheless, Mr Iemma has ordered Mr Della Bosca to explain himself to state parliament. And Kevin Rudd cannot simply pretend nothing has happened. The affair is another reminder of the small gene pool that exists within the ALP, which should be able to do better than recruit spouses and progeny of influential powerbrokers to fill sought-after seats in federal parliament."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    • Sydney Morning Herald Editorial: Time to cut the minister loose
      
      
      
      
• The Guardian
  
  
  • I will close up to 270 failing schools to improve standards, says minister
    by Patrick Wintour and Polly Curtis
    
    · New role for academies and trust-run colleges
    · Balls plans detailed look at primary education
    
    "Ed Balls, the schools secretary, will reveal today that up to 270 schools will be closed in the next three years for underperformance and replaced with academies and a new generation of trust schools.

    "The move represents a further quickening of the pace of the city academy programme, a reform that Gordon Brown as chancellor did little to embrace.

    "In an interview with the Guardian, the minister also suggests he will take further measures to tackle incompetent teachers and start a school-by-school assessment of primary education.

    "Balls will unveil substantial plans today to drive up standards in the 638 schools identified as seriously underperforming, offering local authorities the option to provide intensive support to the schools or replace them with academies and schools supported by businesses, charities and other education institutions.

    "He said he expected, on the basis of analysis of persistently underperforming schools, that about 200 of the 638 will not improve fast enough and will be replaced by academies..."

    Full story in The Guardian at link [Similar stories in virtually all UK media]
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students
    
    The image of Asian-Americans as a homogeneous group of high achievers taking over the campuses of the nation’s most selective colleges came under assault in a report issued Monday.
    
    Similar story in The Washington Post

Wednesday 11 June

• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • WA Teachers resolve to strike this term [7:43 pm update]
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "WA teachers put families on notice tonight to expect strikes before the school term ends early next month.

    "State School Teachers' Union general secretary David Kelly said this afternoon that the union executive had met today and resolved to proceed with rolling half day strikes.

    "Nothing will happen this week and it's highly unlikely next week, but the intention is that strikes will occur this term,'' Mr Kelly said.

    "Mr Kelly said next week was Week Eight of the 10-week term, so strikes would likely be soon after.

    "He said the union executive would meet again next week and give the community sufficient notice of any action.

    "The union's members would also stick to their resolution to withhold student reports, which were due in the next few weeks, until the WA Government released a report by education academic and former Curtin University vice-chancellor Lance Twomey, Mr Kelly said.

    "But he said teachers would still meet with parents to discuss their children's progress.

    "Prof Twomey was commissioned by the Government to look into the teacher shortage and his report went to Education Minister Mark McGowan about six months ago.

    "Last week, the Industrial Relations Commission took over arbitration of the teachers' pay and conditions deal because the Government and the union could not reach agreement after more than eight months of wrangling.

    "The Union has said that information in the Twomey report would help the commission make decisions on teachers' pay and conditions.

    "Mr McGowan this week threatened to take the union to the commission if it proceeded with industrial action.

    "Union president Anne Gisborne has said that the Government's decision to push for the commission to arbitrate had added to teachers' frustration because it would take up to a year to finish.

    "She has called on the Government to come back to teachers with "a decent offer'' and halt the proceedings.

    "The commission previously fined the union $1500 for refusing to call off a February stop-work meeting which forced 35 schools to close.

    "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."

    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian

Short-listed for Letter of the Year Letter to the Editor (page 22) New Magazine “I wonder whether you’ve heard about the new education magazine which is about to be released. It will be thin and easy to read, with lots of glossy colour photo spreads, eye-catching headlines and very short articles.  It will be published by the Department of Education and Training, edited by Minister Mark McGowan, and will showcase all the innovative ideas the minister and his department are developing to improve the standard of public education in this State.  Featured will be stunning new ideas about curriculum and devilishly schemes to attract and retain quality teachers.  To cap it all off the consultancy team contracted to research and develop this bold new project has selected an unbelievably imaginative, catchy and refreshingly honest title.  I can’t wait to get my copy of the first edition of No Idea.” Trevor Stace, Argyle

 

• State pupils down under Labor (page 3)
  by Bethany Hiatt
  
  “The massive loss of confidence in the State education system under the Labor Government has been high­lighted with the release of figures showing the total number of students in public schools has fallen by more than 14,000 in the seven years since the party won office.

  “Figures provided to State Parliament show the number of students in Years 1 to 12 in public schools dropped from 229,743 in 2001 to 215,298 this year.
  
  “At the same period, enrolments in private schools increased by nearly 17,000, from 94,902 to 111,650.
  
  “The revelation came as principals warned that State high schools were struggling to provide students with basic educational needs because the voluntary payment required from parents had not increased in years.
  
  “Opposition MP Colin Barnett, a former education minister, said the common perception was that the State school system was growing, but at a slower rate than the private system.
  
  “But the number of students in State schools had shrunk significantly.
  
  "I don't think we've ever seen a period in WA history where government school enrolments have been in decline," he said. "I think the present Government has to accept responsibility for that. Over their period of administration the government school system has gone backwards."
  
  “Two-thirds of all WA children still attend public schools. Enrolments plummeted in both sectors in 2003 because of a change to the school starting age resulting in a smaller than usual Year 1 group. But State schools were harder hit, losing about 10,000 students in 2003 compared with a drop of 1500 at private schools.
  
  “Education Minister Mark McGowan said the strength of the WA economy and increasing affluence meant some parents chose to send their children to private schools. ”This is an option fewer parents had under the last coalition government when the economy was shrinking," he said.
  
  “Independent and Catholic sector chiefs said the drift to private schools had slowed in recent years as the number of new schools stabilised.
  
  “The controversy over student numbers flared as WA Secondary School Executives Association president Rob Nairn called for a review of the $235 cap on voluntary contributions towards the costs of educating children in Years 8 to 10. The parent contribution goes towards the cost of text books and equipment.
  
  “Mr Nairn said schools had to stretch the voluntary payment further because costs had skyrocketed while the cap had not changed significantly in more than a decade. More parents were also failing to pay.
  
  "Schools are finding it increasingly difficult to manage on $235," he said.
  
  “There is no maximum charge for Years 11 and 12 courses. Schools can charge extra for optional lower school courses, such as outdoor education, but the $235 cap must cover the costs of all compulsory subjects.
  
  “In some State schools, students in Years 8-10 are not allowed to take text books home because they are provided for use in class time only. Mr Nairn said most schools used the voluntary payment to buy class sets of books for subjects such as maths or English, which were lent to students.
  
  "I know some schools photocopy relevant pages out of books so the kids can take them home and there's no disadvantage there," Mr Nairn said.
  
  “WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said the Government should increase its contribution in line with inflation rather than ask parents for more.

  “Mr McGowan said voluntary fees were increased at primary schools in 2002 from $9 to $60 and in Years 8-10 from $225 to $235.”

  From The West Australian
  
  
  

• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers Union steps up campaign over pay claim
    
    "The State School Teacher's Union has been unable to come to a decision about the exact dates and times it will implement rolling stoppages.

    "The union's executive has met to discuss the stoppages which will form part of a campaign for better pay and conditions for teachers."The union's Anne Gisborne says it is likely there will be stoppages before the end of the school term but no dates have been set.

    "Executive has sat today to consider the issue of the rolling stop work they are determined to go ahead but at this stage we've got some further planning to undertake and some further questions about how best to manage this and how we can communicate with teh braoder community." she said."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Teachers vow to strike
    
    "South Australian public school teachers have vowed to press ahead with a 24-hour strike next Tuesday.

    "Teachers are seeking a 21 per cent pay rise over three years.

    "The State Government has offered less than half that and Correna Haythorpe from the Australian Education Union says today's revised offer has not sweetened the deal.

    "She says next week's strike will go ahead, even if the Industrial Relations Commission tries to prevent it. [emphasis added]

    "Next Tuesday all of our pre-schools, schools and TAFE institutes, 85 per cent of our members will be taking stopwork action," she said.

    "But Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright says the Government will try to get the strike blocked in the Industrial Relations Commission.

    "For students and parents to be disadvantaged in this way is simply not acceptable to the Government," he said.

    "We will be making a case that we are negotiating in good faith and we don't want our classes disrupted next Tuesday."

    "The matter is expected to go before the Commission tomorrow.

    "Up to 165,000 students could be affected by the strike."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Teachers storm Della Bosca's office
    
    "About 120 angry teachers have stormed the foyer of the New South Wales Education Minister's Sydney office, demanding a meeting.

    "The striking south-west Sydney teachers were led into the State Government's offices by Teachers Federation president Maree O'Halloran to protest changes to the staffing transfer system.
    
    "They asked for Education Minister John Della Bosca to come down to discuss the system, which they say will disadvantage public schools in remote and less desirable areas.
    
    "Every single one of the people here today are here because they are worried about the students in their school," she said.
    
    "We have got a Minister for Education who won't even come down and speak to them knowing that they would be here. Shame."
    
    "The teachers left when Mr Della Bosca's chief of staff accepted a letter on his behalf.
    
    "It has been a tough few days for Mr Della Bosca, who has been under scrutiny over his role in a dispute in a central coast nightclub.
    
    "Teachers are angry about the Government's decision to allow school principals to hire staff directly.
    
    "The Teachers Federation says the move will undermine an incentive scheme, under which teachers are encouraged to work in regional areas in exchange for a placement on the top of the transfers list for a more desirable posting later in their careers.

    "The Government says the formula used to allocate the number of teachers to schools will not change and the transfer system will never be dismantled."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Neal admits she needs counselling
    
    Federal Labor MP Belinda Neal [wife of the NSW Education Minister, whose behaviour at a Sydney restaurant become news recently] has admitted that she needs counselling, after a phone call from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this afternoon telling her he could not guarantee her political future.
    
  
  
  
  
• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • Threat to stop teacher strike as new pay offer branded 'disgusting'
    
    "UPDATED: The State Government will go to the Industrial Relations Commission to try and stop a strike next week by more than 10,000 public school teachers.

    "Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright said today: "Any behaviour that impacts on parents and students is simply not acceptable to the Government. The Government is simply not going to stand by and let a strike take place."

    "Mr Wright said the latest "very good offer" in the ongoing and increasingly bitter pay dispute was worth almost $309 million and included a new student-based funding model.

    "His tough stance came after Australian Education Union state president Correna Haythorpe said the new offer was appalling and had been unanimously rejected this afternoon by the union executive.

    "All public school teachers are now expected to go on a full-day strike on Tuesday next week - June 17. [emphasis added]

    "The union has also threatened a new campaign of weekly rolling stoppages.

    "The Government had previously offered teachers a 9.75 per cent pay rise over three years while the union wants 21 per cent over the same period.

    "Ms Haythorpe said the Government's new enterprise agreement proposal did not improve on the previous pay offer and provided no extra funds to reduce class sizes or to attract and retain staff.

    "It defies logic that the Government would make a renewed offer which fails to address the absolute essentials, particularly attraction and retention measures, via a better wage offer to achieve professionally competitive salaries," Ms Haythorpe said.

    "No salary improvement, thus cementing SA as the least attractive place for teaching in the nation, no reduction in class sizes to improve student learning conditions, no measures to attract and retain staff, no workload initiatives.

    "Instead what we see is a measly $16 million from 2010, which the Budget papers show will be sneakily eaten away by a requirement for education to find $15 million in savings in 2011.

    "I predict that our AEU executive will be utterly disgusted by this parsimonious offer that is against the best interests of educators, school leaders, staff and, importantly, students."

    From The Adelaide Advertiser at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • 'Fallacy' of learning grammar by osmosis
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "School English courses are based on the fallacy that students studying literature will pick up grammar and writing style by osmosis.

    "In a paper presented to a symposium on the national English curriculum, Monash University lecturer Baden Eunson argues that literature has subsumed school English to the exclusion of a study of the language, grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage.

    "English is not too hard, but too easy," he said yesterday. "It's easy in the sense that in the past 30 years, virtually all aspects of English language ... have not been evaluated and we are the poorer for it.

    "This has occurred because of the osmosis fallacy: get them to read enough and they will write. English became a de facto literature, to the detriment of both."

    "Mr Eunson, a lecturer in English who teaches professional writing courses in second and third year, was responding to comments reported in The Australian on Monday by the head of Sydney private school Shore, Tim Wright, who questioned whether English should be compulsory, and said "the intellectual challenge (of the NSW English courses) was in fact beyond many students".

    "Mr Eunson said the pendulum had swung too far towards a study of literature instead of balancing it with language.

    "We need to teach English teachers how to teach English, and instead of maintaining a false dilemma between language and literature, reconceptualise these areas as two sides of the one coin," he said. "There is no literature without language, and no language without literature."

    "Mr Eunson said English was the only subject in the curriculum that had been deskilled, so that students had no terms with which to discuss language. "Every other subject has a meta-language of its own but English doesn't have a technical language any more. It's a study of opinions and comes down to 'the books I like'."

    "Mr Eunson told the symposium the entire debate about an English curriculum was built on a false dilemma: either literature or language. Yet until the 1970s, students were assessed on literary texts as well as on grammar and style.

    "The great fiction of Australian English teaching, (is) that all that matters is fiction," he said. "In fact, non-fiction may be just as important, and language -- grammar, expression, style -- may be even more important.

    "Marking criteria specifically mentioning sentence construction, spelling and punctuation have not appeared on any senior English examination paper for 30 years."

    "Mr Eunson said questions posed in Year 12 examination papers in the 1970s asking students to analyse sentence construction and language use were now taught to second or third-year linguistics students at universities. Year 10 students in Victoria in 1963 were asked to compile a table with the noun, verb and adjectival forms of the same word, such as protect, exceed or service.

    "Mr Eunson said the 1973 NSW Higher School Certificate exam contained a question worthy of the most committed critical literacy theorist: "How possible is it to justify the use of the word 'correct' as applied to language forms (meanings, grammar, pronunciation, etc) by appeals to such things as authority, democracy, aristocracy, logic, or even aesthetics?"

    From The Australian at link
    
    See related story in The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Make books enjoyable
    
    Literary theory is generally better suited to university
    
    "The fact that the head of an elite private school has questioned whether English should be compulsory for senior study is a sad reflection on how the subject has been mistaught for years. Tim Wright, headmaster of Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), told a weekend symposium that current courses were beyond the intellectual ability of most students. If so, one of the main reasons, as The Australian has long argued, is that much of the literary theory employed in various states would be better suited to university, after students have received a thorough grounding in literature. Forcing students to read Shakespeare, Jane Austen or Patrick White for the first time through a prism of contemporary preoccupations with race, class and feminism can be confusing and off-putting, compared with a more straightforward themes-characters-plot approach that fosters enjoyment. Performing and seeing classic plays is also important.

    "Far from suggesting a dumbing-down, another aspect of the problem is the paucity of literature studied in the early years of secondary school. In eschewing introductory classics and giving protracted attention to ephemeral pop culture such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Big Brother and the like, students miss the grounding that would prepare them for more sophisticated literature in Years 11 and 12.

    "To their credit, NSW, Western Australia and Queensland have moved recently to boost the study of literature. Making novels, poetry and plays as enjoyable as they should be will boost students' success."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    

  • Officials admit bid to gag nude teacher Lynne Tziolas
    by Ean Higgins
    
    
    "NSW bureaucrats have admitted trying to silence a teacher who was suspended for posing nude for a magazine, in exchange for paying her to perform non-teaching duties.

    "In another backdown in the controversy surrounding the Department of Education's treatment of primary teacher Lynne Tziolas, the department agreed its earlier denials had been untrue and said it "regrets any inconvenience this has caused".

    "The department has been under pressure since it last month summarily dismissed Ms Tziolas, 24, from teaching her Year 1 class at Narraweena Public School, on Sydney's northern beaches.
    
    "It acted after she and her husband of four years, Antonios, appeared in a discreet nude embrace and talked about their sex life in Cleo magazine.
    
    "After widespread publicity about calls from parents and students for her to be reinstated, the department progressively retreated and at the weekend restored her teaching rights.
    
    "Two departmental spin doctors, Meredith Jones and Mark Davis, in statements to The Australian, had categorically denied the claim by Ms Tziolas and her then lawyer Neale Dawson that the department had tried to gag her. Mr Dawson this week complained that the statements by Ms Jones and Mr Davis suggested he had lied to his client in outlining the offer presented by the department.
    
    "As revealed by The Weekend Australian, Mr Dawson had said in an email to Ms Tziolas on May 14, a few days after the story broke: "The department has come back with the following offer: 1/ if you cease speaking to the media and ask your husband not to speak to the media on your behalf; 2/ if you respond to the show-cause letter in a timely fashion; and 3/ the matter is not resolved by May 23, the department will place you on alternate duties whilst discussions continue."
    
    "This week, Mr Dawson said: "I stand by the content of my email."
    
    "When confronted with Mr Dawson's comments, the department's deputy director-general, Peter Riordan, yesterday admitted Mr Dawson was right.
    
    "The department did indicate that it wanted Ms Tziolas to stop making public comment as continued publicity may make it difficult to place her in a school," Mr Riordan said in a statement to The Australian. "At the time of responding to your questions, none of the department's media officers were aware of the legally privileged discussions."
    
    "Ms Tziolas said yesterday she had been vindicated in her claim that the department had tried, unsuccessfully, to silence her. "I made it clear that my rejection of their initial proposal was as a result of my feeling coerced into toeing the line," she said.

    "I feel as though I have strived to build a teaching career for myself in what I believed was a progressive society, and one in which I have many valuable qualities to instil within children- this has all changed as a result."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Bradley sets terms of unis debate
    by Stephen Matchett, Higher education editor
    
    "The quality of university education is set to decline, with few staff teaching more students, a reduction in academic career opportunities and an increasing reliance on full-fee paying students to balance the books, according to the much anticipated discussion paper, released yesterday, from the Bradley committee reviewing higher education.
    
    "And to correct the quality crunch the committee has put a government-supported industry restructure on the table, in a wide-ranging discussion paper that has the potential to transform post-school education more completely than any reform since Labor education minister John Dawkins created the unified national system in the late 1980s.

    "According to the paper by Denise Bradley and her colleagues, the Government's existing indexation formula is unlikely to cover the cost effect of anticipated wage inflation and infrastructure funding shortfalls and will put increased cost pressures on universities.
    
    "These factors combine to produce a strong incentive for universities to increase staff-student ratios, increase the rate of casualisation of the academic workforce and pursue revenue from the same, limited number of other sources," committee chairwoman Professor Bradley and her colleagues argue.
    
    "The much anticipated discussion paper sets the context for the committee's end-of-year report, which is expected to provide the Rudd Government with a policy basis for a radical restructure of teaching, research and community engagement across the entire university system.
    
    "Pointing to the possibility of an end to the existing single system, the discussion paper suggests competition for resources, staff and students may force universities to focus on their strengths.
    
    "To achieve this concentration, some universities could abandon a full-service approach.
    
    "Higher education providers may seek to merge and reconfigure in different ways in order to achieve competitive advantages, increased critical mass to sustain key areas or benefit from economies of scale," the paper says.
    
    "While avoiding a specific policy position, the paper does acknowledge the need for concentrated research funding. "Research funding and research infrastructure support should be directed primarily to those areas within universities that can demonstrate both high performance in research and a research operation at a scale (that) is competitive in an international context."
    
    "It places at centre stage the most contentious issue in higher education, stripping some institutions of a research role, inviting comment on the question whether "there is a place in Australia's higher education system for universities that are predominantly 'teaching only"'. [emphasis added]
    
    "The Bradley paper also highlights the prospect of government intervention to restructure the university system, arguing "it could be appropriate for government to play a facilitating role in supporting restructuring of the industry where the changes are in the public interest".
    
    "Defining the issues that are likely to shape higher education for a generation, the committee invites comment on issues ranging from the financial importance of international students to relations between universities and the technical and further education communities. It also calls on the sector to address the role of government in financing and regulating the system.
    
    "While the report is careful to avoid endorsing any administrative approach, there are some hints of the Bradley committee's level of interest in issues.
    
    "The widely discussed issue of compacts between Canberra and individual institutions is acknowledged briefly.
    
    "Concerns about a possible lack of transparency in such an approach have been raised. The Government has committed to introduce compacts, but the precise nature of these arrangements will be the subject of consultations with the sector and decisions on how they will operate in practice are still to be taken."

    "However, the report discusses at length ideas on the creation of an independent public sector agency charged with monitoring, or regulating universities, using the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (1977-88) as an example of one approach."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    • Op Ed: Time for talk is over
      
      
      
      
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Uni fees system branded irrational
    by Harriet Alexander Higher, Education reporter
    
    "A review of higher education will examine how to make the inconsistent fee system fairer.

    "A discussion paper released by the federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, at Macquarie University yesterday describes the funding system as "at best complex and at worst anomalous, inconsistent and irrational".
    
    "Students can incur debts of between $12,000 and $102,000 for courses of similar length.
    
    "While agriculture students pay 28 per cent of the cost of their course, with the rest subsidised by the Federal Government, law students pay 84 per cent of theirs.
    
    "Within the current system of financing, higher education students pay widely differing amounts towards the costs of their courses, contribute widely differing proportions of the costs, and have different degrees of access to income support and income-contingent loans," the discussion paper says.
    
    "The higher education review, chaired by Denise Bradley, the former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, will report at the end of the year and could lead to an overhaul of the HECS funding system.
    
    "It will investigate matters including the ability of the higher education sector to cater to workforce demands, the adequacy of university funding arrangements and how to measure the quality of the student experience.
    
    "Ms Gillard said past reviews of the sector had been piecemeal. "We want to make sure there's a vision for our universities for the next 15, 20 years," she said. "We want that vision to include the ability of the poorest Australian to … aspire to go to university and to have a fair chance of doing so."
    
    "The discussion paper says not all students have access to loans, with loan limits depending on the courses.
    
    "The president of the National Union of Students, Angus McFarland, welcomed the review of HECS and student income support. "We're happy they want to go over HECS with a fine-tooth comb … but the big one is student income support," he said.

    "The Opposition education spokesman, Tony Smith, said Labor's promises of an "education revolution" had fallen flat. "This discussion paper is proof Kevin Rudd really had no policy or plans of his own for the university sector," Mr Smith said."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

• SSTUWA
  
  
  • Schools need help - NOW! [10 June]
    
    As teachers returned to school to face the 2008 school year the true level of teacher shortages remained hidden. We know that the number was in the hundreds – but how many more were asked to teach outside their area of expertise? There is a crisis in education across Australia. Politicians of all persuasion talk the talk about teacher salaries, but none seems capable of facing up to this national problem. The results of a national poll show the majority of Australians agree that there will be no “education revolution” unless the Labor Government invests substantially more in public education.

    AEU Federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said Australians have a clear expectation of that the Rudd Government will make investing in schools their top priority.

    “A properly funded education system is the key to ensuring all children have an opportunity to get a high quality education,” he said.

    Conducted among 600 voters by research and communication company Essential Media Communications, the poll showed that

    • 82 per cent agree or strongly agree there will be no education revolution unless the Labor Government invests substantially more in public education
    • 71 per cent of Australians say education was important or very important in determining their vote, versus only 27 per cent for whom it was not important.
    • 60 per cent of people who switched their vote from the Coalition to Labor in the 2007 election said the Howard Government’s neglect of public education was an important determining factor in determining their vote.
    • 67 per cent agree or strongly agree that the Rudd Government should make investing in public schools their top priority.
    
    “Well-funded public schools give every child the opportunity to reach their full potential. Public education remains the key for a vibrant, socially cohesive and prosperous Australia,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the largest ever survey of Australian teachers and school principals confirms Kevin Rudd’s assessment that the time is right for an education revolution.
    
    The survey reveals the teacher shortage is so bad that 43 per cent of secondary school principals have had to ask teachers to take classes that they’re not qualified to teach.
    
    If there is to be a revolution, a survey by the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council for Educational Research has added ammunition.
    
    Over 14,000 teachers and principals from all school sectors around Australia participated in the survey.
    
    The study does show some strong indications that there are shortages, more so in secondary schools than in primary schools, more so in government schools than in non-government schools.
    
    One indicator of the shortage is that around 43 per cent of secondary schools principals are requiring teachers to teach classes in areas outside which they are fully qualified.
    
    Around half the school principals surveyed indicated that in the past 12 months they had either a moderate or a major difficulty in attracting suitable staff.
    
    About 70 per cent of those surveyed agreed that higher pay based on competence or extra qualifications would retain teachers.
    
    Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard, says the Rudd Government will take the findings and recommendations of the report to a working group of education ministers.
    
    In Victoria, students are turning their backs on teaching careers, with experts blaming poor pay and job security, As first round offers for 2008 tertiary entrance revealed there had been a 6.8 per cent drop in first preferences for undergraduate teaching.
    
    Australian Education Union’s Victorian State President Mary Bluett said relatively low pay in state schools was turning Victorian students away from teaching in droves.
    
    The first step in the Rudd Government’s Education Revolution must be to invest $2.9 billion in a national literacy and Numeracy strategy. Government research shows that public schools are under-funded by a minimum of $2.9 billion per year.
    
    To support the national strategy, the AEU has outlined six key areas that require significant additional targeted funding to ensure the Education Revolution is successful.
    
    AEU Federal President Angelo Gavrielatos announced the principals for success in his speech to the 2008 AEU Federal Conference following the release of the new polling that shows that the neglect of public education by the Coalition was a key issue in switching votes to Labor in the 2007 federal election.
    
    “We call on the Rudd Government to meet voters’ expectations by addressing the current $2.9 billion annual shortfall in public education funding,” said Gravrielatos. “The $2.9 billion investment should support the development and implementation of a comprehensive national literacy and Numeracy strategy in public schools.
    
    “This would be the first step in addressing over a decade of neglect by the Howard Government of public education.
    
    “The key to educational success is the attainment of the highest possible literacy and Numeracy standards for students.

    “To support the national literacy and numeracy strategy, the AEU is calling for further targeted funding for six key areas:

    • 1. A curriculum guarantee for all students
    • 2. The reduction of class sizes
    • 3. Competitive professional salaries so we can recruit and retain the best teachers
    • 4. The provision of 21st century learning environments including modern buildings and equipment.
    • 5. A national strategy to provide Indigenous with the same educational opportunities as other Australians.
    • 6. The provision for every four year old child of at least 20 hours of quality early education per week.
    
    “Implementation of these principals through adequate funding is crucial to improve the quality of education and arrest the exodus of teachers from the profession.

    “The AEU is ready to work in cooperation with the Rudd Government to implement these key principles to ensure that every child has access to a public school of the highest quality in their own community.

    “Beyond schooling, the education revolution must also invest in TAFE to ensure further education and a skilled workforce for Australia’s future.”

    From SSTUWA at link
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • 'No excuses' on school results
    
    Almost one in five secondary schools in England have been given a "no excuses" warning to improve their GCSE exam results or face closure.
    
    
    
  • Funds 'not reaching poor pupils'
    
    Only half the extra resources meant to help educate children from the poorest backgrounds reaches the schools that they actually attend, a report says.
    
  
  
  
  
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Minister's threats put schools in turmoil, say heads
    
    Schools are being thrown into turmoil by government threats to turn them into academies, headteachers have claimed. They reacted yesterday after the schools secretary Ed Balls announced that local authorities have 50 days to come up with individual plans to improve results, through tailored support for headteachers, by removing struggling schools' governing bodies, or partnering them with a good local school.
    
    
    
    
• WAToday.com
  
  
  • Fairfax launches WA's first online only newspaper [10 June]
    
    "Western Australians now have access to WAtoday.com.au, the State's first dedicated online only newspaper.

    "The site was officially launched in Perth this morning by Western Australian Premier, Alan Carpenter, and Fairfax Media's Chairman Ronald Walker and CEO David Kirk."This is a significant expansion for Fairfax Media and we are very proud to bring our brand of quality and independent journalism to Western Australia," Mr Walker said.

    "WAtoday.com.au will be a 24/7 online publishing force in WA delivering breaking news, entertainment and sport, backed by the local, national and international resources of Fairfax Media," Mr Kirk said.
    
    "There is unprecedented growth and development in Western Australia - it is a fantastic place to do business and we know that there is a strong appetite for an additional online news and information source. More than 1.3 million people in Western Australia access the internet each month and 188,000 of these already use Fairfax Digital websites.*"
    
    "We have a talented and dedicated team of multimedia journalists on the ground in Perth. They will be housed with their colleagues at Fairfax Radio's 6PR and will file local news updates continuously throughout the day."
    
    "Mr Kirk continued, "As well as providing a new perspective on news, business, technology, sport, lifestyle and entertainment, WAtoday.com.au will give our readers a voice on issues that are important to them, through a range of forums and blogs."
    
    "Well-known Western Australian identities including former Australian of the Year, Dr Fiona Stanley, lawyer Patti Chong and social commentator Howard Sattler will write exclusively for WAtoday.com.au.
    
    "Fairfax Digital CEO Jack Matthews said the new site would provide a powerful platform for advertisers to reach people in Western Australia.
    
    "We know there is high demand from advertisers for WAtoday.com.au.  Inventory has sold out for the launch and we are pleased to have the support of both national and local advertisers.
    
    "Advertisers in Western Australia can also tap into the Fairfax Digital network, which reaches over nine million people across Australia through over 30 websites.
    
    "WAtoday.com.au allows us to offer a truly national online advertising network and provides a home in the West for our leading classified brands MyCareer.com.au, Domain.com.au and Drive.com.au, as well as transactional site RSVP.com.au."
    
    "Roy Fleming has been appointed as Managing Editor of WAtoday.com.au, leading a team of nine experienced multimedia journalists. Alischa Wunsch takes the role of Marketing Manager - WA, while Marnie McKeown assumes responsibility for advertising sales, as State Sales Manager - WA.
    
    "Fairfax Media now has almost 300 staff in Western Australia."

    From WAToday.com at link

 

Thursday 12 June

• The West Australian
  

  • Teachers set for strikes this term (page 3)
    by Peter Kerr and Bethany Hiatt
    
    “State school teachers will begin rolling strikes within two weeks if the Government refuses to improve its pay offer.

    “The State School Teachers Union executive endorsed the strike action yesterday, only three days after the union’s State Council sanctioned a plan to withhold students’ end-of-semester reports until the Government released a six-month-old report it commissioned into WA’s alarming teacher shortage.

    “Union president Anne Gisborne said the executive would meet next Thursday to finalise the stop-work program. “We would be giving reasonable notice to the community when we have our program on track,” she said.

    “Ms Gisborne said that strikes could begin in as little as two weeks, but would definitely happen this term, unless the Government came up with a better pay offer and released the Twomey report. The report, by academic Lance Twomey, is believed to recommend significant pay rises.

    “Education Minister Mark McGowan has had the report since December but is refusing to release it.

    “Mr McGowan last night attacked the union’s strike threat, given the wage case had been ordered into arbitration by the WA Industrial Relations Commission.

    “The matter is in the hands of the independent umpire, any action teachers take will only hurt students’ education,” he said. “We want to resolve this matter amicably and sensibly through the arbitration process. We will take every measure available to us to protect the education of students across Western Australia.”

    “Teachers are angry that, after eight months of negotiations, the Government has failed to meet its demands for a 20 per cent pay rise over three years, smaller class sizes and more preparation time.

    “The Government is offering pay rises of 13.6 per cent to 22 per cent over three years, depending on teacher experience and location.

    “The move comes after the Industrial Relations Commission this week announced that the State’s minimum wage would increase from $528.40 a week to $557.40. The $29 a week, or 5.5 per cent, pay rise takes effect from July 1.

    “Mr McGowan threatened this week to punish the teachers’ union if it pushed ahead with strike action by taking it to the State’s industrial umpire.

    “Penalties the union faces for taking industrial action include deregistration or a fine of up to $2000. The commission could also decide to prosecute the union without Mr McGowan’s intervention.”

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • ABC News
    
    
    • Teachers warned against campaign of rolling strikes
      
      "The Education Minister, Mark McGowan, has threatened to go to the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) if the teacher's union continues to hold rolling strikes.

      "Earlier this year, the State School Teachers Union (SSTU) was fined by the IRC for calling an unauthorised stop work meeting.

      "At the time, the IRC Commissioner ordered the union not to call any more stop work meetings, but did not exclude members from participating in rolling strikes.

      "Mr McGowan says the Government will not hesitate to bring in the independent umpire in an attempt to prevent the union from holding the stoppages.

      "It's the leadership of the teachers union that is causing these difficulties and I would urge them whilst it is in arbitration not to take this sort of action," he said.

      "Furthermore, if they do, the state government will go to the Industrial Relations Commission.

      "Now that it's in arbitration threats of [strikes] are completely inappropriate and we will use measures under the law to ensure that the education of Western Australian students is not affected."

      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
      
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • Follow Their Example

      “It seems totally unreasonable for teachers not to release students’ reports as part of their campaign for improved salaries and working conditions. What they should do is follow the example that our esteemed politicians have set and merely delay the release of the reports for at least six months.

      “If the highly intellectual Cabinet needs six months or more to study the Twomey report, before it is released, then surely our educators should need to do the same with students’ reports.”

      Jeff Solliss, Applecross

      
      
      
• Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier Media Statement
  

  • Opposition urges Minister to give IRC Twomey Report

    Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier says that in the absence of publicly releasing the Twomey Report on the State’s teaching workforce, the Minister should hand it over to the WA Industrial Relations Commission as part of the arbitration process.

    “The Twomey Report is pivotal to teachers pay negotiations and the lack of action by this government is causing families increasing uncertainty and stress,” Mr Collier said.

    “It’s clear that the Minister has no intention of releasing the report to the public in the near future so why not hand it over to the WAIRC who can consider its recommendations while the Government works through the pay dispute issues.

    “By his own admission, the Minister recognises that the WAIRC is an independent umpire who will operate without favouritism. If the Minister has nothing to fear from the Twomey Report, he should provide the Commission with a copy.

    “This would definitely be seen by teachers as an act of good faith on behalf of the Minister and it would assist in taking the tension out of the current impasse over salaries and conditions.

    “This is an opportunity to move forward with the report and give some assurances to teachers and their families.”
    
    
    

• SSTUWA
  
  
  • Note for parents on student reports
    by Anne Gisborne
    
    
    Dear Parents
    
    Under direction of the State School Teachers’ Union June 2008 State Council, teachers
    
    

    • WILL BE preparing student reports for the end of semester 1 2008
    • WILL NOT BE releasing the information for use in the development of formal report cards
    • WILL discuss student progress with students and/or parents/carers
      
      

    This action will continue until such time at the Carpenter Government and the Minister for Education, Mr Mark McGowan, release the Twomey Report.
     
    
    WHAT IS THE TWOMEY REPORT?
    In 2007, the Carpenter Government established the Twomey Taskforce  to investigate the issue of teacher shortage and to provide recommendations/ solutions to government on this matter. The Twomey Report  was presented to Government in December 2007. We believe that it contains important information about teacher conditions and salary that should be available to the negotiators and Western Australian Industrial Relations  Commission to assist in ensuring a “fair and reasonable” outcome is achieved for teachers and administrators. Currently, teachers and administrators are seeking to renew their conditions of work with improved working conditions and salary.
    
    W.A. government schools are already faced with the impact of teacher supply problems (larger class sizes, difficulty getting relief teachers, reduced access to professional support etc).
    
    Workloads in many schools are horrendous. Teachers and administrators are resigning, universities are struggling to attract people into teacher training courses. We are extremely worried that as time goes on more and more schools will not have an adequate supply of qualified teachers to ensure that your children/ our students have a fully qualified teacher providing them with a quality education program.  
    
    Recently the Minister proposed that we just put people through a three month course to turn them into teachers. THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH for your children/ our students, our profession and our members.
    
    Please support your teachers in demanding the release of the Twomey Report.  
    
    Resolution of this dispute, with decent conditions and decent salary is essential if the children in our government schools today, tomorrow and into the future are to have access to a quality education program delivered by qualified teachers.
    
    Anne Gisborne
    President SSTUWA
    
    
    
  • Letter box deliveries increased  

    The State School Teachers’ Union of WA is to ramp up its campaign in marginal electorates across Western Australia. The move follows the decisions by the Government to cease negotiations with the Union of a new EBA and place all matters before the State Industrial Commission, and refusing to release the Twomey Report.

    Members of the union have already delivered over 100,000 pamphlets to households across the ten most marginal seats. The union has chartered a bus and each afternoon it picks up teachers from various schools in marginal seats who then letterbox houses with pamphlets explaining the current dispute with the State Government.

    Country areas including Geraldton, Albany, Collie and Bunbury have already been visited along with key seats around the metropolitan area. The Union’s general Secretary David A Kelly said today that following State Council, the charter arrangements on the bus had been extended and new, harder-hitting brochures were being prepared in anticipation of the up-coming State election.
    
    

  • McGowan is selling out of children's future

    The State Council of the State School Teachers’ Union of WA has poured scorn on Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan’s plans to encourage professionals from industry to take a three month course to become teachers.

    Union President Anne Gisborne said today that the Union deplored the Minister’s attempt to downgrade the status of teachers and to direct WACOT – the body established to oversee teaching standards in Western Australia.

    “First of all what geologist of any worth in this resource driven state is going to toss in his career to start teaching geography in a country town, and living in sub-standard accommodation, for less than $55,000 a year?” she asked.

    “Who is going to train a teacher about classroom management, behavioural issues, duty of care, preparation of reports, the curriculum and DET requirements in three months?” she added.

    “McGowan’s scatter-brained scheme is like the many others he’s raised over the last few months in his bid to do anything other than provide proper wages and conditions for teachers,” said Ms Gisborne.

    “He launched his massive campaign to bring back retired teachers and got two,” she added.

    “This Government has not negotiated in good faith over the EBA, has avoided all of the issues, hidden the Twomey Report and is planning to sell off the future of our children with under-trained staff,” said Ms Gisborne.

    “Messrs Carpenter, Ripper and McGowan have washed their hands of their guilt for what is happening to education in Western Australia,” she added.
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • New benchmarks for teacher courses
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "University teaching courses will be required to meet tough new national standards under a landmark agreement by state and federal governments to boost the quality of teachers in schools.

    "Education ministers discussed the idea during a telephone conference yesterday, amid growing public concerns that too many teachers are graduating ill equipped to deal with life in the classroom.

    "Under the changes, all Australian university teacher training courses will, for the first time, be forced to meet a set of national benchmarks in order to be accredited. The benchmarks will be established by a national body, rather than the current system, in which courses are regulated by state authorities.

    "Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike, who pushed for change at yesterday's meeting, said the shift would alleviate an existing problem, whereby teachers who train in one particular state aren't always qualified to work in another because of the lack of consistency in the accreditation of courses and the registration of teachers.

    "The push to improve the quality of teacher training comes after years of concern from politicians and educators about the low entry levels for education degrees and the quality of such courses. In a damning assessment of the state of the teaching profession, a Senate committee report last year said teaching no longer attracted the same proportion of "clever young people" as it did 40 years ago and recommended all high school teachers should obtain an arts or science degree before studying education.

    "A union survey of 2000 teachers released this year also called for government intervention, after finding most new public school teachers felt they were inadequately trained to deal with classroom demands, abusive parents or difficult colleagues. [emphasis added]

    "This will provide an opportunity … for us to establish a national framework that will pick the eyes out of what works best in the system," Ms Pike told The Age last night.

    "Sue Willis, president of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, said the proposal was a long-awaited reform that would help tackle teacher shortages. "It would mean that if a person studied at an accredited course in the Northern Territory, they would be eligible to apply for a job in Victoria," Professor Willis said.

    "Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said part of the problem was that universities were so cash-strapped due to years of underfunding, the practical experience offered to student teachers had suffered.

    "Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said that, at present, teacher quality varied between states.

    "The job of teachers is becoming more and more complex. Unless you get the right kind of training programs, the graduates are going to find it fairly hard to cope once they enter the classroom," he said.

    "Yesterday's ministerial conference was the first time an agreement had been reached to develop a new teacher-training model. The changes will be gradually brought in from next year."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • A US educationist claims to have the answer to failing schools – and it lies in literacy
    
    Hilary Wilce talks to Robert Slavin and visits a school that's putting his ideas into practice
    
    "... Robert Slavin is a leading educational psychologist who has arrived in the UK to head up the newly formed Institute for Effective Education at York University. He directs a similar centre at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and is famous for a ground-breaking school reform programme that now runs in 1,200 schools in the US.

    "In his new job, Slavin plans to direct attention to what works in education, and persuade schools to implement it. He is deeply frustrated by how no school system in the world is yet rooted in policies based on hard evidence.

    "Our problem isn't a lack of knowledge about how children learn, or what effective teaching methods are," he says. "Our problem is a lack of knowledge about how to help teachers apply research-proven methods every day." ... [emphasis added]
    
    "Slavin's own school reform package is exactly such a programme. Success for All promotes early educational success for children, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, by concentrating on basic literacy. It was started in 1987 in the US, and 10 years later arrived in the UK, where it was tried out in Nottingham, and where some pupils quickly made a year's progress in one term. Now it is used in 90 schools in this country, all in deprived areas, and between 2004 and 2007 the pupils in those schools made almost three times more progress in reading at Key Stage 2 than pupils in other schools in England.

    "Success for All uses phonics, setting regular assessment and paired learning to ensure that all children get a good start in school and no one is left behind, and more might have been heard about it here except that a sudden enthusiasm for one of its key elements – phonics – swept the board in our literacy debate. [emphasis added] Interestingly, Ruth Miskin, the former primary school head who spearheaded the drive for phonics, once worked for Success for All before leaving to develop her own materials for schools.

    "Some critics argue that the Success for All approach is too prescriptive. They say no single approach suits all children, and a programme that visibly groups young children by ability is likely to make some children feel like losers before they start.

    "Slavin simply points to the evidence. Controlled experiments in the US have proved the effectiveness of Success for All, while the studies of the programme as it spreads in the UK, and in other countries such as Canada, Mexico and Australia, are showing similarly positive results.

    "At present, most important educational decisions are made on the basis of marketing, word of mouth, tradition and politics, which then leads to the famous pendulum of educational reform, in which new ideas appear and become widely used and only then are evaluated. By the time the evaluation evidence is in, educators and policy makers have already given up on the new idea, and have rushed off on the latest new idea." [emphasis added]

    "Instead, he says, we need more proven educational programmes, more rigorous and impartial reviews of educational research, and for the Government to provide incentives for schools to take up programmes that have been shown to work. The consequences of this would be far-reaching. "If government policies began to favour programmes with strong evidence, developers including publishers, software producers, university researchers and entrepreneurs of all kinds would have an incentive to engage in serious development and evaluation efforts. And seeing the immediate impact of research and development, policy makers might provide greater funding for these activities." ...

    Full story in The Independent at link
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • Science students lack essential skills
    by Anthea Lipsett and agencies
    
    "Top universities struggle to teach "spoonfed" school leavers that do not have basic maths and science skills despite getting A grades at A-level.

    "His comments reopened the debate about standards among A-level students after Imperial College London announced last week it plans to introduce its own entrance exam to decide between candidates.

    "David Robb, a senior lecturer at Imperial, told the Commons schools select committee yesterday that admissions tutors struggle to identify the best candidates because so many achieve top grades despite having weak core knowledge of maths and science.

    "A new A** grade may soon be needed to sort the very best A-level students from the rest, he suggested. The government already has plans to introduce an A* grade in September.

    "Robb also warned that Imperial was not planning to offer places to teenagers who take diplomas instead of A-levels.

    "Robb told the MPs that maths and science education in schools was not good enough.

    "We need students coming into our university who are really confident with their basic mathematical and physical principles.

    "Engineers have got to get things right. You can't say, 'this looks about right'. You have got to believe in those calculations. There are people's lives at stake. If you get the calculations wrong, engineers can kill," he said.

    "We have actually had to extend most of our courses from three years to four years.

    "Some of the first year is actually bringing them up to the level they should have been and hopefully also making them aware of their ability to survive outside of a school environment where they are spoonfed." ...

    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
  • Student survey is bland and worthless, claims academic
    
    A government-commissioned £2m annual survey of students' experiences of higher education is being widely manipulated, according to an assessment by an academic who recently quit the project.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Computer funding given to 900 schools [late online update]
    AAP
    
    "Students in almost 900 high schools will be the first to receive computers promised by the Rudd Government as part of what it calls its digital education revolution.
    
    "Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard today visited Essendon Keilor College in Melbourne, where there is one computer for every 15 students, to announce the first round of funding in the plan to give a computer to every student in years 9 to 12..."
    
    "Applications for funding for the second round of the $1.1 billion national secondary school computer fund, set to roll out over five years, will open on July 14."
    
    Full story in The Australian online at link
    
    List of WA schools receiving them in this round
    
    
    
    
  • TAFE showdown looming
    by Andrew Trounson
    
    "Victoria faces a revolt from its TAFE sector over government proposals to boost skills and student participation by introducing a more market-led system, which could include a HECS-style loan system to compensate for fee hikes.

    "The TAFE sector and unions warn the changes risk putting off students amid fears maximum fees for government-supported places could more than double.
    
    "They criticised the Government for failing to provide enough funding to head off a skills shortage, claiming Victoria's funding to the sector is 13.7per cent below the national average.
    
    "The North Melbourne Institute of TAFE has warned in its government submission:
    
    "The ramifications of this proposal are extremely far-reaching, with the very real potential for disastrous results."

    "The backlash comes amid speculation the Victorian proposals would encourage other states adopting similar systems.

    "It is understood that Terry Moran, secretary of the Prime Minister's Department and a former top bureaucrat in Victoria, is a big supporter of the changes. That has raised speculation Canberra could push for similar nationwide changes..." [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Fun has replaced rigour
      
      "Peraps the test for those who still advocate grammar-by-osmosis (“‘Fallacy’ of learning grammar by osmosis’’, 11/6) is this: would they take their chances with brain surgeons, airline pilots or barristers who got their professional credentials not by rigorous and disciplined study but by watching DVDs and deconstructing “texts’’ such as Carry On Doctor, Airplane! and Judge Judy which, additionally, all have today’s essential educational criterion of being “fun’’.
      
      Leonard Colquhoun, Invermay, Tas
      
      

    • "I now tutor senior high school students in English, but as a competent HSC English student myself, I struggled to understand what postmodernism meant, let alone apply its absurd principles to a “text’’ (including websites, advertisements, interviews and cartoons as relevant and engaging works of English), and then write an extended “response’’ tying it all together (essays are apparently passe: the response can include letters, speeches and interviews).

      "Post-colonial, feminist, racist or Marxist readings of texts and their deconstruction are futile exercises in obscurity, the futility compounded by the inability of many Year 11 and 12 students to construct even the most basic of sentences without glaring grammatical errors, misspelled words and incorrect punctuation.

      "If Australia is to remain a literate society, English, including the teaching of grammar, must be compulsory, but first there needs to be a rigorous overhaul of the syllabus to counter the travesty that is the current education system."
      
      Rhiannon Stacey, Epping, NSW
      

    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • National curriculum constrains teachers and pupils
    by Anthea Lipsett
    
    "Teachers are afraid to tailor teaching to pupils' needs because they believe they have to stick rigidly to the government's national curriculum, education experts warned today.

    "Teaching union leaders said teachers were fearful of straying from the national curriculum and in many cases were no longer able to design lessons themselves.

    "The national curriculum, which was introduced in 1988, had given education a more "coherent structure" but it was overly prescriptive, they told today's Commons schools select committee inquiry..."

    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • PM orders anger management for Neal
    by Andrew Clennell, Dylan Welch, Alexandra Smith and Phillip Coorey in Tokyo
    
    "When Kevin Rudd ordered the federal MP Belinda Neal [wife of the NSW Education Minister, John Della Bosca] to attend anger management counselling yesterday, he lifted the lid on one of the worst-kept secrets of the NSW Labor Party - that Ms Neal can frequently be abusive and even violent..."
    
    "Yesterday, the Prime Minister was forced to interrupt his tour of Japan - one of the most important international visits of his political career - to telephone Ms Neal. He ordered her to undergo anger management, and threatened to dump her from the Labor Party if she transgressed again.

    "Mr Rudd had reached his limit. In the past week, Ms Neal has been accused of swearing and abusing staff at Gosford's Iguanas Waterfront, and threatening she would have the club's "f---ing licence"; and yesterday it emerged that she had been suspended for kicking a rival soccer player while she was on the ground."Mr Rudd put every Labor MP on notice, saying they were expected to uphold decent standards of behaviour.

    "No one, I repeat no one, is guaranteed a future in politics and that goes for all our members of Parliament," he said in Tokyo..."
    
    "... the Iguanas affair appears set now to be investigated by police..."
    
    Full [long] story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link [many similar stories and opinion pieces in most daily newspapers]
    
    
    

  • School denies distorting its exam results
    
    The headmaster of a Sydney private school has withdrawn his students from the South Western Sydney Institute, known as Bankstown TAFE, after it was revealed that students with poorer marks had been forced to complete HSC subjects there to avoid dragging the school's marks down.

 

Friday 13 June

• The Australian
  
  
  • Grammar guide for English teachers 'full of basic errors'
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    

    "A teachers' guide to grammar circulated by the English Teachers Association of Queensland is riddled with basic errors, leading an internationally respected linguistics professor to describe it as "the worst published material on English grammar" he has seen.

    "A series of articles on grammar published in the ETAQ's journal intended as a teaching resource is striking for its confusion of the parts of speech, incorrectly labelling nouns as adjectives, verbs as adverbs and phrases as verbs.

    "University of Queensland emeritus professor Rodney Huddleston, one of the principal authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, said it took the association about one year to correct the errors, and even then it confined most of the corrections to its website rather than in the journal and did not republish the guide.

    "These articles contain a huge amount of error, inconsistency and confusion," he said. "They constitute, without question, the worst published material on English grammar by a native speaker that I have come across. [emphasis added]

    "(The author) clearly does not know enough about English grammar in general to take on work of this kind.

    "Anyone who analyses 'won't' and 'capable of' as adverbs, 'a pair' and 'set of' as adjectives, or 'Sam's' as a possessive pronoun has no business to be preparing a resource on English grammar for teachers."

    "The articles, published with the general title Grammar at the Coalface, were prepared by Lenore Ferguson, the editor of the ETAQ journal Words'Worth and published over a series of months last year.

    "Dr Ferguson printed three examples of the errors in the March edition, saying they were "the result of the usual mishaps with work that undergoes several drafts and is proofed and edited by the original writer".

    "Last night, she told The Australian the points Professor Huddleston identified were differences of opinion rather than mistakes. "They weren't all mistakes as he described but differences of opinion and that's the way of the world," she said. Dr Ferguson said Professor Huddleston did not follow traditional grammar but had invented his own type, called the Cambridge grammar, which was unique and had reclassified terms, such as calling prepositions conjunctions.

    "It's a totally different perspective and a totally different way of organising and thinking about language," she said.

    "Dr Ferguson is an education consultant, a former president of the association and has worked as a senior education officer for English in the Queensland Education Department.

    "A CV included with a paper presented at a conference by Dr Ferguson says she has taught in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions and has a long history of involvement in curriculum development and professional development at state and national levels.

    "ETAQ president Garry Collins said the mistakes were "relatively minor" and the association had published an article on grammar by Professor Huddleston in the journal and alerted readers through a newsletter to his longer critiques published on the website.

    "Ideally the errors wouldn't have been there but these things occur in the best-regulated households," he said.

    "If coming upon these couple of minor inaccuracies caused teachers to be having conversations about grammar in staff rooms then I would see that as not a bad thing."

    "Mr Collins accused The Australian of reporting educational issues with a particular slant, representing minority views, and said highlighting the Words'Worth articles would hamper teachers' engagement with grammar.

    "It would be useful if the paper didn't seize on minority views but try to report in ways which are relevant to what really does happen in classrooms," he said.

    "Professor Huddleston provided The Australian with a list of 20 defects that summarised the errors in the ETAQ teachers' guide, which take 10 pages of explanation in his reply article on the ETAQ website. "A lot of them are very elementary," he said.

    "In Dr Ferguson's first article, The Structural Basics, published in March last year, she says "won't" in the sentence "The small boy won't eat his lunch" is an adverb when, in fact, it is a verb. "Sam's" in "Sam's folder" is classified as a possessive pronoun when it is the possessive form of a proper noun; "what" in "They saw what lay before them" was called a conjunction but it is a pronoun; and "a pair" is classified as an adjective instead of a noun group comprising a determiner "a" and a noun "pair". In the sentence, "The small boy is capable of eating his lunch", the term "capable of" is called an adverb when it is not a grammatical unit of any kind but an adjective followed by a preposition.

    "Similarly, in "a set of bowls", Dr Ferguson calls "set of" an adjective when it consists of the noun "set" and preposition "of".

    "Syntactic constructions such as "have a peep" are classified as verbs, while "something" is classified as a pronoun and "everything" as a noun.

    "Professor Huddleston said he believed teachers would be discouraged from reading his corrections because it was described in the journal as being "complex, requiring readers to have extensive knowledge of traditional, structural and functional grammars". It also repeatedly refers to traditional grammar as "his grammar".

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Class-based waffle
    by Kevin Donnelly
    
    
    "The debacle surrounding the resources developed by the English Teachers Association of Queensland, designed to "help teachers to defend and explain the place of grammar in the school curriculum and in our classrooms", underscores our dumbed-down education system.

    "In the words of Rodney Huddleston, a retired professor in linguistics, the material contains "a huge amount of error, inconsistency and confusion. They (two of the resources) constitute, without question, the worst published material on English grammar by a native speaker that I have ever come across."

    "The errors Huddleston uncovers include confusing adverbs with verbs, adverbs with adjectives and conjunctions with pronouns.

    "That the material is flawed is partly because of the priority given to a functional linguistics approach to grammar. Functional grammar, similar to critical literacy, is imbued with the view that language has to be analysed in terms of power relationships. Students have to be taught how standard English is used by more powerful groups in society to oppress others. With functional grammar, children are no longer taught things such as parts of speech or how to parse a sentence; instead, the focus is on so-called real meaning and real contexts where language is defined as a socio-cultural construct.

    "Nouns become participants, verbs are described as process and adverbial clauses and phrases are changed to circumstances. Such is the dense and arcane terminology associated with functional grammar that former NSW premier Bob Carr had it banished from the curriculum. [emphasis added]

    "Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford boasted last year in relation to the new English syllabus: "Curriculum waffle is out, clear English is in." It's a pity, however, that he didn't follow Carr's example.

    "The in-service training for English teachers organised by Education Queensland, while mentioning traditional grammar, gives priority to a functional linguistics approach.

    "In notes titled Getting a Grip on Grammar, verbs, clauses, phrases, nouns, subject and predicate are secondary to descriptions such as processes, participants, circumstances, mood, modality, cohesion and theme. [emphasis added]

    "The result? Not only are teachers bamboozled but parents are unable to help with their children's work.

    "Many of those responsible for training English teachers and writing syllabuses are committed to a progressive, cultural-left approach to English as a subject, represented by functional grammar and critical literacy. As a consequence, not only do most Australian syllabuses fail to include a systematic treatment of formal grammar but many teachers lack the knowledge to deal with thesubject.

    "No wonder thousands of primary school children start secondary school illiterate, many Year 12 students enter university incapable of writing a lucid essay and employers complain about the language skills ofworkers.

    "In The Literacy Wars, Monash University academic Ilana Snyder condemns me and The Australian for promoting a "manufactured crisis" in English teaching.

    "One wonders what she will make of the latest incident."

    Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down.
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    

  • Editorial
    Silencing grammar
    

    The precision of our language must be preserved

    "The "arguability of a text", the English Teachers Association of Queensland told its members in its journal last year, "can vary according to the degree to which the speaker/writer closes down the dialogue to suppress or limit divergence, or opens it up to divergent positions."

    "Regardless of whatever discourses are foregrounded, marginalised or silenced, however, it cannot be argued, after a dominant or resistant reading of any text, that an adverb is a verb. And while not wanting to privilege traditional grammar rules over a sociocultural critical appraisal model, no amount of licence can turn a pair into an adjective instead of a noun
    
    ."Such elementary mistakes, unfortunately, are among the string of errors in articles published in the ETAQ journal last year. Written by consultant Lenore Ferguson, "Grammar at the coal-face" was presented to help when "colleagues, parents, employers and politicians ... accuse us of not knowing or teaching grammar."
    
    "Retired University of Queensland professor Rodney Huddleston, one of two principal authors of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, said it was the worst material on English grammar by a native speaker he had seen. He identified "a huge amount of error, inconsistency and confusion". Set of in a set of bowls was classified wrongly as an adjective, instead of a noun and preposition. The word what in They saw what lay before them was described as a conjunction. And Sam's, in Sam's folder, was labelled a possessive pronoun instead of a possessive noun. ETAQ president, Garry Collins, is unconcerned about such "relatively minor" mistakes, and derides The Australian for reporting the matter. However, parents - tired of school handouts dotted with bad spelling and confusing "there" and "their" - will take a more serious view. They and their children will not be surprised at the erudition of some of the learning activities proposed in the articles. These suggest that students identify nouns and verbs by analysing newspaper previews for Home and Away and Neighbours. Pathetic.

    "Regrettably, what is "silenced" in the ETAQ material is the lifelong importance, for their wellbeing and career advancement, of students from all backgrounds learning to write and speak correctly. Preserving the precision of our language is important, regardless of the ravages of texting, slang and even critical literacy jargon. While language evolves, it needs to do so within acceptable parameters of semantics and rules. "Alternative readings" of what is acceptable risk English degenerating into woolly and imprecise meaninglessness.

    "If the ETAQ magazine reflects grammar and English teaching generally in Queensland, the state's Education Minister, Rod Welford, should instigate remedial classes - for teachers. Suitable instructors, however, might prove thin on the ground. The ETAQ journal, Words'Worth, would be the last place he should advertise." [emphasis added]
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Premier state gains most in Rudd's computer handout
    
    The Rudd Government will buy almost 117,000 computers for the nation's high schools in the first round of its digital education revolution, with NSW schools receiving the bulk of funding.
    
    
    

  • John Della Bosca 'wrote parts' of nightclub's apology
    
    NSW Premier Morris Iemma relied on an apology that John Della Bosca partly wrote to clear the senior minister over an altercation he and his wife, federal MP Belinda Neal, had with staff at a NSW central coast nightclub... The revelations came as police launched an investigation into the signing of contradictory statutory declarations about the altercations.

    
    © The Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • First Byte
      
      "I can sympathise with John Della Bosca’s speeding fines. If I were in his situation,I’d be doing everything I could to getaway too."
      
      Andrew Lake, Daw Park, SA [plus six more Letters on Ms Neal's behaviour]
      
      
      
    • "The main problem with today’s English students seems to be that they are being taught to deconstruct without ever learning how to construct."
      
      Eric Lockett, Lindisfarne, Tas
      
      
      
      
      
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Legal bid to halt strikes by teachers (page 7)
    
    "Education chiefs have taken urgent legal action to stop the teachers’ union from withholding students’ reports and disrupting schools with half-day rolling strikes.
      
    "The Department of Education and Training yesterday lodged an application with the WA Industrial Relations Commission requesting it to order the State School Teachers Union to call off strikes planned to start in the next fortnight. An urgent conference of both parties has been scheduled for this afternoon.
      
    "The union plans to start rolling strikes at selected schools within weeks if the Government refuses to improve its pay offer. It has also directed members to withhold students’ end-of-semester reports until Education Minister Mark McGowan releases a report he commissioned into teacher shortages.
      
    "The department’s application said the proposed industrial action was not in the public interest, was “distracting staff” and detracting from the proper operation of schools. “Tension and uncertainty is becoming increasingly more evident in schools,” it said.
      
    "Mr McGowan continued to attack the union yesterday, telling State Parliament that industrial action was inappropriate when the pay dispute had been sent to arbitration by the WAIRC. “I think the union has been poorly led in this regard,” he said.
      
    "Despite pressure from the Opposition, Mr McGowan would not commit to providing the Twomey report on WA’s teacher shortage to the commission or set a deadline for its long-awaited public release."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    

• State caves in on computers-in-schools money (page 10)
  by Bethany Hiatt

  “The State Government has caved in and agreed to pay set-up costs towards implementing the Federal Government's much-vaunted com­puters in schools program.

  “Education Minister Mark Mc­Gowan confIrIlled yesterday it would pay $345,000 to help cover costs for infrastructure such as cables, installa­tion, maintenance, security and high­er electricity bills for the first round of the program.

  “The decision to stump up infras­tructure costs came after Alan Car­penter told the Prime Minister at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in March that WA would not be paying for a Federal Labor election promise was not prepared to meet the extra costs of installing and operating the computers.

  “Mr Carpenter told Kevin Rudd that for every dollar Canberra was planning to spend, it would cost the States three to four dollars for the extras.

  “Mr McGowan said yesterday the State Government would cover the “relatively small” extra costs of $345,000 associated with the first-stage.

  “But in terms of the cost surrounding future stages, we are still in discussions with the Commonwealth,” he said. “We expect a bigger commitment from the Commonwealth as part of the future rounds.”

  “Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard announced yesterday that 86 WA schools would get money for new computers as part of the so-called digital revolution.  In WA, 38 public schools, 29 independent schools and 19 Catholic schools received funding in the first round.

  “The first round was for schools that had one computer to eight or more students.  Under funding agreements, schools have up to two years to buy and install the computers.

  “Mr McGowan said WA was way in front of other States in its commitment to information technology.

  “Federal shadow education minister Tony Smith said the election promise would cost States millions in infrastructure costs.  The announcement was like delivering a new car but with no keys or engine, he said.

  “Ms Gillard denied the Government was backing away from its pre-election promise to give every student in Year 9 to 12 access to a computer.

  “In the first few rounds of this program, we are taking schools to a ratio of one to two,” she said. “Our long-term vision is that students have access to computers when they need them, as part of their learning experience.  That is, that there is an effective ratio of one to one.”
  
  From The West Australian

  
  
• School to fingerprint students (page 7)
  by Bethany Hiatt
  
  “Students' fingerprints would be scanned when they entered and left school under a move by a northern suburbs Anglican school to be the first in WA to monitor attendance using biometric identification. Peter Moyes Anglican Community School told parents this week it planned to use biometric scanning to provide a safe and easy way to identify students and reduce clerical errors.
  
  “In a letter to parents, principal Doug Swingler said the school planned to begin the scans before the end of second term on July 4.
  
  “The two-page letter gives details on biometric identification and reassures parents copies of children’s fingerprints would not be stored.
  
  “A computer program would create a coded template of each fingerprint. “This ensures the privacy of each student,” the letter said. “The fingerprint cannot be reconstructed, replicated or delivered to any agency.”

  “But in the face of an apparent parent backlash, Mr Swingler yesterday denied the school was ready to implement the system "That's what we were considering," he said. "We are not implementing it until and if we're happy with the prospect that it's OK." Mr Swingler said the system had advantages but if the school com­munity was not ready he would not go ahead. He had received "a response or two" since the letter was sent home.

  “A parent at the college told The West Australian he was concerned the school had told parents what it planned to do without asking their consent. "It's a breach of their per­sonal privacy and rights," he said. "I don't see how anybody has the right to demand my child's fingerprints. " .

  “Academy Attendance, which sup­plies fingerprint logging systems, said biometrics was used in some Eastern States schools and on most new lap­tops.
  
  ''All it actually does is take nine points of the finger, turns that into an algorithm, a randomly generated number, which we then marry up in the software to the student ID num­ber," national marketing manager Vladimir Ostashkevich said.
  
  "This process doesn't store any information. You cannot rebirth or regenerate it so we’re not actually fingerprinting kids or anything like that.”

  “Biometrics was better than swipe card systems because cards could be lost or stolen, he said.  One unit cost about $1500 and a school of 1000 students was likely to need at least two.

  “One benefit is tracking student movement and knowing where your kids are at all the time, which is important for duty of care, but secondly, it just saves so much time in administration costs,” he said.  “We live in 2008, we shouldn’t have kids signing in an out of books any more.”

  From The West Australian
  
  
  

• Letter to the Editor (page 22)
  

  • Unprofessional attitude

    “It’s no wonder our kids can’t read and write, their teachers can’t even organise a strike.  The aim of a strike should be to put pressure on the employer (the Government) not the customers (the parents). Who do they think will be inconvenienced by these on-again, off-again half day strikes? If the teachers want to be treated and respected as professionals they should behave as professionals.”

    Rod Bates, Applecross
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Union wants education report made public
    
    "The State School Teacher's Union (SSTU) says it may ask the Industrial Relations Commission to subpoena Professor Lance Twomey to give evidence about his report on education if the Government refuses to release it.

    "A taskforce chaired by the former Vice Chancellor of Curtin University was set up last year to investigate the state's growing teacher shortage, and delivered its final report in December.

    "A pay dispute involving teachers is heading to arbitration before the Industrial Relations Commission.

    "The Government says the report will not be released until after Cabinet has considered its recommendations.

    "The President of the SSTU, Anne Gisborne, says it will consider asking the Commission to subpoena the report, and if that's not possible Professor Twomey could be called to give evidence.

    "Certainly we will be looking at every avenue that we can to find means by which we can bring that document if not into the public domain then certainly into viewing by the Commissioner before she sits and arbitrates," she said."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Union rejects Govt strike action request
    
    "The Australian Education Union is rejecting a request by the Northern Territory Government to place a two-week moratorium on strike action.

    "Teachers in eight schools - mainly in Darwin's rural area - went on strike for four hours today as part of the union's push for a 20 per cent pay rise over three years.

    "The Government is offering an 11 per cent pay increase and made a request for teachers to hold off on any more strike action for two weeks.

    "The union's territory branch secretary says the union will be knocking back the request at a meeting with government officials this afternoon."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Two equals one in Labor's classroom
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "The Federal Government appears to be backing away from its election promise to provide a computer for every senior secondary student, with Education Minister Julia Gillard now conceding the plan is a "long-term vision" that might not be achieved in Labor's first term.

    "The Government is also facing questions over its claim that the neediest schools will be the first to benefit, after it emerged that two well-resourced government schools in Victoria had been big winners in the first round of funding.
    
    "The two, Bendigo Senior Secondary College and Balwyn High School, were among almost 900 schools named by the Government yesterday as recipients of funding for computers under Labor's so-called "digital education revolution".
    
    "As it announced the first allocations for 116,000 computers, the Government appeared to be distancing itself from its election pledge to give every student from years 9 to 12 access to a computer, with yesterday's recipients getting enough funding to eventually provide one computer for every two students.
    
    "ALP policy documents state that: "A Rudd Labor Government will revolutionise classroom education by putting a computer on the desk of every upper secondary student." However, Ms Gillard said yesterday "an effective ratio of one-to-one" was a "long-term vision" for which $1.2 billion had been budgeted over the next five years, prompting questions as to whether it would be achieved.
    
    "In the first few rounds of this program, we are taking schools to a ratio of one to two," Ms Gillard said as she announced the long-awaited funding at Essendon East Keilor District College yesterday.
    
    "Schools that have participated in this round will be able to apply in other rounds for further resources, but we wanted, in the initial stages, to make sure that students around the country benefited from a ratio of one to two."
    
    "The Federal Opposition seized on the shift in rhetoric, with education spokesman Tony Smith accusing the Government of deceiving the public before the November poll.
    
    "Kevin Rudd promised Australian students and parents that every student in years 9 to 12 would get their very own computer and he's already broken that promise," Mr Smith said.
    
    "We've now found out that the most needy schools will only get a ratio of one computer for every two students at best. Kevin Rudd has deceived Australian parents and students." ... [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    

• The Guardian
  
  
  • Ofsted suggests failing schools adopt 'zero tolerance' approach
    
    Strong headteachers should crack down on badly behaved pupils, introduce traditional uniforms and adopt the private-school system of "houses" to transform failing institutions, inspectors suggested today.

    A report from Ofsted found that schools in "special measures" - the most serious category of concern - improved dramatically when new headteachers arrived with a "zero tolerance" approach to unruly pupils.
    
    [The report is worth a look... Web]
    
    
    

• BBC News
  
  
  • Talents of bright pupils 'wasted'
    
    One in 10 academically promising state school pupils in England do not go on to university, a report has claimed.

    The study also says thousands of bright pupils are let down by schools because they fall back after high levels of early achievement.
    
    
    

• WA Today
  
  
  • No election call despite Libs woes [late update on 12 June]
    
    WA Premier Alan Carpenter has ruled out the possibilitiy of an early election despite the Liberal Party's latest woes.

 

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 June

• The Joondalup Weekender

© The Joondalup Weekender

• The West Australian
  

• Op Ed
  Education revolution, Kev? It’s a rebellion (page 21)

  Foul language, threats, schoolyard fights, appalling ignorance…handling a classroom is just an exercise in behaviour management, writes teacher Katherine Summers.

  “‘You’re a f… old slag, Miss.’ (A bit less of the “old”, thank you, Kimberley.) Not for the first time, I think that today is the day that I will give up teaching.

  “I dodge a Year 8 compass aimed at me – part and parcel of the daily assault and abuse which is part of my teaching workload. There’s no use making a report: the kid might be suspended for a day or two but come Monday he’ll be back in the classroom, grinning, swearing and trashing the joint.

  “This generation of Year 7s and 8s is the worst. In a way, I am amused that no matter how foul the language, they always tag a ‘Miss’ at the end. Example: “F…you, Miss!”

  “Actually, guys, it’s not unusual for a teacher to ask you to take out a pen and paper…it’s called work, and until Mr. Rudd gives us a laptop we’re doing it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Two girls in the back look busy…I go over to them. Jessica is trying to pierce the earlobe of her “bestie” with a dirty drawing pin. The planned lesson goes out the window. We have a lesson about how to pierce your skin safely and hygienically and how “post-operative care” is required and to never “share” drawing pins or needles. (Most of the students don’t have the money to pay a professional and even if they do, it’s considered “tough” to do your own.)

  “Don’t get me started on the girls. They are foul-mouthed, they write in texta all over their things, hands, arms, thighs. They refer to each other and themselves as bitches, slags, sluts, hoes, c…s. They have an permanent iPod earpiece in one ear and a mobile phone on the other.

  “They speak freely and knowingly about sex. Their lives revolve around alcohol, boys, the shopping centre and themselves…yet they’re still kids with a hopeless look in their eye. What put that there? Sometimes I’m too scared to ask. Sexual assault, abuse, family dysfunction, drugs, sickness, poverty? Plain old lack of manners or self-discipline?

  “They don’t like to work. They have no dreams. No role models.

  “I’m gonna have a baby, Miss, and get the baby bonus.” They don’t know who Napoleon is, or Leonardo da Vinci or Mozart. Their idea of history is anything older than they are. “Adolf Hitler? Surely you have heard of the Second World War?”

  “I probe, just vacant stares. It’s scary, the breadth and level of their ignorance, these parents of the future. Education? Where do you start?

  “Troy, a boy with crooked teeth, bruises and scabs, puts his head down on the desk. I go over to him, his elbow is bleeding. We run it under the tap and put a paper towel on it. No point telling him to go to the nurse, she’s never there. I touch the top of his (dirty) hair. He’s thin, marks all over him, he doesn’t eat properly. Most kids’ idea of a breakfast around here is a Mars Bar and a can of Red Bull.

  “The boys are different from the girls. They swear but they’re not as grown up as the girls. They’re still kind of bewildered, even innocent. They have to fight to survive the playground, not getting the crap beaten out of them at recess. And, yes, we patrol the playground as part of our “duty of care” (a fetching luminous yellow vest – I’m thinking of wearing it out).

  “We break up the fights. They take them out of sight, what can you do? I tell my students they all have the right to be safe…but they know and we know that reality doesn’t match the education “version”.

  “This morning’s duty is unpleasant, it’s raining, cold. There’s nowhere for the students to go, so they huddle in nooks and crannies, under eaves and doorways.

  “I see a gaggle of girls forming. “Violent Vi” is in the middle and I can tell she’s bruising for a fight. Last time I met Violet, she had beaten up Sharron because she had heard Sharron’s boyfriend was a racist. (The kids don’t bother to check the facts, these fights nearly all go on hearsay.)

  “Vi has the back-up of her extended family…they appear from nowhere for a “rumble”. Who wants to take on a whole foul-mouthed group threatening violence? Vi is untouchable because she is Aboriginal. She’s not held responsible for anything she does. In our culture of apology there’s no room for truth. One day it will be over for Vi because she’ll knife someone…I’m keeping my fingers crossed it won’t be me.

  “There are the politicians on the telly, talking about “education revolution.”

  “Come and take my students for a month, Kev. See how you get on.

  “Curriculum documents keep pouring from “on high” – this outcome, that outcome.

  “They haven’t got a clue. It’s not about education anymore. It’s all about behaviour management, a fun subject. Not English Literature, Media, Drama, Maths, Science, Music or Art – not any more. Ninety per cent of teaching is about getting a kid to behave.

  “We moved into a new school building designed by people who must be completely obtuse. There are open-plan classrooms with three exits – not including the windows. The kids roam around, climb out the windows and move through classes in packs. Contrary to rumour, teachers have only one set of arms and legs and can only man one exit at a time.

  “Then there’s the question of pay. I’ve been teaching for four years and I’m among the working poor. A single mum. And I thought teaching would be a good balance. Five years at university, for what? I’m still driving the 1978 Ford Cortina I went to uni in.  Like  everyone, my mortgage payments keep going up and the Education Minister is earning what? A tiler friend, who works with tiles, not children, makes more in one day than I do in a week. His broken tiles don’t keep him awake at 4.00am.

  “Teaching is a 24/7 responsibility…you are never free.

  “Being a teacher is like being the boy with the finger in the leaking dike: it’s overwhelming and endless.

  “And the Government doesn’t really care about these young people who are the future of Australia. “Touch the future!” the recruitment campaign runs. With what, Kevin?

  “I did this, Miss” I look down and sigh. It’s Michael, face half hidden by a hoodie. He’s puny, tiny compared to the other boys. But he has speed on his side. The things that come out of that mouth of his you’d have to hear to believe. Michael offers me a torn piece of lined paper. I look down, expecting the usual lurid doodles or obscene scribble. To my astonishment, it’s a story, a page and a half of writing – unheard of.

  “It’s a story…about a boy and a dog…it’s sweet and real.

  “Michael!” I grin at him. “This is just fantastic.” Michael glows pink – as if I’ve just opened an oven door. Then I see it: that glimmer, that hope. I look into his eyes.

  “I think – maybe today’s one more day that I don’t give up teaching.”
  
  Katherine Summers is a teacher and writer and says names have been changed to protect student identifies.
  
  From The West Australian
  

  
  

• Letters to the Editor (page 22)
  
  
  • In Short
    
    “There must be good reasons why the State Government refuses to release the Twomey report. Perhaps it is “sanitising” the unpleasant bits that might “confuse” us. Perhaps the delay is simply because there is so much to sanitise and Mark McGowan can only type with two fingers.”

  Steve Kessell, Willetton
  
  

• Why bother?

“At the end of last year I left a permanent position in a high-performing Victorian Government primary school to relocate and teach in WA. This was to assist with the “desperate need for teachers” and to “give it a go”.

“On arrival none of my paperwork had been processed. I made repeated visits to WACOT/Education Department offices and continued appointments and being shifted from person to person.

“A week before the term started I stood in the DET office and refused to leave until I could speak to someone to explain what was going on. I was then advised my application had been “lost” and that no one had been assigned to me or had any idea that I was looking for work.

“It was only on this day I actually received my WACOT registration number. A very helpful gentleman proceeded to call internally an assist me in my desperate and understandably irritable state. He called me the next day to inform me that he had found me a position, a temporary three-month contract in remote WA. I then started on first-year graduate wages even though I had proved through numerous documents and references to have four years of experience.

“My husband also left full-time work to relocate with me and has had similar experiences in the WA workforce. A shortage of teachers in WA? I know understand why.

“I have had previous colleagues ask me if it is worth relocating and I have advised them otherwise. Sorry WA, we will be booking our flight home shortly.” 

Michelle Briede, Hopetoun




• Schools wag SMS truancy alarms (page 15)
  by Yasmine Phillips and Jessica Strut

  “The State Government’s highly touted tools to crack down on truancy in WA schools have not produced results, with only 10 per cent of schools using the new SMS technology to alert parents about absent children and no prosecutions of parents who allow their children to miss school regularly.

  “Education Minister Mark McGowan announced a $950,000 five-year contract with MGM Wireless to provide SMS communication software to schools last year, saying 46 schools were using the technology but he expected about 400 schools to sign up later this year.

  “But more than eight months later, Mr. McGowan admitted yesterday only 10 per cent or 44 schools – had implemented the new system due to incompatibility between MGM software and Telstra.

  “This problem, which was beyond the department’s control, meant that Telstra had to provide an alternative, which although better, has still resulted in the need for modification of MGM software,” he said.

  “It is expected that more schools, including primary schools, will begin to use the technology later this year when all the testing and training for school administrative staff has been completed.”

  “But shadow education minister Peter Collier said the system reflected an “all talk, no action” approach. “Until we stop the headline-grabbing policies and look at comprehensive behaviour management strategies in our schools, the problems will continue,” he said.

  “WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said it was disappointing for a contract work almost $1 million had not been enforced quickly.

  “Mr. McGowan also revealed threatened fines of up to $1000 for parents whose children did not attend school regularly had produced no prosecutions since 2006.

  “Mr. Fry said WACSSO opposed prosecution, arguing it did not encourage parents to support the system.”

  From The West Australian




• ABC News
  
  
  • Four Corners
    
    
    • Educating Kimberly
      by Sarah Ferguson
      
      "If their teenage child couldn't spell "cat", most Australian parents would be howling for the blood of politicians, teachers and just about anyone else in striking distance.
      
      "But this scandalous illiteracy is exactly what some indigenous communities are supposed to tolerate.
      
      "In Tiwi Islands near Darwin, for example, a former school head estimates 80 to 90 per cent of early teenagers are "functionally illiterate – can’t spell cat is the example I use". A current principal laments trying to teach 13-year-olds with reading ages of less than six.
      
      "Put it down to any number of things: chronic absenteeism and lack of motivation springing from family dysfunction, violence, substance abuse, sit-down money, too few role models, no jobs, not enough teaching in English, paltry government investment in schools and teachers.
      
      "Causes are many, solutions scarce. But the ceaselessly harrowing publicity about indigenous communities has seen the heralding of one back-to-the-future remedy… boarding school is now being seen as a way to rescue kids from chaos and give them the discipline and focus they need to learn.
      
      "One year on from the announcement of the NT Intervention, Four Corners explores the promise of boarding school and the faith now being invested in it by exasperated community leaders. In Tiwi, elders have been a driving force behind a new secondary boarding school that's opened far from the grog and fighting in the main town Nguiu.
      
      "The hope is that Tiwi College will fully tap the potential of kids like Kimberly, a bright 11-year-old primary pupil who swots around the family campfire and loves to read. "When I read and write I feel happy," she says.
      
      "Tiwi College boarders Kenny and Ryan feel safer away from their communities. "There's no trouble and there's no noise in my college," says Ryan. The experiment just has to work, warns former secondary principal Brian Clancy with a note of desperation: "It cannot fail – if it fails you may as well pull the plug on the island now and let it sink."
      
      "Tiwi College must surmount huge obstacles. It must inspire children who come without some of the most basic literacy and numeracy skills. It must deal with chronic absenteeism and family dysfunction.
      
      "Four Corners goes to Tiwi College to watch staff and students embark on their new school venture. Back at Nguiu, their progress is closely followed by teachers and parents who battle daily to lift standards at the local primary and secondary schools. Sarah Ferguson reports on the challenges of "Educating Kimberly" -
      
      Four Corners, 8.30 pm, Monday 16 June on ABC1.
      
      This program will be repeated about 11.35 pm Tuesday 17 June; also on ABC2 at 8 am Tuesday.
      
      
      
  • Education Union refuses meeting, demands new pay offer
    
    "The Education Union says it will not meet with the South Australian Government unless the key decision-makers come to the negotiating table.

    "The Government requested a meeting with the union yesterday, but was knocked back because the union says there were no signs of an improved pay offer for teachers.

    "The union wants 21 per cent over three years, but the Government is offering less than half of that.

    "Union president Correna Haythorpe says this week's planned strike will continue.

    "I asked the negotiating team whether we were likely to receive a new offer, they couldn't answer that so we need to have the decision-makers in the room," she said.

    "We need to be talking to the people who can actually put into a motion a new offer for us."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • SA teachers told to 'get serious' in pay negotiations
    
    "South Australian Industrial Relations Minister Michael Wright says the state's public school teachers need to get serious about negotiating a pay deal with the Government.

    "The Government says it is willing to hold talks with the Education Union over the weekend to avoid a 24-hour strike next week.

    "The union is planning to go ahead with the stoppage despite a recommendation from the Industrial Relations Commission for it to be called off and both parties to recommence talks.

    "Teachers are asking for a 21 per cent pay rise over three years, while the Government has offered nearly 10 per cent. [emphasis added]

    "Mr Wright says the union needs to provide a realistic pay figure so negotiations can progress.

    "Come forward and give us its real claim," he said.

    "As you would be aware they're asking for $2.8 billion, well above what is under consideration here and we really do need get serious about what is being asked by the teachers' union."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • NSW teachers say industrial action unavoidable
    
    "New South Wales teachers say further industrial action over the teacher transfer system appears unavoidable, now that the Education Minister has been stood down.

    "The NSW Teachers' Federation has been engaged in a long-running dispute over changes to staffing.

    "Federation deputy president Bob Lipscomb says the NSW Government does not seem focused on priority issues like education.

    "He is calling on the Premier Morris Iemma to step in and settle the matter.

    "The department was showing no real interest in settling this matter and we were optimistic that the minister may have a different view," he said.

    "But with no minister there in the position at the moment, that becomes very difficult.

    "Unless the Premier is prepared to intervene, then we can see little more than further industrial action in the future."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Studying parents to receive childcare support
    
    "The Federal Government says it is honouring its election commitment to increase childcare assistance to parents who are studying.

    "Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says almost $24 million will be spent over four years, to provide flexible low-cost childcare support to parents at TAFE or university.

    "It is estimated about 5,000 parents will benefit from the changes."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Grammar errors 'out of context'
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The author of a teachers' guide on grammar criticised for containing basic errors has defended her work, saying the disputed terms appeared as mistakes when taken out of context.

    "Lenore Ferguson, who prepared the guide for the English Teachers Association of Queensland, said yesterday the errors represented "only a few of the many examples" presented.

    "Any errors were the result, not of lack of knowledge, but of the repeated redrafting to simplify and align key aspects of the grammars, and of my dual roles of author and editor," she says in a written response. "Some 'errors' named ... appear so when taken out of context, or simply represent differing perspectives on grammar, particularly when they involve 'glossing' some complex concepts for school purposes."

    "The Australian reported yesterday that respected linguistics professor Rodney Huddleston had called the guide published in the ETAQ journal Words'Worth the "worst published material on English grammar by a native speaker" he had seen.

    "In the guide, nouns were labelled as adjectives, verbs as adverbs and phrases as verbs.

    "Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford was unavailable for comment yesterday but federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said she "firmly believed" students needed to be taught and understand grammar.

    "Dr Ferguson said the articles were a "preliminary attempt to document the hybridisation of traditional, structural and functional grammars" and some examples were left in the wrong categories during editing.

    "She said traditional grammar included "some essential 'rules' that children need to know and use" but was insufficient and a combination of traditional, structural and functional grammars was best.

    "Over several decades of experience in developing and teaching English curriculum ... I have developed some deep understanding about what grammar works in classrooms," she said. "It is clear that a hybrid of functional grammar with aspects of structural and traditional grammars serve students best."

    From The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • 'Muslim backlash' if school rejected
    by Ashleigh Wilson
    
    "Australia's reputation will be at risk in Muslim countries if aplanned appeal against a council's rejection of an Islamic school on Sydney's southwestern fringe fails.

    "Islamic Friendship Association of Australia president Keysar Trad accused Camden council of acquiescing to a "vocal minority" by rejecting a planned development of an Islamic school.

    "Mr Trad told The Weekend Australian he did not believe the council's decision last month to reject the proposal was based solely on planning grounds, as it had stated.

    "We market this country for foreign students and send exports to many Muslim countries," Mr Trad said. "So how are you going to show these people we respect them if we won't even allow our own citizens to have a school for their children? I think it's already done damage, but people are waiting to see the appeal." ...
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Students have been disabled, confused by new orthodoxies
      Most Talked About: The Grammar Debate
      
      "Again, the con trick of functional grammar and critical literacy stands exposed in yesterday’s report on a Queensland teachers’ guide ("Grammar guide for English teachers ‘full of basic errors’’’, 13/6), comments by University of Queensland emeritus professor Rodney Huddleston and an opinion piece by Kevin Donnelly ("Class-based waffle’’, 13/6).
      
      "By contrast, ETAQ president Garry Collins and Lenore Ferguson, editor of the ETAQ’s journal Word’sWorth, both defend the indefensible. Collins falsely claims The Australian represents minority views on educational issues, despite evidence in the wider community that many people are no longer taught to write and speak English correctly, and Ferguson lamely dismisses Huddleston’s corrections concerning the facts of grammar as “a difference of opinion’’. Worse still, the ETAQ journal attempts to blind today’s teachers to Huddleston’s corrections of Ferguson’s work by marginalising their validity, contending the corrections are “his grammar’’ rather than standard grammar.

      "To suggest, as Collins did, that Ferguson’s grammar guide mistakes were “relatively minor’’ and that “these things occur in the best-regulated households’’ ignores the fact that 30 years ago a quality English syllabus, backed by a low-tech but rigorous system for proof-reading, guaranteed reputable Australian publications, including newspapers, were virtually free of errors in grammar and spelling. The functional grammar/critical literacy school of thought that largely commands our education system decries precise rules and guidelines in favour of its own new orthodoxies that have now confused and disabled at least two generations of Australians as users and guardians of quality English."
      
      B.A. Hines, Rockhampton, Qld
      
      

    • "It is deeply disappointing that the ETAQ has chosen to misrepresent Rodney Huddleston, contributor to the world-renowned and scholarly The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, as some sort of lone crank. In reality, CGEL’s descriptive approach is sensible, reflects modern usage and has a sound basis in mainstream linguistics. There is no ``difference of opinion’’ within linguistics over whether or not “won’t’’ is a verb - the ETAQ’s discredited and idiosyncratic positions are a disaster for progressive English educators who wish to equip students with usable grammar knowledge rather than arcane theories."
      
      Chris O’Regan, Everton Park, Qld
      
      
      
    • "Oh, for the 1940s and 50s when learning grammar was so easy. First, "won’t’’ is the conversational contraction of "will not’’ – part verb (will) and part adverb (not), so your esteemed experts are each half right. "A pair’’ used to be an indefinite article (determiner) and a noun, but in the phrase "a pair of shoes’’ its function is adjectival so in context the teachers’ guide may not have been wrong. "Have a peep’’ would once have been classed as a transitive verb (have) with its direct object (peep) which is always a noun or, dare I mention it, noun equivalent. "Wants to help’’ could simply have been a compound verb - finite verb (wants) compounded with the infinitive to help.

      "Certainly there are some egregious errors in the guide which Professor Huddleston is perfectly entitled to point out. However, some of his corrections would not stand the test of time, though they might be exculpated by his Cambridge Grammar of the English Language of which I know nothing. I stopped listening in the 1960s."
      
      Arthur Cooper, Alstonville, NSW
      
      

    • "Kevin Donnelly’s arguments against the use of functional grammar don’t stack up with my teaching experience. I have found functional grammar to be a powerful tool to help me understand how language is put together, which in turn helps me to teach students how to construct both meaningful and grammatically correct sentences. Whether one talks about verbs and nouns or processes and participants is such a minor consideration.

      "Although I agree that there is a need for teachers to be given the knowledge and understanding to teach grammar well, Donnelly’s overall argument is unhelpful and seems to be politically motivated rather than based on any fair consideration of the merits of using functional grammar in the classroom."
      
      John Nicholls, Ashfield, NSW
      
      

    • "As a mature-aged student in the late 1980s, I took a functional linguistics unit at my local university. I very much enjoyed the unit and the tools it offered. They enabled the reader to detect and expose subtext, subtle intent and indeed spin. These are useful skills in today’s world, tools that are not in themselves biased: indeed they can be applied to texts of any persuasion in order to detect bias.

      "But, and it’s a big but, I already had a good knowledge of conventional grammar from a literate family and from my schooling in the 1950s and 60s, a knowledge that was complemented and in no way undermined by the new tools. Functional linguistics, then, could be usefully taught at tertiary level, and perhaps introduced at senior high school, but only after students have a firm grip on conventional grammar.

      "Later on, when teaching at university, I was appalled at the illiteracy of many tertiary students: most of my comments on their essays were concerned with gently coaching them in writing skills. Given that these kids are the product of our current curriculum, Donnelly is right to complain."
      
      Grant Wignall, Fremantle, WA
      
      
      

• SSTUWA Media Statement
  
  
  • Counsel Appointed
    
    The State School Teachers’ Union of Western Australia has appointed prominent Senior Counsel Mordy Bromberg LLB, B.Ec to manage their negotiations for better pay and conditions in the WA Industrial Relations Commission.

    Bromberg is best known for his appearances in the High Court, Federal Court, the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in either first instance or appellate proceedings.

    He has appeared in many of the leading industrial law cases including major High Court litigation such MUA v Patricks; Gribbles Radiology and the High Court challenge to the Work Choices amendments to the Workplace Relations Act.

    Bromberg has a history of involvement in successful test cases in the Federal Court including the Finance Sector Union v Commonwealth Bank litigation, the Greater Dandenong litigation and Northeastern Healthcare.

    In the Trade Practices area he appeared for the successful appellant in O’Neill v Medical Benefits Fund case.

    He has had extensive experience with employment law litigation in the Supreme Court and judicial review proceedings in the Federal Court.

    Before 1993 such barristers were known as a QC or Queen's Counsel. In 1992, the New South Wales Government announced that no further appointments would be made. The Bar Association established its own equivalent rank of senior counsel (SC) who are appointed after an exhaustive process of consultation with members of the profession and the judiciary.
    
    
    

• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • Jumping Jack Carps, he's a gas-gas-gas
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    "Labor strategists see the gas crisis as the making of Premier Alan Carpenter.
    
    "Far from being viewed as a disaster, informed Labor sources said there was a strong belief his hands-on management of the situation would propel him and his Government to election victory later this year.
    
    "Energy Minister Fran Logan has been sidelined so the Premier can take centre stage as Mr Fix-it.
    
    "Sources said October was the likely date for an election, with Mr Carpenter set to announce the date in the first fortnight of September -- as long as the gas crisis was over.
    
    "A country parliamentary sitting in the marginal seat of Bunbury on September 9 had been pencilled in as the best date to announce the election, with the poll to be held after the AFL Grand Final..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Early poll a fresh start for politicians
    
    "The WA Government can call an election as late as February next year. The Sunday Times believes it should call a poll as soon as practicable.

    "In the past weeks and months we have seen the very worst aspects of many of our politicans."Scandal, infighting and sniping have all dominated our political parties. This has distracted the Labor Party from its real job of governing and the Opposition from effectively holding Labor accountable.

    "The Liberal Party in WA has become a national focus of derision. It is failing dismally as a creditable alternative government and has been unable to place under any real scrutiny a Government that is ripe for examination.

    "Calling an election sooner rather than later will be no panacea to the ills of our political parties. But it will go a considerable way to forcing the Government and Opposition to cease their infighting and instead start fighting for the interests of the WA voting public..."
    
    Full Editorial in The Sunday Times at link
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor (page 85)
    

    • Bring back cane
      
      “If the chaos at Kwinana’s Gilmore College (“200 suspended at one school”, TST, June 8) is only a snapshot of a much bigger problem, as reported by State School Teacher’s Union president Anne Gisborne, then all the patch-ups tried so far have been useless.
      
      “It seems that people in high places and decision-makers are a bunch of dumb nincompoops. The only proven solution for wayward behaviour (be it children or seasoned criminals) is fear of punishment.
      
      “We can beat around the bush until the cows come home, but unless corporal punishment makes a return, society will continue to drown in the mire we have allowed to engulf us.”
      
      Mario Rapanaro, Dianella
      
      
      

• The Age
  
  
  • TAFE places to become unlimited for 'upskillers'
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Victorians would gain unprecedented access to TAFE, with anyone graduating from high school or seeking to boost existing qualifications to be guaranteed a place under a State Government shake-up.

    "Paving the way for the biggest overhaul of the training system in years, Skills Minister Jacinta Allan is preparing to unveil a new "demand driven" funding model that the Government forecasts will result in more than 200,000 Victorians taking up training over the next five years.

    "The plan is part of a set of reforms designed to tackle the state's skills crisis by encouraging more people to obtain higher qualifications.

    "At present, TAFE places depend on government funding at an institution; if prospective students are unable to get a publicly funded place, they pay full fees or miss out.

    "But under the new model, the Government will, for the first time, create a new "eligibility criteria" and fund as many places as there is demand.

    "This means that any school leaver who wants to enter TAFE and can meet the relevant course requirements will be guaranteed a place, as will anybody who already has a certificate or diploma but wants to "upskill" to a higher qualification..."

    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • The Fate of The Sentence: Is the Writing On the Wall?
    by Linton Weeks
    
    "The demise of orderly writing: signs everywhere.

    "One recent report, young Americans don't write well.

    "In a survey, Internet language -- abbreviated wds, :) and txt msging -- seeping into academic writing.

    "But above all, what really scares a lot of scholars: the impending death of the English sentence.

    "Librarian of Congress James Billington, for one. "I see creeping inarticulateness," he says, and the demise of the basic component of human communication: the sentence.

    "This assault on the lowly -- and mighty -- sentence, he says, is symptomatic of a disease potentially fatal to civilization. If the sentence croaks, so will critical thought. The chronicling of history. Storytelling itself.

    "He has a point. The sentence itself is a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Something happens in a sentence. Without subjects, there are no heroes or villains. Without verbs, there is no action. Without objects, nothing is moved, changed, destroyed or created.

    "Plus, simple sentences clarify complex situations. ("Jesus wept.")..."

    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
  • More Schools Trying Separation of the Sexes
    
    With encouragement from the federal government, single-sex classes that have long been a hallmark of private schools are multiplying in public schools in the Washington area and elsewhere. By next fall, about 500 public schools nationwide will offer single-sex classes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, based in Montgomery County. That's up from a handful a decade ago. The approach is especially attractive to some struggling schools in the market for low-cost reform.
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Democrats Offer Plans to Revamp Schools Law
    by Sam Dillon
    
    "Democrats are dividing into camps as they debate a new course for education policy after President Bush leaves office.

    "On Wednesday, a group of a dozen prominent educators and lawmakers, led by Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein of New York and the Rev. Al Sharpton, said the United States’ public schools shortchanged poor black and Latino children in a way that was “shameful,” and urged Washington to squeeze teachers and administrators harder to raise achievement among minorities. [emphasis added]

    "On Tuesday, about 60 prominent educators and academics issued another manifesto, which criticized the federal No Child Left Behind law and argued that schools alone could not close a racial achievement gap rooted in economic inequality. They urged a new emphasis on health clinics and other antipoverty programs that could help poor students arrive at school ready to learn.

    "The groups issuing the statements were composed overwhelmingly of Democrats.

    "Mr. Klein and Mr. Sharpton’s statement argued that federal policy should continue to hold schools accountable for raising the achievement of poor African-American and Latino youths, which is a focus of the federal law, but should also seek to assign more effective teachers to the nation’s neediest classrooms. This is an area where the statement said the law had been weak..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link
    
    
    

• The Independent
  
  
  • State schools consider return to 'O-levels'
    
    A new rival to the GCSE exam designed along the lines of the traditional O-level may soon win backing from exam watchdogs and be taken up by hundreds of state schools.
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Book list for boys shuns classics
    
    Fathers are being urged to read books featuring pirates and aliens to their sons to improve their reading, instead of traditional children's classics.

    A list of 200 books deemed suitable for boys, and produced for ministers, does not feature traditional authors like Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl.

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

This page last updated 11 August, 2008 11:49 PM