Monday 22 September

Tuesday 23 September

Wednesday 24 September

Thursday 25 September

Friday 26 September

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 September

Monday 22 September

• The West Australian
  

  • English teachers ‘ignored’ on OBE (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “The beleaguered Curriculum Council is facing another battle between warring English teachers over claims that it is failing to implement changes to the Year 11 and 12 English courses demanded by teachers last year.
    
    “Panels of so-called “teacher juries” were set up by the Carpenter Government last year to review problems in outcomes-based education courses.
    
    “The English teacher jury said the OBE English exam Year 12s sat for the first time last year required changes.  But some of those recommendations have not been put in place for next year, prompting teachers to claim they have been betrayed.
    
    “The results of a survey of English teachers, which the Curriculum Council released last week, have revealed that nearly 40 per cent of the 1025 teachers who responded believed that some jury recommendations had been ignored.  More than 31 per cent said the nature of the exam questions was inappropriate.
    
    “The jury was concerned that students were able to do the TEE English paper without reference to books or films they had studied during the year.  It said the revised course, to be implemented next year, must have more explicit content.
    
    “It also recommended that students should not have to write about still images seen for the first time in the viewing section of the exam.  Instead, they should refer to “non-print texts”  such as films studied during the year.
    
    “But new sample exams designed to give teachers an idea what to expect next year include questions about previously unseen still images and an option to write creatively.
    
    “The Curriculum Council set up a reference group to oversee changes to the English course in line with the jury recommendations.  While the reference group included about 10 jury members, it also included a core of people who worked on the original OBE course.
    
    “One member of the reference group said that the powerful core had caused the impasse by continuing to dismiss the wishes of the jury.
    
    “Clearly, the jury recommendations have not been honoured,” he sais.  “There is a very good (exam) paper that satisfies all the jury submissions that is ready to go but the powerbrokers on the reference group are much happier with the hybrid model.”
    
    “Caught in the crossfire is Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood, who said he was trying to find middle ground between the factions.
    
    “Asked whether he would consider disbanding the reference group if it failed to implement all jury recommendations, he said:  “I need to continue to work with the reference group to get an outcome that will satisfy the vast majority of teachers.”
    
    “Mr Wood said the survey showed that about a third of English  teachers believed the council could do better.
    
    “And I agree,” he said.  “Many responses reiterated the need to adopt jury recommendations relating to the use of still images and ensuring that questions related to texts students have studied.
    
    “My role is to find a middle position that satisfies the English teacher jury requirements and also allows the more contemporary approaches.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Teachers win pay rise
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Teachers in Victorian Catholic schools will be among the highest paid in the country under a new wage deal that will give them pay parity with their state school peers.
    
    "The agreement, to be announced today, will give the teachers their first pay rise in two years.
    
    "It will mean graduate teachers will start on $51,184, an extra $6000 a year. Teachers at the top of the scale will get a $10,000 pay rise, taking their annual salary to $75,500, while principals' annual salaries will range between $84,839 and $126,928 — an increase of up to 37%. The three-year deal will be backdated to May.
    
    "Victorian Independent Education Union general secretary Deb James said the wage deal would help recruit graduates and offer incentives for experienced teachers to work in the Catholic school system.
    
    "Under the agreement, maternity leave has been extended from nine weeks to 14."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Parents push for increased Catholic school funds
    by David Rood
    
    "Catholic school parents have begun campaigning to force the Brumby Government to dramatically increase taxpayer funding for their schools.
    
    "Almost 50,000 parents have signed a petition accusing the Government of discriminating against families who chose a Catholic education for their children..."
    
    "The campaign, organised by the Victorian Association of Catholic Primary School Principals, is calling on the Brumby Government to guarantee funding at 25% of the average cost of educating a child in the state school system.
    
    

    "With 184,000 Victorian students studying in the Catholic system, school funding is shaping as a key political battleground between the Coalition and the Brumby Government.
    
    "In June, the Coalition promised a future Liberal-National government would fund Catholic schools at one quarter the cost of educating a child in the government system..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Hook 'em on history
      
      "RE "Changes ahead for history" (The Age, 20/9), back in the '80s I engaged a sweet group of the least academic kids in Footscray in a study of the 1930s Great Depression. Delivered largely through discussion with sparse reference to text and absolutely no dull comprehension tasks, it maintained their enthusiasm for a term. But the bit that really demanded their focus was testing the question of whether the Depression had led to increased residents per house against figures held in the Laverton Archives.
      
      "After weeks of laboriously hand-copying those ancient longhand notes for a number of streets over a period of years, and subsequent analysis of the data, we discovered one of those delightful results that punctuate the study of any history - nothing could be concluded.
      
      "Did the kids think it was a waste of time? They thought it was one of the wildest experiences of their educational lives."
      
      Ken Taylor, West Brunswick
      
      
      
      
• ABC News
  
  
  • Time for Govt to end teacher dispute: CLP
    
    "The Territory Opposition Leader Terry Mills is calling on Labor to hurry up and resolve its pay dispute with teachers.
    
    "The Industrial Relations Commission has ruled in favour of the Territory Government and suspended the Education Union from taking protected strike action until November 20.
    
    "Mr Mills says while it's good news teachers won't be striking this week, he's concerned about the impact of the decision.
    
    "If they don't get this sorted out by the end of the year, I shudder to think what next year will bring in terms of education.
    
    "You can't have quality education without a valued teaching profession and the way this Government, particularly the Chief Minister and the Minister for Education, have dealt with the teachers is appalling."
    
    "Mr Mills says the failure to reach a pay agreement is not good for recruitment.
    
    "There are teachers around the country who would be considering where they might like to teach next year.
    
    "The way this matter has been handled in the Territory by this Labor Government is going to make the Territory a very hard place to recruit teachers to.
    
    "It is time for real leadership from Government."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Secular schools of thought tainted
    by Jane Caro
    
    "Imagine if Bob Hawke, our only openly atheist prime minister, had allocated $165 million for religious schools to have an atheist, agnostic or humanist counsellor, philosopher or ethicist to help them teach values and improve their pastoral care.
    
    "Or if publicly funded (and they all are) religious schools were compelled to provide two hours a week of atheist, agnostic or humanist instruction to their students. Parents could withdraw their children from such classes, but no other instruction could be offered to those students during those two hours. Excluded children would be banished to endless repeats of videos in the hall.
    
    "What would be the reaction if the reason given for the refusal to offer alternative instruction during the humanist two hours was that it was unfair competition because something more varied, academic or entertaining could encourage students to withdraw? If they wouldn't voluntarily listen to atheist philosophy, the argument went, they would just have to be bored.
    
    "What if programs offered in some religious schools - programs claiming to teach merely grooming, good manners and social skills - turned out to be run by atheist feminist and gay rights advocates whose motivation was to convert students to their secular ideals. How would society react?
    
    "There would be a hysterical outcry. Such a scandal could fell a government, or at least a minister, and no doubt many headmasters would lose their jobs. There would certainly be much outraged pontificating on the insidious nature of such proselytising on innocent and unsuspecting young people.
    
    "Yet this is precisely what is going on in our secular public schools. The only difference is it is not atheists, feminists or gay rights advocates who are seeking converts. It is, instead, those with a Christian agenda who are determined to insinuate their dogma into schools that are forbidden to privilege one brand of religion over another..."
    
    "If religious instruction is to be offered, it must be voluntary, parents must be told what it will preach and who will preach it (and who is paying for it), and it must not prevent students who opt out from doing something constructive. No one in authority, no matter what their own beliefs, should ever sanction - or even just turn a blind eye to - conversion by stealth."
    
    Jane Caro is the co-author of The Stupid Country: How Australia Is Dismantling Public Education.
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Australian literature alive and well in our schools
      
      "I spent Friday evening reading the young Australian author Nam Le's new short story collection. I taught one of the stories, previously published in an Australian literary journal, to senior students this year, and had been looking forward to reading Le's new work. Contemplating my weekend, I was also conscious of the need to mark exam papers for a course in which I had set Australian writers such as Henry Lawson and Les Murray, and to continue planning for next term, when I will teach a book by Drusilla Modjeska.
      
      "Imagine my surprise, then, to wake up on Saturday morning and find that I am the elected president of a professional association that opposes the teaching of Australian literature ("English teachers have lost the plot", September 20-21). Miranda Devine's claim that the English Teachers Association opposes plans to "ensure students read more Australian books, plays and poems" misrepresents the association's response to the Board of Studies.
      
      "The association's response makes a number of suggestions as to how the study of Australian literature can be extended to all year 11 students, not just the most able students who opt to study English extension. How could anyone truly concerned with the future of Australian literature not see the greater reach of the association's proposal as a reasonable position?"

      Mark Howie, President, English Teachers Association NSW, Leichhardt
      
      

    • "To support her opinion that the English Teachers Association opposes the Board of Studies' plan to ensure students read more Australian literature, Miranda Devine reports the views of the author Sophie Masson and the commentator Kevin Donnelly. Masson cites Arthur Miller's play The Crucible while Donnelly recalls his classroom success with the novel Shane. These are both very worthwhile works that I have taught myself but, since they are both American, their selection as examples seems to support the notion that there should be a sensible balance in the range of texts that are studied in schools."

      Garry Collins, Stafford Heights (Qld)
      
      

    • "Hear, hear, Miranda Devine. I was not taught grammar at school, being at the beginning of the movement that culminated in the it-doesn't-matter-how-you-write-as-long-as-it-can-be-understood philosophy of teaching. Now we have a generation or two of teachers who have been taught by those lazy ancestors. My far-seeing mother put Biggles under my nose as a boy. Captain W.E. Johns wrote rollicking yarns in good English, perfect for kindling a desire to read, and therefore to learn. Teaching myself grammar has been fun, but swimming against the tide of ignorance is not. Oh, and Biggles didn't turn me into a male chauvinist righting the wrongs of the world. Or maybe he did."

      Andrew Scott, Pymble
      
      

    • "There is no doubt that as an author and parent of past HSC students Sophie Masson offers an important perspective on English teaching in NSW. But claiming that English teachers are driven by a "subconscious hate and envy of writers" is as absurd as saying they are motivated by the salary, elite social status and tax breaks afforded by their choice of profession. The teachers I know are compelled to teach by their passion for a broadly defined English literature and their desire to make a difference to the lives of young people and their communities. How I wish Miranda Devine had spoken to some of them."

      Tony Britten, Croydon
      
      

    • "Miranda Devine's exposé on the decline in the quality of English studies is too little too late. Some 30 years ago I had a similar complaint in the papers I was marking for the HSC. I voiced it and was roundly condemned for not embracing the "new literacy". This "literacy" now means that students often find it hard to express themselves without the aid of "You know … well, uh, you know" and increasingly have real difficulty learning a foreign language because they don't have any grammatical knowledge of their own. The new literacy, it seems to me, is leading us to the past, where the few were literate and those few held power, for so long, over so many."

      Nina Webb, Lewisham
      
      
      

• BBC News
  
  
  • Pupils given break from homework
    
    "A top school has radically cut the amount of homework it sets, saying too much will put pupils off learning.
    
    "Tiffin boys' school, in Kingston, south west London, has limited homework to 40 minutes per night, saying pupils should have more time for their own interests.
    
    "Head teacher Sean Heslop said boys had been doing up to four hours a night, and that what had been set was often "mechanistic" and "repetitive"...
    
    Full story at BBC News at link
    
    
    
  • Pupils to trial 'virtual teacher'
    
    A new out-of-hours service that allows pupils to receive homework tips from "virtual teachers" is being piloted in Clackmannanshire.
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Teachers urged to 'take risks' inspires pupils
    by Richard Garner
    
    "Britain's teachers should go back to taking risks in the classroom to inspire a love of learning among their pupils, the leader of the country's preparatory schools will say today.
    
    "Diana Watkins, incoming chairman of the 600-strong Independent Association of Prep Schools, will use the association's annual conference in Liverpool to call for an end to the "tick-box culture" under which teachers currently work. "You can't just open up children's heads and tip information in," said Mrs Watkins, the headmistress of Leaden Hall School in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
    
    "She added that the present structure was "dampening down" inspirational teaching. "Anybody who is being judged as a result of their test results is going to start making the best job they can out of it – teaching to the test," she said. In addition, she said, teacher-training courses prepared students for a more regimented environment.
    
    "Mrs Watkins recalled her own English teacher, who insisted formal lessons stopped at 2.30pm every day so she could read books and poems to her pupils. "She inspired in me a love of language when I was only 10," she said.
    
    "Mrs Watkins believes greater autonomy is needed to bring back "passion, enthusiasm and individualism" into teaching. "It is ironic that we encourage our children to question the world in which they live and to have inquiring minds, [but] we are not empowering teachers to do the same," she will tell the conference."
    
    From The Independent at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses
    by Patricia Cohen
    
    COLORADO SPRINGS — "Acknowledging that 20 years and millions of dollars spent loudly and bitterly attacking the liberal leanings of American campuses have failed to make much of a dent in the way undergraduates are educated, some conservatives have decided to try a new strategy.
    
    "They are finding like-minded tenured professors and helping them establish academic beachheads for their ideas.
    
    "These initiatives, like the Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions at the University of Texas, Austin, or a project at the University of Colorado here in Colorado Springs, to publish a book of classic texts, are mostly financed by conservative organizations and donors, run by conservative professors. But they have a decidedly nonpartisan and nonideological face.
    
    "Their goal is to restore what conservative and other critics see as leading casualties of the campus culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s: the teaching of Western culture and a triumphal interpretation of American history.
    
    “These are not ideological courses,” said James Piereson, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, which created the Veritas Fund for Higher Education to funnel donations to these sorts of projects. The initiatives are only political insofar as they “work against the thrust of programs and courses in gender, race and class studies, and postmodernism in general,” he said.
    
    "The programs and centers differ in emphasis, with some concentrating on American democratic and capitalist institutions and others on the Western canon, the great books often derided during the culture wars as the history of “dead white men.” They sponsor colloquia, seminars, courses, visiting lecturers and postdoctoral students. At Brown, the Political Theory Project even put on a play by the capitalist heroine Ayn Rand.
    
    "Some, like the effort in Colorado Springs and the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia focus solely on exposing freshmen to classical thinkers. Others favor a return to a more traditional teaching of America’s past, featuring its greatest accomplishments instead of the history of repression and exploitation that had been the trend.
    
    "And this week, Cornell is negotiating the final details of a $50,000 grant from Veritas that will be used to create a Program on Freedom and Free Societies..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link

Tuesday 23 September

• SSTUWA
  
  
  • EBA 2008 Update 75: New Government & Negotiations Campaigns
    
    1. New Government & Negotiations
    
    The Union will be in discussions with the new Minister for Education Ms Liz Constable during this coming week. Forefront in discussions will be the $ 120m additional promised in salary in the pre-election period. As well, workload for administrators and teachers, primary DOTT, class sizes, student behavior, inclusion and allowances will be raised.
    
    The new Liberal/National Government has indicated an interest in resolving this dispute outside of arbitration. The Union will be working hard to get an Agreement for a vote by the members.
    
    2. Arbitration
    
    Until it is clear that an agreed negotiated position can be reached with the Minister and Government, the Union remains fully engaged in preparations for arbitration.
    
    Executive are working under advice from our legal team to complete the SSTU Enterprise Order. A conference is scheduled in the WAIRC Monday 22 September to set down dates for arbitration.
    
    3. Campaigning
    
    The work of members in campaigning prior to and during the recent State Election must be acknowledged. Our campaigning forced the Liberals to offer an additional $ 120m towards salaries as well as other commitments.
    
    TERM 3: The Campaign is not complete until a satisfactory resolution has been reached and approved by you the members. A series of cluster meetings are to be held this week to provide an update on the Campaign.
    
    TERM 4: Further meetings will be scheduled in early Term 4. As well, advice on the ongoing Campaign, including MP lobbying, will come to Union Reps in the Term 4 mail out.
    
    DIRECTIVE 1 is still in place.
    
    From SSTUWA at link
    
    
    
    
• Christopher Pyne is the new Federal shadow minister for education.
  
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    
    Team Turnbull has its work cut out
    
    
    Opposition front bench shows promise and ambition
    
    Mr Turnbull's meritocratic principles are reflected in the promotions of Peter Dutton to health and Christopher Pyne to education. Mr Pyne has an enormous challenge against Julia Gillard in an area where the Government has made bold policy promises.
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • NT teachers protest against strike ban
    
    "Teachers have protested on the steps of Parliament House in Darwin, against the Industrial Relations Commission's (IRC) decision to stop this week's planned strike.
    
    "Northern Territory teachers have refused the Government's latest offer of a 12 per cent pay rise over three years.
    
    "They had been planning to strike for three days this week but the commission suspended any action until November 20.
    
    "Nadine Williams from the Education Union says teachers are angry.
    
    "The problem we have as a union is that we have tried every possible means to make that the clearest message we can, both to the Minister for Education and our negotiators," she said.
    
    "We have not been successful, we care about the conditions that our students are learning in because they're our working conditions, they are the same thing."
    
    "Ms Williams says there will be an appeal to the full bench of the IRC.
    
    "We're seeking proper legal advice and seeking to know that the grounds of an appeal will be firm and at this stage that looks like going ahead," she said.
    
    "Education Minister Marion Scrymgour did not attend today's rally but the Government says is trying to organise a meeting between the union and the Public Employment Commission for later this week."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Greens focus on education
    
    The ACT Greens have launched their education policy for next month's election saying that school resources should not be wasted on trying to reduce class sizes.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Labor MP hits TAFE fee rise
    by David Rood
    
    "A state Labor MP has slammed the State Government's overhaul of the TAFE system, saying fee increases will discriminate against poor and socially disadvantaged students.
    
    "She said it will fail to fix key areas of skills shortage.
    
    "In a leaked letter to Skills Minister Jacinta Allan, outspoken backbencher Tammy Lobato issued a personal plea that the Government she is a member of abandon its skills package.
    
    "Ms Lobato argued that higher fees in many courses and HECS-style loans for students will act as a barrier to the most disadvantaged people, particularly women, studying at TAFE.
    
    "To implement such discriminatory measures would lead to TAFEs becoming unviable and would create a massive gap in public education," the Gembrook MP stated.
    
    "Ms Lobato said the areas of welfare, disability and aged care would be worst affected.
    
    "Last month, the Brumby Government launched a $314 million revamp of the TAFE and training sector that will have university-style loans and increased fees in some courses as well as 900 new TAFE teachers, and competition with private institutions for state funding.
    
    "But Ms Lobato said the skills changes would transfer the responsibility to provide education from the Government, allowing private training organisations to provide TAFE courses.
    
    "This would ultimately result in the closure of our TAFE sector," she wrote..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Sats put primary pupils off science, says study
    
    Children's interest in science and their understanding of it are being crushed by the compulsory tests they sit at primary school, leading professors argue today.
    
    Similar story on BBC News
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Secular world still needs to ask the big questions
      
      "It is not clear how Jane Caro understands secularism in education ("Secular schools of thought tainted", September 22). She suggests that secularism has some content, for she is confident that a secular identity and its (unnamed) values need no help from the religious. Yet she also implies that secularism has no content, for she wants secular schools to respect all beliefs and none, without taking sides.
      
      "I suspect that behind her thinking is the disputed "subtraction" theory of secularisation - that when we strip away the accretions of religion, what is left is a genuine humanity and the unvarnished truth. As Charles Taylor and others have shown, this view of secularisation is inaccurate.
      
      "A secular world view does away with some religious beliefs and practices, but it also proposes its own articles of faith - above all faith in a self-sufficient humanism that confines the human spirit to this life alone.
      
      "Secular schools, like a secular society, should be marked by open-mindedness, mutual respect and soul searching, in the deepest sense. However, secularism becomes destructive when it closes off, or refuses to ask, the many ultimate questions that will not go away.
      
      "Our local public school provides an impressive and highly sought-after education. Many parents there want their children to receive some basic religious education. This is their tax-paying right. The school's teachers cannot be expected to provide this, so for 30 minutes a week volunteers from our parish teach the children whose parents so choose. There is no proselytising.
      
      "Perhaps something useful should be offered to parents who do not want their children to be introduced to a religious tradition. However, courses in so-called secular ethics and values are more intellectually problematic than their advocates realise. And volunteer teachers may be hard to find."
      
      Father Gerald Gleeson, Summer Hill
      
      
      
    • The gospel truth on scripture at schools
      
      "The curriculum I use as a scripture teacher at my children's primary school is the same as that used by all scripture teachers in my town. Contrary to Jane Caro's views ("Secular schools of thought tainted", September 22), there is no "sleight of hand". The material is available to anyone who asks for it and is paid for by contributions from all the local churches.

      "In contrast, when my child undertook an extension course in philosophy, there was no written curriculum and no lesson plan available. I was told if I wanted to know what was being taught I would have to come and observe the class. The only "bending of the truth" is Caro's misrepresentation."
      
      Roslyn Deal, Wingham
      
      

    • "Jane Caro articulates what so many of us would like to say, but we are drowned out by the deafening roar of religious zealotry. Upon questioning the scripture classes virtually forced upon my five-year-old daughter, I was met with blank faces, and the Orwellian claim that none of it "would do her any harm". This sickening sense of entitlement by Christians to pastoral care must be quashed in favour of state-sponsored philosophy and ethics classes. It is time we taught our children how to think, not what to think."
      
      Dan Gocher. Petersham
      
      

    • I agree that religious education should never convert by stealth or bend the truth. But how can Jane Caro advocate respecting the attitudes, beliefs and opinions of all when she sees religion as an "invasion" and "unequivocally unwelcome"? Sounds like a case of religious intolerance of the worst kind - banning all views but her own.
      
      Mike Doyle, Darlington

Wednesday 24 September

• ABC News
  
  
  • OBE is dead, long live content: PLATO
    
    "A group lobbying against outcomes-based education in Western Australia has welcomed signs a national curriculum will be content-based.
    
    "The head of the National Curriculum Board (NCB) Barry McGaw is in Perth this week to meet local teachers and to discuss the NCB's progress on a proposed national curriculum for maths, science, English and history, to be introduced after 2010.
    
    "Mr McGaw says the new curriculum will move away from the outcomes-based approach to focus on content.
    
    "The news has been welcomed by Marko Vojkavic from the lobby group PLATO.
    
    "It's good to hear that finally we've come to our senses and to try and remove content from maths and sciences and history is just ridiculous," he said.
    
    "I'm glad to hear that they're finally moving away from the outcomes-based approach.
    
    "I think the death knell sounded for OBE about three or four years ago. It's just taking a long time to finally die, But definitely if Mr McGaw is good on his word then it's obviously the end of OBE as we know it."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Teachers' dispute major disruption: Barnett
    
    "The Premier, Colin Barnett says he is committed to brokering an end to the teachers' pay dispute.
    
    "Mr Barnett and the Education Minister, Liz Constable, will meet representatives from the Education Department today.
    
    "Mr Barnett says he remains committed to his election pledge of a further $120 million on top of the 15 to 21 per cent pay increase offered by the Carpenter Government.
    
    "He says the dispute has been very disruptive and should be finalised as quickly as possible.
    
    "I will be meeting along with Liz Constable, the new Education Minister, we'll be meeting with the Director General of Education today," he said.
    
    "We are very keen to bring that to an end, as I think teachers are, they really want to get back to the job of teaching and it's been a major disruption to our Government school system."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • [WA] Union seeking urgent meeting on teacher pay offer
    
    "The State School Teachers' Union wants an urgent meeting with the Education Minister, Liz Constable, to discuss a pay deal.
    
    "Ms Constable and the Premier, Colin Barnett, are meeting representatives from the Education Department this afternoon.
    
    "Mr Barnett says he remains committed to his election pledge of a further $120 million on top of the 15 to 21 per cent pay increase offered by the previous government.
    
    "The President of the State School Teachers' Union, Anne Gisborne, says any offer the Government makes will need to be put to members before being accepted.
    
    "I think that in the context of further discussions with negotiations and also having an opportunity to take back a further proposal to our members we would be looking something around the vicinity of six weeks if we could bed something down in the next couple of days," she said.
    
    "Ms Gisborne says while the signs are encouraging, the new Premier will need to ensure a new pay deal also includes improved working conditions for teachers.
    
    "Behaviour management, class sizes, primary DOTT (Duties other than teaching), the issue of workload for administrators, so there are matters," she said.
    
    "The proposition that was voted on was salary and conditions. There has been a significant rejection and it is the expectation that there will be other matters that will be addressed a further proposition that would go to members."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • [NT] Teachers pull out of pay negotiations
    
    The Education Union is refusing to take part in negotiations to resolve the teacher's pay dispute while a ban on strike action is in place.
    
    
    
  • [NSW] Teachers fear 'cost-cutting' HSC plans
    
    Teachers say they have not been given enough time to consider proposed changes to the Higher School Certificate that they fear could affect its world-class standard.
    
    
    
  • Fed Govt urged to rethink schools' funding model
    
    "Teachers, principals and parents are calling on the Federal Government to ensure public schools will be adequately funded.
    
    "New legislation will be introduced into parliament today maintaining the Howard Government's funding model which includes a four-year funding agreement for private schools.
    
    "A new bill for public school funding is expected to be introduced at a later date.
    
    "Angelo Gavrielatos from the Australian Education Union says it is regrettable that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is continuing the previous policy as Government reports suggest public schools are underfunded by nearly $3 billion a year.
    
    "He said during the election campaign that he recognises the Commonwealth has a prime obligation to properly and adequately fund our public schools," he said.
    
    "Well it's time for some serious announcements to be made with some serious additional funding for public schools."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Alarm at TEE English changes (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "With just weeks to go before Year 12 students sit their final exams, the Curriculum Council has made change to the wording of the TEE English paper, sparking warnings that some students will be put at a disadvantage.
    
    "In letters sent to all English heads of department on September 9, council chief executive David Wood advised of changes to the wording of general instructions in all three exam sections; reading, writing and viewing.
    
    "The most significant change was in the reading section, in which students will be asked to write about two passages they have not seen before.
    
    "An instruction to students "you may refer to the other passage and/or other texts you have read" would now say: "In your response you must make reference to one of the print texts you have studied during the year".
    
    "The modifications were designed to offer students more choice, to encourage them to use texts they had studied during the year and to reinforce the requirements of the syllabus, Mr Wood said in the letter.
    
    "But a head of English are a big Catholic school said it was far too late to be changing the English exam. "They're making changes no with less than seven weeks to go until the kids sit for their exam," she said.
    
    "I'm sick and tired, as a head of department, of receiving information that is late and without consultation and that I need to then communicate to parents and students."
    
    "The teacher said the changes meant students were being forced to make intertextual links between a text they had studied in class and passages read for the first time in the exam. Students who had not been trained to make those links would be disadvantaged.
    
    "The wording on mock TEE exams, which many students have sat or will sit in the next few weeks, would be different from what they would see in the final exams, the teacher said.
    
    "An English teacher at a State school said even though he agreed with the change, it was far too late in the year.
    
    "Making it compulsory is a significant change to the whole tenor of the exam," he said.
    
    "But a department head at a public country school said most teachers would have taught students to also refer to texts they had studied in class.
    
    "A private school teacher agreed, saying the changes simply provided clarification.
    
    "English Teachers Association president Wendy Cody said the change removed any ambiguity and she had received no complaints.
    
    "The English course was one of the first outcomes-based education courses to start in senior school.
    
    "Some teachers attacked last year's exam saying students could do the paper without reference to books or films they had studied during the year.
    
    "Mr Wood could not be contacted for comment."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Sharp rise in alleged crimes of school staff (page 19)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The number of State school staff investigated for crimes and misconduct including stealing, fraud and manhandling students has doubled since 2005, with more than 340 under scrutiny last year.
    
    "The sharp increase, which came after the Education Department's former complaints management unit was beefed up in response to a damning Corruption and Crime Commission report saw 343 school-based staff, including teachers, principals, psychologists and education assistants, investigated in 2007-08, up from 163 three years earlier.
    
    "The unit was rebadged as the standards and integrity directorate in early 2007 and full-time staff numbers rose from seven to 32 after the CCC inquiry found the department's handling of sexual misconduct cases was inadequate.
    
    "The department's professional standards and conduct executive director Paul O'Connor said investigation of alleged misconduct included stealing, fraud, inappropriate verbal comments, accessing inappropriate websites and allegations of physical contact. Any allegations of suspected criminal behaviour were reported to police.
    
    "He said the sharp rise was not surprising because the new directorate staff had been advised to report all misconduct.
    
    "We are actively promoting our role to employees to help build the department's culture of professionalism and ethical responsibility," he said.
    
    "Mr O'Connor said 22 teachers, still on full pay, had been removed from schools due to disciplinary matters.
    
    "Meanwhile, the WA College of Teachers said it had deregistered five teachers this year after they were convicted of sexual offences involving children. Another six are still under investigation.
    
    "Just two days ago, a female teacher who had an affair with a 14-year old boy at a South-West school pleaded guilty in the District Court to four counts of sexually penetrating a child. She is due to be sentenced next week.
    
    "WACOT, with more than 43,000 members in State, Catholic and independent schools, said it had received 33 notifications from police or the DPP of criminal charges in the year to March 31.
    
    "But WACOT director Suzanne Parry said the total number of teachers facing criminal charges may not be as high as 33 because of duplication of notices.
    
    "She said the college monitored the progress of teachers charged with sexual offences through the courts.
    
    "Alleged sexual assaults vary from inappropriate touching of a student to alleged sexual relationships," she said.
    
    "Teachers cannot work in WA schools unless they belong to WACOT.
    
    "Dr Parry said none of those still under investigation for sexual offences were teaching in classrooms."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Teachers angry at HSC plans
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Plans to streamline Higher School Certificate papers and external marking will cut costs and threatens to downgrade courses, teachers have said.
    
    "The NSW Board of Studies has invited teachers to take part in a public consultation that will run through the busy HSC exam period until October 17, to discuss proposals to restructure the HSC exams.
    
    "Teachers fear the quality of subjects including English, visual arts and society and culture, which include a practical component, is under threat of being downgraded.
    
    "The Board of Studies has proposed abolishing costly external marking of the society and culture research project, which is worth 30 per cent of the HSC exam mark. Under the board's proposals, written examinations would make up the total external mark and the project would be marked internally as part of the school assessment..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
  • School didn't assess pupils' swimming ability, inquest told
    
    A schoolgirl drowned on an excursion after her school failed to properly assess students' ability to swim, a court has been told.
    
    
    
  • The green, green grass of school
    
    Students can't help but be impressed when their concrete playground turns into a grassy field, writes Kerry Coleman.
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • No condemnation
      
      "At no stage have I said that English teachers demonstrated a "hatred or envy of writers" (Letters, September 22).
      
      "The 2005 article I wrote in which that quote appears refers not to a teacher or teachers in general, but to the framers of the question that asked students to compare The Crucible to an ad for a gym. It came directly from a textbook intended for English HSC studies.
      
      "Far from condemning English teachers I feel sorry for them, having to force literature through this kind of philistine framework."
      
      Sophie Masson, Invergowrie
      
      
      
    • Separation just a part of religious instructions
      
      "I have taught special religious education in four primary schools and I agree with Jane Caro that "religious instruction is often seen as a good thing no matter how deceptively divisive or judgmental it may be" ("Secular schools of thought tainted", September 22).
      
      "In fact, division is structured into the system. The brief period of religious instruction is the only time in the school day when children are segregated, for the purpose of delivering to them separate, specialised religious doctrines.
      
      "The lesson that religion is something we can't agree on is implicit in the system. As such it surely works against the desired outcome of preparing children to live harmoniously in a multifaith society. Religious education can achieve few positive educational outcomes, and at worst it risks sowing seeds of religious intolerance."
      
      Jan Lovell, Neutral Bay
      
      
      
    • "Jane Caro would have a more powerful argument if she addressed scripture classes as an unnecessary imposition on precious learning time.
      
      "In my experience religious education classes are often poorly presented, sometimes chaotic and generally disruptive of school organisation. One would have to wonder at the benefits of such a use of prime learning time."
      
      Barry Schwarzer, Turner (ACT)
      
      
      
    • "Father Gerald Gleeson (Letters, September 23) appears to have confused secularism with atheism.
      
      "A secular world view does not do away with any religious beliefs. It merely respects people's right to form their own."
      
      Robin Herbert, Hornsby
      
      
      
    • "I happily take up Father Gleeson's challenge to find volunteers to teach secular ethics. If Verity Firth puts the call out, I will be the first to sign up, and I reckon the books would be full in a matter of days.
      
      "Given the quality of my ethical instruction in Catholic schools, teaching secular ethics will be mightily less intellectually problematic than teaching religious ones."
      
      Paul van Reyk, Petersham
      
      
      
    • "If parents "want their children to receive some basic religious instruction", can't they just take them to church?"
      
      Anne Kirman, Kellyville
      
      
      
      
• The Independent
  
  
  • Primary schools 'should focus on pupils' lifestyles'
    
    Primary schools should place just as much emphasis on children's wellbeing and lifestyle as maths and English, says a report being studied by the Government's primary curriculum review team.
    
    The report says that teachers should assess pupils on their personal development – looking at issues such as a healthy lifestyle, sex and relationships education and assessing their own self-esteem. The teachers will report back their findings to parents.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Health problems revealed for kids in jobless families
    
    One in seven Australian children live in jobless families, leaving them at greater risk of physical and mental health problems than other kids.
    
    
    
  • Courses trim for global outlook
    
    A revolution from below is transforming Australian higher education as leading universities unleash radical course reforms in advance of the Rudd Government's policy overhaul.
    
    The University of Western Australia has joined a group including Melbourne, Macquarie, Monash, South Australia and Victoria universities undergoing radical course reform unprompted by government policy.
    
    
    
  • Overseas student bonanza
    
    Overseas enrolments in the vocational education and training sector are booming, but universities are still the biggest export revenue earners in the education services sector.

 

Thursday 25 September

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Constable wants OBE review and levels axed
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "New Education Minister Liz Constable has committed to an independent review of WA’s contentious outcomes-based education and to abolishing the “levels” at the heart of OBE assessment which have caused much anxiety for teachers and parents.
    
    "A day after the Independent MP was sworn into the new Liberal Government, Dr Constable promised to honour all election pledges made by former shadow education minister Peter Collier. Mr Collier promised an independent audit of WA’s curriculum framework by an expert advisory group immediately on assuming government and to abolish levels from kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    "Critics say OBE levels are too broad for accurate assessments because they provide little distinction between high and low achievers. Levels were abandoned in Years 11 and 12 early last year.
    
    “I intend to systematically go through those promises, be well briefed on them and see the best way to implement them,” Dr Constable said. “It’s not whether they will be (implemented), but when and how.”
    
    "She said assessment should be fair to students, it should be understood by parents and should not involve lots of “busy” work by teachers.
    
    "Marko Vojkovic, chairman of anti-OBE group Plato, welcomed her pledge. “It’s about time that we had an independent review of the whole OBE system,” he said. “WA’s test results are heading south, which is not a good trend, and we owe it to the students to make sure we get it right.”
    
    "Dr Constable hoped to resolve the teachers’ bitter pay dispute, which has dragged on nearly a year, as quickly as possible. “If we can get some resolution on the way, then teachers can get on with what they’re good at, teaching kids,” she said.
    
    "She and Premier Colin Barnett met Education director-general Sharyn O’Neill yesterday for a briefing and will meet union leaders today. Teachers recently rejected a pay deal drawn up between State School Teachers Union leaders and the Carpenter government which offered pay rises of between 15 and 21 per cent over three years. The Liberals promised another $120 million to improve salaries.
    
    "Dr Constable taught immigrant children in inner-suburban Sydney high schools in the 1960s, was a deputy principal at a private Perth girls’ school and has lectured at the University of WA. She has a masters degree in education from Harvard University and a PhD from UWA.
    
    "She was adamant she would not “micromanage” her portfolio by making rulings on whether children needed to be taught more phonics or how much calculators should be used in primary schools. She would leave those decisions to teachers.
    
    “The Minister for Health is not going to tell a surgeon how to operate,” she said. “The Minister for Education should not be telling teachers how to teach kids.”
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Barnett grants teachers interim payrise
    
    "The Premier, Colin Barnett, has announced that the state school teachers will get an interim pay rise within weeks.
    
    "Mr Barnett and the Education Minister, Liz Constable, met the executive of the State School Teachers' Union today in an effort to end the long running pay dispute.
    
    "A deal is unlikely to be reached for some time and Mr Barnett says he has agreed to give teachers an early pay rise in the meantime.
    
    "However, he is yet to decide how much the increase will be or when it will be payed.
    
    "We didn't talk dollars or percentages at all," he said.
    
    "We just talked the principle that I think all of us agree that teachers deserve and need a payrise. That is overdue, so let's do that and start paying teachers more, and then let's sit down sensibly and deal with other issues."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    • Teachers' pay dispute close to resolution
      
      "The Government and Education Department are hoping negotiations with teachers beginning today will bring an end to their year long pay dispute.
      
      "Today the Premier, his Education Minister and the Education Department will meet the State School teachers union for the first time since being sworn in.
      
      "Earlier this month, teachers rejected an offer which would have given them payrises of between 15 and 22 per cent.
      
      "During the election campaign the Liberals promised to better that deal by $120 million.
      
      "Education Minister Liz Constable says she is looking forward to the meeting.
      
      "I think its very important that we sit down and meet the union and hear it from them," she said.
      
      "I think all of us want it resolved quickly so we can get and do what the Education Department does best and that is teach children."
      
      "Education Department Director General Sharon O'Neill says an agreement would help students.
      
      "I want teachers to get on with teaching, so we are of course looking to get resolution to this."
      
      "The union says it is also seeking better conditions.
      
      OBE Review
      
      "Dr Constable, says she will review Outcomes Based Education learning as part of a broader committment to honour all election pledges made by the shadow Education Minister.
      
      "The Minister says her first priority is to broker a deal in ongoing teachers' pay dispute.
      
      "Dr Constable says she will investigate the OBE system, but does not want to rush the process.
      
      "It might be that I see a slightly different angle to improve on those promises, so each one of them needs to be carefully considered and dealt with," she said.
      
      "I can't do it all on day one, or day three, it'll be done in my time over the next two or three months."
      
      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
  • 'New matters' raised in [NT] teachers pay dispute
    

    Public employment commissioner Ken Simpson says there are some new matters he'd like to discuss with the Education Union in relation to the teachers' pay dispute.
    
    Mr Simpson won't say what the matters are, but says he has approached the union, which has refused to meet with him while teachers are banned from striking.
    
    
    

• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • Teachers to get pay rise 'within weeks'
    by Paul Lampathakis, education reporter
    
    "Teachers will finally get a pay rise and it is likely "within the next few weeks", Premier Colin Barnett said this afternoon.
    
    "An amount or percentage for the rise had not been decided, Mr Barnett said after he and Education Minister Liz Constable met WA State School Teachers' Union executive members today.
    
    "But he said there was an agreement in principle with the union that there be an initial increase for teachers while negotiations for a final pay and conditions agreement continued.
    
    "I would be very disappointed if there is not a significant increase in teachers' salary within the next few weeks,'' he said.
    
    "Mr Barnett said the pay dispute, which had gone to the Industrial relations Commission this year, had dragged on for a year.
    
    "He said teachers' pay increases were deserved and overdue, and there was genuine desire from the Government and the union to fix the problem.
    
    "The union executive had raised a number of issues with him and Dr Constable that were legitimate and he would "take them on board and at face value''.
    
    "But I am very keen, as is Liz (Constable), that we provide an early payment to increase the salaries of teachers,'' Mr Barnett said.
    
    "I think the delay has now been too long, so we've agreed broadly, in principle, so that we get an early payment to teachers.
    
    "Then we'll continue with negotiations on some of the detail of the full three-year agreement.''
    
    "Mr Barnett said today's announcement was consistent with the Liberal's pre-election commitment to give teachers an extra $120 million above the previous Labor government's offer.
    
    "He said issues discussed with the union included teacher workload, which related largely to curriculum and behavioural problems in schools, which was causing teachers and parents "a lot of stress and angst''.
    
    "Union president Anne Gisborne said the union had confidence that the Government would work with the union to ensure the pay dispute was solved quickly.
    
    "The doorway also appears to be open, and I think this positive and constructive, around discussions on other matters such as country allowance, student management and workload broadly,'' she said.
    
    "Ms Gisborne conceded that developing a revised offer would take "several weeks'', but that would not stop the initial pay increase happening.
    
    "Mr Barnett said the pay rise would be sustainable despite the Government's budget "blowout'' revelations this week, because the previous Government's offer had been budgeted for and the Liberals' $120 million promise had been costed and allowed for.
    
    "Dr Constable said she would not comment on questions about whether conditions being asked for by the union were realistic because today's discussions had not been specific.
    
    "When asked about a review of outcomes-based education in schools, Dr Constable said this would be done quickly." [emphasis added]
    
    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
• SSTUWA
  
  
  • Premier & Minster to meet SSTUWA today
    
    The Premier Colin Barnett and the Minister for Education Dr Liz Constable will be coming to the offices of the State School Teachers’ Union at 150-152 Adelaide Terrace in East Perth for a meeting with the Union’s Executive at 1.00pm today.
    
    The meeting is expected to last about 30 minutes.
    
    Once the meeting is over (around 1.30) there will be a 15 minute break before the Executive reconvenes – and the Union’s President Anne Gisborne will be available for a brief comment to the media.
    
    It is anticipated that the Executive meeting will continue until fairly late.
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Show and tell demand on private school funds
    by Farrah Tomazin and Dan Harrison
    
    "Private schools will be forced to report on their finances and results in the same way as public schools as a condition of getting about $28 billion in federal funding over the next four years.
    
    "But putting up Australian flags and posters about "values" will no longer be required by any school after the Government confirmed that the contentious Coalition policy would be scrapped.
    
    "Education Minister Julia Gillard yesterday introduced proposed laws in Parliament outlining funding for non-government schools.
    
    "Catholic and independent schools will get an estimated $28 billion from the Commonwealth between 2009 and 2012 out of a minimum education funding pool of $42 billion. The rest will go to public schools, which are predominantly financed by the states.
    
    "But for the first time, non-government schools will be scrutinised on their performance in the same way as government schools, with both required to adhere to national literacy and numeracy tests and report on their results, programs, fees and finances.
    
    "The Schools Assistance Bill also:
    
    ■Allows private schools to continue to be funded through the "socio-economic status" model, which allocates money depending on the income, occupation and education of families in a census district.
    
    ■Requires private schools to report on how students compare against national standards, and relative to their peer groups.
    
    ■Streamlines the way indigenous students are funded and gives remote schools with high numbers of Aboriginal students more money.
    
    ■Allocates funding for targeted programs such as languages and literacy and numeracy for disadvantaged students in non-government schools.
    
    "Announcing the scrapping of the requirement for schools to put up flag poles, Ms Gillard said school funding under the Coalition "was delivered without regard for overall quality".
    
    "The executive director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, Bill Daniels, said private schools did not have any concerns about the new transparency regime. He welcomed the bill because it gave "funding stability" to non-government schools.
    
    "But Australian Education Union head Angelo Gavrielatos challenged Ms Gillard to give the same certainty to the public school system and guarantee that indigenous students in government schools would receive no less Commonwealth funding than those in non-government schools.
    
    "Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the Coalition would consider the bill before announcing its position."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • New Effort Aims to Test Theories of Education
    by Javier Hernandez
    
    "Roland G. Fryer Jr., a Harvard economist, has often complained that while pharmaceutical companies have poured billions of dollars each year into studying new drugs and Boeing devoted $3 billion to develop the 777 jet, there has been little spent on efforts to scientifically test educational theories.
    
    "Now Dr. Fryer has quit his part-time post as chief equality officer of the New York City public schools to lead a $44 million effort, called the Educational Innovation Laboratory, to bring the rigor of research and development to education. The initiative will team economists, marketers and others interested in turning around struggling schools with educators in New York, Washington and Chicago.
    
    "Backed by the Broad Foundation, founded by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, and other private groups, the research is intended to infuse education with the data-driven approach that is common in science and business, Dr. Fryer said. He compared the current methods of educational research to the prescriptions of an ineffective doctor.
    
    “If the doctor said to you, ‘You have a cold; here are three pills my buddy in Charlotte uses and he says they work,’ you would run out and find another doctor,” Dr. Fryer said. “Somehow, in education, that approach is O.K.” ... [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Fewer men are training to teach
    
    New figures show the gender gap among student teachers is widening
    
    Between 2005-06 and 2006-07, the number of female students gaining teaching qualifications from HE rose by 2% from 23,865 to 24,335, while the number of male qualifiers fell from 8,065 to 7,610, down 5.7%.
    
    In 2006-07, men accounted for less than a quarter of teaching qualifications obtained, according to the figures published today by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa).
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Computer game boosts maths scores
    
    A daily dose of computer games can boost maths attainment, according to a study carried out in Scottish schools.
    
    
    
    
• WA Today
  
  
  • Ex-cons deter school kids from crime
    
    WA programs which used ex-prisoners to deter high school students from crime were recognised at the first WA Crime Prevention Awards today.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Beginning of the end of spin politics
    
    State governments must deliver change we can believe in
    
    "First the bad news for Labor state governments. The swing is on. Labor's hegemony of state, territory and federal administrations has been broken in Western Australia and if the trend reflected in the latest Newspoll surveys of Queensland and South Australia continues, the party will be swept from power in the next round of state polls.
    
    "Now the really bad news. Labor itself is the problem. Voters are losing faith in Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and her South Australian counterpart Mike Rann but do not appear to be particularly enamoured by Opposition leaders Lawrence Springborg or Martin Hamilton-Smith. Yet the anyone-but-Labor feeling appears to be growing and, like Stephen Bradbury's improbable speed-skating victory in the 2002 winter Olympics, all the Opposition needs to do is to stay on its feet.
    
    "We are witnessing the beginning of the end for the politics of spin. The news agenda management techniques pioneered by Bob Carr and Peter Beattie have served state Labor governments well for more than a decade but it is becoming apparent that this particular political cycle has run its course. Worse than that, PR-driven government in which announcements take primacy over policy is seriously beginning to grate on the nerves of voters. When people feel let down by a government, nothing irritates more than slick packaging.
    
    "State Labor's conceit was to stop listening to voters. It will compound its error if it concludes from the latest polling that it is the electorate, not Labor itself, that is wrong..."
    
    Full Editorial in The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • The secular viewpoint is kept out of schools
      
      "Father Gerald Gleeson (Letters, September 23) says "courses in so-called secular ethics and values are more intellectually problematic than their advocates realise. And volunteer teachers may be hard to find."
      
      "Our problem in Queensland is gaining access to public schools, even with an excellent program in secular ethics and values, volunteers ready to teach it, and parents asking for it.
      
      "In 2005, the Queensland Government agreed to extend the religious instruction provision in the Education Act to include philosophical programs, and prepared a bill. But the Howard government threatened it with a loss of funding .
      
      "The Anti-Discrimination Commission is powerless because discrimination in favour of religion is written into the act. So the "taxpaying rights" of religious parents that Father Gleeson refers to do not apply to non-religious parents, and it is likely the same is true in NSW."
      
      Zelda Bailey, president, Humanist Society of Queensland, Toowong

 

Friday 26 September

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers can expect interim pay rise within weeks, says Barnett (page 7)
    by Yasmine Phillips
    
    “Premier Colin Barnett yesterday guaranteed teachers an interim pay rise within weeks but refused to say how much the State Government was willing to offer.
    
    “Emerging from a one-hour meeting with the State School Teachers’ Union executive, Mr. Barnett said he would provide an immediate salary increase before the full details of a three-year agreement were negotiated.
    
    “I think all of us find it frustrating that the negotiations over salaries and conditions for teachers have now dragged on for a year. We are very keen to bring that to a conclusion, he said.
    
    “We’ve agreed broadly in principle that there will be an early payment to teachers and then…further negotiations about some of the longer-term details of the final salary-package.”
    
    “But Mr. Barnett refused to explain when teachers could expect to see the increase, except to say: “I would hope as quickly as possible…I would be very disappointed if there is not a significant increase in teachers’ salary within the next few weeks.”
    
    “SSTU president Anne Gisborne said she was confident the long-running pay dispute could avoid arbitration under a new agreement, which included better pay and working conditions, with the Liberal-Nationals Government.
    
    “On the back of the commitments and the discussion we’ve had in the executive, I think we would have confidence that this Government has assured they will move forward and negotiate with us as quickly as possible around the matter of directing some salary increases to teachers – a matter of priority for us,” she said.
    
    “The doorway also appears to be open and I think this is positive and constructive, around discussions on other matters such as country allowances, student management and workload broadly.”
    
    “Mr. Barnett said he did not “talk numbers or percentages” at yesterday’s meeting but indicated that he expected the new pay deal to centre on the Liberal Party’s election commitment of an extra $120 million.
    
    “Education Minister Liz Constable said her top priority was resolving the often bitter pay dispute, which had sparked tension between the union and the former Labor Government over the past 12 months.
    
    “Teachers recently rejected a deal drawn up between union leaders and the Carpenter government, which offered pay rises of between 15 and 21 per cent over three years.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Political Sketch
    New mob, old lines open pay doorway for teachers (page 7)
    by Robert Taylor
    
    "Colin Barnett emerged from his meeting with the teachers' union yesterday to announce that his new Government would do exactly what the last government did - talk to them.
    
    "I think all of us find it frustrating that the negotiations over salaries and conditions for teachers have dragged on for a year, we are very keen to bring that to a conclusion," he said.
    
    "I am very keen as is Liz (that's borrowed Education Minister Dr Liz Constable) that we provide an early payment to increase the salaries of teachers... so we've agreed broadly in principal there'll be an early payment to teachers and then we would enter into further negotiations about some of the longer term details of the final salary package."
    
    "Mr Barnett couldn't say when teachers would see more money in their pay packets but it would be soon or soonish or sooner rather than later.
    
    Sketch: "So when will teachers see the pay rise in their pay packets?
    
    Mr Barnett: "We didn't get to that detail.
    
    "The amazing thing was that the teachers' union seemed to think this was an advance on what they'd been getting from the last mob for so long.
    
    "Union president Anne Gisborne got right into the swing of things with this load of tosh.
    
    "On the back of the commitments and discussion we've had in executive, we would have confidence that this Government has assured that they would negotiate with us and move forward as quickly as possible around the matter of directing some salary increase to teachers," she said.
    
    "The doorway also appears to be open and I think this is positive and constructive around discussions on other matters such as country allowance, student management and workload broadly. We need an opportunity as an executive to sit down and think about that and we will be knocking on the door of the department next week to start talking about these matters."
    
    "Apart from Ms Gisborne's strange obsession with doors, you would have thought her union might have been talking about these things with the department for the best part of a year.
    
    "Everyone agreed that something had to be done about country allowances.
    
    "Other things that Mr Barnett sounded remarkably like his predecessor Alan Carpenter on were: a) a new footy stadium which may or may not be built and b) a royal commission into the Varanus Island gas explosion which may or may not be held.
    
    "He also does a passable imitation of Jim McGinty.
    
    "If we are put in a position where we have to choose about the scale of projects or the timing of projects then the health projects including the new children's hospital will come first," he said, hammering another nail into the coffin of the new stadium."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Wyatt takes prime spot in Ripper cabinet [online only]
    Staff Reporters
    
    "Rising Labor star Ben Wyatt has been catapulted into the shadow treasury portfolio unveiled today by Labor Leader Eric Ripper.
    
    "The shadow cabinet includes a range of new faces and seven women.
    
    "Mr Wyatt will go head-to-head with the Liberal's economic whiz-kid Troy Buswell.
    
    "Other winners include one of the party's newest recruits, deputy Labor leader Roger Cook who will take on the health portfolio as well as mental health and indigenous affairs.
    
    "Michelle Roberts takes on education while Sue Ellery has child protection, community service, seniors and disability services.
    
    "Jim McGinty will take the shadow attorney general portfolio as well as electoral affairs while Alannah MacTiernan will take on regional development, climate change and strategic infrastructure.
    
    "Francis Logan has water, consumer protection and industrial relations and Margaret Quirk takes police and emergency services.
    
    "State development, planning and trade will go to Mark McGowan who also has responsibility for managing opposition business and housing and works.
    
    "Jon Ford has been given the fisheries and petroleum portfolios and Ljiljanna Ravlich has several portfolios which include commerce and tourism.
    
    "Speaking to the media this morning, Mr Ripper said his team would hold the new Government accountable.
    
    “It will be our role to ensure the new government meets community expectations for good services and continues to provide the infrastructure needed to sustain a growing population,” he said.
    
    "Mr Ripper said he aimed to match people's skills and interests with the opportunities available.
    
    "He said Michelle Roberts was a former teacher and her experience demonstrated her suitably for the education portfolio.
    
    “She has demonstrated experience in quite a number of portfolios and has been at the front rank of the Labor team for a number of years,” he said.
    
    "He said Mr Wyatt had a fine education record and was a person “of talent.”
    
    "Mr Ripper also revealed he would take the same stance as that of former Labor leader Alan Carpenter when it came to dealings with lobbyists Brian Burke and Julian Grill.
    
    "He said the ban on dealings with the lobbyists in a professional manner remained.
    
    “It is not tenable for someone to remain a member if they breach that ban,” he said.
    
    “I know the members of my shadow cabinet understand that.”
    
    "On Wednesday Mr Ripper announced which ministers would be part of the cabinet but the portfolio allocation was kept secret until this morning.
    
    "Sally Talbot has been given the environment portfolio and Ken Travers has been given Transport and Recreation.
    
    "Other members given portfolios include Paul Papalia, Kate Doust and  Mick Murray."
    
    From The West Australian online at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • NSW pulls out of computers-for-schools program
    
    "The Federal and New South Wales governments are at loggerheads after the state withdrew from the Commonwealth's scheme to provide a computer for every senior high school student.
    
    "The computers-in-schools plan was central to Labor's federal election pitch. So was cooperative federalism.
    
    "But New South Wales has directed its government schools not to apply for the second round of computer funding..."
    
    Full story on ABC News at link
    
    BUT, according to The Australian online:
    
    The NSW Government says it has not pulled out of round two of the National Secondary School Computer Fund despite claims by federal Education Minister Julia Gillard today.
    
    
    
    
• SSTUWA
  
  
  • Premier and Minister for Education Meet Executive
    by Mark Muir
    
    Yesterday Premier Colin Barnett and Liz Constable the new Minister for Education with responsibility for schools met with Executive. 
    
    During the meeting the Premier reaffirmed to Executive of his pre-election commitment to education being a priority matter for his government.
    
    The Premier and the Minister committed to delivering a salary increase to teachers and administrators as soon as possible.
    
    The Union will be in discussions with the Minister and DET to ensure that this commitment can be realized as soon as possible.
    
    Executive indicated to the Premier and Minister its strong interest in reaching a negotiated settlement to the schools’ salary and conditions dispute. In doing so, Executive raised a number of issues requiring further development in a reviewed agreement. These included matters such as workload intensification, student management, country allowances, and the impact of inclusion.
    
    Executive also proposed that the parties approach the WAIRC with a view to seeking deferral of arbitration proceedings. At this stage the Premier and Minister have not committed to this proposal.
    
    With government ministers now formally in place, the Union will be seeking to commence formal negotiations with DET and the Minister during the holidays.
    
    Arbitration 
    
    Until it is clear that an agreed negotiated position can be reached with the Minister and Government, the Union remains fully engaged in preparations for arbitration.
    
    Executive continues to  work under advice from our legal team to complete the SSTU  Schools’ Enterprise Order. [which should be available in November 2015?  Web]
    
    From SSTUWA at link
    
    
    
  • SSTUWA Puts case for pay justice for TAFE
    by Mark Muir
    
    Our application in the West Australian Industrial Relations Commission for a 7% interim pay increase for TAFE Lecturers, backdated to 1/1/08, was heard yesterday 24/9, by Commissioner Harrison.
    
    A very strong case was put by our Senior Counsel, Mordy Bromberg representing the State School Teachers' Union of WA.
    
    After over 7 hours of hearing, the Commissioner reserved her decision. We now await the Commission's decision which we anticipate will be handed down in three to four weeks.
    
    Remember, it has now been 635 DAYS SINCE LAST SALARY INCREASE for TAFE Lecturers.
    
    From SSTUWA at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Primary school job vacancies up by a third
    
    Vacancies for teachers have risen by almost a third in nursery and primary schools in England in the past year and are up by more than a fifth in secondary schools, with the biggest shortages in maths and science, according to government figures.
    
    Similar story on BBC News
    
    
    
  • Teachers TV: Maths lessons for primaries
    
    Designed to be used in class with KS2 pupils, these eight lesson starts feature a dramatised situation highlighting a mathematical problem. Use angles to find Pirate Kate's lost treasure, or fractions and percentages to help Nateisha with her packed lunch survey
    
    [Several online videos at the link]
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  

• Locals oppose Muslim school
  by Jano Gibson, Urban Affairs
  
  "A large Islamic school proposed for a rural area in south-west Sydney is facing fierce opposition from residents just months after Camden residents waged a racially charged battle against a similar development in their area.
  
  "A company called ASFA Limited has applied to Liverpool City Council to build an educational facility called Qaadiri College for 600 primary and high school students at Gurner Avenue in Austral.
  
  "But neighbours of the site are adamant a development of that scale will destroy their peaceful lifestyle. They insist their concerns have nothing to do with Islam and would oppose similar-sized projects if they were proposed by other faith groups.
  
  "But there are signs that known anti-immigration activists are keen to join in a campaign against it.
  
  "The online forum, www.australianidentity.net, which openly declares that "views, ideas and contributions that are hostile to [an Anglo-Celtic-European-white heritage] are not permitted" on it, received several postings about the proposal after the development application was lodged in April..."
  
  Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

 

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 September

• ABC News
  
  
  • WA supports student computer program
    
    "The West Australian Education Minister Liz Constable says she is keen to take part in a Federal Government scheme to provide a computer to every student, but is wary of how much it will cost taxpayers.
    
    "New South Wales withdrew from the program yesterday, directing its schools not to apply for the second round of funding.
    
    "It has previously been critical of the scheme, saying there is not enough assistance from Canberra once the computers are delivered.
    
    "Doctor Constable believes New South Wales has a point, but she would like to see the program continue.
    
    "She says the scheme was conceived too quickly.
    
    "I think the problem with this scheme is that it was an election promise of the Labor Party coming into government, and it has left the states with costs that they had not included in their budget," she said."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  

  • Minister cool on IT costs (page 22)
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    “WA should not be lumbered with the huge costs of implementing Kevin Rudd’s computer’s-in-schools election promise, say Education Minister Liz Constable.
    
    “Speaking yesterday after the New South Wales Government pulled out of round two of the programme, Dr. Constable said she agreed with ex-premier Alan Carpenter that WA should not be saddled with the bill.
    
    “The Carpenter government paid $345,000 for infrastructure such as cables, installation, maintenance, security and power after round one of the programme in June, which saw schools get 3064 computers.
    
    “Dr. Constable said the Barnett Government would have to pay millions more to continue covering the costs, while the Federal Government provided funding only for the computers.
    
    “If they (the Federal Government) want to do this, they should be coming up with the infrastructure, maintenance and support costs for it,” Dr. Constable said. “Computers in schools are a very important tool, both for teaching and for learning and there’s no question about that.
    
    “To that extent the Feds got it right. But it’s a fairly glib and superficial promise to say that the Feds will provide computers to all students in schools and not cost that properly, and expect the states to pick up the tab afterwards.
    
    “They thought it was a good idea, so they should be looking to pay the lion’s share of the costs, not asking the states to spend tens of millions of dollars.”
    
    “Dr. Constable said the State Government had not decided how it would proceed with the programme while individual schools were still applying for the Federal Government computers.
    
    “But she said WA and other states had not signed a funding agreement with the Federal Government because the states’ costs for power, maintenance and technical support would be three times as much as the federal investment for the computers.
    
    “NSW Education Department director-general Michael Coutts-Trotter this week told government schools not to apply for second-round Secondary Computers funding until the details were finalised.”
    
    From The Sunday Times
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    No hang-ups as lines kept open
    by Joe Spagnolo
    
    "It was refreshing. It was exciting. It was music to my ears.
    
    "Liz Constable's commentary this week about how she would tackle her new role as Education Minister gave me some hope that she and other new ministers would not fall into the same trap as their predecessors, who allowed themselves to be dominated by advisers and spin doctors whose thirst for control played such a damaging part in alienating Labor ministers and former premier Alan Carpenter from the media and the public.
    
    "There is a lot to learn," Dr Constable said.
    
    "There is a huge workload and I'll need advice from policy (advisers) and others.
    
    "I will listen. But I am not the sort of person who will be dominated by them."
    
    "It is early days yet. And things may – and probably will – change.
    
    "But so far the signs are good that the new ministers and new Premier Colin Barnett won't be frightened to think and speak for themselves.
    
    "From a media perspective, how good has it been that Liberal and National ministers have allowed journalists to phone them directly for views on various issues.
    
    "Several ministers promised this week they would continue to take calls from journalists even after advisers were appointed over the next few days.
    
    "It makes a change from ministers hovered over by advisers..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
  • Lightning kills Perth teacher on Thai school trip
    
    A Perth schoolteacher who was leading a group of students on an overseas trip has been killed by a suspected lightning strike.The 41-year-old man was a teacher at Winthrop Baptist College in Murdoch.
    
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Holiday Stress
    
    "School holidays are here again and for some parents it is a worrying time.
    
    "Parents need to reflect on two alarming messages from people who know what they are talking about.
    
    "In The Sunday Times today WA child health expert and former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley makes the sad claim that one in five mothers and fathers are unfit to be parents because they don't have the means or life skills. [emphasis added]
    
    "And she believes that many others cannot devote enough time to their kids because of excessive job commitments.
    
    "Last week Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said that some parents were so obsessed with material wealth they were neglecting to spend time with their children, leaving police to teach teenagers proper behaviour.
    
    "Parents need to remember that unless properly supervised during holidays, children can get into trouble.
    
    "The holidays should be stress-free and enjoyable – for parents and children.
    
    "The most important present a mum or dad can give their children is their time."
    
    From The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • Bad parents lack life skills, means, time: Fiona Stanley
    by Evonne Barry
    
    "One in five Australian parents are poor caregivers because they don't have the means or life skills, child health expert Professor Fiona Stanley says.
    
    "The former Australian of the Year said many others could not devote enough time to their kids because of excessive job commitments.
    
    "Professor Fiona Stanley, an adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, has also slammed the Government's policies on paid parental leave.
    
    "If we don't respond to these challenges ... we will be looking at our generation, my generation, as being the last generation that lives longer than its parents," Prof Stanley said.
    
    "If you look at the overall trend in many problems, they are actually showing no improvement and some of them are getting dramatically worse."
    
    "Mental illness, obesity, asthma and substance abuse were the biggest health risks for Australian kids.
    
    "Family life has changed a lot," Prof Stanley said.
    
    "You've got more hours of work, you've got more women working, but without men, or the business world or government, actually coming forward with really good childcare.
    
    "So who's responsible for the children when a high proportion of women are working?
    
    "That's been very detrimental to children."
    
    From The Sunday Brisbane Courier Mail at link
    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Burdening pupils with content a surefire way to make science dull, say teachers
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Science teachers have called for a national curriculum that focuses on the doing of science, rather than learning facts, to avoid boring students.
    
    "Following a members' forum earlier this year, the Australian Science Teachers Association also called for science to be a compulsory subject until the end of Year 10 and to be given the same class time as English and maths.
    
    "President Peter Turnbull said yesterday the association's members strongly believed the purpose of school science was to make students scientifically literate, rather than training the next generation of scientists, as had been the focus in the past.
    
    "We have the very strong view it should be about building student learning capacity rather than being overburdened by too much content," Mr Turnbull said.
    
    "The amount of scientific knowledge that is around the place is so huge no one can know it all, so rather than just teaching low-level facts we should be teaching high-order thinking skills. We should be teaching students how to learn, rather than expecting them to carry around masses of content in their heads."
    
    "The association believes content-heavy science subjects make learning the subject dull for students and that it is critical for content to be relevant to students and their everyday lives.
    
    "The association's stance is at odds with the view of the chairman of the National Curriculum Board, Barry McGaw, who has said repeatedly that the content taught in a national curriculum is crucial.
    
    "At a forum in Sydney two weeks ago, Professor McGaw directly addressed the ideas held by ASTA, saying students could not understand scientific processes and skills without first knowing some facts.
    
    "At times, the observation is made that there's so much knowledge, particularly in science, that it isn't clear what to choose for students to learn; that it's almost arbitrary what you might choose for students to learn so long as they learn about inquiry in that domain," he said.
    
    "It's not the view we are taking in the National Curriculum Board, that the choice of content is arbitrary. The choice of content is, in many cases, crucial."
    
    "But Mr Turnbull said the national curriculum was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew school science and that it should be "forward-thinking and futuristic, not just more of the same".
    
    "He said that ASTA was not arguing that content was not important but for a balance between learning facts and learning the skills of investigation and inquiry.
    
    "We want it to be flexible in terms of local context and content. Students need to learn science in the environment that suits their own circumstances, so we're looking at a curriculum framework rather than a specific syllabus," he said.
    
    "The curriculum framework should set out the skills and what students should be able to do rather than what they should know, taking into account their context, so indigenous students in Arnhem Land would learn about the science in their environment and students living on the Tasmanian coast study aquaculture, Mr Turnbull said."
    
    From The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • 'Digital revolution' in trouble
    by Dan Harrison, Canberra
    
    "The Rudd Government's digital education revolution is in tatters after Australia's most populous state boycotted the latest funding round of its computers in schools program out of fears it would be left with a multimillion-dollar bill to install and maintain the technology.
    
    "Labor promised at last year's election to put a computer on the desk of every student from years 9 to 12.
    
    "But the NSW Government has torpedoed the $1.1 billion program by instructing state schools not to apply for the second round of funding after the Commonwealth refused its request for an extension of the October 9 deadline.
    
    "The state had threatened to pull out of the first funding round unless the Commonwealth paid it $245 million to cover installation costs, but later backed down and received $56 million in the June announcement. But it has refused to begin buying computers until it receives a commitment from the Commonwealth to pay for power upgrades, technical support and teacher development..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link [similar stories in The Sydney Morning Herald]
    
    Yesterday The Australian says NSW didn't pull out: today The Weekend Australian says it did !
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    At the alter of the digital age
    
    A small milestone was reached last December when the Oxford English Dictionary included a draft entry for the verb "photoshop". To photoshop means: "To edit, manipulate, or alter (a photographic image) digitally using computer image-editing software." The word is derived from the software of the same name that enables users to combine and edit photos one pixel at a time.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    God, science and other dark thoughts
    by Miranda Devine
    
    "In a lecture theatre on the second floor of the Physics Building at Sydney University on Wednesday, an American professor in jeans and sandshoes bounced around the seven blackboards, scribbling formulas, talking of quarks, gluons and multiverses, drawing chalk pictures of expanding galaxies and workshopping a few little mysteries of the universe.
    
    "What caused the Big Bang? What is dark energy? Does God exist?
    
    "Known as the "rock star of physics" for his lucid language and peppy style, Lawrence Krauss, 54, a theoretical physicist and best-selling author from Arizona State University, was briefly in town to present the Templeton Lecture at Sydney University and a small workshop for students the next day..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

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This page last updated 28 September, 2008 10:15 PM