Monday 9 October 2006

Tuesday 10 October

Wednesday 11 October

Thursday 12 October

Friday 13 October

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 October

Monday 9 October

Tuesday 10 October

• The West Australian
  
  

• Abandon OBE or lose $1b in funding, Bishop tells Ravlich
  by Rhianna King and Amanda Banks
  

  "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop yesterday issued the WA Government with a $1 billion ultimatum - abandon your outomes-based education policy or I will withdraw funding.

  "The threat is set to plunge the State's education system into financial crisis after Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich last night refused to cave in to Canberra's demands.

  "Ms Bishop said OBE had no place in her plan to enforce a national curriculum and she would withhold Federal funding, worth $1 billion of WA's 3.6 billion-a-year education budget, if the Carpenter Government refused to toe the line.

  "There can be no place in any curriculum where English students can answer questions with mind maps, diagrams and dot points" Ms Bishop said. "The goal is to raise standards around the country by bringing together the best educational mins and determining the highest standards currently on offer in each State.

  "On that basis, the WA Labor Government's implementation of OBE would not be regarded as the highest standards we can achieve in education in this country."

  "Ms Bishop revealed her plan for a national curriculum after claiming that school systems across Australia had been overrun by "left-wing ideologues" who taught themes "straight from Chairman Mao".

  "Her threat comes a year after she used her financial clout to force the States into introducing national testing, more power for principals to appoint staff and compulsory physical education.

  "In a country of 20 million it's not necessary for us to have eight separate education authorities all developing separate curriculums in every subject in primary and secondary schools," she said.

  "Ms Ravlich refused to say whether she would abandon OBE in order to safeguard WA's slice of the $42 billion in Federal funding available for 2009 to 2012, which will be divided next year.

  "Australia has a world-class education system and instead of running the system down, we ure Julie Bishop to work with the states and Territories to maintain and improve those high standards," she said.

  "The Carpenter Government abandoned it's plan to implement 13 OBE subjects in Year 11 from next year. But education officials are committed to enforcing the system in upper schools from 2008.

  "WA teachers group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes welcomed Ms Bishop's move."

• The Australian
  
  

• Studies adviser defends gay school assignment
  by Kevin Meade
  
  "The independent body behind a tolerance package that asked students to imagine life in a gay community on the moon will consider bowing to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie's request for it to be withdrawn at its next meeting.

  "The Queensland Studies Authority released a statement yesterday defending the moon colony scenario as a "resource package" on sexual identity.

  "The authority, headed by a former director of schools in Victoria, Kim Bannikoff, launched its defence as gay activists and the Queensland Teachers Union yesterday leapt to the defence of a teacher who asked 13-year-old students to write the assignment on life in a gay community.

  "QTU president Steve Ryan criticised Mr Beattie for calling for the assignment to be withdrawn from learning programs provided to the state's teachers by the statutory body.

  "In an assignment attacked by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop as an example of a "politically correct agenda masquerading as curriculum", Year 9 students at Windaroo Valley State High School in Brisbane were asked to write about living as a heterosexual in a mostly homosexual community on the moon.

  "Mr Bannikoff declined to comment yesterday.

  "The use of the scenario at the school has also been attacked by the Queensland Opposition and the Australian Christian Lobby.

  "On Sunday, Mr Beattie said: "I don't think it's appropriate for a 13-year-old to be doing an assignment like this and I think the authority should withdraw it."

  "Mr Ryan said Mr Beattie's comment was "unfortunate".

  "He said the "moon colony" scenario encouraged students to imagine what it was like to be part of a minority. "We would believe that, given the nature of the task, there is a case for upholding the values of tolerance."

  "Mr Ryan said teachers at the school had met yesterday to "reaffirm their commitment toupholding the values of tolerance and understanding in their classrooms".

  "Windaroo staff also called on the Queensland Government to confirm its stance of delivering sound education based on sensible educational practice, and to refuse to be harangued by extreme ideological interest groups, including the federal Government," he said.

  "Paul Martin, general manager of gay rights group the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities, said his organisation supported diversity and human rights education in Queensland schools.

  "It is important that young people learn about the experiences of minorities in our community, whether they be ethnic, religious or sexual minorities," Mr Martin said."





• Castro's schools first class, say our teachers
  by Michelle Wiese Bockmann
  
  "A South Australian teachers' union journal has praised the achievements of Cuba's education system, saying class sizes are small, schools are free and teachers well-trained.

  "The Australian Education Union has defended the publication, just days after federal Education Minister Julie Bishop claimed school curriculums had been distorted by "Chairman Mao" type ideologies of state bureaucrats.

  "Former union organiser and journal editor Dan Murphy said the communist island under the regime of Fidel Castro had a 100per cent literacy rate, higher than Australia's.

  "For a poor, underdeveloped country, they've achieved quite well and nobody can deny that," said Mr Murphy.

  "It (the article) doesn't shirk away from other issues like requiring teachers to reinforce communist values. But it's not a piece of propaganda out of Miami; it covers other facts you don't strictly get."

  "AEU state president Andrew Gohl yesterday endorsed the South Australian teachers union article, saying: "The fact that (Cuban) education is free, compulsory and funded significantly by the Government is something all governments should aspire to".

  "The chief source of information for Mr Murphy's August feature was Havana-based Gilda Chacon, a trade union official from the Cuban Federation of Workers.

  "She visited Adelaide in July and was partly sponsored by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, for which Mr Murphy previously worked.

  "I think it's a balanced investigation into the available evidence on Cuba," he said.

  "The AEU also published a letter to the editor from student teacher and Communist Party of Australia member Craig Greer in its latest issue.

  "Mr Greer wrote that the federal Government "still can't find enough money to mirror a fraction of what the Cuban Government has achieved". "If Cuba is a dictatorship, then I'm ready to be dictated to."

  "The debate follows claims last year by senior NSW education adviser Wayne Sawyer that the education profession was to blame for the re-election of the Howard Government. Students had voted for John Howard because English teachers had failed to teach them critical thought, he argued.

  "After calling last week for a national curriculum, Ms Bishop said yesterday that parents wanted ideology to be taken out of the classroom. "We need to focus on a commonsense curriculum with high, nationally consistent standards that reflect the values of the community," she said.

  "The US State Department, in a report on Cuba last year, said all elementary and secondary school students received "obligatory ideological indoctrination".

  "Cuban-born journalist and author Luis Garcia said Cuba's education system was "heavily politicised" and not an example Australia should follow.

  "The purpose of education (in Cuba) is not just to teach how to read and write and understand complex issues but essentially it has become a defender of the Castro regime," Garcia said."
  
  
  
  

• Uni makes students take maths again
  by Paige Taylor
  
  "James Cook University has forced more than half its first-year science and engineering students to sit a high-school-level maths course.

  "The Queensland university revealed yesterday it had become so frustrated by falling standards among high school graduates, and confused by a lack of parity between states, that it joined Wollongong University and the Australian Defence Force Academy in conducting a maths exam of its own design on first-year science and engineering students.

  "James Cook head of maths, physics and information technology Wayne Read said less than half the Queensland students passed.

  "He said the university this year allowed 190 students to proceed with advanced mathematics but forced 250 to complete a "lookalike" high school Maths B course run by the university.

  "Of the 250 compelled to do the "lookalike" course, an estimated 20 per cent had already done Maths B at high school.

  "There has certainly been a decline in the (mathematical) abilities of students when they enter university," said Professor Read, who has been an academic since 1987. "That decline started in the early 1990s."

  "The revelation came as a senior defence force lecturer backed federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's call for a national curriculum, and teachers in Western Australia bemoaned a continuing decline in the mathematical abilities of high school entrants.

  "The debate about falling maths standards and inconsistencies between states comes as a federal parliamentary committee prepares to release its findings on the nation's education and training standards.

  "The West Australian Curriculum Council yesterday denied that the state's maths curriculum had slipped behind other states, despite a comparison published in The Weekend Australian showing the mathematical abilities required of students in Western Australia were well below national standards.

  "The WA maths curriculum is consistent with curricula set in other states across Australia. It has not slipped behind any other states," a spokeswoman for the Curriculum Council said.

  "But pressure group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the abilities of first-year high school students in Western Australia had declined.

  "PLATO spokesman Greg Williams said many Year 8 students did not have a grasp of basics such as fractions, multiplication and percentages.

  "Australian Defence Force Academy lecturer Steve Barry, who teaches high school graduates from across the nation at the academy's School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, called for a national curriculum.

  "It is my opinion that the absence of a uniform Australian mathematics curriculum at high school is detrimental to students from some states, particularly those who then travel interstate to enter university," he said."
  
  
  
  

• Sydney Morning Herald
  
  

  • School aid to ensure Aborigines go Catholic
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    

    "Scholarships to mainstream Catholic high schools will be offered to Aboriginal children from next year to ensure they are not lost to the public education system.

    "The Catholic Education Office in Sydney will offer children scholarships worth up to $5000 a year, in response to concerns that many Aboriginal primary students are not flowing through to Catholic high schools.

    "The scholarships will cover the cost of all school fees and additional charges. Students will also be given an additional $1200 allowance to cover the cost of uniforms, excursions and textbooks.

    "Fees are considered to be the main hurdle for Aboriginal parents, many of whom send their children to public high schools.

    "Low-fee Catholic schools in Sydney will offer at least seven scholarships each year. Selection criteria are being developed, but will probably be based on academic performance and leadership skills.

    "High-fee Catholic schools, such as St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, already offer scholarships to indigenous students, including those who show promise as athletes and rugby players.

    "Susan Clifton, the principal at Our Lady of Mt Carmel Primary School in Waterloo, said half her students were indigenous. She said about 70 per cent went on to Catholic high schools.

    "The parents struggle to pay their fees," Ms Clifton said. "Each year we would have a few of our students go into the state system."

    "Ms Clifton said the notion of winning a scholarship would help build the self-esteem of students.

    "These kids show great academic potential, but come from very disadvantaged backgrounds," she said. "The scholarships will help give them greater belief in themselves and help keep them engaged in school."

 

Wednesday 11 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    A good selection on education, including this one from Greg Williams:
    
    Education
    
    "Eric G Miller bemoans a perceived communist, anti-Christian bias amongst state school teachers in his letter to the editor (Letters, 10/10). I would say the malaise in education, and particularly in primary and secondary schooling, runs far deeper than the views, or rather, perceived views, of some of the teachers. That malaise is in educational leadership.

    "Education in this State is beset with leaders who seek to subjugate rather than encourage debate. When a Catholic school Principal last year suggested to his clientele via the school’s Newsletter that the new courses of study (COS) and the implementation of outcomes based education (OBE) had some serious flaws, the Director of the Catholic Education Office immediately issued a directive that Catholic school Principals were forbidden to speak out against the new system.
    
    "DET principals and deputies have their promotion tied to support of OBE and COS. The two teacher unions have, until recently, backed the Minister and the Curriculum Council totally, much to the chagrin of members. Apart from a few brave souls in the Independent and Catholic sectors, the silence from Principals on this issue has been deafening. Many appear to be more concerned about their promotional prospects than they are about the futures of the students under their care. Not only have principals failed to publicly voice their concerns, but many have gone a step further and denied their staff any right to speak out.

    "When teachers are denied the opportunity to critically analyse in the public arena their concerns about the task they are employed to do, then this hardly provides a suitable environment in which their students are able to develop skills in critical thought.

    "As for Mr Miller’s concerns, I would not have a problem with any particular bias existing with a teacher or group of teachers, provided the students have been raised in an environment in which they are taught to think critically, analyse deeply, research broadly, and arrive at their own conclusions. If you think about it, that is what education is all about. However, with the sad examples of leadership in education in this State, students see subjugation of teachers views, fear of the bureaucracy, promotion tied to compliance, bullying, and a resulting lack of any critical thought."

    Greg Williams, president, PLATOWA
    

    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  

• Defence students to repeat maths
  by Paige Taylor
  

  "The Australian Defence Force Academy, alarmed by a decline in mathematics standards in high schools, will force almost half of its first-year engineering students to sit a remedial maths course. The academy in Canberra - linked to the University of NSW - believes many Year 12 graduates are not ready for university mathematics despite achieving good marks in Year 12 maths and finishing in the top 15 per cent of the nation's high school leavers.

  "It estimates that about 40 per cent of next year's first-year engineering students will need to do the six-month remedial maths course, aimed at bringing them up to university standard.

  "UNSW@ADFA senior lecturer Steven Barry blamed the decline in standards partly on a reduction in the number of students choosing the most difficult mathematics level at high school.

  "But he said he was also concerned by what appeared to be a lack of parity in the maths curriculums between states.

  "Dr Barry said many first-year engineering students did not have the necessary grasp of basic algebra learnt in years 8, 9 and 10. Those students worked extraordinarily hard to catch up, he said.

  "The better students are still good but we are getting a lot more students who are really weak in the fundamentals of mathematics, mostly due to a lack of time spent and a lack of practice - they just haven't done enough at high school," he said.

  "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the decision by UNSW@ADFA to introduce a remedial maths course strengthened her argument for a national school curriculum.

  "This is further evidence of a need to embrace a high-quality, nationally consistent curriculum that focuses on core essentials, particularly literacy and numeracy," she said.

  "It is not acceptable that our universities have to direct valuable resources to correct the failure of the school sector, by introducing remedial English and mathematics classes for tertiary students."

  "At James Cook University in Queensland, 250 of the 440 first-year science and engineering students were this year forced to complete a 13-week high school-level maths course. An estimated 20per cent of them had already completed Maths B at high school.

  "At the University of Western Australia, Year 12 calculus was this year dropped as a prerequisite for its engineering course. This meant about 60 of UWA's 460 first-year engineering students sat either a one-month summer catch-up course in calculus or learnt calculus in a first-semester bridging course. Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford yesterday said he supported efforts for more consistency.

  "But there is nothing to suggest a national takeover of the curriculum in maths or any other subject would bring about any significant improvement on current outcomes," he said.

  "Mr Welford also rejected claims by James Cook University head of maths, physics and information technology Wayne Read that the mathematical abilities of that state's high school graduates had declined.

  "While many more students are seeking, and achieving, entry into university, it remains the responsibility of universities to not only set appropriate entry levels, but ensure prospective students are aware of the level of maths required for specific courses," he said."

  Article source on this link
  
  
  

• TV historian flunks British syllabus
  by Alexander Frean
  

  "History teaching at A, or advance, level in British schools is so fragmented that pupils are left with no understanding of the orderin which important events occurred and little idea of what went before or after them, one of Britain's leading academics claims. Television historian David Starkey, a fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, says A levels too often are taught as if they are miniature degrees, with so much analysis crammed in that the periods they cover have to be cut into "tiny gobbets of chewed-up material".

  "There is no point in doing merely a fragment in time with no sense of what might have led up to events and what consequences flowed from them," Starkey says. "At the moment, pupils study a bit of American history and a bit of Hitler. That's almost useless."

  "Starkey says it is absurd that the main history syllabus covering Hitler stops in 1939. "There is no World War II and no Holocaust. This approach does a lot of damage. It glamorises Hitler. You have to ask yourself, what is the point of studying it at all?

  "History, if properly taught, should give people a sense of time and a map of time. You should be able to place yourself in time."

  "Starkey says teaching places far toomuch emphasis on the science of gathering evidence for historical events,an approach known as the discovery method.

  "Teachers use the discovery method to teach when the Norman Conquest was. We know when it was. What's the point in having a teacher if not to tell the students what the facts are?" he says.

  "He argues that the study of original documents and the search for evidence should not come until university level.

  "Starkey despairs of the way his works and those of other historians are used inschools, with teachers focusing increasingly on historiography - the study of the way history is written - rather than history.

  "A-level students would not be able to tell you what happened at the beginning of the Civil War but they would be able to tell you what historian Conrad Russell thought about the Civil War," he says.

  "Starkey spoke before the British premiere this week of the film version of Alan Bennett's successful play The History Boys. It depicts the clash between two teachers, one who values learning for its own sake and one who sees teaching as a series of artificially selected exam techniques.

  "It is a debate Starkey believes is worth having, not least because he fears that the present system of exams, targets and league tables is destroying Britain's education system.

  "He says highly prescriptive curriculums, combined with a fear in schools of failing in the league tables, have produced "nothing but elaborately polished mediocrity" among students, who are coached to pass exams but not to understand their subjects.

  "Starkey says that among teachers it has bred an "encompassing cynicism" and destroyed their autonomy, self-confidence and sense of risk."

  Article source on this link
  
  
  

• The Courier Mail
  
  

• Senior studies under scrutiny
  by Tess Livingstone and Rosemary Odgers
  
  "The Queensland Government is considering plans to overhaul Years 11 and 12 amid growing debate over national education standards.

  "State Education Minister Rod Welford yesterday welcomed plans by the Queensland Studies Authority to review the senior syllabus.

  "The proposals include introduction of a technical English subject and extension level subjects for advanced students.

  "The QSA also suggests a review of assessment levels in term 3 of Year 12, when students are expected to complete a core skills test, major assignment work and subject tests.

  "I think it's a pretty good report and offers us a way forward but there's a lot more work to be done," Mr Welford said.

  "The comments came as Premier Peter Beattie yesterday weighed into the education debate by responding to a Sunday Mail report that a Year 9 student at Windaroo Valley State High School, south of Brisbane, was failed when she refused to write about life in a gay community.

  "Mr Beattie said he did not believe the assignment was appropriate for a 13-year-old.

  "He said the assignment was not part of the curriculum but one of several topics suggested by the independent Queensland Studies Authority and he called for it to be withdrawn.

  "I would hope that obviously we educate young Queenslanders to live in a global world, we have to be realistic about what happens in the world," he said.

  "(But) I don't think it's appropriate for a 13-year-old to be doing an assignment like this and I think the authority should withdraw it."

  "Mr Beattie also defended the curriculum taught in Queensland schools and said he would not support a national system that could "lower the standards".

  "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop last week said all Australian students should study a national curriculum, claiming state systems were being run by left-wing ideologues.

  "But in an apparent softening of the Commonwealth's position, Ms Bishop said yesterday she wanted to work with the states to develop a national curriculum. "I'm not talking about a Commonwealth takeover," she said.

  "Nevertheless, Ms Bishop said the states had to "get their act together". "We are on the money on this issue," she said. "Parents are sick of left-wing ideology curriculum."

  "Ms Bishop also questioned the benefit of union representatives sitting on state curriculum councils.

  "Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said the key was to work with the states, not threaten them.

  "Labor wants to see nationally consistent high standards of education in all our schools right around Australia," she said.

  "What Labor doesn't want is (Prime Minister) John Howard and his Education Minister playing politics with our children's education, threatening the states."

  View the Queensland Studies Authority proposals online at www.qsa.qld.edu.au. Submissions close on December 15
  
  
  

Thursday 12 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Premier lashes Bishop on OBE (page 9)
    by Amanda Banks and Lee-Anne Petchell
    
    "Alan Carpenter has thumbed his nose at the Commonwealth’s threat to cut up to $1 billion in funding unless WA abandons outcomes-based education, accusing Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop of failing to understand the State’s education system.

    "Mr Carpenter yesterday described Ms Bishop’s criticism of WA’s OBE model as farcical, saying she was illinformed.
    
    “I don’t think Ms Bishop has got any understanding whatsoever of how the education system in WA works,” Mr Carpenter said.

    “She doesn’t seem to understand that WA is the last State to go with an outcomes-based education model into Years 11 and 12. Why would anybody be threatening to remove funding from WA?”

    "Ms Bishop said this week that OBE had no place in her plan to enforce a national education curriculum. She also warned that Federal funding — worth $1 billion a year to WA — could be used to push States to accept a national system. She declined to comment yesterday.

    "WA shadow education minister Peter Collier and senior Liberal MLC Norman Moore have lashed out at Ms Bishop’s plans for a national system and her warnings the model could be tied to funding.

    "In July, the Carpenter Government abandoned its plan to implement 13 OBE subjects in Year 11 from next year. The only remnant of the OBE system is the requirement that students are assigned levels as well as a mark out of 100. But the State Government insists that its OBE plan will be enforced in 2008. Mr Carpenter said Ms Bishop was being used to promote John Howard’s agenda.

    “Julie Bishop doesn’t understand or seeks not to understand how the education system in WA works and it’s very, very disappointing to the point of farcical to hear the Federal Education Minister who comes from this State making such ill-informed commentary,” he said.

    "But People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes president Greg Williams said parents and teachers would be disappointed if the Government pushed ahead with OBE in its current format. He warned that many teachers would consider leaving the profession if the rollout of pure OBE went ahead.

    “You only need 30 or 40 maths teachers to leave and the State will have a major problem,” Mr Williams said.

    “OBE will be abandoned eventually — it is a disaster, it doesn’t work and it has been abandoned everywhere it has been tried.” [emphasis added]
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Study sounds maths alarm
    by Dorothy Illing, Higher education writer
    
    "Mathematics is a subject in crisis, with high school maths teachers increasingly underqualified, unhappy and in short supply.

    "A national study, to be released today, reveals one in five maths teachers did not study maths beyond first year at university and one in 12 did no tertiary maths at all.

    "Half are teaching subjects other than maths at school and more than a third are aged over 50, raising the problem of an ageing workforce.

    "Commissioned by the influential Australian Council of Deans of Science, the report calls for national accreditation of maths and science teachers to ensure minimum qualifications across all states and territories.

    "As Education Minister Julie Bishop fights for a national schools curriculum, the 38 science deans have stressed "the urgent need to prepare more people for mathematics teaching in schools".

    "Three in four schools currently experience difficulty recruiting suitably qualified teachers for mathematics classes, and the impending retirement of the baby boomers is set to exacerbate this situation," the study says.

    "The call comes as some universities introduce remedial maths courses for first-year students to help them cope with their degrees.

    "Overall, 8 per cent of mathematics teachers had studied no maths at university at all.

    "One in five had not studied the subject beyond first year, including 23 per cent of junior school teachers.

    "Teachers younger than 30 were significantly less likely than older colleagues to hold a maths major or to have studied maths teaching methods.

    "This data, along with the changing face of modern mathematics, explains why 40per cent of those teaching at the moment were dissatisfied with their mathematics preparation as mathematics teachers," the deans say in a foreword to the study..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    

    
    
  • Howard plan to train school dropouts
    by Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
    
    "High school dropouts who now need Year 12 qualifications or vocational training to get a job are the main targets of an $837 million Howard government program to ease the skills crisis.

    "As part of the scheme to be announced today, the federal Government will hand out skills vouchers worth $407million over five years to fund literacy, numeracy and vocational training for workers over 25 who do not have Year 12 certificates..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    Similar story at ABC News Online
    
    Similar story in today's The West Australian on page 4 [but not available online]
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Selective school slackers
      

      "My daughter attends a selective high school in NSW. During a public meeting of Year 10 students to discuss choosing subjects for Years 11 and 12, the entire time was devoted to assuring parents their children didn’t have to do high unit maths or English to get a near-perfect Universities Admission Index score.

      "We were told many times that they didn’t even need to pick maths or science at all to get the highest marks, and parents were actively discouraged from urging their children to take on the higher-level subjects.

      "I was appalled. This is a selective school. If this is our best and brightest brought together to develop their minds, then they should all be required to take subjects at the highest level."
      
      Jolanda Challita, Miranda, NSW
      
      

    Complete Letters to the Editor of The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Times
  
  
  • Science elite rejects new GCSE as 'fit for the pub'
    by Mark Henderson and Alexandra Blair
    
    "A new science GCSE that replaces traditional physics, chemistry and biology with discussions about topical issues such as GM crops and the MMR vaccine is attacked today by leading academics as “more suitable to the pub than the schoolroom”.

    "The reformed curriculum will not inspire more children to study science at a higher level, while also failing in its main goal of breeding a more scientifically literate public, senior researchers, educationists and ethicists said.

    "The critics, who include Baroness Warnock, the philosopher who framed the embryo research laws, and Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial College London and a former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, say that the new course teaches too little about basic concepts to be of much use either to the next generation of scientists, doctors and engineers, or to those who will drop science at 16..."
    
    Full story in The Times at link
    
    Similar story in The Guardian
    
    Similar story in The Independent
    
    

    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Editorial
    A single curriculum is not the answer
    
    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop was wrong to retreat from her accusation that state education departments were forcing Mao-like ideologies upon students. It's true that bureaucrats aren't advocating mass murder, as did the Chinese dictator, but Bishop's essential point was correct.

    "For decades, school curriculums have been manipulated to serve a particular world view.

    "This is a world view that regards morals as relative, and that refuses to acknowledge that Shakespeare is better literature than a comic book. Indeed it is a view that doesn't believe that literature, music, fine art, or any other product of Western civilisation can be judged as "better" than anything else. That's why in English classes, students are seldom required to read books any more. They can watch television and play computer games instead.

    "The reason used to justify this approach to teaching is the claim that education has been the instrument of class, gender, and race oppression. It is a doctrine that advocates radical solutions.

    "The evidence of what Bishop is talking about is not hard to find. Her now famous claim about secondary students being required to undertake a Marxist deconstruction of Hamlet is just one example of a phenomenon. Another is "outcomes-based education", a model of learning being implemented by the Western Australian Government that doesn't attempt to impart knowledge to students; it merely aims to teach students how to learn.

    "The minister should be supported in her desire to improve the quality of education and she has raised some valid issues. However, her proposed solution - a national curriculum - is completely the wrong way to fix the problem..."
    
    Full editorial in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    

    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Push for national teacher standards [late addition from 11 October]
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "The Federal Government is expected to move towards introducing a national system of accrediting teachers, a responsibility now held by the states and territories.

    "Teaching Australia, a firm set up by the Government, released the proposal for a national accreditation system for teachers yesterday. It could lead to the ranking of university teaching courses across the country, and follows the Government's plan to take control of school curriculums..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Curriculum gap to be bridged
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    
    "Schools in NSW will be required to introduce programs starting in primary school and ending in high school to cut back on the number of children who become less engaged as they make the transition..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Lower marks fine if you pay: anger over uni courses
    by Stephanie Peatling
    
    "Eighty undergraduate university courses now admit students who pay full fees even if they have scores 20 points lower than required for a publicly-funded place..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • Bush Emphasizes Local, Private Role in Ending School Violence
    by Diana Jean Schemo
    
    "The federal government should not play the primary role in responding to school violence, President Bush said Tuesday, but should instead give out information about strategies to help parents and schools grappling with the threat of deadly outbursts in the nation’s schools..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link
    
    Similar story in The Washington Post
    
    
    

Friday 13 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • OBE ad censored, teacher body says (page 20)
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The teachers' lobby group opposed to the State Government's controversial outcomes-based education system claims the Education Department is trying to censor it in the run-up to elections for the board of WA's peak professional teachers' body.
    
    "Teachers' lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes says two weeks ago it booked a paid advert in the department's monthly newspaper School Matters to advertise its candidates for the upcoming WA College of Teaching board election.
    
    "But after it received confirmation of the booking for the October 30 issue, it was suddenly contacted and told that the newspaper could no longer accommodate the PLATO advert because it was against the department's best interests.
    
    "PLATO co-founder Marko Vojkovic said it was undemocratic for the department to stop the group having its advert published in the newspaper.
    
    "He labelled it heavy-handed behaviour from a department intent on shutting down any opposition to the Government's OBE agenda.
    
    "The Government appoints nine non-teachers to the WACOT board but the WA Electoral Commission will send out ballot papers tonight for the first election of 10 teacher representatives.
    
    "WACOT, a professional association which all teachers must join if they want to teach in WA, has more than 39,760 members.
    
    "Mr Vojkovic said the Education Department was clearly worried about the level of support for PLATO if it felt compelled to ban something as unthreatening as an election advert.
    
    "They said PLATO was running stuff contrary to the department's policy and therefore they refused to run it in the magazine," he said.
    
    "I said to them, 'It's not as if we're asking you to run a story or an editorial comment in favour of us, this was going to be a paid ad'."
    
    "Education Department acting executive director human resources Kim Ward said School Matters did not carry material related to election campaigns of any nature, political or within the education system.
    
    "He said advertising management for the publication was outsourced and at the time of booking, the nature of an advertisement would not be known to the School Matters' management team at the department."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Gallop seatbelt pledge for school buses broken (page 11)
    by Graham Mason
    
    "Former premier Geoff Gallop’s pledge to fit WA school buses with seatbelts “quickly” was broken yesterday after Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan pushed the program back five years..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Maths teacher crisis blamed on low uni entry standards
    by Dorothy Illing, Higher education writer
    
    "Falling entry standards in universities and a shift to vocational degrees have been partly blamed for the crisis engulfing maths teaching.

    "As new research reveals that many high school teachers are being thrust into senior maths classes without sufficient qualifications, the spotlight has turned on the quality of their training.

    "The qualifications for teaching in general have dropped," said Thelma Perso, president of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.

    "Universities are allowing more and more students in to study their courses with lower levels of academic ability."

    "Dr Perso said universities were responding to shrinking commonwealth funds, which had forced them to drop entry requirements to fill student places.

    "As reported in The Australian this week, James Cook University is running a high school-level maths course for half its first-year science and engineering students. But the university is admitting students with cut-offs as low as 57 out of 100 - or an overall position of 19 - to its bachelor of science, which may be part of the reason.

    "The Australian Defence Force Academy is also making half its first-year engineering students sit a remedial maths course.

    "As reported in The Australian yesterday, a national study has found that one in five maths teachers in high school did not study maths beyond first year at university and one in 12 did no tertiary maths at all.

    "More than half are teaching other subjects in addition to maths. The Australian Council of Deans of Science, which commissioned the study, will take the findings up with federal Education Minister Julie Bishop.

    "The deans want national accreditation and a set of minimum qualifications for all maths and science teachers, a position that is likely to sit well with Ms Bishop who has been pushing for a national curriculum..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Jennifer Buckingham: Swap obstacles for teachers
    
    "We need new methods to make maths teaching more appealing to the right type of people for our schools
    
    "The importance of high-quality teachers of maths, science and technology is self-evident and cannot be overstated. Yet there are insufficient numbers of teachers willing and able to teach these subjects, particularly at the senior school level, and their quality is highly variable.

    "A survey published yesterday by the Australian Council of Deans of Science found that one in five maths teachers did not study maths beyond the first year of university and one in 12 did no university maths at all. Statistics for the junior years of high school are even worse. The Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies estimates that as many as 40 per cent of junior secondary maths teachers may not be suitably qualified to teach the subject.

    "It is just as bad for the physical sciences. Last year's survey by the Council of Deans of Science found that one in four physics teachers and one in six chemistry teachers had neither a major nor a minor in their subject. But heads of school science departments believe that teachers need at least a minor in their subject to teach it effectively.

    "The many unqualified and underqualified teachers in maths and science classrooms across the country are the result of all states finding it difficult to get good teachers in these subjects. This is because there are too many obstacles and disincentives, especially pre-service teacher training and uncompetitive salaries.

    "A high-calibre maths or science graduate has many options and teaching is not one of the most attractive. To become a schoolteacher they face another year of university to gain a diploma of education, with the attendant loss of income. Young people know the salary prospects are initially good but there are no rewards for hard work and excellence..."
    
    Jennifer Buckingham is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    

  • Mentor who's got the numbers
    by Paige Taylor
    
    "Mathematician Jennifer Searcy is a hero to those who believe the subject is in trouble in our schools.

    "More than 100 children a week visit the adjunct senior lecturer at Murdoch University in Perth's southern suburbs for her famously unruly and noisy workshops in algebra, trigonometry and calculus..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Hobart Mercury
  
  
  • Tassie's maths deficit
    by Kathy Grube
    
    "... The average age of Tasmanian maths teachers is 47, making them the oldest in Australia. The national average is 44 years old..."
    
    "The report also showed one in five maths teachers in Australia did not study maths beyond first year at university and one in 12 did no tertiary maths at all..."
    
    Full story in The Hobart Mercury at link
    
    Similar story in The Adelaide Advertiser
    
    
    
    
• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • Beazley slams skills 'catch-up'
    by Andrew Fraser
    
    "The Government's $873million skills package was a short-sighted pre-election catch-up that did not reverse a long-term lack of investment in training, the Opposition claimed as the package was formally unveiled yesterday.

    "Opposition Leader Kim Beazley told Parliament of a series of Reserve Bank warnings, from as early as 1997, about the emerging skills crisis, which he said Prime Minister John Howard had ignored..."
    
    Full story in The Canberra Times at link
    
    
    

• The New York TImes
  
  
  • Scores on State Math Tests Dip With Districts’ Income
    by David M Herszenhorn
    
    "The first results of a new set of New York State math exams show about two-thirds of students performing at grade level, with striking disparities between rich and poor school districts, according to scores released yesterday..."
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Inquiry to examine the future of primary education
    by James Meikle
    
    "The first independent inquiry into primary education in England for nearly 40 years was launched today.

    "The two-year review, based at Cambridge University and funded by a charity, hopes to shape the future of schooling for young children for a generation, assessing the impact of political initiatives such as the National Curriculum and reading and literacy drives..."
    
    Full story in The Guardian at link
    
    
    

• The Brisbane Courier Mail
  
  
  • In a class of their own
    "Queensland's best state schools have been recognised for innovation and excellence..."
    
    
  • Editorial: Education Excellence
    
    
    

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Principal ‘forced out’ by Ravlich [Front Page Headline]
    Jessica Strutt Exclusive
    
    "Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich has been accused of punishing the high school principal behind the controversial Halls Creek no-school, no-welfare scheme by forcing him out of his job.
    
    "Former Halls Creek District High School principal Garry Smith’s father, Dave, claimed yesterday that Ms Ravlich, a critic of the anti-truancy program, told his son at a heated meeting at the school in July that she did not want him at the school and he should take leave.

    "Mr Smith Sr, 81, of Nollamara, said that Ms Ravlich, Education Department director-general Paul Albert and Kimberley district director Kevin Gillan were at the meeting.

    "The West Australian understands that Garry Smith, who has had cancer for some time, went on sick leave about a month ago and told school staff he would not be returning to work.

    “(Ravlich) went up there to get rid of Garry. There’s no argument in my book (that) she flew up there, picked up Albert and this other bloke purely and simply for back-up to make sure she was in charge, and went up there for the pure purpose of getting rid of him,” Mr Smith Sr said.

    “She told him that there was no truancy problem at Halls Creek, that he was the problem.

    “She just went on like this and threw the whole works at him . .. it was pretty heated all right, he wasn’t very impressed. When you get told to shoot through it’s as good as getting sacked, isn’t it?”

    "Halls Creek DHS made national headlines in October last year after it was revealed in The West Australian that the principal was helping the Centrelink office try out the scheme in which welfare payments to Aboriginals were stopped if they failed to attend meetings to discuss their children’s truancy.

    "The scheme boosted school attendance from 54 per cent to 80 per cent in the two months it operated.

    "Other family members and Halls Creek teaching staff, who asked not to be named, have confirmed details of the incident, saying there was no doubt Mr Smith was pushed out.

    "The Federal Government supported the no-school, no-welfare scheme but was forced to scrap it last year after concerns over its legality.

    "Ms Ravlich said the plan was a “blunt instrument” that tended to punish people who were already disadvantaged.

    "Mr Smith, 55, assisted by telling the local Centrelink manager which students were absent.

    "Mr Smith Sr said there was “not a hope in hell” that his son would go back to teach at the school, adding he was keen to be paid out so he could just retire.

    “Ms Ravlich told him that day (at the meeting) that he had no right to divulge Education Department information to Centrelink on how many kids were missing from school,” he said.

    “Then next thing is she told him that it was time he took some leave. The way I gather it she hit (verbally) pretty hard. He was pushed.”

    "A spokesman for Ms Ravlich confirmed a meeting was held but denied claims she told Mr Smith to take leave.

    "The spokesman said the day Ms Ravlich visited the school she was told by Mr Smith that less than a quarter of the school’s students were attending that day. “The thrust of the meeting was to ask for a plan of action from the school,” he said.

    "Mr Smith was travelling yesterday and was unavailable for comment.

    "Asked about reports his son cried after the meeting, Mr Smith Sr said: “I tell you what, if he had a bit of a cry, by God she upset him, because he takes a lot before he gives in.”

    "Asked what Mr Smith’s status was with the Education Department, acting executive director human resources Kim Ward said it would not be appropriate to make public personal employment details of employees. He confirmed 28-yearold David Faulkner had been appointed acting principal of Halls Creek DHS."

    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Editorial (page 18)
    Surely time has come to move Ravlich on
    
    "Yet again evidence has emerged that the people at the top of WA's education system want to run it as if it were their totalitarian fiefdom. What is reported about the conduct of Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich and senior education bureaucrats at the Halls Creek school is deplorable but, sadly, not surprising.
    
    "The State school system under Ms Ravlich has developed a reputation for intolerance of dissent and for crushing ideas that are out of line with the prevailing ideology. Teachers speak privately about the bullying methods used to try to make them succumb to the outcomes-based education regime.
    
    "It was obvious that there was something fundamentally wrong and despicable in the education bureaucracy when it sought to gag teachers by warning them that criticism of the new system at professional development sessions could lead to disciplinary action, including the sack. Ms Ravlich was a party to this act of attempted intimidation and oppression.
    
    "So it is not entirely surprising that Ms Ravlich is reported, like some commissar of ideology, to have brought her ministerial weight to bear on Halls Creek principal Garry Smith – for helping to come up with a means of combating the high level of truancy at the school.
    
    "The so-called no school, no welfare scheme worked. But Mr Smith clearly was judged by his bosses to have been ideologically out of line and politically incorrect and, on the information available, was bullied out of his position. The needs of the children at Halls Creek didn't come into it.
    
    "Alan Carpenter's tolerance must have some limit. Even the Premier must now see that this is not just a dud minister, but one who is destroying the reputation of and public confidence in the WA education system. Surely it is time to move her on."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor (page 20)
    
    Three letters on education today, including the one transcribed below and two on Julie Bishop's latest proclamations.
    
    Our State education is a shambles
    
    "If the Federal Government has some success in "taking over" education, it will have been made so much easier by the shambles our State system has become.
    
    "Apart from the dumbing down of the current version of OBE, masquerading as intellectual cleverness, the State system has been handed over to bumbling bureaucrats who have no experience in the classroom.
    
    "We have a minister (and a department) who exemplifies Sir Humphrey's dictum that ministers mistake activity for achievement. Such commanders, having no grip on the real business of education, quickly sacrifice teachers who dare to put up their heads to question current orthodoxy.
    
    "The promotions system is chaotic. Principals, who are running schools with vision and enthusiasm, with the staff happily engaged in their primary task of engaging productively with their students, are deposed and inferior ambition-centred people shoved into their place.
    
    "In spite of the Education Department's rhetoric to the contrary, the views of the local community are ignored. When asked to explain their destabilising and essentially arbitrary actions, the bureaucrats use the system they have created to justify their muddled inability to marshal properly the excellent resources they have at their disposal.
    
    "The very best teachers will leave such a "system" (that is too kind a word), leaving behind many who are there because their TEE marks were too low for them to obtain the job they really wanted and for which they may have been more suited. I would indeed be a wealthy man were I to receive $100 for every teacher who has told me that they cannot get on with the job they love because of the inordinate amount of paperwork they have to deal with on a daily basis. It continually interferes with their primary task of teaching and is put in front of them by bureaucrats who feel it is the sincerest form of flattery, and the way to advancement, by emulating their superiors' obsession with filling in forms.
    
    "Is there no sanity left? Will no one listen – really listen – to the teachers' concerns?
    
    "In the meanwhile, in such an Alice-in-Wonderland world, genuine teachers are not getting job satisfaction and will leave in droves or, worse still, will stay in the classroom and quietly go mad."
    
    Arthur Tonkin, Warwick
    
    
    
    
  • UWA falls from top 100 in Times list (page 72)
    by Eloise Dortch
    
    "The University of WA has fallen from the top 100 in a prestigious list of the world's best universities despite a stellar year which included two of its researchers winning a Nobel prize..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Little red curriculum
    The postmodernist takeover of the Left is hurting kids
    
    "The debate over school curriculums has heated up in the wake of federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's call for a national curriculum and her criticism of "ideologues . . . (who) are experimenting with the education of our young people from a comfortable position of unaccountability, safe within education bureaucracies". And while much has been made of an undelivered reference to Mao Zedong in Ms Bishop's speech, even her critics are acknowledging her position is correct – if only in a sidelong manner. Some admit that a national curriculum would be helpful to children who move interstate. Others dispute the minister's tone while admitting students are not taught enough of the basics.

    "There is myriad evidence that Ms Bishop is right. When teachers praise Fidel Castro's supposedly "free" Cuban education system or make students in Queensland imagine life as a heterosexual on a moon populated by gays, it is clear the system is broken. When schools spend their classroom time focusing on a postmodern agenda that is more about identifying with the "other" than finding the right answer, children wind up that much less prepared to enter the real world. That universities routinely force engineering students to take a remedial maths class demonstrates this. Our schools should teach children proper grammar and punctuation, numerical literacy, geography that is more than just a cover for green propaganda and the basics of how to draw and play a real musical instrument – not just a turntable. All this has been sacrificed by the Australian Left, which, in thrall to postmodernists such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, has abandoned its educational legacy as embodied by men like George Orwell.

    "Much of the problem has its roots in the way Australia qualifies and compensates its teachers. One-fifth of maths teachers have had only one year of university-level maths. A teacher with a strong background in, say, physics, cannot negotiate a better salary with their bosses, as happens in almost every other industry. What is going on in our schools is a reversal of the Left's traditional belief that every student, no matter how disadvantaged, deserves a quality education."
    
    From The Weekend Australian at link [scroll down to third editorial]
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor [from Greg Williams]
    
    Maths is minus a syllabus
    

    "As a mathematics teacher of some 35 years’ experience, I read the articles on maths education ("Maths teacher crisis blamed on low uni entry standards”; “Mentor who’s got the numbers”, 13/10) with considerable interest.

    "While there is little doubt that there is a huge shortage of good maths teachers, and there are many forces that have conspired in this, another major problem, in Western Australia at least, is the curriculum. For nearly a decade now, primary school teachers have been forced to suffer the curriculum framework and the vague, poorly defined syllabus that it has to offer. There is no syllabus per se. Teachers are not expected to spend a set number of hours per week teaching maths.

    "Year 8 at my school is fed by more than 50 primary schools. So great is the disparity in maths experience of the students, it’s as if they come from 50 different countries.

    "This year, our maths department decided to abandon the traditional Year 8 curriculum in the first semester. We spent the entire semester focusing on the basic skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, percentages, decimals, fractions and rule of order. Students were denied the use of calculators.

    "This problem isn’t the fault of the teachers. It clearly has emerged since the OBE fanatics who run the WA Curriculum Council created their syllabus-free, feel-good, failure-free curriculum framework, and which was endorsed, ill-advisedly, by the leaders of all sectors of primary and secondary schooling.

    "As long as people like my son, a brilliant young mathematician, can start off in his career as an engineer on a salary greater than mine, after 35 years of teaching, then it’s going to be difficult to attract people to the profession. But the chances of getting people into maths teaching will be seriously enhanced if students are actually taught maths well and taught to value it in primary school."
    
    Greg Williams, Bicton, WA

    Complete Letters to the Editor of The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Call for teacher training tax break
    by Ewin Hannan and Rick Wallace
    
    "The Labor premiers have demanded the Howard Government fund more teacher training places and remove state training scholarships from the fringe benefits tax regime.

    "The call for concessions came as the state and territory leaders renewed their attack on the federal Government for trying to impose a "centrally mandated school curriculum" on the states.

    "At the first meeting of the Council for the Australian Federation yesterday, the leaders also foreshadowed plans to stage a constitutional convention in the absence of federal leadership.

    "In a communique issued after the meeting, the leaders said rather than seeking more control, the commonwealth should remove "its own barriers to improving education standards".

    "As first steps it could increase the allocation of funded places to teacher training institutions to meet the demand for teachers into the future, remove fringe benefits tax requirements from teacher training scholarships offered by states and ensure that its funding for schools is based on need so that funding for public schools at least keeps pace with that for non-government schools," they said.

    "South Australian Premier Mike Rann said the commonwealth's latest foray into the curriculum debate had sparked concern among all states.

    "Obviously, we are very concerned about any national blandness or dumbing-down of Australian curriculum," he said..."
    
    Full story in The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Stay out of the class, minister
    
    In hectoring educators, Julie Bishop sounds like a jumped-up schoolgirl, writes Peter Craven.
    
    "It's not hard to feel some sympathy for the position on curriculums that has been taken by Education Minister Julie Bishop. No one wants to see English teaching fall into the hands of left-wing loops or any other kind of loops. But, for heaven's sake, enough is enough. There are limits to what any federal government can impose from above if sanity is to prevail. It doesn't even matter if the drift of what Julie Bishop is saying makes some sense. It would become her, at this stage of the game, to shut up.

    "This year we have had John Howard jumping up and down about the necessity of teaching literature of the Dickens-and-Shakespeare variety and, God knows, he was right about that.

    "The Prime Minister also led a charge in favour of teaching history (our nation's history in particular), and like the desire for a clean water supply and a fair shake for pregnant women, it was hard not to follow him in that. And it was gratifying that the nation's historians from Geoffrey Blainey to Inga Clendinnen were on hand to offer temperateness and expert advice.

    "This was a level of cultural conservatism that we could all agree with, not least because in matters of education there's plenty to conserve.

    "But Julie Bishop is starting to sound as if she's at the wrong game even when her starting point is right. Yes, it's true that we once taught Latin to year 12 students where we now teach remedial English to university students..."
    
    Peter Craven is the former editor of Quarterly Essay.
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Brisbane Sunday Mail
  
  
  • Teachers pass 'illiterate' boy
    by Darrell Giles
    
    "A schoolboy will soon start Grade 11 despite failing almost every test he has sat for the past four years.
    
    "The father of "Anthony", 15, who struggles with basic literacy and numeracy, says education officials have ignored repeated pleas to keep his son back..."
    
    Full story in The Brisbane Sunday Mail at link: following is an Editorial on this article
    
    
    
  • Editorial
    System failure
    
    "There are almost 500,000 children enrolled at state schools in Queensland, a system that costs us almost $7 billion a year and employs 36,000 teachers backed up by 19,000 other staff.

    "But, hidden away in that vast enterprise are people like "Anthony", who will soon graduate to Grade 11 despite the fact he struggles with basic literacy and numeracy.

    "This advance into inadequacy will happen even though he has failed almost every test he has sat in the past four years, culminating in scores of just 5 out of 40 in his Grade 10 literacy and numeracy benchmark exams..."
    
    "The basics of our education system are being challenged by centralists and curriculum reformists, with the debate sometimes degenerating into unintelligible jargon.

    "But Anthony's is the human face of flaws in a system that offers so much to so many and so little to so many others..."
    
    "Anthony has not failed school; school has failed Anthony."
    
    Full editorial in The Brisbane Sunday Mail at link
    
    

    
    
• The Sunday Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Parents tired of kinder repair fund-raising
    
    
  • Pools for schools drive
    
    
  • Don't blame the internet, parents told
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun
  
  
  • Anger on school's gay plan
    by Kelvin Healey
    
    "Education authorities have been accused of instructing all Victorian government school teachers to "celebrate" homosexuality in the classroom..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Herald Sun at link
    
    
    
  • School ban on hugging

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This page last updated 14 August, 2008 1:41 AM