Monday 3 November [EBA-4 announced]

Tuesday 4 November

Wednesday 5 November

Thursday 6 November

Friday 7 November

Saturday – Sunday, 8 – 9 November

Monday 3 November

• EBA-4
  
  
  • Proposed salary scales
    
    
  • SSTUWA info and advice [Update # 86]
    
    
  • ABC News: Teachers union supports government's pay offer
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • $1 billion teachers agreement
    by staff reporters
    
    "WA teachers have reached a new three-year in-principle agreement with the government worth over $1 billion.
    
    "The new agreement, which is more or less the same as the previous governments offer but includes an extra $120 million on teacher’s salaries, will also apply to school development officers, education officers, school psychologists and regional office directors.
    
    "Premier Colin Barnett said the agreement was reached following the Government’s endorsement of further salary increases, in addition to the six per cent increase paid last month.
    
    "Teachers across the state will be asked to vote on the offer by December 3.
    
    “Most teachers and school administrators will receive increases in excess of 20 per cent, with 5,000 experienced teachers receiving an increase of 22.75 per cent.,” Mr Barnett said.
    
    "The increases, which will be brought forward to October 2010, will also apply to school development officers, education officers, school psychologists and regional office directors.
    
    "The additional salary increases in the $1.067billion package include:
    
    • a five per cent pay increase for all teachers and school administrators in October 2009
    • salary and structural adjustments for all, ranging up to five per cent in February 2010 and
    • a four per cent salary increase in October 2010.
    
    "Education Minister Liz Constable said the State Government had also removed the requirement under the previous government’s offer for teachers to participate in an additional 15 hours of annual professional development outside school time.
    
    "Dr Constable said another feature of the agreement was the expansion of the Country Teaching Program to provide a $5000 annual allowance for teachers in 13 additional schools.
    
    "This would increase to 272 the number of schools in the remote, country and metropolitan programs under which teachers and administrators could earn annual allowances of between $2000 and $19,000.
    
    "The new schools are mostly in the Bunbury and Mid-West regions: Brunswick Junction Primary School, Carey Park PS, Harvey Senior High School, Newton Moore SHS, Withers PS, Allendale PS, Bluff Point PS, Geraldton Senior College, John Willcock College, Jurien Bay District High School, Holland Street School, Northampton DHS and Central Midlands SHS.
    
    "Under the new salary package:
    
    • a first-year teacher who earned $48,425 a year at the start of 2008 will earn $67,380 a year by October 2010. All teaching graduates also receive a $1,600 annual allowance in their first two years of teaching
    
    • a teacher with five years’ experience who earned $62,811 at the start of 2008 will earn $81,622 by October 2010
    
    • a teacher with seven years experience who earned $69,132 at the start of 2008 will earn $88,190 by October 2010, with some professional development.
    
    • a first-year principal of a small school (under 100 students) who earned $77,744 at the start of 2008 will earn $100,871 by October 2010 and
    
    • a principal of a large school (more than 700 students) who earned $114,593 at the start of 2008 will earn $139,333 by October 2010.
    
    "Dr Constable said the salary increases were a well-deserved recognition of the efforts, skills and responsibilities of teachers and administrators in Government schools.
    
    “I genuinely believe that this new agreement is in the best interests of all involved,” she said."
    
    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
    
• First Boyer Lecture
  
  
  • On bludging, a republic and the public education scandal
    by Rupert Murdoch
    
    "... While Australia generally does well in international rankings, those rankings can blind us to a larger truth: Australia will not succeed in the future if it aims to be just a bit better than average. We need to revive the sense of Australia as a frontier country, and to cultivate Australia as a great centre of excellence. Unlike our parents and grandparents, this new frontier has little to do with the bush or the outback. Today the frontier that needs sorting is the wider world. Complacency is our chief enemy…"
    
    "[We] need … to reform our education system … We have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system, and it is leaving too many children behind. That is an injustice to these citizens, and it puts a future burden on Australian society..."
    
    

    The above link [Sydney Morning Herald] is an edited transcript of the first Boyer Lecture in the series "A Golden Age of Freedom" delivered by Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive officer of News Corporation, at the Opera House yesterday. Podcasts, mp3 files, audio and transcripts will be available at http://abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures after each broadcast.
    
    Media coverage of his speech is included in all major newspapers today, with the most comprehensive being the article and the Editorial in The Australian.
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers union supports government's pay offer
    
    The Premier Colin Barnett says the government has secured in-principle support from the Teachers Union on a new three year salary agreement.
    
    
    
  • Teachers' union backs longer industrial action
    
    The [SA] teachers' union has voted in support of extended industrial action before the end of the school year.
    
    
    
  • Govt facing tough battle on student fees
    
    The Federal Government's bid to rebuild student services at universities could face an uphill battle to pass Parliament.
    
    
    • Student fee smacks of unionism in disguise: Opposition
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Students' $250 fee for uni services
    
    University students face new compulsory fees of up to $250 a year to fund campus activities such as debating clubs, counselling services and student newspapers.

But universities will have to offer HECS-style loans to help students pay the fees, and the money will go to university administrators, not directly to elected student unions.

Related stories in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald




• Letter to the Editor
  
  
  • Older students need more
    
    "The argument that funding primary students less than secondary students is inequitable ("Primary schools ‘need more cash’ “, 1-2/11) is superficial. Secondary schools have higher capital and maintenance costs because they need science laboratories, kitchens, engineering workshops and the like. They need a better staffing ratio because they have to offer elective subjects and thus run smaller classes. They need more teachers because teaching loads have to be lower to handle the much bigger correction load, as anyone who has taught Year 12 will attest. They need additional positions such as careers teachers who are not needed in primary schools.
    
    "In Victoria, primary schools have done very well. The current government has almost totally reversed the previous government’s cuts to primary school staffing, but it has hardly made a dent in the previous government’s cuts to secondary school staffing. In fact, the average secondary school has five teachers fewer than it would have had under the staffing arrangements of three decades ago."
    
    Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge, Vic
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
• Editorial
  
  To be elite is not the same as being elitist
  
  
  On October 22, federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett told the Australian National Academy of Music by fax that it would not receive its Government funding of $2.64 million for 2009, effectively truncating its activities from the end of this year. ANAM, established in 1994 as part of then prime minister Paul's Keating's Creative Nation policy, has specialised in advanced-performance courses for 55 students, with participation of a further 30. From South Melbourne Town Hall, the academy provides exceptional musicians with a valuable link between their education and its application in the wider professional world. The minister's reasoning — "ANAM no longer represents the most efficient way of delivering support for elite classical music training" — used deadening language to sound the death knell for this unique institution. Simon Rattle, chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, has called ANAM "the envy of anywhere in the world".
  
  
  
  
  
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Rudd's education revolution is populism as usual
      
      "When I voted for the Rudd Government, I thought I was voting for an alternative ("We know how schools get better - it's not league tables", November 1-2). How wrong I was. Rudd's education revolution is just a repetition of the Howard government's populist policies. Instead of funding public education properly and increasing the status of teaching, as in countries with the most successful education systems, the Government prefers to scare schools and teachers with league tables.
      
      "I thought the Government's role was to ensure that every student had access to quality education. How will a league table, based on data that is yet to be decided, ensure that? How will it offer "choice" to students and parents from disadvantaged backgrounds and/or rural communities where there aren't many schools to choose from?"
      
      Alice Leung, Enfield
      
      
      
    • "As a supporter of public education, the news that students are coming back to government schools pleases me ("Parents abandon private schools", November 1-2). It's a shame it has had to happen under these economic circumstances, but it should be seen as an opportunity to give public schools the support they so sorely need. More resources, better valuing of our teachers: there has never been a better time to invest in teaching and learning.
      
      "We should renew our public schools so that when prosperity returns, the children and their parents won't want to go back to private schools."
      
      Michael de la Pena, Meadowbank
      
      
      
    • "A dossier apparently recommends that Catholic primary principals reduce cleaning by 40 per cent. If a reduction of that magnitude is possible, either money has been wasted on excessive cleaning, or it will be necessary to reduce it to levels that may not meet hygiene or safety standards. Or will they try to make the teachers clean the toilets and, as in yesteryear, the children pick up the rubbish?"
      
      Greg McCarry, Epping
      
      
      
    • "The many people who were battling to save their children's schools a few years ago said with one voice that once you close a public school, you will never get it back. We knew those schools were needed.
      
      "The Department of Education's hollowmen said with a straight face that enrolments were dropping and would drop forever, but our demographic modelling showed the cyclical nature of enrolments, and the coming need for schools for the children who were in the prams and flooding the preschools and kindergartens. We saved some, but others were lost forever."
      
      Kathy Prokhovnik, Leichhardt
      
      
      
    • "You've got to admire Kevin Rudd. He has funnelled an additional $20 million to private schools, denigrated public education and avoided criticism.
      
      "His announcement of indigenous scholarships to private schools ("Rudd gives $20m to black scholarship fund", October 31) is unlikely to be damned by the Opposition, or by anyone who wishes to avoid the racist tag.
      
      "His implication that only the private system is able to provide "the life-changing opportunity to attend a high-quality secondary school" has slipped by without challenge. What an operator."
      
      Mike Fullerton, Croydon
      
      
      
    • "Excuse me, Mr Rudd? Do you mean that the comprehensive government high school I sent my children to is not a "high-quality secondary school"?
      
      "If so, when will you be providing adequate funding to ensure that it is?"
      
      Jo Mansergh, Mount Ku-ring-gai
      
      
      
      
  • School travel funds to be slashed
    
    The State Government is moving to slash the $500 million cost of the school travel subsidy, which costs taxpayers an average of $700 a student each year, as part of a series of spending cuts to be outlined in the mini-budget next week.
    
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Decision on school strikes due this week
    
    The biggest teaching union will reveal this week whether it will stage a series of one-day strikes which would trigger widespread school closures in the runup to Christmas.
    
    Nearly 200,000 NUT members have been balloted on whether they are prepared to take "discontinuous strike action" in opposition to the government's plans for below-inflation pay increases.
    
    The strike ballot closes today, with the leadership meeting later in the week to consider the result.
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Online Grading Systems Mean No More Changing D's to B's
    
    Parents and students in a growing number of Washington area schools can track fluctuations in a grade-point average from the nearest computer in real time, a ritual that can become as addictive as watching political polls or a stock-market index.
    
    The proliferation of online grading systems has transformed relations among teachers, parents and students and changed the rhythm of the school year. Internet-based programs including SchoolMAX and Edulink are pushing midterm progress reports into obsolescence. Prospective failure is no longer a bombshell dropped in a parent-teacher conference. A bad grade on a test can't be concealed by discarding the evidence. A student can log on at school, or a parent at work, to see the immediate impact of a missed assignment on the cumulative grade or to calculate what score on the next quiz might raise an 89.5 to a 90. Report cards hold little surprise.
    

Tuesday 4 November

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers reap 20pc pay rise in Barnett deal (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "State school teachers have squeezed even bigger pay rises out of the Liberal-Nationals Government than those offered by the Carpenter government, with most standing to reap increases of 20 per cent over three years.
    
    "But the agreement announced yesterday, worth more than $1 billion, will put more pressure on the already stretched State Budget and will add weight to growing demands from within the teachers’ union for president Anne Gisborne to quit.
    
    "Ms Gisborne lobbied hard for teachers to accept Labor’s pay offer, which would have given most teachers rises of 17 per cent over three years, but the deal was rejected in a vote just after the State election in September.
    
    "Ms Gisborne will face motions calling for her resignation at the State council meeting of the State School Teachers Union this weekend.
    
    "About a dozen motions have been tabled calling for her and other union leaders to quit, accusing them of being too keen in their endorsement of the deal with the former Labor government. Ms Gisborne was unavailable for comment last night on the calls for her resignation.
    
    "Under the terms of the deal struck between Colin Barnett and the union, a first-year graduate who earned $48,425 at the start of this year will earn $67,380 by October 2010, not including a $1600 annual allowance in their first two years of teaching.
    
    "Pay for a teacher with seven years experience at the top of the scale for automatic increments will increase from $69,132 to $88,190 in that time and a principal of a big school will go from $114,593 to $139,333.
    
    "The Premier said the deal brought forward the final scheduled increase from February 2011 in the previous government’s offer to October 2010. It also removed a requirement for teachers to complete an extra 15 hours of professional development in their own time each year.
    
    "More country schools have been added to the list of those in which teachers could receive annual allowances of up to $19,000 a year.
    
    "Education Minister Liz Constable said she was quietly confident that teachers would accept the new deal.
    
    "Asked if teachers had done the right thing to reject the pay deal with the former government, Ms Gisborne said it was a gamble that paid off. [And it was Anne's strategy all along!  Web]
    
    “The fact that the package was voted down gave us the capacity to go back and look at a range of other matters in it,” she said.
    
    "The author of one of the motions to State council said Ms Gisborne would be forced to defend herself. “The pay deal was obviously rushed through to save Anne Gisborne’s skin,” he said. The branch delegate said he expected the council to call for a spill of leadership positions and for new elections.
    
    "But other union sources believed Ms Gisborne could tough it out because a new deal had been reached. But the forum would be “bloody”.
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Recent history repeats as girls outnumber boys in the TEE stakes (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “More girls than boys are sitting the Tertiary Entrance Examination this year, a trend the Curriculum Council hopes will be reversed with the introduction of compulsory exams.
    
    “Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said it was normal for more girls to sit the TEE but this year the gap had widened considerably, with 6179 girls sitting at least four exams compared with 5261 boys, or about 54 per cent girls to 46 per cent boys.
    
    “Last year, 832 more girls sat the exams and this year the difference was 918.
    
    “It's a bit worse than usual," Mr Wood said. ""To be honest, I think there are more boys opting out and not making the rigours of the TEE."
    
    “Mr Wood said the introduction of the compulsory exams for 21 courses next year and for more than 50 courses in 2010 could help narrow the gap.
    
    "What that says is that there are that many boys potentially missing out on an opportunity to go to university," he said.
    
    “More than 2000 history students were the first to sit an exam yesterday. Students at Applecross Senior High School were upbeat at getting one subject under their belts and one step closer to leavers' week.
    
    “Riechanne Ratering said the Cold War document study was the most difficult part of the exam but she was confident about her essays. "I'm sure I passed," she said.
    
    “The school's top history student, Mai Barnes, was not stressed because she had studied thoroughly.
    
    “In the next three week, more than 13,000 students are enrolled to sit exams in at least one subject at more than 150 venues in WA and in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. One student will sit exams in Acacia prison.
    
    “Mr Wood said exams could be an anxious time for students and their families.
    
    "But I have always found that students can get their best results if they remain positive and focused," he said. "These examinations represent the perfect opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.”
    
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (pages 22-23)
    

    • Why the indignation?
      
      “I was saddened that the head boy of a private school was removed from the podium where he was giving an address to the parents and students of his Year 12 group. We hear without listening to our youth and then profess indignation when they do not follow our script. The young man may well be immature or unsophisticated. However, you don't get to be head boy without a good track record over a period of years. Further, we know this is a school in which much sadness has occurred this year. At what point did this young man begin to feel the evident frustration and anger he seemed to have expressed? I paraphrase J. F. Kennedy: Ask not how our children have failed us, ask instead how we have failed them. We are, after all, the responsible adults and the onus is on us to understand and to engage. Denying this boy the right to sit his TEE with his peers seems petty as best. As a strategy of engagement it is unimpressive being singularly lacking in either imagination or self-awareness.”
      
      Paul Bowen, Mt Hawthorn
      
      

    • Outburst caused by Catholic school culture
      
      “I was deeply saddened by the events which took place at Corpus Christi College's graduation ceremony last week and by the seemingly draconian response of the school's administrators (Grieving school won't let head boy site TEE after wild outburst, 31/10).
      
      "I am certainly not qualified to pass judgment on either the clearly distressed head boy or the school leaders who he slammed in his speech.
      
      “However, I believe I am in a position to comment on the systemic problems of Catholic education in this State which could so easily engender the kind of school culture Gary Rego, the head boy, vented his anger at. My views have their genesis in long years of service as a Catholic school teacher and administrator, and later as a Catholic education bureaucrat.
      
      “The key to understanding many Catholic schools and the Catholic Education Office itself is that they are each a microcosm of the global Church and each diocese. Power is centralised in the hands of a few senior clerics or lay-persons appointed by those clerics. A system of command-leadership prevails in almost all these institutions, meaning that decisions are made at the top, usually without consultation with stakeholders at the lower echelons. A strict hierarchy of control and "authority" leaves no room for genuine efforts at dialogue with those who have little or no power - the vast majority of classroom teachers, parents and students. Any form of dissent is suppressed.
      
      “It is a system more attuned to an authoritarian state than modern, democratic Australia. The Church's tradition of requiring its faithful - and in the case of schools, "clients" - to "pray, pay and obey" is as prevalent now as it was in 1950.
      
      “Until the Catholic Church reforms itself to reflect the democratic values of the society in which it seeks to position itself as an influential player, I am afraid the incidents dramatising its authoritarian, non-accountable and anti-modern character will continue to shame both it and Catholics like me.”
      
      S. Negus, Bullsbrook
      
      
      

• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • WA Education Department claims hard line on unruly students
    by Paul Lampathakis, education reporter
    
    "The Education Department has reported a sharp rise in the number of suspensions at WA schools, defending it as a crackdown on badly behaved students.
    
    "Education Director-General Sharyn O'Neill said today that 10,536 students at public schools were suspended in 2007, compared with 9,649 in 2006.
    
    "The Sunday Times revealed similar figures in April, and also exposed the fact that almost three teachers or other school staff were physically assaulted by students each school day in WA.
    
    "That story also showed that assaults by students on staff jumped 23 per cent last year - with 511 such violent incidents in public schools in 2007, compared with 415 in 2006.
    
    "Figures provided by the department to The Sunday Times at the time said 10,468 students were suspended in 2007 - up 37.6 per cent on 2004.
    
    "Ms O'Neill said today of the latest 2007 suspension statistics: "I make no apology for taking a hard line on bad behaviour, the community expects schools to have in place the best possible environment for teachers to teach and for students to learn."
    
    "She also said that the number of students suspended in 2007 was just 4.3 per cent of the total number of students in public schools - about 240,000 students - compared with 3.8 per cent in 2006.
    
    "Suspending students is an effective means of dealing with poor behaviour at school, with 60 per cent of students only ever suspended once," she said.
    
    "Even though more students are being suspended, the average length of the suspension is remaining the same.
    
    "A new electronic reporting system that we introduced in 2006 is making it easier for schools to report suspensions and this had some effect on the increased number of suspensions recorded.
    
    "Teachers and school staff do a remarkable job in handling bad behaviour but it is unfair for both staff and students if a small minority of students is allowed to disrupt the class or school.
    
    "Suspension is only after other measures have been taken."
    
    "Ms O'Neill said every student suspended from a public school was provided with an education program for home and took part in a re-entry program which included parent participation and counselling.
    
    "The two most common reasons for suspension were physical assault or intimidation of students, which accounted for 33 per cent of suspensions, and violation of the school code of conduct, which accounted for 25 per cent of suspensions.
    
    "Ms O'Neill said 29 students were excluded in 2007, compared with 21 in 2006.
    
    "All students who are excluded from a public school continue to be provided with an educational program at another school or educational facility," Ms O'Neill said.
    
    "We are currently trialling several programs to deal with badly behaved students.
    
    "For example we have five primary and three secondary behaviour centres for students with persistently challenging behaviours.
    
    "We are also trialling after-school counselling sessions as an alternative to suspension."
    
    "WA State School Teachers' Union president Anne Gisborne said today that the previous state government had had an "appetite" to improve the suspension process so it had became more effective.
    
    "The union would want the new State Government to continue the review of that process and also work towards bringing in parents to be part of the solution.
    
    "Ms Gisborne also said the number of violent incidents at schools by students against teachers and other students was still highly under-reported.
    
    "She said the union would urge the department to continue to resource the issue of behaviour management. Among initiatives needed were more programs for students who were badly behaved.
    
    "There also needed to be more behaviour management centres - such as those currently being trialled.
    
    "We would want to see an extension of these facilities into country areas and also more in metropolitan areas," Ms Gisborne said.
    
    "She also said the new Liberal Government had committed extra funds to address behaviour management in schools and the union would provide advice on the most appropriate use of these extra resources through the behaviour management steering group."
    
    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Teachers offered pay rises up to 24pc
    by Amanda O'Brien, WA political reporter
    
    "Teacher in Western Australia have been offered pay rises of up to 24.4 per cent over three years in an attempt by the Barnett Government to end a year-long dispute that severely damaged the former government.
    
    "If accepted, the pay rises and improved conditions will cost more than $1 billion and take the salary of an experienced teacher to $88,190 by 2010, a rise of more than $19,000.
    
    "Premier Colin Barnett said the majority of the state's 21,000 public school teachers would get pay rises of more than 20 per cent under the offer. He said it would ensure teachers in the west were the best paid in Australia.
    
    "With a shortfall of 200 teachers expected next year, Mr Barnett said the measures were designed to retain experienced teachers and recruit new staff.
    
    "Under the offer, first-year graduates would receive a starting wage of $67,380 by 2010, a rise of almost $20,000.
    
    "The principal of a large school would earn almost $140,000 by 2010, up $25,000.
    
    "State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said the package was light years ahead of the original offer from the former Labor government, which was worth just $600 million.
    
    "It also resolved key concerns about workload and conditions, including dropping a demand that teachers do 15 hours of unpaid professional development training in their own time.
    
    "Yesterday's offer will be sent to teachers for a vote, with a result expected on December 3.
    
    "Ms Gisborne said the offer had been unanimously endorsed by the union executive.
    
    "I think we've got strong confidence that our members would look at this particular package and see the improvements in the salary area," she said. "We've also added to the list of schools that will receive country allowances and I think that will also be of assistance."
    
    "Under the offer, allowances of between $2000 and $19,000 on top of salaries would be paid to teachers at 272 schools, compared with smaller amounts currently paid at just 189 schools. Teachers at the state's 43 most remote schools would receive minimum allowances of $15,000, rising to $19,000 for some.
    
    "Despite declining stamp duty revenue due to a sluggish housing market, Mr Barnett said he had no qualms about the $1 billion cost. "Quality education requires that we have talented, experienced teachers who feel, and deserve to be, properly remunerated," he said.
    
    "The Government paid teachers an interim 6 per cent rise last month as a sign of goodwill, and yesterday promised the rest of the increase would be paid in three increments by October 2010."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Strikes threatened as school exams begin
    
    Teachers are threatening an indefinite strike in South Australia, as thousands of students started their end-of-year examinations yesterday.
    
    The teachers' union executive endorsed the extraordinary strike action yesterday and will convene a meeting of union delegates on Thursday to decide the time and length of the walkout.
    
    It will then be put to the entire membership, but rank-and-file teachers suggested the indefinite stoppage to their leadership through an internal survey earlier this year and it gained a rousing roar of approval at a rally of around 5000 during a half-day strike in Adelaide last week.
    
    Australian Education Union state president Correna Haythorpe said yesterday teachers could go out and stay out until their pay and conditions dispute was resolved.
    
    
    
  • Joyce threatens to back student fee
    
    A split has emerged in the Coalition ranks over Labor moves to reintroduce a compulsory fee for university students, with Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce threatening to lead his troops to back the measure.
    
    Senior Liberals yesterday demanded Senator Joyce toe the party line, but the Nationals senator warned that other colleagues may join him in abandoning the Liberal Party's holy grail of voluntary student unionism, saying it had been a "fiasco" that punished country students who enjoyed playing sport.
    
    The Rudd Government will have to introduce stricter rules to ensure the new $250 university student fee is not spent on political activities to get the measure passed by the Senate.
    
    Related stories in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers put revised pay claim
    
    "The Australian Education Union has submitted a revised pay and conditions claim to the South Australian Government.
    
    "The union will not reveal the detail of the latest pay and conditions claim by state school teachers, saying it has agreed to give the Government time to consider the claim before saying any more.
    
    "Teachers are thought to be seeking between 15 and 21 per cent over three years, but the Government's revised offer in recent days was for 12.5 per cent.
    
    "Union official Correna Haythorpe says a meeting with the Industrial Relations Minister Paul Caica today was productive.
    
    "We think that [the] Government has some matters to consider, particularly with the salary movements that we've seen in Western Australia and we look forward to their response," she said.
    
    "Our new graduates are telling us already that they find the offer that's been put in place in Western Australia to be quite attractive."
    
    "Mr Caica says the new SA claim will be carefully considered by the Government.
    
    "Now I'd say there's still some work to do, but as a first-up they were meaningful discussions and, I think, positive discussions," he said.
    
    "Teachers have held several strikes this year and are making plans for a lengthy stoppage before the end of fourth term unless their claim is met.
    
    "In Western Australia, the new Government plans to give teachers up to 24.4 per cent more, as it works to retain and attract staff.
    
    "Mr Caica says he does not feel any pressure from the moves in WA.
    
    "Certainly I don't feel any pressure in relation to pay increases that are awarded interstate," he said." [emphasis added]
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Editorial
    Putting life back on campus
    
    "Student politics has been the launching pad of many a political career, though the times on campus change to favour differing ideologies as they do in the electorates outside. Take the University of Sydney, for example: the 1960s pushed forward leftists such as the later NSW upper house leader Meredith Burgmann, the 1980s young conservatives such as Joe Hockey, now a Liberal frontbencher in Federal Parliament.
    
    "The previous federal government of John Howard might have been fighting the battles of previous decades, as its critics charged, when it decided in 2005 to end compulsory membership of student unions at Australian universities. But the change did end a system that sat badly with the spirit of free affiliation that should fill our universities and our political circles. Whether they liked it or not, students had Ms Burgmann or Mr Hockey speaking in their name and carrying out their political activities in part with funding from their compulsory union dues.
    
    "The problem was that student unions were the channel for the delivery of the services and recreation that round out the university experience and provide the opportunity for personal experiment and development. Losing the student levy of $100 to $500 or so a head has meant a catastrophic decline in health, counselling, employment, child-care and welfare services available to students, threatened long-standing sporting clubs and traditions and forced up prices in canteens, with some 1000 support staff losing their jobs.
    
    "Harder to quantify but also being steadily sapped was the university atmosphere - often difficult enough to keep alive in the newer, smaller campuses. Indeed, it was this threat to regional universities that swung the Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, from backing the voluntary student union move, and will probably win his support for the Rudd Government's move to swing back the balance.
    
    "The new system is a compulsory one, no matter how it's dressed up, with a $250 levy on all students to be collected by the universities. Whether it is compulsory unionism depends on the detail of the "benchmarks and protocols" the Government wants to impose to "ensure basic services and representation on campus are secured for the long term". You may not have joined the student representative council or union but will your money still be paying for student "representation"? There will have to be some consultation. University vice-chancellors may not want to be flayed in Parliament but they won't want to be bailed up in their offices by protesting students."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Murdoch's lecture
      
      "Improve public education and reduce middle-class welfare to pay for it - I never thought I'd agree so wholeheartedly with Rupert Murdoch."
      
      Guy Curtis, Seven Hills
      
      
      
    • "So Rupert Murdoch believes our schools are 19th-century. Yet in most international testing these schools are close to the top and certainly thrash those in the US. If our schools are
      
      "19th-century, those in his preferred homeland would be dated at about the time George Washington axed his daddy's cherry tree."

      Chris Bonnor, Cherrybrook
      
      

    • School lessons in litter
      
      "Greg McCarry (Letters, November 3) raises the spectre of children having to pick up rubbish if Catholic schools have to reduce cleaning by 40 per cent.
      
      "At my school (in the 1980s) it was accepted that it was the job of the students to pick up rubbish in the playground. I have wondered many times since why the volume of litter has exploded and his letter has put the missing piece in the puzzle.
      
      "People are now perfectly comfortable throwing litter on the ground, secure in the knowledge that the cleaner will be along shortly to pick up after them."

      Aldona Jones, Endeavour Hills (Vic)
      
      

    • "Children picking up their own rubbish at schools is one reason South Australia was known as the tidiest state in the Commonwealth. Now that the playgrounds are cleaned by contractors, litter here is getting close to that of NSW."

      Tony Lyons, Gawler East (SA)
      
      

    • Union fees poor value
      
      "Compulsory student unionism will be a gross rort on evening students at universities ("Battling unis to bring back fees", November 3). These part-timers comprise about half the student population but they will get nothing in return for their fees because they have no time for extra-curricular activities.
      
      "In my years as a part-timer at Macquarie University I was forced to pay union fees, even the sports association fee, when I was on campus only at night. Please, Kate Ellis, quash this unfair proposal or apply it to full-time day students only."
      
      Russell Carter, Lindfield
      
      
      

• The Age
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Doesn't add up
      
      "The new curriculum that the Education Department is proposing has not taken in the issue of students' rights to choose their VCE subjects according to their strengths.
      
      "If we decide to make maths compulsory, some students would be doing a subject they find useless.
      
      "English is used in day-to-day life. Analysing texts, grammar and spelling are essential for someone to get through this modern world.
      
      "However, all the maths an average person needs in their life stops, at the very latest, at the end of year 10.
      
      "When was the last time the people proposing these changes opened a year 10 maths textbook? Quadratic equations are not needed to do your tax return or calculate interest.
      
      "The National Curriculum Board must take into consideration that VCE maths is not essential, and they must trust us to make an informed choice about our future."
      
      Georgina Peters, 16, Cheltenham
      

 

Wednesday 5 November

• The West Australian
  

  • Teachers should accept ‘pretty good’ pay offer, says Twomey (page 12)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “The academic who recommended that teachers be given big pay rises in a bid to overcome the teacher shortage said they should accept the Liberal-Nationals offer because it was better than the one they had from the previous Carpenter government.
    
    “The deal announced on Monday also won support from union activist Marko Vojkovic who led the campaign to vote down the previous offer.
    
    “Former Curtin University vice chancellor Lance Twomey said in his report to the Carpenter government last year that teachers should get “immediate and significant” pay rises to bring them into line with other professions.
    
    “The latest deal, which Premier Colin Barnett said would give most of WA’s 21,000 State school teachers rises of more than 20 per cent over three years, has won unanimous support from the State School Teachers Union executive.
    
    “The executive had been divided over the previous government’s deal, which promised pay rises of between 15 and 21 per cent over three years, depending on experience, with most teachers receiving 17.5 per cent.
    
    “That deal was rejected by union members in early September.
    
    “Professor Twomey said he thought that the new deal looked “pretty good”.
    
    “It’s better again than the previous offer,” he said. “I suspect they’ll take this but I have no confidence that they will. I don’t think they’ll get a better offer. But then again, I didn’t think they’d get a better one before without a bit of harder work.”
    
    “Professor Twomey said the pay scales compared well with the rest of the nation and should help reverse WA’s critical teacher shortage. More people would be attracted to teaching careers by the number of scholarships now available and “excellent starting salaries”.
    
    “Mr Vojkovic said although he had some concerns about the offer, it was better than the last deal and the best teachers would get in the current economic climate.
    
    “Teachers have until December 3 to accept or reject the offer.”
    
    From The West Australian

     

  • Rise in pupils suspended for bad behaviour (page 6)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “The number of students expelled or suspended from State schools last year increased by nearly 900, confirming fears that troublesome pupils are becoming increasingly difficult to control.
    
    “Education Department figures show that 10,536 students were suspended in 2007 compared with 9649 in 2006. Three times as many boys were suspended as girls.
    
    “Physically assaulting or intimidating other students were the main reasons for pupils being suspended for up to 10 days. The figures also show that 95 Year 1s were suspended last year, 32 pre-primary students and fiver kindergarten pupils.
    
    “Last year, 29 students were expelled compared with 21 the previous year, with 11 of those from Year 8. The youngest was a child in Year 2.
    
    “WA Primary Principal Association president Stephen Breen said there was no doubt that children’s behaviour was changing.
    
    “There behaviour is a little bit different to 20 or 30 years ago and I think that’s due to a whole range of cultural and social issues,” he said..
    
    “Mr Breen said the introduction or five primary school behaviour centres earlier this year would help deal with particularly centres earlier this year would help deal with particularly disruptive pupils.
    
    “WA Council of State School Organisations president Rob Fry said more such centres were needed because there were only eight altogether. Parents of badly behaved children should be forced to sit in on their child’s classes, he said.
    
    “Education director-general Sharyn O’Neill said the increase in the number of students suspended last year – which was just 4.3 per cent of the school population – was the result of a crackdown on bad behaviour.
    
    “Education Minister Liz Constable said behaviour management in schools had been a significant challenge for some time.
    
    “The introduction or more school psychologists and chaplains, as promised by the Liberal Party before the State election, will form part of our approach to this issue,” she said.”
    
    From The West Australian

     

  • Coalition threat to schools Bill (page 12)
    by Andrew Tillett

    “The Rudd Government’s so-called education revolution could be derailed because the coalition threatens to split the controversial private schools’ funding Bill that forces schools to adopt an unfinished national curriculum and reveal their sources of funds in return for Federal grants.
    
    “The coalition’s opposition to the changes hardened after a flurry of school groups objected that they were being “blackmailed” into agreeing to the deal which was short on details.
    
    “As stake is $28 billion for private schools over the next four years, which has to be passed before the end of the year so the Government can pay the first tranche to schools which otherwise could be left short of money.
    
    “Linked to the Bill is the Government demand for greater accountability. Private schools have to agree to the national curriculum in English, maths, science and history as a series of new rules such as publishing their sources of money, student performance and their socio-economic status.
    
    “Public schools also will have to abide by the same conditions in a separate Bill that is still being negotiated with the States.
    
    “The Government said any move to split the Bill could jeopardize its reform agenda because now was the only opportunity to include its demands for the introduction of the national curriculum – which is still being drafted – and the benchmarks.
    
    “A Senate inquiry is due to report on November 28, leaving just four sitting days to get the Bill passed.
    
    “Opposition spokesman Chris Pyne said yesterday the Government was rushing though its agenda with undue haste.
    
    “The Opposition was determined to move Senate amendments to strip out the requirements that schools agree to the national curriculum and reveal their funding sources, which could lead to them losing government money. “The problem wit the Labor Party’s proposal is it is the national curriculum or nothing,” he said.
    
    “Tough Mr Pyne said the coalition ultimately would not deprive schools of their funding, the Government would have to rely on the Greens, Family First’s Steve Fielding and Independent Nick Xenophon to pass the Bill intact.
    
    “A spokeswoman of Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government was determined to “introduce a world-class education system” and called on the coalition to drop its opposition.
    
    “The Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia told the Senate inquiry in a submission there were still many unanswered questions about the Government’s reforms.
    
    “Christian Schools Australia said in its submission the Government had not guaranteed that its member schools would be free to teacher religious values and beliefs.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• WA Today
  
  
  • Opposition warning on teachers dispute [late pickup from 4 November]
    by Tim Clarke
    
    "The state opposition has warned Colin Barnett not to take the teacher co-operation for granted, despite unanimous union executive approval to a $1 billion plus pay deal reached yesterday.
    
    "The Government unveiled an instant six per cent rise in negotiations soon after ousting the Carpenter regime in the September election..."
    
    "But opposition education spokesperson Michelle Roberts said the teachers' agreement should not be taken for granted after similar noises from the union for the Carpenter government's $900m-plus offer led to a defiant rejection from the rank and file.
    
    "Keep in mind that our offer was for $950 million, it was recommended by the executive and it was rejected by the membership - I would not take anything for granted at this stage. People need to look at the detail," Ms Roberts said.
    
    "They also need to take into account the fact that the Government has reneged on its promise to remove the threat of arbitration." ...
    
    "Teachers union president Anne Gisborne admitted its members were running out of reasons to end the long-running pay dispute with the Government after the in-principle pay agreement.
    
     "We have won salary increases, we have won increases to allowances … and we have had the 15 hours unpaid professional development burden removed," Ms Gisborne said.
    
    "Our executive have endorsed it unanimously, and are recommending our members accept it.
    
    "We certainly are confident, and I think we have to recognise that some time has gone by, we have added to this significantly in terms of money. [emphasis added]
    
    "There has been some anxiety to get some resolution before the end of the year, and that has assisted us to getting us to a position to put a resolution to our members."
    
    Mr Barnett said the new package was designed to attract new teachers - with a shortage of 200 still being suffered across the state - and retain current staff in schools.
    
    "The salary agreement that has been reached applies to 21,000 teachers and administrators in WA, and is an increase of a little over 20 per cent over the next three years," Mr Barnett said.
    
    "This long running dispute has been going on well over a year, and not only was that unsatisfactory for teachers, but it was also unsatisfactory to the department and the new government."
    
    Full story in WA Today at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • TAFE pay offer not enough: union
    
    "The State Government has given TAFE lecturers an immediate pay rise but their union has reacted to the coolly to the offer.
    
    "The six percent increase is in line with the pay rise offered to WA teachers at the start of the week.
    
    "Pay negotiations are continuing, with the government hoping to avoid arbitration.
    
    "The Minister for Training, Peter Collier says the pay increase should show TAFE teachers that they are valued.
    
    "Mr Collier says TAFE teachers are disaffected and disenchanted, and the pay offer is an act of good faith on behalf of the government.
    
    "But the President of the State School Teachers Union, Anne Gisborne says the offer doesn't go far enough.
    
    "I think it will be disappointing to our members that it is only six percent and only back dated to September fifth because they haven't had a pay increase since December 2007," she said."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
• Training Minister Peter Collier's Media Release
  
  
  • Immediate pay rise for TAFE lecturers.
    
    The State Government has announced an immediate salary increase of six per cent for TAFE lecturers.
    
    The increase reflects an election commitment by Premier Colin Barnett to raise the status of the teaching profession.
    
    Training Minister Peter Collier said about 3,200 lecturers in 10 TAFE colleges across the State would receive the salary increase, back-dated to September 5.
    
    “This pay increase is in line with the six per cent salary increase recently announced for WA teachers, and further demonstrates the State Government’s commitment to the education and training sector,” Mr Collier said.
    
    “These lecturers play a vital role in providing courses for more than 120,000 people each year across the State.”
    
    The Minister said TAFE lecturers had not received a pay rise for almost two years due to prolonged pay negotiations under the previous Labor government.
    
    “It is unacceptable that with the State’s economic boom at its peak over the past two years, TAFE lecturers last had a pay increase in January 2007,” he said.
    
    “We needed to act quickly on this issue because the progress of the negotiations has frustrated TAFE lecturers.”
    
    The increase in pay and the back pay component for all contract and permanent staff will occur in the salary paid on November 27.  For all casual staff it will be included in the salary paid on December 11.
    
    Mr Collier said the six per cent interim increase would be absorbed into any final agreement on the TAFE lecturers’ pay deal.
    
    “We will resume negotiations with the State School Teachers Union as a matter of priority to reach a suitable agreement,” he said.
    
    
    • SSTUWA Media Statement
      
      Following our discussions with him and in keeping with the commitments he gave, Training Minister Peter Collier, has today, announced a six per cent interim pay increase for TAFE Lecturers who despite the State’s economic boom, have not had a pay increase since January 2007.
      
      The Minister in his media statement (attached),  openly acknowledges the vital role lecturers play in the State’s economy in providing training to 120,000 people each year.
      
      The increase is in line with that recently   given   to   State  School  Teachers and will be back dated to September 5. Contract and Permanent staff will receive the increase and back pay on Nov 27 and casual staff will receive it in the salary paid on December 11.
      
      Negotiations between DET and the SSTUWA will resume early next week.  Members will be advised of further details as they come to hand.
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Fears for indigenous students
    
    Boarding schools catering for indigenous students fear they will lose funding under federal legislation before parliament, with some arguing their grants will be cut by 30 per cent at a time of rising enrolments.
    
    
    
  • Demand for uni places to surge by 2026
    
    Australia needs places for an additional 10,000 university students a year -- or an extra 200,000 by 2026 -- to cope with the probable demand from record levels of fertility and immigration, the Group of Eight says.
    
    
    
  • Funds on the way but unis want more for teaching costs
    
    The Government expects to table in parliament this week amendments to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme guidelines that will provide a net funding boost to the sector of $34million this year.
    
    
    
  • Academic divide linked to divorce
    
    Women with tertiary educations who choose as a partner men who have not finished high school are 10 times more likely to separate or get divorced than women whose education is less than or equal to their partner's.
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • It pays to teach in WA
      
      "It appears that a new (Liberal) government in Western Australia genuinely values the education of its children and is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. Mike Rann in South Australia can’t manage 21 per cent over three years while the new Colin Barnett Government has offered teachers 24 per cent over three years.
      
      "With both federal and state Labor governments underperforming on education, maybe teachers need to rethink their voting preferences. I know I will be."
      
      Kenneth Grierson, Norwood, SA
      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Yes, Minister, it's an offensive game
    
    Australian Muslims are angry about an internet game in which players set out to "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons". No one in the Australian Government seems able to do anything about it.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Taking charge of poor choices
    by Greg Blundell
    
    "I am a public school teacher at a primary school in Sydney's inner west and today I spent, along with two other teachers, around two hours trying to buy rechargeable batteries.
    
    "Now you might be wondering what I'm on about. What would a primary school teacher want with rechargeable batteries? Well, we need them for our digital cameras so we can do a photography course.
    
    "We've been told that we have to buy everything through a website called smartbuy. We must buy everything on government contract unless there is no contract for the goods we require. Now there are a couple of problems with this.
    
    "The first is that the website doesn't work very well. It's so slow you could make dinner before it comes back with a result.
    
    "The second problem is that goods are incredibly difficult to find. They seem to be listed in the strangest ways. For example, Band-Aids are listed as fabric wound dressings.
    
    "But I was looking for rechargeable batteries. After my search finally came back, I was presented with 13 pages of batteries. None of these seemed to be the right ones. The descriptions were cryptic and goodness knows a picture would have helped.
    
    "The Department of Education's intranet also doesn't work. Over the last week it's been appalling and all administration work in schools has ground to a halt.
    
    "This means that teachers' emails haven't been working, which creates a problem with the wonderful new world of transfers that's been foisted upon us. It relies on the use of emails to advise teachers of job applications for which they have 48 hours to respond. The department's help desk also had an interesting message, too. When I rang to get assistance, the reply was "you are being disconnected", click.
    
    "It's all the bright idea of my glorious leader, the NSW Director-General of Education, an economist not a teacher who is paid almost $450,000 a year. Pretty good value for money, eh?
    
    "Those batteries I was talking about … we bought them … from the local Reject Shop. They cost half as much as the batteries we think were right on smartbuy. The shop threw in the charger as well.
    
    "I'm pretty sure we could have spent our two hours a lot more productively than looking for batteries, don't you?"
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Disruptive pupils barred from more schools
    
    More struggling schools will be able to turn away new pupils during the school year if they are disruptive, under improvement plans announced by the schools secretary today.
    
    
    
  • Schoolchildren too big to squeeze into chairs
    
    Schools need to upgrade their furniture because today's children have outgrown the tables and chairs designed to meet the needs of 1960s pupils, experts say.

 

Thursday 6 November

• The West Australian
  

  • Schools fear test of faith in national curriculum (page 7)
    by Andrew Tillett, Canberra
    
    “There is growing concern among religious schools that their freedom to teach faith-based beliefs and values may be curbed if they sign up to the Federal Government’s new national curriculum, which is a condition of receiving funding for the next four years.
    
    “Specialist school systems such as Montessori and Steiner schools are also worried that their curriculums could be under threat as opposition among private schools grows to the Government’s demand they sign up to the deal before all the details are clear.
    
    “Education Minister Julia Gillard is pushing for all private schools to sign the national curriculum and have their students’ performance benchmarked. They would also be required to reveal publicly all their sources of funding, including fees, bequests and donations.
    
    “The conditions are part of a four-year $28 billion education funding Bill which needs to be passed before the end of the year to ensure the schools get their money. The Bill has stalled before a Senate inquiry, which reports on November 28.
    
    “But the Australian Association of Christian Schools, Christian Schools Australia and the Australian Christian Lobby have raised objections to the key elements of the Bill.
    
    “CSA chief executive Stephen O’Doherty said yesterday schools wanted assurances the national curriculum would allow them to teach “legitimate faith perspectives”.
    
    “We want to be able to quite freely proclaim our belief in God,” he said.
    
    “It would be a dreadfully retrograde step for democracy if government says we can’t teach that.” Mr O’Doherty also demanded financial data be kept confidential by the Education Department because education unions could misuse it to create “disunity and division”.
    
    “AACS chief executive Bob Johnston said the national curriculum could prohibit religious schools from teaching a “Christian worldview”.
    
    “He cited Christian missionaries, saying conventional history suggested they has destroyed indigenous cultures but a national curriculum could strop faith-based schools from looking at their religious motivations and the benefits they delivered.
    
    “While not advocating the teaching of Creationism at the expense of evolutionary theory, Mr Johnston said religious schools believed they should have freedom to examine the biblical origins of mankind.
    
    “We believe it is quite legitimate to explore that philosophical and theological mystery, that it shouldn’t be eliminated by science,” he said.
    
    “Riverlands Montessori School principal Ineke Oliver said the rhetoric was the national curriculum would not impinge on Montessori philosophies but the sector wanted details.
    
    “Ms Gillard has tried to quell schools’ concerns, promising that the national curriculum would not be a “straitjacket” on what they taught.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  • $4000 pay rise for TAFE lecturers (page 6)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “The State Government has given TAFE lecturers an immediate 6 per cent pay rise in line with the increase recently handed to teachers.
    
    “The pay rise, which will be backdated to September 5, is the first lecturers have got in nearly two years after pay talks with the Carpenter government broke down.
    
    “Their dispute is being arbitrated in the WA Industrial Relations Commission.
    
    “More than 3200 lecturers in 10 TAFE colleges will get the salary increase.
    
    “A senior lecturer's pay will rise by more than $4000, from $72,992 to $77,372 and a grade 1 lecturer will go from $48,518 to $51,429.
    
    “Training Minister Peter Collier said the increase reflected an election promise to raise the status of the teaching profession.
    
    "These lecturers provide a valuable role in providing courses for more than 120,000 people each year across the State," he said.
    
    "It is unacceptable that with the State's economic boom at its peak over the past two years, TAFE lecturers last had a pay rise in January 2007."
    
    “The IRC recently rejected an application by the State School Teachers Union to grant a 7 per cent increase backdated to the start of this year.
    
    “Mr Collier said the interim rise would be absorbed into any final agreement on the lecturers' pay deal.
    
    “Under the latest offer, most of WA's 21,000 State school teachers are expected to get rises of more than 20 per cent over three years.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  • ASIO has Edith Cowan students in its sights (page 15)
    by Nick Butterly, Canberra
    
    "It used to be that ASIO recruited its spooks by getting university professors to pull aside select students for a quiet chat.
     
    "Now, such is the Government’s thirst for spies that the highly secretive agency is emerging from the shadows to take its recruitment effort to a much more public level.
     
    "ASIO chief Paul O’Sullivan will tell academics in Perth today that the intelligence organisation is now far more open in its hiring practices, and is particularly enthusiastic about students from Edith Cowan University thanks to a range of security-orientated courses on offer there.
     
    "Mr O’Sullivan’s endorsement is so strong, it could mean ECU may soon rival Canberra’s ANU as the top recruiting ground for agents.
     
    “In offering strong programs such as Bachelor of Science Security and Justice Studies and the Bachelor of Counter Terrorism Security and Intelligence, Edith Cowan is in my view at the forefront of constructive efforts by our universities to assist Australia’s ability to respond to the challenges of the security environment,” Mr O’Sullivan will say during a speech at the campus today.
     
    "He will offer a rare insight into what it takes to become a spy. Obviously the ability to keep a secret and good analytical skills are a must, but surprisingly so are “flair” and a capacity for critical and creative thinking.
     
    “While the precise qualifications and requirements may vary between roles, it’s fair to say we need people who are clever and courageous, ethical and flexible and emotionally stable and robust,” he will say.
     
    “People who are discreet, can keep secrets and can bring flair and imagination to the task of detecting the secrets of those planning to do Australia or Australians harm.”
     
    "ASIO is interested in language students, particularly those proficient in Arabic and Asian languages.
     
    "The spy chief will also give a roundup of the current security threat environment."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • Parents, do your bit
      
      “I felt compelled to respond in support of Barb Gloggner (My home truths, Letters, 1/11). Well done, Barb, for summarising so eloquently the exact situation perhaps most teachers find themselves in. Teaching would be a pleasure if teachers had to just teach. Many find themselves having to fulfil many roles – counsellor, nurse, mediator, substitute parent, to name a few. I am not a teacher but feel immense frustration at the criticism they attract, mainly through sheer ignorance. I agree with Barb: if parents did their bit, they might gain insight into the complexities of educating children – responsibility of which must fall back on the parents.”
      
      Maria Banham, Daglish
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Brightest and best miss out
    by Jennifer Buckingham
    
    "When the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development described Australia as a high quality, low equality country in its 2000 Program for International Student Assessment report, it fuelled an existing preoccupation among educators and academics about the variation in student achievement levels.
    
    "Since then, there has been much talk about the long tail of educational underachievement in Australia.
    
    "Ask just about anyone with at least a passing interest in education to name Australia's most significant educational issue and they will almost certainly say that we have too many children who are failing to get an adequate school education. Much less worried about, however, is whether there are too many children who are not getting an excellent education. While the achievement gap is closing -- in the 2006 PISA report Australia moved into the high quality, high equality category -- there is a real danger that Australia is trading off one for the other. [emphasis added]
    
    "That we should work hard to lift the low achievers is unarguable. Even one functionally illiterate and innumerate child is too many.
    
    "For this reason, a large proportion of government policy and funding is aimed at minimising the number of children who do not achieve at least a basic level of proficiency in the essential skills of literacy and numeracy. For indigenous children, it is especially crucial.
    
    "It is widely thought that if we could just raise the performance of the lowest groups, we could rest easy. Not so. Our ranking in international tests is pretty good but by no means secure. In the PISA rankings, conducted by the OECD every three years since 2000, we have held our position of equal third in science, but our rankings in maths and literacy were lower in 2006 than in 2000. In literacy we slipped from equal second to equal sixth. In maths, we slipped from equal fourth to equal ninth. In a different set of tests, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, we have also moved down in the rankings in maths and science.
    
    "This is not because of the low achievers. Our proportion of students in the lowest achievement band in both tests has been stable through time and is close to or less than the international average. Test scores at the lower end of the scale have changed little or, in some cases, have improved significantly.
    
    "Our big problems are at the top. In the 2000 PISA tests we had 17.6 per cent of students performing at the top literacy level, the third highest proportion in the OECD. In the 2006 tests we had just 8.6per cent of students in the top group, putting us at ninth place. And it wasn't just our relative position that deteriorated. Australia was the only previously strong performing country that saw an absolute decline in literacy scores from 2000 to 2006, which the PISA analysis says is attributable to a decline at the higher end of the performance spectrum.
    
    "The TIMSS results are even more striking. The proportion of Australian students in the highest achievement bands is much smaller than high ranking countries. In the TIMSS 2003 results, Australia had 7 per cent of Year 8 students achieving at the highest level in maths, whereas Singapore had 44 per cent of its students in the top performance level.
    
    "These statistics are the result of a serious shortcoming in Australia's education game plan. The emphasis placed on identifying and assisting children at risk of failing to achieve at least a basic education, particularly in the early years, is necessary for personal and public good reasons. But the children who have the potential to excel rarely get a look-in.
    
    "There are plenty of examples of this. A recent one is the NSW Government's Best Start program, which will assess the literacy and numeracy skills of all children beginning kindergarten. The aim of the program is to identify children who are behind their peers when they begin school and who may develop learning problems. The assessment is set at a level that cannot identify children who are ahead of their peers and may also benefit from special attention.
    
    "Similarly, the terms of reference forthe 2007 national numeracy review mention improving numeracy outcomes for disadvantaged learners, underperforming students and indigenous students. There is no mention of extending the abilities of the mathematics whiz-kids.
    
    "In all levels of government and in most schools, concerns for underperforming students eclipse the need to provide a high quality education for highly capable students. The large majority of literacy and numeracy funding at state and territory level is aimed at remedial programs such as Reading Recovery. All schools are supposed to cater for gifted and talented students, but the funding, staffing and policy support they attract is minuscule by comparison. [emphasis added]
    
    "In his new book Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing American Schools Back to Reality, Charles Murray argues that we need to expend more effort on thinking about the kind of education needed by the young people who will run the country.
    
    "Failure to do so will have effects far beyond international test results, reaching into the calibre of our universities, our global competitiveness in technology and innovation, and even the quality of our future governments."

    Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • No TV in first two years, says childhood expert
    by Stephen Lunn, social affairs writer
    
    "US childhood expert Michael Rich can recite, chapter and verse, the research linking children's overuse of media to health issues such as obesity, anxiety and aggression.
    
    "So how does he manage television and computer games for his own boys, Jason, 4, and Ian, 2?
    
    "My kids have had no screen time to 30 months because there is no evidence they can learn anything from TV that young," says Rich, director of Harvard University's Centre for Media and Child Health. "We know what strengthens brain architecture at that age. It's face-to-face dialogue with people, manipulating their physical environment such as stacking blocks or getting food into their own mouth, and open-ended problem solving using creative play such as time in a sandbox with a bucket of water.
    
    "Beyond that age my wife and I do our homework; we find educational programs promoting skills like sharing and working in a group. I also video everything and run straight through the ads. Because kids love ads, and ad makers know they do." ...
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Reality of job drought dawns after years of study
    by Angus Hohenboken
    
    "Wayne Swan's bleak unemployment forecast has confirmed Kiran Grewal's worst fears.
    
    "The 30-year-old PhD student recently applied for a full-time position teaching sociology at the University of Sydney, only to be told the position had been scrapped in the wake of the global financial crisis.
    
    "Her two casual teaching jobs will finish at the end of the semester and she is facing a summer without money.
    
    "Despite having 10 years of study under her belt -- she also has a law degree -- Ms Grewal is less than optimistic about her job prospects going into next year, especially given the Treasurer's prediction of a rise in unemployment to 5per cent by June.
    
    "It just confirms the worst fears that a lot of people in my immediate circle already have," Ms Grewal said yesterday.
    
    "Most of my friends are in the same boat -- we've all spent loads on postgraduate qualifications and studying and the best that we can hope for is casual academic teaching because there is no money to hire people permanently." University casuals had seen increased workloads in line with a reluctance to hire extra hands, she said..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Next teachers' strike set for Nov 21
    
    South Australia's public school teachers will vote on a proposal for a full-day strike on November 21 and rolling half-day stoppages for the rest of the term.
    
    
    
  • Teacher accused of assaulting students
    
    Police have charged a 43-year-old Bunbury school teacher, in south-west Western Australia, for allegedly assaulting three 13-year-old male students.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Teaching assistants improve achievement, Ofsted says
    
    Research says support staff should be given better training
    
    The introduction of teaching assistants into classrooms is improving pupils' achievement and wellbeing, school inspectors said in a report today.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Teacher alleges race remarks
    
    A primary school teacher has claimed in a discrimination complaint that she was described as a "Negro" and children at the school used the term "nigger".
    
    
    
  • Tough love 'reinforcing anti-social behaviour'
    
    Military-style "boot camps" and programs that try to shock troubled adolescents out of violent or anti-social tendencies may worsen their behaviour, a youth researcher has said.
    
    
    
  • Faster broadband to boost learning
    
    The speed of the broadband piped into Victoria's 1600 government schools will be more than doubled under a major information upgrade. Broadband capacity will increase from four to 10 megabits per second, with the works to be funded through the $89 million VicSmart program.
    
    Premier John Brumby said the new technology would make a fundamental difference to the way children learn. "For our children right across the government school system it means that they are at the absolute forefront of the digital revolution," he said. [No comment...  Web]
    
    
    
  • Minister admonishes Victoria Uni
    
    Victoria University has been sent a terse warning from the State Government over its plan to stop taking enrolments at its Melton and Sunbury campuses from 2010.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Show and tell went just a little too far
    
    We've had schoolboy rebellion at Xavier and parental uprising at the Montessori school, so it seems only fair to complete the trio. At the Melbourne Grammar speech night last week, headmaster Paul Sheahan, the school board chairman and a woman from the school-support group took the stage to hand out the farewell gifts to year 12. It was quickly observed that the neckline on the woman's ensemble was particularly low and, says one informant, "as the boys came across the stage to shake hands we noticed the neckline was dropping lower". Our goggle-eyed informant says that, eventually, it happened: there was what was described as a "Janet Jackson moment", a "pop-out", a "wardrobe malfunction".
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Primary school costs lag, report says
    
    NSW spends less educating its primary school students than most other states in Australia, an audit of the Department of Education has found.
    
    
    
  • Student groups miss out on new uni fees
    
    The Federal Government's proposal to allow universities to introduce a fee to fund rundown student services was not greeted with an outpouring of joy in the office of the University of Western Sydney Students' Association... By requiring that the new levy go to university administrations and not student unions, the Government's proposal does nothing for the many student associations that do not have existing contracts or close relationships with university boards.
    
    
    
  • Push to toughen rules on children in art
    
    In a move designed to tighten censorship guidelines surrounding art exhibitions, the NSW Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, will ask censorship ministers to clarify and streamline the National Classification Scheme as it applies to artworks depicting children.

 

Friday 7 November

• The West Australian
  

  • Exam 'made books irrelevant' (page 12)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “English teachers opposed to the vague outcomes-based education approach have criticised yesterday's Year 12 TEE English paper, saying students could have done the exam without having read a book during their course.
    
    “Members of the English Teachers Forum, a group which loosely represents teachers opposed to OBE who broke away from their professional association, said the exam questions were too general.
    
    "It's insufficiently linked to the study of texts during the year," forum spokesman Denis McMahon said.
    
    “There was only one compulsory question which required students to refer to a "print text" that had studied during the year, that could include a feature article, a poem or short story.
    
    “It did not require students to have read an extended text such as a novel.
    
    “Peak professional body the English Teachers Association of WA said the paper was predictable but fair.
    
    “President Wendy Cody said she has concerns about several options in the writing section, particularly a question posed as a text message which invited students to discuss language.
    
    “The first part of the question stated: "Aussies ll lets rejoice. 4 w'r yung n fre. W goldN soil n wealth 4 toil, r hom S girt by sea". This was followed by the statement: "The English language: diverse, creative, adaptable, or in a state of decline?" to which students had to respond, referring to at least one text they had studied during the year.
    
    “Ms Cody said it was unclear what the question was asking of students.
    
    "There's the potential for people to just write about what some people might see as pretty inconsequential language in the form of SMS or chat lines and stuff like that," she said.
    
    "But having said that, other kids might actually produce something quite intelligible and well-reasoned."
    
    “Mr McMahon also disliked the question because the SMS quote distracted students from the task, which was to comment on the adaptability of language in a text they had studied.
    
    “Other questions in the writing section called for a creative response or did not ask students to refer to texts they had read.
    
    “For example: "Explore the proposition that the media are superficial in their treatment of important issues".
    
    "This kind of 'write a general essay' is what we've been arguing is not the right way to go, because you can do a question like that without having studied and English course," Mr McMahon said.
    
    “English was one of the first OBE subjects introduced to senior school.
    
    “Yesterday was the second exam in the new format.
    
    “Other teachers said the exam was an improvement on last year's but they were anxious to see a final sample exam for the 2009 course that they hoped would better reflect the changes which teachers have demanded.
    
    “Teachers have called for creative writing and the requirements to write about still images to be removed from next year's exam.”
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    

  • Senator backs principals on funding bill (page 12)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “WA Senator Michaelia Cash has thrown her support behind private school principals who claim they are being held to ransom by a Federal Government ultimatum to sign up for an unfinished national curriculum or miss out on funding…”
    
    “In WA, many principals have made it clear that they feel pressured into agreeing to this legislation just so that they are able to pay the bills next year,” Senator Cash said. “If non-government schools do not agree to implement the national curriculum, the Rudd Government could withhold or even stop Federal funding to these schools. This is despite the fact that the national curriculum is yet to be finalised.” …
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    

• ABC News
  
  
  • Hope for an end to teacher shortage
    
    "There's renewed hope teachers who have left the profession will return to the classroom to help solve the teacher shortage in Western Australia.
    
    "The State School Teacher's Union says there is evidence the exodus of teachers from the profession could be turning around.
    
    "The State Government earlier this week announced a 20% pay offer over three years, which would make them the highest paid in the country.
    
    "Union president Anne Gisborne says the impact of the global financial crisis on superannuation balances is also expected to drive teachers back into the profession.
    
    "We're also hearing that people who are in a position where they can choose to retire are also reassessing on the back of the collapse, the impact on their superannuation and so on," she said.
    
    "Former teacher Ken Eaton left the profession 20 years ago and went into private business, but agrees conditions are now right to return to the classroom.
    
    "It's a combination of factors I guess of quiet business conditions and an attractive pay deal for teachers," he said."
    
    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • Principal cleared over controversial artist's visit
    
    An investigation by the Victorian Education Department has cleared the principal who allowed artist Bill Henson to scout St Kilda Park Primary School for talent of any wrongdoing.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Believe in education change: Gillard
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday acknowledged the past 10 years had been a wasted opportunity for Australia's universities, but insisted in the words of Barack Obama that "change is coming".
    
    "In her Sir Robert Menzies Oration at Melbourne University last night, Ms Gillard used the story of the US president-elect to highlight the need for a more equitable education system that bridged the gap between rich and poor students. "The election of Barack Obama is an extraordinary story … It's a redemptive story about the power of education to overcome disadvantage," she said.
    
    "Ms Gillard said the introduction of the HECS loan scheme and other reforms under former Labor education minister John Dawkins had helped redefine the nation's 40 universities.
    
    "However, "it wasn't access and opportunity for all" and decades later the higher education system had not kept pace with change. The past 10 years had been wasted and tertiary public funding had stagnated. "But thankfully there are signs all around us that — to pinch a slogan — change is coming," she said.
    
    "Ms Gillard's speech came as the Federal Government prepares for a major shake-up of the universities."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Schools baulk at funds disclosure
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Private schools have warned that forcing them to be more transparent about their finances and results could lead to "ideological bullying", fearful parents and communities, and political agendas.
    
    "From next year, all schools will be required to publicly disclose information about their fees, resources and results as a condition of billions of dollars in federal funding.
    
    "But in a series of submissions to a Senate inquiry, non-government schools have resisted the plans, warning disclosure could do more harm than good.
    
    "We already provide exhaustive reports to receive appropriate funding and are concerned more detailed information may be counterproductive if misinterpreted by publicity or … used for political purposes," Ballarat and Clarendon College principal David Shepherd wrote to the Senate committee.
    
    "The group president of the Australasian Association for Progressive and Alternative Education, Cecelia Bradley, said the Government's proposed changes could result in "constricted learning and fearful parents and communities".
    
    "Fitzroy Community School co-founder Philip O'Carroll said his school found "terrifying" the prospect that funding to a school could be cut if it failed to pass financial audits.
    
    "If you had any idea what hostile inspections non-(government) schools are subject to, you would understand why we find this idea terrifying. There is no rule of law if you let this clause through. It will be ideological bullying." ...
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Reckoning for our squandered years
    
    States pay the price for their boomtime recklessness
    
    "... As state governments scramble for their shares of the depleted federal infrastructure fund, they should reflect on their own mismanagement of prosperity, including GST windfalls. Too often, provider capture by trade unions has seen inflationary wage rises handed out to police, teachers, nurses, bureaucrats and other state employees to buy votes. The 15 per cent pay rise awarded to Victorian teachers earlier this year, in exchange for an extra 10 minutes' class time, was a prime example..."
    
    
    
  • Schoolkids get a shot at the workforce
    by Brad Norington
    
    "Facing an uncertain jobs market, Doonya Tayar has decided to invest in some insurance to help her future.
    
    "Doonya is one of nine Year 11 students from Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta, in Sydney's west, who are being taught marketable skills in a trial program intended to give them an immediate income when they leave school.
    
    "All have taken part in a Barista Basics course in Sydney's CBD that has TAFE accreditation.
    
    "This has been a fun experience," Doonya told The Australian. "I will think about it every time I go to a coffee shop. Making a good coffee is much more complicated than I thought."
    
    "Given new figures for Australia's economic outlook showing unemployment could rise to 5.75 per cent in 18 months, such skills could prove handy in boosting the chance of an immediate income for teenagers such as Doonya after the Higher School Certificate.
    
    "Funded under a school mentoring program, the barista training scheme conceived by businessman Philip Porter is also meant to help connect teenage schoolchildren with the outside world.
    
    "Mr Porter, one of a group of former students who believe in giving back something to the school they attended, said the course could lead to a part-time job during tertiary study or be the foundation for a career in the hospitality industry.
    
    "This is about helping a bunch of working-class kids to secure their future," Mr Porter said.
    
    "Given the current strife with the financial crisis, this has the potential to put them in a good position for the years ahead. It also opens the gate to networking. You can get a job all around the world with this certificate." ...
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Academy denies ignoring order
    
    The Australian National Academy of Music board has denied that it failed to respond to a direct order from Arts Minister Peter Garrett to review its operation, a move that prompted the Government to axe its funding.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Creationism should be taught as science, say 29% of teachers
    
    Twenty-nine per cent of teachers believe that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as science, according to an online survey of attitudes to teaching evolution in the UK. Nearly 50% of the respondents said they believed that excluding alternatives to evolution was counter-productive and would alienate pupils from science.
    
    Similar stories in most UK media
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Under-5s' suspensions reach 1,500
    
    There were 1,500 suspensions of children aged four and under in England in the past year, figures show.
    
    Similar stories in most UK media
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Online learners
      
      "Jo-Ann Brown (Letters, November 6) suggests online lectures are emptying lecture halls. Having just finished six years of juggling sole parenting, self-employment and higher education, my experience has shown that online learning (and there is much more to it than lectures) can be the difference between engaging with a subject and merely turning up. Over-legislating the delivery of lecture formats will deprive those whose learning experience is significantly enhanced by a blend of teaching styles."
      
      Angela Williams, Wollongong
      
      
      
    • "Online lectures are central to the arguments about compulsory services fees. As a lecturer who teaches fully online courses, I assure Jo-Ann Brown that learning online is increasingly sought by students themselves.
      
      "Learning online is a pedagogical tsunami. It has been willing to embrace and experiment with new methods of educational delivery ignored by the face-to-face tradition. For a fraction of the cost, online learning has opened the door to more opportunities for universities and students than most people are aware of. It is where a significant part of where education is going, whether you are comfortable with it or not.
      
      "Compulsory services fees are obviously an unwarranted imposition on students who never set foot on campus."
      
      Pierre Mol, Pymble
      
      
      
    • "Trust me, Jo-Ann Brown, when I mark exam papers I can tell which students attended my lectures and participated in tutorials, and which students just downloaded the lecture notes."
      
      James Proctor, Crows Nest

 

Saturday – Sunday, 8 – 9 November

• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • New forces from this maelstrom
    by Rupert Murdoch [Boyer Lecture #2]
    
    "The word technology has a coldness and a distance that seems removed from human experience. There is high technology, which sounds almost religious. And there are techies, who are sometimes a little too expert in the art of technology.
    
    "Fears about technology and the change it brings are nothing new. But in our day these changes are accelerating. And their impact is a mix of the miraculous, the efficacious and the disorienting. Sentimentality sometimes blocks our path to the future. And it's always tempting to romanticise the rustic.
    
    "So today I start with a simple and provocative proposition: whingeing about the technology will get you nowhere. The only way to deal with new technology that up-ends your job or your business model is to get out in front of it. Otherwise it will get out in front of you.
    
    "Now, I'm not saying that we should all become card-carrying geeks. But we do need to be contemporary and to comprehend the impact on our family and our society.
    
    "We are in an era of unprecedented creative destruction, but there is far more being created than there is being destroyed..."
    
    Edited extract. Rupert Murdoch is chairman and chief executive officer of News Corporation, publisher of The Weekend Australian. Hear this Boyer Lecture in full tomorrow 5pm on ABC Radio National's Big Ideas or at abc.net.au/rn/boyerlectures.
    
    All lectures will be published by ABC Books in December.
    
    Rest of extract in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Don’t blame teachers for rot
      
      "I agree wholeheartedly with The Australian’s editorial on the rampant profligacy of state governments ("Reckoning for our squandered years”, 7/11), but I cannot agree on your targets for blame, teachers.
      
      "If you had directed ire at the closed shop merry-go-round of Australia’s obscenely remunerated directors and CEOs, or perhaps made the observation that state governments are more interested in directing taxpayer funds into the hands of wealthy companies and limiting individuals’ choice, rather than benefiting their constituents, I might have some sympathy. But that you have not.
      
      "Teachers, particularly those in small schools, work long hours and have to be educator, social worker, psychiatrist, psychologist, business manager, nurse, negotiator and accountant, all making up for the miserable level of resources grudgingly given by those same state governments."
      
      Martin Dix, Healesville, Vic
      
      
      
      
• BBC News
  
  
  • Analysis
    Obama - the education President?
    by Mike Baker
    
    "Will Barack Obama be 'the education President'?
    
    "There are strong indications that he will, including a policy wish list remarkably similar to Tony Blair's agenda when he came to power in 1997.
    
    "President-elect Obama certainly won the teachers' vote.
    
    "The two big American teacher associations - the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers - threw the weight of their 4.6 million members behind him.
    
    "And, despite an extraordinarily low level of interest in education issues in the US media coverage of the Presidential elections, Obama was always keen to focus on school and college issues.
    
    "McCain rarely went there.
    
    "The differences between their official websites during the campaign were stark: Obama had a detailed education reform programme; McCain restricted himself to a few general principles.
    
    "Unlike the UK, the national US government has a relatively small role in running education, which remains the preserve of the states.
    
    "Indeed the Republican Party has, at various times, tried to abolish the federal department for education altogether.
    
    "President Reagan promised to do so in 1982. The Republican Party tried again in the 1990s and, back in 1994, John McCain spoke in support of its abolition.
    
    "Nevertheless, as concern has grown about standards in the public school system, American presidents have increasingly intervened in education issues.
    
    "This sense of national crisis led to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which required individual states to test pupils in reading and maths as a condition of receiving federal grants.
    
    "This was very similar to the creation of the national curriculum tests in England a few years earlier and, as in the UK, it has proved controversial.
    
    "Obama supports the aims of No Child Left Behind law, but wants it reformed.
    
    "He believes it has failed because it was not backed by enough money and because it encouraged narrow, standardised testing.
    
    No to vouchers
    
    "He will endorse the idea that the federal government should be involved in driving up education standards, but he has promised fewer tick-box style tests and more carrot and less stick for underperforming schools.
    
    "So what else does President-elect Obama have in store for schools?
    
    "His priorities are: more money for early years education, a target of universal availability of pre-school education, more after-school opportunities, more summer schools for disadvantaged pupils, the recruitment of more maths and science graduates into teaching, and better pay for teachers.
    
    "If this sounds very like the Labour government's agenda in 1997, then there are other aspects too that reinforce the comparison.
    
    "Because, despite his support from the teacher associations, Obama has supported initiatives opposed by the unions.
    
    "The most obvious is his support for so-called charter schools.
    
    "These are schools set up by independent groups, outside the network of local authority schools, but which receive state funding.
    
    "In other words, they are rather like Tony Blair's City Academies.
    
    "However, despite agreeing there is a need to 'experiment' in school provision, Obama has shown no enthusiasm for the other current radical idea in the USA: school vouchers.
    
    "McCain supported voucher schemes, which exist in places such as Florida, Arizona and Wisconsin, but they remain very controversial and are strongly resisted by the unions.
    
    "If Obama goes for the title of 'education President' he will not be the first to do so. Perhaps surprisingly, a Republican, George Bush senior, first took the label.
    
    'Sense of crisis'
    
    "He took on the mantle of 'educator-in-chief' after a 1983 critique of the school system, called A Nation At Risk, stirred up a powerful sense of crisis over pupil achievement.
    
    "That sense of a crisis in public school standards is still there.
    
    "About 30% of high school students still fail to graduate with a diploma.
    
    "International surveys suggest that, in science and maths, 15-year-olds in the USA are well behind the average for advanced nations.
    
    "So, as we wait to see what a new President Obama will do, it seems likely that 'education, education, education' - to coin a phrase - may indeed be his priority.
    
    "His Presidency will be one that stands for increased federal funding for education and greater federal intervention to tackle educational failure and inequality.
    
    "Others before him have tried. Both George Bush senior and Bill Clinton set ambitious goals for education.
    
    "Both largely failed. For example, the Goals 2000 target of 90% high school graduation rates remains well out of reach.
    
    "The expectations on Obama are high, yet the obstacles are even higher as he faces enormous economic challenges.
    
    "But his supporters, not least the teacher associations, will be disappointed if the reality does not live up to his rhetoric on education reform.
    
    "We invite your comments."
    
    From BBC News at link
    
    
    
    
• Time Magazine
  
  
  • Who Will Obama Pick as Secretary of Education?
    
    ... So whom will President-Elect Obama tap for this enormous task? That announcement isn't expected until at least early next week. But here's a look at some of the presumed contenders.
    
    [Joel Klein, Linda Darling-Hammond, Arne Duncan, Janet Napolitano, Colin Powell... details in the article]
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times
  
  
  • 'Schoolies' get Bali terror warning on execution eve
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith heightens speculation the Bali bombers will be executed tonight, issuing a special terror warning to school leavers.
    
    "The Government is particularly aware that in mid to late November and early December, a large number of Australian school graduates may well travel to Indonesia, particularly Bali for what has become known as schoolies week,'' he said at a media conference this afternoon in Perth.
    
    "We ask those young graduates and their parents to very carefully bear in mind the travel advice which we have issued.
    
    "We continue to receive credible evidence of the threat of terrorist attacks in Indonesia and in Bali..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • The class divide
    by Michael Bachelard and Liza Power
    
    Single-sex or coeducation, which is better? Many schools are having it both ways, enrolling boys and girls but separating them in class.
    
    "In the girls' toilets at Haileybury's middle school, burgundy vinyl covers the sink tops, and stylish oval mirrors are inset above the basins — a chic environment for pubescent self-assessment. Over in the boys' toilets, in a separate part of the school, the outlook is much plainer: no mirrors, no vinyl, and, one suspects, rather less self-scrutiny.
    
    "Welcome to the new world of "parallel education", where gender difference has taken physical shape in every aspect of the school.
    
    "Haileybury College was once, according to its principal, a "macho, hard-edged" boys' school. But since 2003, it has progressively taken in girls until they now make up about 40% of students. Instead of simply being integrated into co-ed classrooms, girls and boys attend the same campus, but are taught in separate classes from year 5 to graduation. As they grow older, they can mix freely in the playground, and they also come together for music, drama and other activities.
    
    "The model is strictly policed, and is worked out in every detail. The timetable, the teaching style and the location of classrooms are dictated by gender, as are paint colours, furniture, uniforms and toilet infrastructure.
    
    "If you want girls to attend, says maths teacher and middle school principal Shane Davey, "it's got to be an attractive place".
    
    "According to principal Derek Scott, it's based on a very clear idea — that single-sex classrooms within a coeducational school creates the best of both worlds. Children can achieve distraction-free study, and therefore academic excellence, without the social penalty of viewing the opposite sex as a curio..."
    
    Full story [it's a long one] in The Sunday Age at link
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    Looking at both sides of the gender question in schools
    
    Should boys and girls be educated in separate classes for their own good?
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald [online only]
  
  
  • Teaching crisis looms
    by Rachel Browne
    
    "Public education in NSW is headed for a crisis as skyrocketing birth rates look set to clash with teacher retirement figures.
    
    "The "baby bonus generation", representing the biggest birth spike in more than 30 years, will enter the education system from 2011. At the same time, more than half of NSW's teachers will hit retirement age.
    
    "Educators and parent groups fear the system will not cope..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age [Saturday]
  
  
  • Principal in clear over Henson
    by Farrah Tomazin and Bridie Smith
    
    "The principal who allowed controversial photographer Bill Henson to scout for child models in her school will not face disciplinary action after an investigation cleared her of any wrongdoing.
    
    "But all public schools will be required to adopt rules for talent scouting after the State Government conceded its guidelines should be improved.
    
    "Former St Kilda Park Primary School principal Sue Knight has been under investigation for allowing Henson — an artist known for his photographs of naked children — to tour the grounds of her school to look for subjects to pose for him. Henson eventually found a boy to photograph with his shirt off, with the consent of the child's family..."
    
    "Education Minister Bronwyn Pike, announcing that Dr Knight had been cleared of wrongdoing, warned that it would be "unwise" for any other principal to allow Henson onto school grounds to scout for talent given the controversy that this case generated.
    
    "I don't think that schools are the place for people to enter when they are on a mission for their own personal gain," Ms Pike said.
    
    "But on the other hand, we don't want our schools to become fortresses where they're closing off the opportunity for kids to shine … It's about striking the right balance."
    
    "Ms Pike said she was confident the Government had strong protocols regarding visitor access in schools. However, she conceded there was room for improvement — particularly in ensuring that those guidelines were understood and implemented.
    
    "As a result of the incident, the Government will create new rules outlining the conditions under which talent scouts are allowed on school grounds. Schools will also be required to have an individual policy regarding visitors as well as a policy for partnerships with community groups and businesses..."
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Crushing diversity
      
      "RE "Schools baulk at funds disclosure" (The Age, 7/11), I am not terrified of a financial audit of Fitzroy Community School. I would be happy for the public to know that we, like most non-government schools, operate on a lower budget for each child than the state system.
      
      "I would add, too, that if higher-spending independent schools were to have their private fund-raising published, it would only be fair if total taxpayer input plus private fund-raising of state schools in the same suburbs was published alongside.
      
      "No, what I am terrified of is a proposed "non-financial audit". It is bully talk for ideology - using bureaucracy to squash diversity in schooling. Already, when we independents are inspected by Education Ministry officers, we are greeted with a threat that they can shut us down. Then, no matter how good an education we deliver, if there is anything missing from the mountain of required pedantic documentation, we are asked to "show cause" why they should not close us."
      
      Philip O'Carroll, North Fitzroy
      
      
      
      
• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • No benchmark
      
      "How much do we have to endure as a community before society realises just how out of control school kids are?
      
      “Poor teachers have the frustration of working with foul-mouthed, disrespectful, out-of-control kids and having no powers to discipline them – and the numbers are growing.
      
      “Kids used to respect authority, now most continually test it with violence, disrespect and a lack of manners. Are parents too busy to raise kids and teach them basic social skills?
      
      “We have become too politically correct to be honest enough to say what is right and what is wrong and too sensitive to too many cultural differences. We no longer have a benchmark of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour without having to take into consideration cultural backgrounds. It sounds like spineless policy and fence-sitting. This only leaves the few who know the difference between right and wrong.
      
      “But, hey, until it’s you or someone you care about on the receiving end of this mess, why bother? Apathy is now a way of existence and we will all pay a price of it in the end as it continued to infest our communities.”
      
      G Barrett, North Perth

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This page last updated 15 November, 2008 11:32 PM