Monday 23 April

Tuesday 24 April

Wednesday 25 April

Thursday 26 April

Friday 27 April

Saturday – Sunday, 28 – 29 April

 

Monday 23 April

• PLATO Editorial
  
  
  • Off to the Planet Zog, with Calvin, Hobbs and the teachers' union
    by PLATO Webmaster
    
    I see that the State School Teachers Union sycophants have managed to get their 'straw man industrial campaign' onto the front page of The West Australian.

    Having read the article twice, I'm still not certain what the campaign hopes to achieve, other than furthering the careers of Mr Kelly and friends.

    Other issues bear down on teachers daily, including:

    • Whistleblowers who report serious child abuse, which actually leads to arrests being made, are pursued with disciplinary action by the Department of Education;
      
      
    • Teachers bullied on a daily basis, for criticising an unworkable, patched-up on the run OBE farce, to the point where even principals dare not to have their names appear in print, for fear of "retribution" by the Department of Education;
      
      
    • The utter mish-mash of weekly changes to Year 11-12 course content, assessment and the resurrection of 'levelling that is not really levelling';
      
      
    • Clayton juries, which will receive out-of-date courses and a couple of pages of 'promises and plans', to advise on courses that clearly will go ahead 'come hell or high water';
      
      
    • The total fiasco of Year 12 English, followed closely by the developing fiasco of the proposed Music and many other CoS; and
      
      
    • The totally unnecessary stress and strain placed upon teachers, who are leaving the profession in droves.

Clearly the union sees such matters as these as trivial, and prefers to travel with Calvin and Hobbs to the 'Planet Zog', where six-year-olds and other daydreamers can escape from the grim reality of the classroom.




• ABC News
  
  
  • WA needs 80 more teachers [8:47 pm]
    
    "The Western Australian Education Department has revealed there are still 80 vacancies in public schools across the state, 70 of them in regional areas.

    "The department says it is looking at ways to make up the shortfall with the State School Teachers Union.

    "The acting director-general of education, Sharyn O'Neill, says the department has been in in-depth discussions with the union for the past few days.

    "Ms O'Neill says she hopes the current meeting will provide some short-term solutions to ease the pressure on teachers.

    "What we'll discuss is a fair approach to ensuring those teachers are recognised," she said.

    "She says the department is pulling out all stops to ensure children have teachers in their classrooms.

    "We are at the moment experiencing a greater rate of vacancy than we normally would but I think we've already demonstrated - 167 at the start of the year, we're down to 80 - I think that we've shown that the strategies we've put in place can and will make a difference," she said. [Perhaps down to only 20, by the end of Term 4?  Web]

    "The outcome of the meeting could determine whether the union will go ahead with threatened industrial action."
    
    From ABC News at link
    

    
    
  • WA teachers threaten strike over staff shortages [1:00 pm]
    
    "Western Australian teachers are still threatening industrial action as thousands of students return to school today.

    "The Department of Education and Training and the State School Teachers Union of WA are holding crisis talks today to try to avert the threat of a strike over teacher shortages.

    "The union says at the end of last term, at least 60 positions still had not been filled.

    "The Department of Education and Training had made a pledge that no class would be without a teacher at the start of term today.

    "A spokeswoman for the department says there are still some staff shortages in country high schools, but relief teachers have been put in place to ensure classes are staffed.

    "Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier says band-aid solutions are not good enough.

    "You simply have people who are not qualified to be in classrooms in the classrooms, to resolve the issue and make the Department of Education and Training look good," he said.

    "But Mr Collier says he does not condone industrial action.

    "Strike action is not the answer," he said.

    "What we need is more efficiency within the Department of Education and Training.

    "We need to pay our teachers more and we need a comprehensive marketing strategy to ensure that we can attract new teachers." [emphasis added]

    "Department of Education and Training director-general Sharryn O'Neill says there are some vacancies in areas such as maths and English but she hopes teachers will not strike.

    "Industrial action at this point is unnecessary," she said.

    "We are working hard to ensure that all classrooms are staffed for the start of term two."

    "The union executive will meet tomorrow night to decide on whether to take industrial action."
    

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The West Australian
  
  
• Teachers brace for action on shortage [Front Page Headline]
  by Keryn McKinnon
  
  "A threat by teachers to take industrial action over staff shortages hinges on last-minute crisis talks this morning — despite an Education Department pledge that no class would be without a teacher when thousands of students return to school today.

  "Department officials and the State School Teachers Union worked last night on trying to find a solution and will meet again this morning in a bid to put in place immediate measures to fill vacancies in schools across the State.

  "SSTU general secretary David Kelly said yesterday that at the end of last term at least 60 positions, mainly in country schools, had to be filled and over the holidays he had information that some country schools would be up to five teachers short.

  "But a spokesman for education director-general Sharryn O’Neil said last night there were only a dozen “hot spots”, mainly in country high schools, where staff problems remained. He said every class would have a teacher today. The two groups had been negotiating through the weekend and there were still some sticking points.

  “We’re trying to come to some sort of agreement where there are still vacancies and what we can do in terms of finding relief teachers,” the spokesman said.

  "Mr Kelly said there was “no way” every class would be staffed today.

  "The union wants the department to drop teachers’ administrative duties, such as professional development, for the rest of the year so educators can concentrate on classroom teaching and helping those classes without a permanent teacher.

  “There are a number of things that are required by the department on an annual basis that are really an administrative burden,” Mr Kelly said. “They are not absolutely essential, but they (affect) workloads.

  “We believe that these are the things that can be pulled off the table for this year because they hinder learning programs and will give staff time while we are waiting for replacement teachers.”

  "He said the union was also calling for financial incentives to be attached to all jobs in hard-to-staff schools. Mr Kelly said the exact amount of extra money needed was still being negotiated, but until attractive salary packages were offered, schools in remote areas would struggle to find and retain staff. He said some teachers were forced to live in dongas or hotels in the North-West.

  "Department officials are expected to cost the union’s demands and how they could be implemented. The union executive will meet tomorrow night. If it is not satisfied, industrial action will go ahead.

  "Last week, Premier Alan Carpenter pleaded with teachers not to take industrial action.

  "Education Minister Mark Mc-Gowan was overseas and unavailable."
  
  From The West Australian at link
  
  
  

• The Adelaide Advertiser
  
  
  • 'Role for schools' in childcare support
    by Paul Starick
    
    "Schools could do more to support child care and early childhood development, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said yesterday.
    
    "The minister urged development of early childhood learning centres at schools.

    "She said that was frustrated by differences in state-based education systems.

    "Prime Minister John Howard has backed after-hours school programs, offering supervision for children to do homework.

    "Ms Bishop said the Government's agenda now was focused on early childhood development - for children and their parents.

    "There are a number of models that are emerging in both the public and non-government schools where schools are encompassing early childhood learning centres," Ms Bishop said.

    "She urged a greater "aligning of early childhood with the education sector", saying her department was working with minister Mal Brough's Family and Community Services department.

    "Mr Brough on Thursday declared there was "no crisis" in child care because there were about 140,000 childcare vacancies across Australia every weekday.

    "Early childhood development was discussed at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra this month, then referred to a reform council.

    "Ms Bishop was in Adelaide to open the office of Liberal candidate Rita Bouras in Australia's most marginal seat, the west suburban electorate of Hindmarsh."
    
    From The Adelaide Advertiser at link
    
    

  • Study and work mix
    
    "Students can now mix classroom studies with paid work in hospitals and other public service agencies under an historic agreement.
    
    "The newest signatory to the school-based apprenticeships program is the State Government - South Australia's largest employer.

    "For the first time in the state's history, hospitals, schools and government offices will be able to offer part-time apprenticeships and traineeships to the state's Year 10, 11 and 12 students," Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said."
    
    From The Adelaide Advertiser at link
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Cancer Council wants uniform cover for schools
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "School uniforms with hemlines below the knees and sleeves past the elbows could become mandatory in state schools if the Cancer Council gets its way.

    "Under the plan, to be outlined in a submission to a State Government inquiry into school uniforms by the Education and Training Committee, the Cancer Council Victoria will also recommend that all uniforms include collars and be made of tight-weave material designed to protect students from the sun.

    "Cancer Council Victoria's SunSmart program manager, Kylie Strong, says research suggests that about 25 per cent of lifetime exposure to ultra-violet radiation occurs by the age of 21.

    "There are critical periods (during childhood and adolescence) where sun exposure is more likely to contribute to skin cancer later in life," Ms Strong said. "We are trying to build a really strong case that because children spend so much time at school, schools have a duty of care to protect students against foreseeable harm."

    "Ms Strong said school uniforms should cover "as much skin as practical" in order to protect students from the sun..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Feature
    Anarchy of distance [originally published in The Times, Sunday 22 April]

    The blogosphere has spawned aggressive males who use the internet to spew their vitriol and then hide in anonymity, writes Bryan Appleyard
    
    "The web is dead; long live the web. The dead web is Web 1.0. It had dial-up connections, dotcom crashes and some of the worst business plans since Napoleon marched on Moscow.
    
    "The live web is Web 2.0. It has broadband, enormous interactivity - or "user-generated content" - and Google, a faith-based operation whose employees proclaim "thank Google it's Friday" at the end of the working week. Web 2.0 makes money and owns the future.

    "The downside is that Web 2.0 may be destroying civilisation. That, at least, is the view of Andrew Keen, a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and author.

    "He has written The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, which argues that the web is an anti-enlightenment phenomenon, a destroyer of wisdom and culture and an infantile, Rousseau-esque fantasy.

    "It's the cult of the child," he says. "The more you know, the less you know. It's all about digital narcissism, shameless self-promotion. I find it offensive."

    "British-born Keen is not alone in feeling queasy. Last month a report by American psychologists, titled Inflated Egos Over Time, suggested that social-networking sites such as MySpace and YouTube were promoting damagingly high - and illusory - levels of self-esteem among teenagers.

    "Meanwhile, bloggers have been angered by two high-profile attacks from the land of "dead tree" journalism.

    "In Britain's The Times, Oliver Kamm accused bloggers of "poisoning debate".

    "Blogs," he wrote, "typically do not add to the available stock of commentary: they are purely parasitic on the stories and opinions that traditional media provide."

    "In The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland pointed out that the abusive, vitriolic nature of many blogs had turned the blogosphere into a "claustrophobic environment, appealing chiefly to a certain kind of aggressive, point-scoring male, and utterly off-putting to everyone else".

    "Freedland's crucial point is that the anonymity made possible by web protocols is at fault. People find it easy to behave badly if nobody knows who they are.

    "This, in fact, is a problem built into the fabric of the internet. Its design was based on trust among scientists who knew each other. The network itself was, and remains, open and flexible. But, as the web exploded, this made life easy for harassers, abusers, spammers and hackers, who could easily conceal their identity..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link

Tuesday 24 April

• Key story: The Australian
  
  
  • Diehard subjects return to schools
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The catch-all subject Studies of Society and Environment will be dropped in the nation's high schools and replaced by the traditional disciplines of history, geography and economics under a schools action plan to be released by the states and territories today.
    
    "A report on the future of schooling prepared for the Council for the Australian Federation, comprising the Labor state and territory governments, outlines a 12-point plan for the implementation of a national framework for school education.

    "The plan, agreed to by all state and territory governments, commits them to refocus SOSE in response to criticism that the subject has become too crowded by areas such as environmental and legal studies at the expense of history and geography.

    "Studies of Society and Environment has been criticised by a number of commentators, partly because its focus is not clear from the label," the report says. "It has become increasingly clear that what should be studied under this label, are the disciplines of history, geography and economics."

    "The report explicitly outlines those disciplines under the umbrella of humanities and social science as part of the plan to develop a national curriculum.

    "Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, who will release the report today, said the report advocated a return to traditional disciplines to ensure a well-rounded education.

    "It reflects our belief that there are key disciplines that are best taught within the school curriculum," Mr Bracks said.

    "The governments will also introduce three benchmark levels for reporting students' literacy and numeracy results in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, under a new national test to start next year.

    "The present system under which students are reported only as passing very low, minimum standards - giving no indication of the breadth of student performance - will be replaced by three levels of minimum, medium and high achievement.
    
    "The plan also commits the states and territories to developing a plan for reporting school performance, with a focus on how much it has improved its students' results, and processes for reviewing teachers' performance based on "improved student, classroom and/or school performance".

    "The release of the plan follows a meeting of the nation's education ministers in Darwin last week, where the states and territories rejected the federal Government's blueprint for national curriculums, performance-based pay for teachers and the reporting of national test results.

    "School curriculums are designed by the states and territories, hampering the federal Government's efforts to impose its will in this area.

    "Mr Bracks said education heads from around the nation would meet this week to start the implementation of the plan, which invites the federal Government to participate as part of a "collaborative federalism".

    "The COAF report, The Future of Schooling in Australia, reaffirms the primacy of literacy and numeracy in primary schools and the "fundamentally important" disciplines of English, maths, science and languages other than English for high school students.

    "It also notes the importance of physical education, the arts and technology and identifies two areas to be added to school curriculums - civics and citizenship, and business.

    "The study of business and the development of commercial and financial literacy skills can assist students in their middle and later years at school to prepare for work in the 21st century," it says."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Melbourne Age [also a similar story in The West Australian, page 9]
    
    More stories from The Australian [below]
    
    
    
    

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Hundreds of teachers caught in red tape (page 9)
    by Keryn McKinnon
    
    "WA public schools are struggling to fill 80 teaching jobs while as many as 350 qualified teachers wait up to eight weeks to get employment checks — including police clearances — so they can start work.
    
    "News of the long clearance delays came as crisis talks continued last night between the Education Department and the State School Teachers Union in a last-ditch bid to avert industrial action over chronic staff shortages, ahead of a crucial union executive meeting today.
    
    "The department gave provisional agreement last night to an emergency relief package for teachers, involving taking away administrative tasks, allowing them more time in the classroom and financial compensation in recognition of the extra workload teachers and principals have undertaken to date.
    
    "Director-general Sharyn O’Neill said it was regrettable that potential staff were waiting between six and eight weeks for the clearances, which are required to work with children.
    
    "Ms O’Neill said the department was trying to streamline the process to reduce the waiting time.
    
    “The community expects high standards (in teachers),” she said. “We do not want people who have not been appropriately checked in terms of criminal clearances and accreditation, in our classrooms.”
    
    "But SSTU general secretary David Kelly said the wait was unacceptable at a time when so many schools were short of staff.
    
    "Ms O’Neill said schools in Port Hedland, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Mt Magnet and Newman were among the worst affected by the shortages.
    
    "Of the 80 vacancies, 70 were in country areas. The majority were positions for specialist high school teachers including English, science and design and technology.
    
    "Ms O’Neill said the increase from 60 vacancies at the end of first term could be attributed to staff taking long service leave and annual leave or retiring. All classes without a permanent teacher had either relief teachers or existing school.
    
    “Our preference would surely be to have no vacancies, but in a system such as ours, teachers will retire, resign or go on long service leave and the problem is exacerbated at the moment,” she said.
    
    "Ms O’Neill said the department was working with the union on shortterm solutions to try to ease pressure on teachers in the affected schools but there were differences between the parties on how best to support staff.
    
    "The union has asked the department to axe teachers’ administrative duties, such as professional development, for the rest of the year.
    
    "Ms O’Neill said that professional development was an essential tool for staff that she did not want diminished.
    
    "The union also wants a big increase in financial incentives to attract teachers to hard-to-staff schools.
    
    "Ms O’ Neill said that was being reviewed as part of the ongoing talks.
    
    "The union executive will meet this afternoon to decide whether the department’s efforts to alleviate the shortage are acceptable or if industrial action will begin."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Dept won't name schools most impacted by teacher shortages
    
    "The Education Department is refusing to say which schools are hardest hit by regional teacher shortages.

    "Term two began yesterday with revelations that 70 of the 80 teaching vacancies in public schools across Western Australia are in regional areas.

    "The main shortages exist in English, science and design and technology.

    "The department's acting director general, Sharyn O'Neill, says the shortage has been exacerbated by the decision of some teachers to leave at the start of second term. [Wonder why?  Web]

    "The district director of the Bunbury education district, Neil Milligan, says there are teacher shortages in Australind and Bunbury's Newton Moore Senior High School, mainly through sickness or leave.

    "Sharyn O'Neill says it is working to fill all of the vacancies with local classroom teachers.

    "In a system such as ours you can expect from time to time teachers retire, resign, go on long service leave, so vacancies do come up from year to year," she said.

    "It's exacerbated at the moment, we know that. The strategies, short and long-term, that we're putting into place are there to ensure that we have appropriately qualified teachers in front of every classroom."
    

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
  • Distance education measures short-term: Education Dept
    
    "The Education Department is insisting the use of distance education at regional high schools across Western Australia is only a short-term measure.

    "It has been revealed almost 90 per cent of teacher shortages are in regional areas, with 80 vacancies across WA.

    "The main shortages exist in English, science and design and technology and the Schools of Isolated and Distance Education has been teaching classes at some high schools in the mid-west, goldfields, Pilbara and Kimberley since first term.

    "However, the department's acting director general, Sharyn O'Neill, says it is working to fill all of the vacancies with local classroom teachers.

    "Distance education has been used in many locations for many years," she said.

    "Certainly in the shortage that we've had we have made use of distance education. We don't see it as a full-time permanent solution. My aim is to ensure that regular classrooms are staffed with appropriate qualified teachers."

    "There are now only three high school teacher vacancies in the Pilbara education district.

    "At the start of term two there was a teacher for every classroom and there are four more coming to Port Hedland with five headed for Newman and one for Karratha.

    "District director Vicki Jack says apart from three new vacancies at Tom Price High School, the district's senior schools are fully staffed with both teachers and education support workers. [So... "Except for the vacancies, we're fully staffed"????  Web]

    "Ms Jack says there are no problems at primary schools, with an area relief teacher for Port Hedland the only key position to be filled.

    "In the Pilbara education district we're waiting for the arrival of a number of teachers in key areas, but once those teachers arrive we'll be fully staffed across the district," she said."
    

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  

• PM reacts to school TV ads
  by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
  
  "John Howard has attacked Kevin Rudd's "education revolution" pledge, warning the Opposition Leader's policies would simply let the states off the hook over underperforming schools.
  
  "Vowing to continue the fight to deliver parents' choice in schooling, the Prime Minister said the real battleground was delivering better-quality teaching and greater transparency on results and performance.

  "Responding to recent television advertisements bankrolled by teachers unions that accuse the Government of neglecting public education, the Prime Minister also said the campaign ignored the reality that 67 per cent of students attended public schools and they attracted 75 per cent of total state and federal education funding. [emphasis added]

  "In his speech in Brisbane on future challenges facing Australia, Mr Howard said Mr Rudd had failed "the basic test of economic literacy by focusing almost exclusively on inputs into the system rather than the quality of outputs".

  "The economic literature makes it very clear about what makes the difference. It's education quality," he said. "That is the terrain the Government is fighting on - choice and quality and an education system that puts the needs of students and parents ahead of education bureaucrats and teachers unions. That is the new frontier of education policy - higher standards, greater national consistency, greater transparency and more power to parents, principals and school communities to shape what happens on the ground."

  "He echoed Peter Costello's warning that the states should be forced to pay for the lion's share of the cost of performance pay for teachers.

  "The union advertisement shows a class of children at a public school preparing for a visit by the Prime Minister, only for him to drive straight past without stopping. The voiceover tells viewers that since the Government was elected, the share of funding for public education has decreased to 35 per cent, despite 70 per cent of Australian children attending public schools."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  Complete text of John Howard's speech [excerpts from speech (on education)]
  

  • Howard lays into Rudd's credibility
    
    
    
    
    
• Tertiary funding 'falling behind'
  
  Australia's spending on tertiary education per student went backwards in the eight years after the Coalition came to power, leaving the nation ranked alongside Portugal, Poland and the Slovak Republic.
  
  
  
  
• For music fans and teachers: Ashkenazy to take Sydney orchestra to the world
  
  
  
  
• The Times
  
  
  • ‘Exam bias’ makes the boys look like failures
    by Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent
    
    "The apparent underachievement by boys in school tests is a distortion caused by a feminised examination system and a higher number of boys suffering behavioural problems, according to research.

    "Academics from Durham University have found that the real average difference in ability between girls and boys from 11 years old to A level is less than half a grade.

    "Alarm over the academic performance of boys has been mounting. Last year almost 57 per cent of boys failed to get good GCSE grades in English and maths. At A level, 25.3 per cent of girls achieved at least one grade A, compared with 22.7 per cent of boys.

    "Last year 43 per cent of first-degree graduates were men, while 59 per cent of 2:1 degrees and firsts were awarded to women. However, Peter Tymms, the director of the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre at Durham University, and Dr Christine Merrell say that in academic terms boys are not falling further behind.

    "Professor Tymms said: “The real difference is that boys have a far wider spread — in maths, there are more gifted and talented boys, but also more with special needs.”

    "He added: “If you want boys to do well, you give them a speedy multiple choice. If you want girls to do better, get them to write an essay.”

    "The information was presented at a Royal Society of Medicine conference Boys: Their Nurture and Education."
    
    From The Times at link
    
    
    

• Prime Minister John Howard's speech to the Queensland Media Club
  
  
  • Australia Rising
    
    "... Mr Rudd claims he will end the blame game in the Federation. What he’s really saying is that all criticism of state and territory governments (all of which happen to be Labor) is off limits. The only game he plays is absolving Labor Premiers of any and all responsibility in areas like education, health and water management.
    
    "He talks about saving money by getting rid of duplication. Yet all his actions point to more overlap and duplication.

    "A large slab of his so-called ‘education revolution’ is nothing more than allocating Commonwealth money to things that States have already said they’ll fund or where they have failed to deliver good outcomes.

    "There’s a particular irony in Mr Rudd saying he’ll reform national education standards given his time in the Queensland Cabinet Office. A scathing assessment of those years by Professor Ken Wiltshire of the University of Queensland points to a litany of failures to implement proper assessment, quality assurance and a core curriculum based on high standards.

    "Julie Bishop has outlined a wide-ranging agenda to raise standards and the Australian Government is spending record amounts on education, offering parents more choice than ever before on where they send their children to school. That is the terrain the government is fighting on – choice and quality – an education system that puts the needs of students and parents ahead of education bureaucrats and teachers’ unions.

    "That is the new frontier of education policy – higher standards, greater national consistency, greater transparency and more power to parents, principals and school communities to shape what happens on the ground..."
    
    Full speech available on The Australian's website at link
    
    
    

• Federal ALP: Two Media Statement and a speech by Stephen Smith

Wednesday 25 April

• Merit Pay For Dentists [from the April 2007 edition of the Churchlands Senior High School Newsletter]

  My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth.

  When I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the Federal Government's latest program for improving the dental health of our children by introducing merit pay for dentists.

  "Did you hear about the new federal program to measure effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I asked.

  "No," he said. He didn't seem too thrilled. "How will they do that?"

  "It's quite simple," I answered. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and average that to determine a dentist's rating. Dentists will be rated as excellent, good, average, below average, and unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. The plan will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their licenses to practice."

  "That's terrible," he replied.

  "What? That's not a good attitude," I said. "Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in this country?"

  "Sure I do, but that's not a fair way to determine who is practising good dentistry."

  "Why not?" I asked. "It makes perfect sense to me."

  "Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele, and that much depends on things we can't control? For example, I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle-class neighbourhoods. Many of the parents I work with don't bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem, and I don't get to do much preventive work. Also, many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much sweet food from an early age, unlike more educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay. To top it all off, so many of my clients have tank water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much difference early use of fluoride can make?"

  "It sounds like you're making excuses. I can't believe that you would be so defensive. After all, you do a great job, and you needn't fear a little accountability."

  "I am not being defensive!" he said. "My best patients are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists' because I chose to work where I am needed most."

  "Don't' get touchy," I said.

  "Touchy?" he said. His face had turned red, and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth. "Try furious! In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average, or worse. The few educated patients I have who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating is an actual measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse. On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labelled below average?"

  "I think you are overreacting," I said. "'Complaining, excuse-making and stonewalling won't improve dental health'... I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC," I noted.

  "What's the DOC?" he asked.

  "It's the Dental Oversight Committee, a group made up of mostly lay persons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

  "Spare me! I can't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

  The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

  "Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

  "That's too complicated, expensive and time-consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

  "That's what I'm afraid my parents and prospective patients will think. This can't be happening," he said despairingly.

  "Now, now," I said, "don't despair. The Federal government will help you some."

  "How?" he asked.

  "If you receive a poor rating, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

  "You mean," he said, "they'll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? BIG HELP!"

  "There you go again," I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

  "You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score made on a test of children's progress with no regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

  I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened.

  "I'm going to write my representatives and senators," he said. "I'll use the school analogy. Surely they will see the point."
  
  
  

• How to Ride a Dead Horse [or Parrot?] [source unknown]
  
  The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed down from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

  In the Curriculum Council, however, a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
  
  1. Change riders.
  
  2. Buy a stronger whip.
  
  3. Do nothing: "This is the way we have always ridden dead horses".
  
  4. Visit other countries to see how they ride dead horses.
  
  5. Perform a productivity study to see if lighter riders improve the dead horse's performance.
  
  6. Hire a contractor to ride the dead horse. (Can be as useful as a saddle when it comes to protecting your arse!!)
  
  7. Harness several dead horses together in an attempt to increase the speed.
  
  8. Provide additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.
  
  9. Appoint a committee to study the horse and assess how dead it actually is.
  
  10. Re-classify the dead horse as "living impaired".
  
  11. Develop a Strategic Plan for the management of dead horses.
  
  12. Rewrite the expected performance requirements for all horses.
  
  13. Modify existing standards to include dead horses.
  
  14. Declare that, as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads, and therefore contributes
  substantially more to the bottom line than many other horses.
  
  15. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position. (But the competition for positions is fierce).
  
  
  

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers keep strike threat (page 14)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The teachers' union has not ruled out striking if the Education Department fails to alleviate the growing teacher shortage.

    "The State School Teachers Union averted its immediate threat of industrial action last night and agreed to accept an emergency relief package to compensate overworked teachers in some country schools..."

    "State schools were struggling to fill 80 vacancies as students returned to classes this week but the Education Department yesterday refuted claims by shadow education minister Peter Collier that it still had a backlog of 350 teachers waiting for their job applications to be processed.

    "Acting director-general Sharyn O'Neill said 44 completed applications were now being processed, down from 207 at the start of the month. The department was fast-tracking [that must be a new word to educrats: "fast-tracking"! Web] applications from suitably qualified teachers who matched existing vacancies in subject specialities and locations. [I wonder how many of those very same applications have been sitting on a DET desk since January? Web]

    "However, the WA College of Teaching, from which teachers must obtain registration before they apply to the department, said yesterday it was still processing 199 applications.

    "Of those, 37 were pending criminal record clearances and 71 were waiting for further information from applicants. [And the other 91??? Web] The average time taken to approve applications was five days."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Support grows for traditional subjects' revival (page 14)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Teacher associations have offered cautious support for a push to return to history, geography and economics as stand-alone subjects in the curriculum..."

    "For many years those subjects have been lumped together as studies of society and the environment, prompting concerns that each was being diluted..."

    "History Teachers Association of Australia president Nick Ewbank said he backed the move as long as it was not made too suddenly. "If this is going to be brought in then they've got to make sure that schools and teachers and parents are informed about what this actually means," he said.

    "But he did not believe it would be a radical change because many schools, particularly private schools, already taught those disciplines as separate areas within SOSE.

    "Geographical Association of WA president Mike Fazio said the concept was good but he would be concerned if the new courses were less flexible than the current curriculum..."

    "Economics Teachers Association of WA former president Bruce Hancy said he did not know enough about the proposed changes to comment..."

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan was overseas and not available for comment."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Labor plan for national exams in core school subjects
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer: Additional reporting by AAP
    
    "National exams in core subjects are being considered by state and territory Labor governments as part of a schools plan released yesterday.
    
    "The states and territories have agreed to investigate establishing a cycle of tests in areas not covered by existing national exams. From next year, all students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 will sit uniform national tests in literacy and numeracy.

    "Under the Labor governments' vision for schools, outlined in the report The Future of Schooling in Australia, the states and territories will investigate extending the national tests into other subjects, such as history, and into other school years. The proposal is to test random samples of students rather than an entire year to avoid the trap of teachers only teaching to the exam.

    "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop was pleased the states and territories, who set school curriculums, were moving away from the "sad teachings of the past decade".

    "It sounds as though the states are at last recognising what the Howard Government has been saying - that there must be high standards through greater national consistency; that there must be a focus on core subjects, such as Australian history and geography as well as English, maths and science," the minister told ABC radio.

    "NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said it vindicated NSW's approach in not adopting the integrated SOSE curriculum.

    "NSW welcomes the endorsement of our traditional and rigorous curriculum, with Australian history and geography already mandatory for years 7 to 10 students in this state," Mr Della Bosca said."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Rudd 'failed own school test'
    by Imre Salusinszky
    
    "Kevin Rudd failed to implement the education reforms he now champions when he had the chance to do so in Queensland, according to the expert he commissioned to review the state's school system in the early 1990s.
    
    "Ken Wiltshire, professor of public policy at the University of Queensland, claimed Mr Rudd failed to follow through on the recommendations in his 1993 Shaping the Future report, which Mr Rudd commissioned, because of the power of the teachers' unions and the fear of a backlash.

    "Mr Rudd was director-general of the Queensland cabinet office - the state's highest-ranking bureaucrat - under former Labor premier Wayne Goss.

    "A number of Professor Wiltshire's recommendations anticipate Mr Rudd's education blueprint, released last month, in which the Labor leader promises a national curriculum authority, free of union involvement, and a back-to-basics national curriculum in maths, science, English and history.

    "Shaping the Future proposed similar changes and called on Queensland "to encourage ... and lead a national curriculum".

    "Professor Wiltshire said his proposals - which included some external assessment of students, plain-English reporting to parents and league tables of school performance - were scuppered by a failure of political will.

    "The government did not accept some core recommendations and the ones they did accept they never implemented properly," he said yesterday. "The implementation was weak and was left to the existing bureaucrats. They made it just as bad as it was before, and ended up dumbing it down even further.

    "They created a new curriculum authority, but they just shifted everyone from the education department across, so the same people were writing the same muck. It all just withered away and nothing happened. That's why Kevin Rudd's education revolution will largely fail; the state Labor governments and the unions will not collaborate." [emphasis added]

    "Asked to assess Mr Rudd's role in the shelving of his report, Professor Wiltshire said: "You can't be the head of the cabinet office and not have some role."

    "Mr Rudd's spokesman said: "Mr Wiltshire frequently criticises Mr Rudd on a range of topics, and we will no longer be commenting on his continual criticisms."

    "Griffith University education professor Marilyn McMeniman, who served on the Shaping the Future committee under Professor Wiltshire, said implementation of the report had been hindered by the defeat of the Goss government in 1996 and by the fact many of the recommendations were ahead of their time.

    "Queensland Teachers' Union president Steve Ryan, who praised Professor Wiltshire as an educator, said external assessment of teachers was the only element in Shaping the Future opposed by the union."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Teaching our teachers
      
      "It's encouraging to read that such traditional subjects as history, geography and economics are to replace the nebulous Studies of Society and Environment in our schools ("Diehard subjects return to school", 24/4). However, this is just the easy part. The real challenges lie in the reform of teacher education and the maintenance of a viable humanities stream in the universities.
      
      "For example, it has recently been reported that the bachelor of arts and bachelor of social sciences programs at both the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology are unviable and in a parlous state. Similar situations apply in many other universities. One of the main reasons for this is that the majority of the available student pool is channelled into undergraduate bachelor of education courses, where most of their time is consumed by various education subjects of an abstract, theoretical and ideological nature with little time to study the subjects they will later be attempting to teach in schools. As a result - as they themselves complain - these students graduate with an inadequate grasp of practical teaching techniques and an entirely inadequate knowledge base in their areas of alleged expertise. Inevitably, effective reform of primary and secondary education must involve comprehensive reform at the tertiary level."
      
      Dr Merv Bendle, School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld
      
      
      
      
  • The Higher Education Supplement has seven stories today, including:
    
    
    
    • We can't dismiss class
      
      There is a strong correlation between performance in Year 12 and socioeconomic status. So the most selective universities tend to provide limited access for people from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
      
      
      
    • Send in the 'philistines'
      
      The Queensland University of Technology is about to excise the last vestiges of traditional humanities by closing its school of humanities and human services and no longer offering a bachelor of arts.
      
      
      
      
      
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Parents and teachers cautious on curriculum
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Parents and teachers have cautiously welcomed a push to formally entrench history, geography and economics in the school curriculum, even though they will change little.

    "The revamp, spearheaded by the ALP-governed states and territories, will see a return to the traditional disciplines next year instead of the current umbrella subject known as the Study of Society and Environment (SOSE).

    "Parents Victoria president Elaine Crowle said she could think of no reason to maintain the SOSE, which has been criticised as being "wishy-washy" and "content-light".

    "She said parents often expressed concern that students graduating from the current system lacked a solid grasp of Australian history.

    "Placing a greater emphasis on core subject areas would give students a solid foundation that would be likely see them more inclined to continue studies in history, geography and economics in senior years, she said.

    "Announcing the changes yesterday, Premier Steve Bracks said making history, geography and economics stand-alone subjects would better equip students for life after school.

    "But Education Minister John Lenders admitted Victorian students would not see a dramatic change.

    "The removal of SOSE had brought the states and territories in line with each other.

    "The states also will implement national benchmarks to measure students' literacy and numeracy.

    "History Teachers Association of Australia's president, Nick Ewbank, said the changes were not as radical as they sounded, as many schools already taught elements of economics, geography and history.

    "There is probably still going to be flexibility within schools to implement this as appropriate to their community, which I think is sensible," he said."
    
    From The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    

• CNN
  
  
  • [US] House passes legislation to increase math and science teachers
    
    "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House approved legislation Tuesday intended to boost the number of highly qualified math and science teachers in U.S. schools.

    "The bill, which passed 389-22, would authorize more than $600 million through 2012 for scholarships and stipends for college students studying math and science in preparation for teaching careers. They could receive annual scholarships of $10,000 if they commit to teaching elementary or secondary pupils upon graduation.

    "The bill also would provide enhanced training for current math and science teachers. They could attend summer programs at universities or receive financial aid to pursue master's degrees. It would establish a national panel to identify math and science teaching materials that have proven effective..."

    Full story at CNN at link
    
    
    
    
• The Times
  
  
  • Students have to learn basic maths at university
    by Alexandra Frean
    
    "Universities are having to provide remedial maths lessons to science students who gave up the subject at school but later find that they cannot complete their degree without it, an eminent scientist has cautioned.

    "Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), gave warning that Britain’s position as a world leader in science was being undermined by China and other countries because of its poor performance in maths.

    "In an attack on the British education system today, Dr Pike calls for maths to be compulsory in school to the age of 18 and says that school league tables should be scrapped.

    "He has issued a challenge on the RSC’s website (www.rsc.org) to members of the British public to complete a sample question from the Chinese university entrance exam. Correct answers will be entered in a draw for a £500 prize.

    "Mathematics is the language of science. Yet Dr Pike claims that teachers increasingly want 16-year-olds to drop maths and take easier A-levels purely to boost their school’s place in league tables.

    “The consequence of this is that most universities run remedial mathematics courses for new chemistry students, as many have not opened a text book on the subject for over two years,” he said.

    "Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Maths at the University of Oxford, agreed that there was a “desperate need” to increase the mathematical literacy of science undergraduates in Britain. “The economic future of the country depends on having a mathematically literate population. China recognises this,” he said."
    
    From The Times at link
    
    Similar story in The Guardian
    
    
    

  • Lavatorial tactics seen as answer to bullying
    
    Secondary schools should install unisex lavatory blocks for pupils located near staff-rooms or offices to counter bullying, the Government says. [Just what teachers need: monitoring unisex lavatories!  Web]
    
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Internet monitoring is parents' duty, says PM
    AAP
    
    "Parents must take responsibility for their children's internet use, the Prime Minister said, following the deaths of two girls who discussed suicide on their websites.

    "Asked on ABC radio if the Government could improve monitoring of the internet or educate parents to try to prevent a similar tragedy, John Howard said: "I think the greatest thing that has to be said about this is that parental responsibility in the end is the key to behaviour by children.

    "Government can't educate parents to be responsible if they don't have an instinct for responsibility. And whilst there are things the government can do, there is a limit before you start running up against freedom of speech."

    "Although he was always on the lookout for ways to tighten laws in the public interest, it was a difficult task because governments could not trample on people's freedom of expression..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    

Thursday 26 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Unis reject easy OBE tertiary study path (page 3)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Universities are threatening to undermine a key plank of the State Government's outcomes-based education system amid concerns that students will be accepted into tertiary study without an adequate education.
    
    "From next year, Year 11 students can choose between a harder and an easier form of each subject.

    "Universities say it would be unfair if the marks gained, and therefore used to calculate tertiary entrance scores, did not reflect the different degrees of difficulty.

    "Universities also fear that Year 12 students who opt for the courses with easier content, known as stage two, rather than the more difficult stage three option, will not have the education needed for tertiary study.

    "A proposal by the Tertiary Institutions Services Centre, which processes university applications, says only students who sit the highest exam level in each subject should qualify for university.

    "TISC chief executive Steve Hoath said selection for university should be based on finishing courses to the current Year 12 equivalent standard.

    "But Mr Hoath said universities feared a tertiary entrance rank based on stage two course marks were "likely to be insufficient preparation for success in university studies."

    "Dr Mike Partis, the director of the Secondary Education Authority before it was rebadged the Curriculum Council in 1997, said in a separate report commissioned by TISC that a better solution would be to give all students 15 bonus marks for each subject they attempted at stage three standard to provide an incentive to study at the harder level.

    "But high school principals said the proposal undermined the OBE philosophy [that anyone who wants to can become a brain surgeon... Web], aimed at enabling more students to qualify for university..." [It's not rocket science: lower the standards and more students will qualify. Let's drop them completely and let everyone qualify. Web]

    "But Marko Vojkovic, president of teachers' group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, said it was crucial students were rewarded for tackling subjects at a more difficult level. Curriculum Council chairman Bill Louden said the council was still in discussions with TISC."

    Full story in The West Australian
    

    • The TISC report "Thoughts on 2010 University Admissions" is available at this link
      
      
    • The report on scaling of stage 2 and stage 3 results, by Dr Mike Partis, is available at this link
      
      
      
      
  • Letter to the Editor (page 21)
    
    
    • I agree
      
      "As a secondary-school teacher with 16 years of experience, I thought Hugh Mackay's opinion (Tying teachers' pay to performance is flawed, 21/4) was excellent. I found his statement that "it would be hard to think of a profession more worthy of praise and remuneration than teachers" most relevant to the current teacher shortage.
      
      "During the last holiday break I worked as a labourer for a tradesman friend of mine who was short-staffed. Not only was the daily remuneration better than teaching, for every job I was praised by the customer for a job well done (and they were paying well for the service). Praise for a job well done from students, parents or administrators is something that is seldom offered to a secondary-school teacher. Most teachers do their jobs not for praise, but because they care. If there aren't adequate pay and working conditions either, then it is no wonder that teachers are leaving for better-paid jobs and university graduates are seeking more rewarding occupations."
      
      P. Jorgensen, Carramar
      
      
      
      
• ABC News
  
  
  • Business group calls for education overhaul
    by Michael Vincent
    
    "The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) has issued a 10-year blueprint for education and training, containing 153 ideas for improving primary, high school, university, TAFE and even early childhood learning.

    "ACCI chief executive officer Peter Hendy is calling for the education budget to grow annually by 3 per cent over 10 years to almost $8 billion a year.

    "In our schools section of our blueprint ... we actually say that every primary school student should have an opportunity to do music and learn an instrument because it's part of the creative build-up of an education for each Australian student," he said.

    "Mr Hendy says the ACCI also wants students under seven years of age or earlier to learn a foreign language.

    "We think that's very important - it should be compulsory that by at least seven, each child who can is learning a foreign language," he said.

    "Academic research shows that once you've learnt a second language, beyond your primary language, it is easier to learn other languages after that."

    "Mr Hendy says Australia needs to significantly increase its expenditure on education to catch up with other comparable countries.

    "There was a commitment given a number of years ago in the defence budget by the Commonwealth Government of a 3 per cent increase real, each year for the next few years," he said.

    "We think there should be at least the same commitment for education, and we think the same commitment should come from the state sector as well.

    "So all up, that would be an additional $7.8 billion to be injected into education in the next three years, and the reason we say that is because when you look at the league tables where we compare ourselves to other countries, we're behind countries like the USA, the United Kingdom, France, South Korea, New Zealand, even Malaysia, in terms of public expenditure on education."

    "Mr Hendy says Australia should aim to have the best vocational education sector in the world, and is calling for employers to be given more of a role in helping set the curriculum in tertiary education.
    Criticism of Govt

    "The ACCI says the Federal Government has forward committed real annual funding growth for the next three years for only 0 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent, which it says is "simply not acceptable".

    "But federal Education Minister Julie Bishop says she welcomes the ACCI's input and agrees with much of its report.

    "Ms Bishop says the Howard Government has increased education funding over the past decade and it is the states that have not kept pace on increased schools spending.

    "Primary School Principals Association president Leonie Trimper says school principals are happy to hear business supporting their case.

    "That is one thing I think is very good, that they're calling on the Federal Government and state governments to increase the budget for education - no-one's going to quibble about that," she said.
    Schools struggling

    "But as for the ACCI's ideas such as compulsory foreign language learning for students aged seven and under, Ms Trimper says primary schools simply cannot cope with what they are already expected to teach.

    "We've had some research done and it's got some very clear messages, and those messages are that the curriculum's too cluttered, we can't do it all," she said.

    "There are some schools not able to do some of the current subject areas - for example if a school doesn't have a person in science with some expertise, then science probably doesn't happen," she said.

    "But the research is also showing that there are some schools, particularly schools in disadvantaged areas, that are under-resourced.

    "Until we get these right, some of these things are just pie in the sky."

    "High School Principals Association president Andrew Blair is currently in the United Kingdom, and he agrees funding is key.

    "To look at the injection of funding into public education from the Blair Government has been quite extraordinary," he said.

    "Mr Blair says it is important that industry comments on what is in the curriculum, and he wholeheartedly supports the ACCI's call for a greater quantity and quality of maths and science teachers.

    "It is a major, major issue, because in the end, without adequate maths and science teaching, and numbers of teachers, there are some young people in our country who are not receiving the curriculum that they deserve," he said."
    

    From ABC News Online at link
    
    
    
    
    
• ABC Media Watch
  
  
  • Race to the Bottom
    
    As I observe, when checking the education news every day, many online newspapers appear to be competing with one another for the lowest common denominator [or in some cases, the sleaze] award.
    
    Worth a read.  Web
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
• Op Ed
  Dereliction of duty
  by Greg Sheridan
  
  "I was watching the ABC’s serviceable tele-movie, Curtin, about our wartime prime minister, last Sunday night in the company of a fine young Australian professional. Winston Churchill was mentioned. Churchill was the president of America, wasn’t he, this young professional asked me.

  "Once again I was brought up short by the astounding dereliction in the teaching of history in Australian schools. We have just witnessed the moving national commitment to Anzac Day, we have just seen several Australian soldiers wounded in Iraq. In an unrelated development the states have decided to reinstate history, geography and economics as separate subjects, abolishing the educational atrocity known as studies of society and environment.

  "But still we are missing the point. How can a citizen today possibly have any understanding of the shape of the world in which they live without some knowledge of Churchill?

  "Yet unless we change the way we approach the teaching of history, such fundamental gaps in people’s knowledge will continue.

  "The internet generation will not be the best educated generation in history, as it has the potential to be, but the worst educated generation in a long time because it will not have been taught the most important things.

  "The federal Government’s national history summit last year made a contribution and identified things Australian students should know about our history. Even the so-called conservatives at that summit, however, generally favoured thematic rather than chronological and narrative approaches to history..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at link
  
  
  

• 'Schools failure' targeted
  by Imre Salusinszky
  
  "John Howard has seized on claims Kevin Rudd backed away from key education changes in Queensland in the early 1990s to step up his attack on the Opposition Leader's reform credentials.
  
  "Just as Mr Rudd caved in to the education unions in Queensland, so he would cave in to the same unions as prime minister," Mr Howard said in an interview with The Australian yesterday.

  "Nothing would be different."

  "The Australian yesterday reported claims by University of Queensland professor Ken Wiltshire that Mr Rudd squibbed on the reforms proposed in Professor Wiltshire's 1993 report, Shaping the Future, which Mr Rudd had commissioned while working as director-general of the Queensland cabinet office under former premier Wayne Goss.

  "A number of recommendations in the report -- including a back-to-basics approach in subjects such as maths and history, and a national curriculum -- are included in an education blueprint released by Mr Rudd last month.

  "Mr Howard said Professor Wiltshire had delivered a telling critique of Mr Rudd that demonstrated "only a Coalition government can deliver the basic standards in education required by Australian parents".

  "Senior figures in the Queensland Teachers Union, past and present, have disputed Professor Wiltshire's version of events.

  "A union source who was active in the early 1990s said much of Shaping the Future, including standardised testing of students in Year 2 and Year 6, had been implemented with union backing.

  "Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said Mr Rudd's refusal to address Professor Wiltshire's criticisms "should ring alarm bells for Australian parents".

  "When faced with a choice between higher standards for Queensland schoolchildren and the demands of the unions, Mr Rudd caved in to union pressure," Ms Bishop said.

  "Until the Labor party unshackles itself from the education unions, it will not be able to deliver higher educational standards in schools. Unions have shown they are prepared to sacrifice the future of young Australians by protecting self-interest and underperforming teachers, and by promoting their ideologies through the education system."

  "Mr Rudd last night declined to comment, but a spokesman for Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith accused Ms Bishop of launching another "tepid" political attack.

  "Unfortunately, the minister is incapable of having a serious policy discussion in education, or of delivering real outcomes for students and parents," the spokesman said.

  "Rather than rhetoric, Julie Bishop should start to deliver practical, quality education outcomes for Australian students and families."

  "Asked about Professor Wiltshire's claims last night, all Mr Goss would say was: "I don't know why he keeps criticising Kevin."

  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• First 'habitable' alternative to Earth found
  
  Earth is not the only piece of cosmic real estate suitable for life in the Milky Way galaxy. European astronomers yesterday reported the discovery of a habitable planet located nearby in the constellation Libra. The so-called "super-Earth" is the smallest of the 229 planets found beyond our solar system.
  
  
  

• Feature
  Without fast broadband we'll perish
  
  Stage II of the internet revolution is upon us, but Robert Gottliebsen asks if we are ready for the upheaval
  
  "The jumbo jet airliner and internet stage one revolutions have greatly reduced Australia's isolation - but they will both be dwarfed by the impact of the next stage of the internet.
  
  "Australia, as a first-world country close to the fastest growing part of the world, should be excited by this new development. But both our major political parties are being wrong-footed by the implications of this new revolution, and whoever wins Government will face a crisis unless they adapt.

  "The big changes that come with the next internet stage will arrive in Australia within four years - about the time of the 2011 federal election. By then, internet communication will offer high-density three-dimensional images that will go very close to duplicating human contact.

  "The implications are mind-blowing. There are the obvious ones, like the ability to globally and nationally market products and services over the net with far more impact. Global sourcing will be an everyday affair and the technology will slash travel requirements. One US global computer company says its travel bill will fall by $US120 million ($144.5 million).

  "But the revolution goes much further. Education can become a truly global industry as top teachers and lecturers are able to communicate to people around the world. The costs of education will fall..."
  
  Full story in The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Fury over internet medical degree
  
  A scandal over purported overseas-trained doctors in a Queensland public hospital is widening after revelations that a Russian nurse used an online medical degree from the Caribbean to get a job, while a Chinese woman used documents showing she would have just turned 14 when she went to medical college in Shanghai.
  
  
  
• Letter to the Editor
  
  
  • An excuse for failure
    
    "The move away from old-fashioned approaches to teaching, based on rote learning and the teacher is always right, was on the whole a good thing. However, making this move without maintaining intellectual rigor is the error which I hope is now being addressed ("Diehard subjects return to schools”, 24/4).

    "Subjects such as Studies of Society and Environment are useless if students have no basis in logic, sound reading and writing skills, and sound analytical skills. Without these, such subjects become a wishy-washy excuse for educational failure.

    "What I hope will emerge from the current educational debate is not a reversion to “teacher is always right” but a recognition that getting the basics right is the best starting point for developing individuality and the ability to argue a case."
    
    Philip Machanick, Taringa, Qld
    
    
    
    

• The Times
  
  
  • British schools ‘face US-style segregation’
    
    Britain is in danger of becoming a kind of “mini-America” as schools become increasingly segregated and turn into ethnic and religious ghettos, the race watchdog has claimed.
    
    Similar story in The Guardian
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Turn off TV week to get kids involved in real world
    
    There's no danger of the pupils at St Kilda Park Primary School getting square eyes any time soon. More than a third of the 350 pupils will go without TV this week as part of International TV Turn Off Week.
    
    
    • Canadian-based Adbusters came up with the idea of a TV-free week 13 years ago, and it has since spread throughout Europe, Japan and North America as well as Australia.
      
      http://www.adbusters.org
      
      http://www.youngmedia.org.au

 

Friday 27 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Something's rotten... When a whistle blower exposes rape and is investigated... [Front Page Headline]
    by Jessica Strutt
    
    "The teacher threatened with disciplinary action because he blew the whistle on child sex abuse in a remote community has broken his silence, describing the Education Department's investigation of him as a politically motivated waste of taxpayers' money.
    
    "Former Kimberley teacher Peter Gadeke said he believed the department targeted him because he had spoken publicly about the lack of desire to tackle shocking Aboriginal school attendance rates..."
    
    "Last night, Mr Gadeke's lawyer John Hammond said the department had abandoned its investigation. But the department refused to confirm this to The West Australian..."
    
    "One of the measures that I use on myself and what I have seen up there is, would this have happened in the metropolitan area in a regular, middle-class school down in Perth and the answer to that is absolutely not. To me it was just inhuman.
    
    "The investigation would have cost them tens of thousands of dollars and that money would have been better spent on schools up there, protecting kids and preventing this sort of abuse from happening in the first place." [Mr Gadeke said] ...
    
    "The Kimberley was the place that the world had forgotten. The schools were run down and I mean really badly run down. I kept thinking the Aboriginals were getting the raw end of the stick and they are," Mr Gadeke said.
    
    "I have lost confidence in the department that they have got the kids' best interests at heart. They are so tied up in their own bureaucracy... and the kids are the losers out of this."...
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Education $8 billion behind: bosses (page 6)
    
    See similar stories from The Australian, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Don’t ignore warnings of bullying at school (page 16)
    by Miranda Devine

  

  "This is not a column excusing the Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung Hui. But it is important to understand that what drove Cho to murder 32 people on his university campus last week is what has driven so many other school mass killers in the United States and beyond: severe bullying at school.
  

  “There is a lot of evidence that he was badly bullied at school, especially through ridicule and exclusion,” an expert on bullying, Professor Ken Rigby, of the University of South Australia, said. “This almost certainly increased his sense of alienation and desire to strike back.”
  
  "As distasteful as it is to watch the video Cho, 23, left behind, the words explain what motivated him: a desire for revenge against the students who had treated him as a non-person all his life.
  
  “Do you know what it feels like to be stood on your face and have trash shoved down your throat? . . . Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled upon on a cross and left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain in your whole life. Yet you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can, just because you can. You’ve had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats . . . You sadistic snobs . . . You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing…”
  
  "Cho was bullied at school — like the Port Arthur killer Martin Bryant, the Columbine school killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and others analysed in a 2002 US Secret Service report on school attacks.
  
  "The report found 71 per cent of killers “felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others before the attack. In one case, most of the attacker’s schoolmates described the attacker as “the kid everyone teased . . . nearly every child in the school had at some point thrown [him] against a locker, tripped him in the hall, held his head under water in the pool or thrown things at him”. The bullying experienced by some school attackers was so serious that if it “occurred in the workplace, [it] likely would meet legal definitions of harassment and/or assault”.
  
  "Cho, who mentioned the Columbine killers as heroes in his video manifesto, was 15 at the time of the 1999 massacre. At Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, he was “teased and picked on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking”, the Associated Press reported.
  
  "Once, after being forced by a teacher to read aloud, he was ridiculed for “reading in a strange, deep voice . . . The whole class started laughing . . . and saying, ‘Go back to

  "China’,” a former classmate said. A great-aunt in South Korea told reporters he was slow to speak, and “cold” as a child, and was diagnosed with autism after migrating with his family to the US when he was eight.
  
  "Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 people in Tasmania in 1996, was also bullied at school, a psychiatric assessment by Monash University forensic psychiatrist Paul Mullen says. “Mr Bryant’s memories of school are that he found it an unpleasant and distressing experience for virtually the whole of his attendance. He said, ‘I was hazed and knocked around all the time, no one wanted to be my friend’. He described himself as having been ‘terrified’ of going to school and of facing his tormentors.”
  
  "When Bryant embarked on his killing spree, Cho was a “geeky” 12-year-old at Stone Middle School in Centreville, Virginia. “There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him,” a former student told AP. “He didn’t speak English really well and they would really make fun of him.”
  
  "To Australians, school shootings may seem to be a peculiar manifestation of American culture. But Professor Rigby says the same levels of bullying occur in both countries — about 9 per cent of students report frequent victimisation. “I think the sort of circumstances that applied in the American incident can apply elsewhere — and lead to similar consequences,” he said.
  
  "Still, social pressures in US schools are far more intense. Middle schools — the late primary, early secondary years — are the crucible of culture in America. They create the outgoing, articulate, achievement-oriented people we recognise as Americans.
  
  "Socialisation by peers at school can be seen as a primal imperative — you fit in or are made to fit in for the good of society, which for its own protection cannot afford to have too many misfits.
  
  "But socialisation and bullying are on the same continuum. If for some reason you can’t fit in — Cho, for instance, may have had autism, while Martin Bryant had an IQ of 66 — it can mean torture at the hands of brutes as socialisation crosses the line into bullying. Bullies are the boundary riders; equipped often with superior social intelligence and a lack of empathy, they are sanctioned by the rest of the community to identify the undesirables and antisocials, excise the outcasts and prise their fingers off the edge of belonging.
  
  "The process is tolerated, if not encouraged, by many teachers and parents, judging by the fact that bullying is so prevalent. “The failure of the school and later the college to respond to [Cho’s] plight must be held partly responsible for the tragedy,” Professor Rigby said.
  
  "We have prohibitions against racism, sexism, religious discrimination and homophobia in schools, but little against the almost inevitable victimisation of social inadequates who are believed to be legitimately beyond the pale.
  
  "The consequences of ignoring the warnings are already clear on websites hailing Cho as a hero last week. “Cho Seung Hui, we fringed ones salute you,” reads one website."
  
  From The West Australian at link
  
  Professor Rigby’s website is www.education.unisa.edu.au/bullying/
  
  
  

• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    An educated change [a late update on their website on 26 April]
    
    Scrapping SOSE is a start to overhauling school studies
    
    "All state governments have finally come to their senses on secondary school education and agreed to scrap the controversial Studies of Society and the Environment and return to core subjects of history and geography. It is an overdue recognition that students were not being best served by a curriculum so loose that it could be misappropriated to further fashionable causes rather than provide future generations with a solid foundation on which t