Monday 28 May

Tuesday 29 May

Wednesday 30 May

Thursday 31 May

Friday 1 June

Saturday – Sunday, 2 – 3 June

 

Monday 28 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers to get no further say on OBE (page 5)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Teachers who judged that three-quarters of new outcomes-based education courses were not ready for implementation next year will have no further say in them before they are introduced to schools.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said yesterday the 27 year 11 courses that were deferred for a year on the advice of "teacher juries" would go ahead in 2009. "The teacher jury process is now concluded," he said. "We've received the feedback from teachers. We'll make the changes they recommended and then bring in the courses."

    "Asked whether he could guarantee that the Curriculum Council would address all the juries concerns he reiterated: "We will implement the recommendations made by the teacher juries."

    "Mr McGowan said the juries, which involved 344 high school teachers serving on 38 juries, were a comprehensive way to listen to ordinary teachers rather than noisy interest groups. "But there comes a time when you've actually got to eventually make decisions and we've consulted and we're making the decisions," he said.

    "The new courses are based around making school relevant for the virtually 100 per cent of 17 year-olds who will finish high school now and incorporate all sorts of trade training and so forth, plus more exams. It's a much stronger standards-based system than currently exists."

    "But teacher group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes president Mark (sic) Vojkovic said the juries never had the option to reject the OBE courses altogether, they could rule only on whether they believed they were ready for implementation.

    "There's no guarantee that what the juries recommended will be put in place by the Curriculum Council," he said. "I would like the Council to present the new courses to the juries with the amendments, even if it's just a courtesy, to show those people their concerns were taken into account."

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the decision would fuel further resentment and cynicism among teachers.

    "Teachers of OBE English, one of the first four new courses introduced to Year 11 last year, say they are still battling to make sense of a chaotic system that is changing from one week to the next. A state school head of department said the new grade descriptors that the Curriculum Council promised to deliver early in the second term were now six weeks late, making it difficult to complete students' reports." [emphasis added]
    
    From The West Australian

  But “Part 6. NEXT STEPS” of the official government "Teacher Jury Report 1" reads as follows: VALIDATION “International best practice consultative or engagement processes are complete when the individuals or stakeholders who have provided input into the process can evaluate the outcomes. “Critical factors for the next stage include that: “The Council proceeds with publishing this final report and associated submissions. “All stakeholders are kept informed of course updates, and able to confirm that jury recommendations are being/have been taken on board and implemented in a satisfactory and timely manner. “The Council endorse and implement open and transparent reporting on progress made. “The Council continues to develop and deliver collaborative decision making processes that are inclusive of teacher input.” Full report available at this link

  
  
  

  • Trade colleges 'not working' (page 11)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Two WA technical colleges set up by the Federal Government were an enormous waste of money, Education Minister Mark McGowan said yesterday.

    "He claimed the cost of educating students at technical colleges, introduced after an election promise to address the skills shortage three years ago, was twice the cost of similar programs at State schools.

    "WA has two technical colleges, in Armadale and the Pilbara, with a third promised for the northern suburbs in this month's Federal Budget.

    "Mr McGowan claimed the new college in the Pilbara still had no students because it was having rouble attracting teaching staff and that enrolling a student would cost $60,000, compared to $30,000 at a local State school. The Armadale school had just 62 students at a cost of up to $50,000 a student, compared with $17,500 in the State system.

    "At enormous expense they are setting up a rival school system to the State system which has proved to be appallingly unsuccessful," he said. "The commonwealth has no experience in running schools and it shows."

    "But Federal Minister for Vocational and Further Education Andrew Robb said Australia was paying dearly for closing the old-style technical high schools and for Labor's 20 years of talking down the trades,

    "Mr McGowan is confused, he's deliberately not comparing apples with apples and he's showing Labor's usual appalling grasp of business by not understanding that start-up costs are spread out over many years," he said.

    "WA shadow education minister Peter Collier backed the colleges but former Liberal education minister Colin Barnett agreed with Mr McGowan that the colleges were wasteful."

    From The West Australian
    

    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Languages under attack
    by Jo Prichard
    
    "For Nyoongar elder Ken Colbung, the 1967 referendum has brought mixed blessings.

    "We have more than what a lot of people have got ... We have got the freedom to make a decision," he said while opening an exhibition at the Western Australian Museum in Perth yesterday.

    "But we won't move forward if there are people that baulk us all the time.

    "Yes, we are taking our place with the rest of the people and we are being considered, but our own traditional culture is not."

    "Mr Colbung, 75, said calls by the federal Government to force Aboriginal children to learn English brought back memories of his childhood at the Moore River settlement, north of Perth, a mission made famous by the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough last week said learning English would ease poverty in remote communities.

    "In Moore River we weren't allowed to speak the language at all," Mr Colbung said.

    "If you did you were kept in the boob, a little white sort of prison shack. Today they're still giving no consideration to our traditional languages and the preservation of that. Many of us still feel we have to hide our culture."

    "WA Museum chief executive Dawn Casey, whose emphasis of indigenous history at the National Museum of Australia got her offside with board members in 2002, yesterday said language was central to Aboriginal prosperity.

    "You can't simply say all of a sudden you have to be white ... There's a huge responsibility in terms of traditional Aboriginal people who have to pass on their language," she said.

    "There has to be responsibility on both sides but in my view there's been too much emphasis on it being the responsibility of Aboriginal people ... as if they haven't lived up to their responsibility."

    "Ms Casey attracted controversy five years ago, when as museum director she chose to depict 1967 federal Opposition leader Gough Whitlam, not then prime minister Harold Holt, as taking a lead political role in garnering support for the referendum.

    "We had Gough Whitlam with the Yes vote and that's factually correct ... that he was the only one (in politics) who was seen to be pursuing (it)," Ms Casey said yesterday.

    "Ms Casey said some aspects of Aboriginal life had deteriorated since 1967. "What's become worse has been a reflection and a stereotyping of people that you've never seen before, and all the wrongs and ills are being reflected back on Aboriginal people," she said."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Language challenges
      
      "Perhaps the reason the debate about Aboriginal children learning English is ill-informed is because the last time any federal government seriously investigated the teaching of English as a second language, and what factors cause its acquisition and what kinds of teaching are required for its success, was as long ago as 1983.

      "Your newspaper often refers to literacy problems in Australia but the only time the teaching of English to immigrant or indigenous children is raised is when the issue is associated with some crisis, real or invented, of integration, assimilation or crime. That might be good newspaper business but it isn’t good policy making.

      "None of your regular writers on literacy ever mentions the special challenges that non-English speakers face in English literacy, there is practically no funding to assess the extent of the problem, most support funding cuts after six months provision for immigrant children, and for Aboriginal children the operating assumption from politicians ends at just getting kids to the school door. Inevitably, the present debate lacks research evidence.

      "The teaching of English to children from minority language homes is not a marginal nor a transient problem. Australian schools have faced this for as long as Aboriginal children have been educated and since the post-1947 mass immigration program. With the internationalisation of schooling, following on from what has occurred in our universities, English as a second language will need to be recognised as a professional specialisation.

      "English should have a central place in a proper, evidence-based comprehensive language policy, alongside redoubled efforts for English literacy, bilingualism for minority language speakers and second language learning for everybody. As far as worries about Aboriginal children are concerned, it is worth recalling that ESL isn’t the same as literacy and forcing children to go to school doesn’t make them learn and use English."
      
      Professor Joseph Lo Bianco, AM, University of Melbourne

Tuesday 29 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Teacher juries discharged, but OBE spin lingers on (page 16)
    
    "It should come as no surprise to anyone that Education Minister Mark McGowan's so-called teacher juries are turning out to be little more than a public relations exercise. It is now evident that these juries have had no power to convict, only to offer opinions.

    "This whole exercise has now been revealed as designed to give the appearance of serious consultation with teachers, on whom fall the burdens of trying to make the hopelessly contrived system of outcomes-based education work in classrooms. The verdict, regardless of the evidence, remains with Mr McGowan and his army of bureaucrats of doubtful competence. Once gain, this Government is observed elaborately creating a perception that is contradicted by reality - in this case, its hidebound ideological attachment to the socially engineered OBE.

    "After years of bungling, hamfisted intimidatory attempts to impose this fundamentally flawed system on schools, the Government remains wedded to it in defiance of common sense and public and professional opinion, and seemingly regardless of cost. It now transpires that the so-called juries of teachers who found that three-quarters of new OBE courses were not ready to be introduced in classrooms next year will have no further say on them before they are.

    "Mr McGowan has said that the 27 Year 11 courses that were deferred on the advice of teachers would go ahead in 1009. And that, it seems, is the end of the matter as far as he is concerned.

    "He has undertaken to make the changes they recommended. But, given the history of doubletalk, confusion and self-contradiction that has accompanied the staged introduction of OBE, the teaching profession would be well advised to examine closely the fine print of whatever emerges as a result of this exercise.

    "For all the problems and confusion it has caused in schools and in the wider community, the Government sticks doggedly to maintaining OBE, even if it is in an unworkable hybrid form with irreconcilable aims and practices. There are now serious questions being asked about whether the cobbled-together jumble that is emerging from the seemingly endless series of stuff-ups and compromises can prepare students for university admission.

    "None of this makes any sense politically, but the real worry is that the education system is being deliberately subverted to denude courses of challenging content and to blur distinctions between genuine achievement and mediocrity. And behind it all is the visage of an obdurate Alan Carpenter who publicly declared his commitment to OBE, but then was forced by public pressure to compromise by dropping elements of it to appease, in particular, the teachers' union.

    "It took a long time to dawn on Mr Carpenter that imposing a nonsensical system by edict on reluctant professionals would eventually provoke something like rebellion among them, and thus the compromises began. Subsequently his man on the spot, Mr McGowan, introduced the trappings of consultation with the misnamed teacher juries.

    "So the spin goes on and the substance remains elusive. And the real worry for the community is that the ultimate victims of this will be the students who are denied the rigorous educational challenges they need to build fulfilling lives."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Uni bridging courses 'may be needed' (page 15)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Universities may have to offer year-long bridging courses to high school graduates because of a drop in academic standards and the situation will be made worse by outcomes-based education, a former university professor says.

    "Retired computing professor Steve Kessell said he believed students were less prepared for university than they were 10 years ago. "The utter fiasco of the attempted implementation of outcomes-based education in WA at the Year 11-12 level will exacerbate the situation noted above considerably," he said in a submission to a Federal Senate inquiry into academic standards.

    "If this implementation and these policies continue, I believe that universities will need to offer, at a minimum, a full-year bridging course to secondary school graduates before they can even contemplate attempting a rigorous three-year degree."

    "But two universities strongly disputed Professor Kessell's claims yesterday, saying that they had no plans to offer bridging courses to more students. [They may not have "plans", but...  Web]

    "Professor Kessell, who has strong links to the anti-OBE group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, said he began noticing that high school students were less prepared to take on rigorous science or engineering degrees when he was undergraduate co-ordinator at Curtin University between 1987 and 1996. He said more students were enrolling in remedial, bridging or catch-up subjects, primarily in mathematics.

    "This situation has deteriorated in the past decade and that it is becoming the norm for many students to require an extra year, or even two, to complete a basic three-year degree in the sciences, mathematics and engineering," he said.

    "But Murdoch University deputy vice-chancellor Gary Martin said he had seen no evidence of a drop in academic standards in high school students.

    "Many students took longer to finish university degrees but that was because they were taking advantage of current job opportunities and studying part time. [IS that the reason?  Web]

    "He said the significantly revised OBE courses were the equivalent to the current TEE subjects in terms of academic achievement. [Does he mean the TEE replacement CoS that the juries rejected?  Web] "Their introduction will not result in Murdoch University requiring students to complete an additional one-year bridging course to bring them to required university entrance standard," he said.

    "Curtin University acting vice-chancellor Greg Craven said: "We have special support programs for individual students but we will not be introducing large bridging programs." Asked whether there had been any drop in standards in the past decade, he said "decidedly not".

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
  • Bullied kids may get school compo [Front Page Headline]
    by Ben Spencer
    
    "Bullied schoolchildren, including those who are verbally abused by their peers, could get payouts from the school or the Education Department under proposed changes to WA's discrimination laws.

    "Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson said her proposal to include bullying as a new ground for discrimination under the Equal Opportunity Act would extend to the school playground, making the school and the department potentially liable for damages.

    "Her review of the Act also proposes that breastfeeding, physical features and references to a person's irrelevant criminal record be covered.

    "Ms Henderson said the need for wider bullying laws and the impact of harassment were highlighted recently when a Sydney teenager was awarded $1 million after repeated assaults.

    "The changes would allow a child to pursue the school or Education Department for bullying of any kind, such as being called "fat", with the EOC then responsible for reaching a conciliated outcome.

    "Ms Henderson said the EOC could refer the matter to the State Administrative Tribunal, which could award damages, if the parties could not be reconciled.

    "Most of the complaints that we receive which we are not able to deal with (in conciliation) are not from minors, they are from adults, but it certainly could happen," she said. "This really is a significant change."

    "Edith Cowan University child health promotion research unit director Donna Cross, who led a six-year study of bullying in WA schools, welcomed the changes but was concerned about how they would apply.

    "My biggest fear is that we don't become a litigious society like America," she said. "I would want to make sure there were appropriate processes in place supportive of schools."

    "State School Teachers Union secretary David A. Kelly said bullying needed constant attention. If the commissioner saw ways to deal with it under equal opportunity laws, he thought there was potential for this to be effective.

    "The Education Department refused to comment." [Looks like neither the Minister nor his Department will talk to anyone this week.  Web]

    From The West Australian
    

    
    
    
  • Alston cartoon (page 16)
  
  
  
  
  © The West Australian

  
  

  
  

• ABC News
  
  
  • Govt accused of hypocrisy over English language plan

    "The Federal Government has been labelled hypocritical over its push to force Aboriginal children to learn English.

    "The state Labor Member for Central-Kimberley-Pilbara, Tom Stephens, claims that on one hand the Commonwealth wants Aboriginal children to learn, but on the other hand will not provide the funds.

    "Mr Stephens says a recent request to expand a successful reading program at St Mary's College in Broome was recently knocked back by the Federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop.

    "The pilot program in Broome going magnificently but desperately needing financial support to expand it beyond one school so that Aboriginal kids across the Kimberley can have an intervention in their literacy needs," he said.

    "Ms Bishop says Mr Stephens is misrepresenting the issue.

    "As I outlined in my letter to him, there are significant funds from the Australian Government available for literacy and numeracy programs including for a state program such as Reading Recovery. [emphasis added] We've already provided or have made available over $100 million."
    

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Hoarse teachers leave pupils paddocks behind
    by Bridie Smith
    
    "Teachers need to be in full voice to communicate effectively with students, according to British research that found teachers with strained, croaky or hoarse voices could have a detrimental effect on children's learning.

    "Research by National Health Service speech pathologist Jemma Haines, in Australia for Speech Pathology Australia's national conference in Sydney this week, found any form of vocal dysfunction, either mild or severe, could affect a child's ability to process and understand spoken language.

    "Mrs Haines said a strained, croaky or hoarse voice was harder for children to understand because they spent more time processing the disordered speech to normalise the sound. That gave them less time to comprehend the information presented to them, she said.

    "It's that effort is then directing resources away from them processing what is being said to them," she said. "So, from the results, you can draw that any form of vocal impairment can affect children's processing of information." ...
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • Not minding our languages
    by Jewel Topsfield
    
    "Australians are dunces when it comes to foreign languages and this is damaging the nation's performance in trade, tourism and cultural diplomacy.

    "So says the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the elite Group of Eight universities, which will hold a Languages in Crisis summit in Canberra next week to discuss ways of improving the situation.

    "Only 13 per cent of year 12 students study a foreign language and 6 per cent learn an Asian language, while just half the school-aged population has had any form of foreign language learning. Australian Academy of the Humanities executive director John Byron said the shortage of bilingual speakers was "the great unacknowledged skills crisis in Australia".

    "The fact the rest of the world is starting to learn English is not reason for us not to bother," he said. "There is plenty of anecdotal and research evidence that we are failing to pursue all the alternatives we can in trade because people prefer to do business with those willing to speak their language." ...
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Core Classes Not Enough, Report Warns (28 May)
    by Jay Mathews
    
    "It's no secret to most high school students that taking the required courses, getting good grades and receiving a diploma don't take much work. The average U.S. high school senior donning a cap and gown this spring will have spent an hour a day on homework and at least three hours a day watching TV, playing video games and pursuing other diversions.

    "This is sometimes a surprise to adults, particularly state legislators and school board members who thought that by requiring a number of courses in English, math, science and social studies they had ensured that students would dig in and learn what they need to succeed in college.

    "Guess again, says a new study, "Rigor at Risk: Reaffirming Quality in the High School Core Curriculum," by the Iowa City-based testing company ACT Inc. "Students today do not have a reasonable chance of becoming ready for college unless they take a number of additional higher-level" courses beyond the minimum, the report said. Even those who do, it concluded, "are not always likely to be ready for college either." ...
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    
    
• Parents, Teachers Protest Principals' Styles
  
  Principals at two well-regarded D.C. public schools have become the target of demonstrations and organized efforts to oust them because parents, and in one case teachers, too, have lodged complaints about their management styles.
  
  
  
  

Wednesday 30 May

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • In short
      
      "I was alarmed to read that the teacher juries would not be reconvened to judge amended courses (Teachers to get no further say on OBE, 28/5). This means we are to trust the Curriculum Council, which has led WA education to the brink of collapse, to fix problems which are entirely its own making. OBE cannot be fixed, it is too seriously flawed to think that tinkering around the edges will make things right. It must be scrapped for the good of our children and our teachers."

      Patrick F. Whalen, Yokine
      
      

    • Pay them more
      
      "As a teacher of 30 years I see the only way of avoiding the impending teacher shortage is by encouraging graduates into the profession or halting the exodus of senior teachers by paying them more and making their incomes comparable to those in other professions.

      "Remember the cliché "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys"? Well, that is the way the profession is heading. Teaching is being dumbed down into a crisis situation. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop insults teachers by saying that pay should be based on performance. As we all know, it is often very difficult to measure the performance of teachers simply using raw data.

      "What about the numerous after-hours excursions, camps, coaching and drama performances that teachers are involved in or those who have assisted students with emotional or home problems, and those students who aren't academically inclined being encouraged to stay at school, graduate and fine a meaningful career, or the teacher who conducts free homework classes for those who are struggling?

      "Ms Bishop has no idea of the dynamics of classrooms, teachers and schools.

      "I've got a better idea. Why don't we pay politicians on their performance? Is that possible?"

      Ray Lucas, Albany
      
      
      

  • Charges after schoolboy ‘bullied’ (page 11)
    by Gabrielle Knowles
    
    "Two Kwinana High School students have been charged with assault after a classmate was left with serious groin injuries allegedly from separate schoolyard attacks labelled by the principal as “schoolboy tomfoolery”.
    
    "The injured 12-year-old’s parents are considering legal action against the school for failing in its duty of care after their son was allegedly punched and kicked in the groin on May 12.
    
    "The boy’s father said yesterday that students were not supervised as they went to and from physical education lessons at the nearby Calista Oval.
    
    “My son was punched once then kicked twice in the genitals in a span of about 30 minutes and at no time was there intervention by a teacher,” the father said.
    
    "The boy spent two days in hospital and may need surgery when swelling and bruising subsides.
    
    "The father said he was not satisfied by the school’s response, although the alleged offenders were each suspended for two days.
    
    "Principal Graham Butler said the school had done everything possible to stop problems and students were always supervised.
    
    "Mr Butler admitted that the school had a history of bullying and had introduced an anti-bullying program last year.
    
    “A number of boys have been involved in this tomfoolery, where they kick each other in the groin,” he said. “It is unfortunate that this boy was injured but I don’t think it was a malicious attack.”
    
    "The father said the first boy punched his son in the groin after saying, ‘Do you know what I had for breakfast? Crunchy nuts’.
    
    “He took that as a bit of skylarking although he was in pain but when he was kicked twice by another boy he felt he was singled out,” the father said
    
    "The boy has not gone back to school. Kwinana police are waiting on medical advice to decide if the charges will be upgraded.
    
    "The two boys are due to face Rockingham Children’s Court on June 20 charged with assault occasioning bodily harm."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Information generation short on sleep
    
    See similar story in today's Melbourne Age
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • The Higher Education Supplement has just eight articles today, including:
    
    
    • Op Ed
      Another way of looking at it
      
      A defensive response to English syllabus criticism is not sufficient, Graeme Turner argues
      
      "At present, control of the debate over the English syllabus in secondary schools across Australia seems to lie in the hands of politicians and members of the commentariat. I would like to see that debate back in the hands of those most directly involved with the subject: English teachers and the disciplines from which they teach.

      "Let's remind ourselves of the kinds of comments that turn up regularly in the media:

      * The secondary English syllabus has been overtaken by "politically correct New Age warriors".

      * The secondary school syllabus encourages "an indifference to, or even a hostility towards, literature".

      * The English syllabus is "a great, pretentious movement of teachers pretending to be intellectuals".

      "There are many more accusations: we have replaced Shakespeare with The Simpsons or Big Brother, traditional grammar with postmodern jargon, and so on. Unfortunately, the provocations for such opinions turn up with monotonous regularity:

      * There was the external exam in Western Australia where students were asked to analyse two movie posters (but no books), and where markers were told not to penalise mistakes in spelling and grammar.

      * A notorious NSW exam question asked students to analyse Othello from the point of view of sex, race and Marxism. In the same exam, students were asked to deconstruct a phone text message.

      "Such provocations don't go unnoticed. They influence public perceptions of what is going on in schools and their cumulative effect has so far generated a national inquiry into the content of secondary English and other core disciplines as a precursor to the establishment of a national curriculum.

      "It is not enough to dismiss these media attacks as politically motivated or as the latest in the long line of traditionalist attacks on studying the media, although they fit both these categories. It is important to accept that there is widespread support for some of these complaints in the schools and outside, some of it informed, and that a defensive response is not sufficient. Some of what has been said needs to be addressed.

      "To start with, it may help to publicly acknowledge that the syllabus documents in all Australian states and some of the theoretical approaches they recommend are full of pretentious jargon that could easily be excised without anyone being worse off. Take these examples.

      "The literary text is a site "where alternative reading positions can be made available to students outside of an oppressive male-female dualistic hierarchy".

      "Critical literacies approaches will generate "student dispositions, positions and position-takings for viable and powerful life pathways through new cultures and economies, pathways that wind through globalised and local, virtual and material social fields".

      "Imagine that sentence being from the mouth of comedian John Clarke.

      "We need to take a few steps back and try to work from first principles about what we think the subject should do and how it should do it.

      "I was one of those who argued for the opening up of the English curriculum to media texts in the 1980s. I was a member of the team that rewrote the English syllabus for WA secondary schools in the early '80s, dividing it into a language and media syllabus and a literature syllabus, before running in-service workshops for the next two years.

      "Among my targets was the hegemony of literary studies at the time. This was partly because of the mystifying and elitist way in which it was studied, partly because of my view that popular media forms needed to be drawn more explicitly into the ambit of English studies and partly because the techniques of textual analysis being developed within cultural studies at that time enabled us to analyse a much wider range of texts.

      "Now I find myself defending the importance of literature to English studies and attacking what I regard as parodies of the theories I was introducing in the '80s. My concerns about English are different today. They include how literature is taught within contemporary English syllabuses across Australia.

      "Reading literary texts only for their ideologies sidelines most of the things that may make them interesting to us. As a result the aesthetic and literary-historical dimension is disappearing from the school curriculum.

      "The crude view that texts simply reflect the ideologies of their societies misrepresents the relation between text and context; reducing texts to their ideologies is just plain wrong. (Who needs a text? Why not just get students to copy down your list of ideologies and discourses, and go home?)

      "Universities have contributed to this situation. I am amazed at the lack of diligence of discipline specialists asked to provide advice in the preparation of the syllabus during the past decade. I don't think English has gone this way because of politically correct postmodernists gone mad or because English teachers are hostile to literature. Here is my alternative history of what has happened to English:

      * The stranglehold of literature was broken for two opposing but powerful reasons: vocationalism and cultural studies.

      * The resulting focus on skills or competencies ushered in new forms and modes of assessment that have priority over the technical and the empirical.

      * The gutting of English of its literary content opened up space for competing models, including multiliteracies and media literacy.

      * This in turn motivated the search for large, overarching theories that could bring coherence to a subject that appeared to have lost its way.

      * Universities and discipline specialists abandoned English in the schools and the educationists moved in.

      * The influence of assessment increased, driving syllabus and curriculum content, installing a more empirically based model of education that pushed the humanities dimension into the background. [emphasis added]

      "The result is that the Queensland syllabus, for one, is in my view an uneasy and unsatisfactory compromise between the interests and approaches of several disciplinary contenders for the ownership of English studies.

      "There are two clusters, one from a humanities disciplinary background, the other more closely linked to a social science background.

      "The first cluster includes literary studies, cultural studies and media studies, all united in their focus on textual analysis but variously developed in relation to particular media and forms of delivery, production and consumption. The second cluster includes education and critical literacies and systemic linguistics, both with roots in an empirical social science tradition, with a focus on process and structure rather than form and content.

      "Both have set up a specialised language and theoretical structure, in the case of systemic linguistics a highly elaborate one. Critical literacies shares some jargon and intellectual baggage with the first cluster and is attacked accordingly; systemic linguistics is incomprehensible to the general community and has replaced traditional grammar, so it is also one of the targets of the postmodernism critique.
      
      "Although I was among the first of those syllabus designers who wanted to theorise the practices through which reading generates meaning, there was always a relatively practical point to it: we needed to understand how this process worked.

      "Somewhere along the line, the need to theorise seems to have escaped from the constraints of the questions that motivated it. Theory became an end in itself. I think we need to back slowly away from theory now and turn back in a direction we have recently neglected: the direction of the experiential and the performative, the dynamics of the students' encounter with texts of all kinds. This is not a backlash against theory. But I admit it is a fairly old-fashioned position. It is a call for the reclamation of the humanities dimension of English studies: the imaginative, creative, moral, ethical, philosophical dimension of teaching students to read, write, respond and think critically.

      "We don't do that by setting exercises where we provide a text, a template of analysis and ask students to read one through the other. That is not an exercise in reading and critical analysis; that is ventriloquism. [emphasis added]

      "There is enough in the Queensland syllabus that may enable a wider variety of approaches, with some flexibility and goodwill.

      "The problem, I believe, is that it has proved quite hard in practice to take other approaches. There are various reasons, most of them external to the classroom and to do with the way a bureaucratic system controls teaching practices to achieve something that can be presented as consistency.

      "My impression is that much of what has gone wrong in our syllabus in Queensland has been driven by a process of syllabus development that puts the assessment cart before the content horse. That, in turn, has been driven bureaucratically and, I suspect, with some ruthlessness, even though it runs against the grain of much that English teachers would like to achieve in their teaching.

      "Of course, it is hard for English teachers in Queensland to say much about this. That employees of Education Queensland are prohibited from making public statements as professionals is a disgrace; the administration of a democratic society should not seek to protect itself from criticism by gagging those best equipped to make such criticisms. [emphasis added]

      "If there was one thing we might achieve that would make a difference to the quality of school education, it would be to devise a more grassroots and transparent approach to the development and implementation of the syllabus that genuinely sought and respected greater input from teachers and discipline specialists. That would be a first and important step out of the difficulties in which we have lately found ourselves."
      
      Graeme Turner is an Australian Research Council Federation fellow at the University of Queensland and president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
      
      From The Australian's Higher Education Supplement at link
      
      
      
      

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Our education failures
    
    In Victoria, our educational priorities have been skewed by managerialism, writes Barry Jones.
    
    "The age of the information revolution — which should have been an instrument of personal liberation and an explosion of creativity — has seen public policy dominated by managerialism, the "public good" replaced by "private benefit", the decline of sustained critical debate on issues, leading to gross oversimplification, the relentless dumbing down of mass media (linked with the cult of celebrity), substance abuse, the rise of fundamentalism and an assault on reason.

    "The "knowledge revolution" ought to have been a countervailing force: in practice it has been the vector of change.

    "In the Western world there is increasing debate about alternative models of education — managerial and dependent on measurement and with predictable outcomes, or philosophical, creative, open, speculative, imaginative and with uncertain outcomes.

    "In the 19th and early 20th centuries, after the introduction of mass education, state schools were models of industrial-era process work, with rule by the clock, uniform delivery, pupils as raw material, teachers as process workers and schools looking like factories.

    "The period between 1870 and 1900 was marked by a major shift in public policy in which the principle of universal, compulsory, primary education — including for girls — was adopted.

    "Public education had a high priority in Victoria in decades after the Gold Rush when the colony was both radical and rich. The Education Act (1872) — providing for free, secular and compulsory education — was adopted after a lengthy debate of unusually high quality. J. Wilberforce Stephen, the minister who introduced the act, emphasised that the "three cardinal points" of the proposed act were that state education should be secular, compulsory and free, in that order. But there was a striking omission in the 1872 act — the failure to define "education". This deficiency remains in its latest incarnation, the Education and Training Act (2006).

    "The liberal social democratic tradition — which evolved in Australia and New Zealand — made a strong political commitment to public education and public health and social welfare, led in Melbourne by Alfred Deakin and his followers. School must prepare young people not only for work, even more for life, familial, social, cultural, political, aesthetic, sport and play.

    "A century later, life chances for children could be predicted to a high degree of accuracy by answers to three questions: Where do you live? What school do you go to? What do your parents do?

    "In 1942 Eleanor Roosevelt wrote: "A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period; it presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often is neglected."

    "Many of us believed, and still continue to hope, that public education would be an instrument for personal and societal transformation. But education often seems to entrench or reinforce existing abilities, or disabilities, advantages or disadvantages.

    "There are surprising exceptions: some recently arrived children from disadvantaged countries overcome early difficulties and score exceptionally well. Research suggests that a strong commitment to education by parents makes a major difference with new arrivals, although this diminishes over time.

    "Many boys from English-speaking backgrounds, who ought to enjoy at least a linguistic advantage, find schooling either frustrating or irrelevant, and drop out. Class and regional factors may have serious impacts.

    "Australia used to have a selective split-level education system that perpetuated existing social, ethnic, class and regional divisions instead of eliminating them, which was the liberal hope for universal education.

    "Now we have a mass split-level system, but the divisions largely remain. In Britain, only 7 per cent of students are outside government schools; in Australia the figure is 33 per cent.

    "From November 2001 until August 2005, I chaired the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission. One of VSIC's last contributions was a submission to the review of Victoria's education acts, which included this definition of "education": "Education is a combination of processes, both formal and informal, that stimulate the growth of mental capacity, influence the potential of humans, aim at individual development, understanding, and independence, encompass the teaching of specific skills and nurture knowledge, judgement, values and wisdom, transmit culture and social adaptation, but also encourage exploration, self-discovery, using time effectively and learning for a lifetime, strengthening self-image, and encouraging creativity, balance, open-mindedness, questioning, respect for others and humane common sense."

    "The definition may have been the final nail in VSIC's coffin, because it did not pay enough homage to instrumentalism, and was too open, too speculative.

    "The Victorian Department of Education and Training is strong in management and weak in strategic thinking, creativity or imagination. It has failed to address major problems in Victorian education.

    "Preschooling is part of Victoria's welfare system, not part of education, at precisely the time when children are most susceptible to learning; participation in state schools is strikingly lower than the national average, due to the phenomenon of "middle-class flight"; while values are taught, and taught well, in Victorian state schools, the department is in danger of losing the propaganda battle, due to its defensiveness; and it has not fully examined issues of individual versus mass delivery."

    Barry Jones is a former federal Labor minister. This is an edited text of his dean's lecture for the faculty of education at the University of Melbourne last night.
    
    From The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  
  © The Melbourne Age
  

  
  

  • Op Ed
    It would take real guts for society to fund schools properly
    
    If you want to send your kids to the best school, send them to the local, writes Catherine Deveny.
    
    "I met this bloke at a party a while back. He had been teaching at private schools for many years. "Life-long learning", "independent thinkers", "creative minds". "That's what the brochures say, but it's all bullshit," he spat, "The motto for our school should be: 'open wide'."

    "So what do your kids think of the school?" I asked, referring to his students. He misunderstood.

    "My kids? I wouldn't send my kids there if you paid me. They go to the local secondary school. I wouldn't want my kids to think that was real life. They'd never learn anything."

    "So why did he work there? "Better conditions. Better resources. It's easier to teach." He told me that he'd recently started applying for jobs in the government system because "private schools are businesses".

    "Private school teachers shouldn't have to choose to work within a system that they have political and ethical reservations about simply so they can get the most out of their careers. If the Government stopped sucking up to the private schools, they wouldn't have to. I don't blame people wanting to enjoy their work. I want teachers to love what they do. I just want them to be able to do it in a comprehensive, generously funded, well-resourced government school system.

    "Steven Levitt's book Freakonomics is a ripper read. The maverick economist quotes studies that prove IQ is strongly hereditary and suggests that children should choose their parents wisely. He found the only factors that made any impact on kids' academic test scores were "things that parents are" not "things that parents do".

    "Parents who are well educated, successful and healthy tend to have children who test well in school; but it doesn't seem to matter much whether a child is trotted off to museums or spanked … frequently read to or plopped in front of the television." ...
    
    "Many gifted and born teachers have left the teaching profession. And many potential teachers will never stand in front of a classroom due to low pay, poor conditions and limitations on their own initiative. If you want the best teachers possible, the answer is cheap and effective. Pay teachers $100,000 a year, minimum. It's the long way round but the short way home. The long-term benefits will make this overdue wage correction save the community billions in the long term.

    "Our school had a fete recently and a staggering number of parents put in hundreds of hours to raise the equivalent of 12 months' private school tuition for one child. But the sense of community was magic. I can't help wondering why it is that the defence force, the Australian Institute of Sport and the parliamentary super fund never have to run lamington drives to raise money.

    "You can cook up all the "realising our potential", "schools of the future", "education revolution" sizzle you like, but it is a mark of a civilised society to have free high-quality schools. Why can't we set an example to the rest of the world? Oh, I know. Because that would require leadership, commitment, courage and vision. And involve us overcoming our insecurity about being a provincial backwater."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

  • No proof donkey's years of carrot-dangling works
    by Leon Gettler
    
    "There's a big industry in financial incentives. Type the word "compensation" into Google and you get 190 million links. Type "financial incentives" into Amazon.com and there are more than 17,000 book entries..."
    
    So it's not surprising Prime Minister John Howard latched on to this when he said earlier this month that schools could miss out on federal funding unless they, among other things, put their teachers on merit pay.

    "Performance-based pay for teachers, he said, was "an idea whose time has come".

    "But with the opinion polls showing that his age and longevity are voter turn-offs, Mr Howard might be keen to show he is up with the times.

    "But his claim that its "time has come" was made more than 100 years after performance pay was created.

    "Notions about performance pay go back at least to the early 20th century, well before Mr Howard's birth and at least to the days of Frederick Taylor, the pioneer of scientific management.

    "Taylor cited pig-iron shovelling experiments, where financial inducements based on productivity were used to persuade workers to shovel harder. Writing in his book Shop Management (Harper, 1903), Taylor said: "What workers want most from their employers beyond anything else is high wages."

    "Since then, there has been an outpouring of management literature showing how incentives can motivate the wrong behaviour.

    "True, financial incentives can produce results. But will they be the right ones?

    "Incentive systems can send executives and other employees the wrong signals. Read the accounts of how the excessive use of options contributed to the financial scandals at the beginning of the millenium and you start suspecting that the focus on incentives is counting the wrong numbers, an approach as misguided as the US military's obsession with body counts during the Vietnam War.

    "The Howard Government's push to put teachers on incentive pay seems to be based on three flawed assumptions.

    "First, it assumes that the only educational output that matters is academic results, rather than helping to produce children with social skills who learn about working together and become well-balanced and functioning citizens. Great teachers can change and, in some cases, even save lives in ways that have nothing to do with academic results.

    "Second, it assumes that any educational outcomes are the result of teachers' efforts alone. The collective planning and teamwork of teaching staff, the contribution of non-teaching staff and, for that matter, the home environment do not come into the equation. Nor does the ethos of the school.

    "Finally, there is the implicit belief that teachers are primarily motivated by money.

    "These assumptions underscore the entire problem with the cargo cult-like fixation on performance pay in today's market..."
    
    Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
    
    
    

• Big response to school chaplain push
  
  Almost 300 Victorian schools have applied for Federal Government funding for a chaplain under the controversial National School Chaplaincy Program, Education Minister Julie Bishop revealed yesterday.

  http://www.dest.gov.au/schools/chaplains
  
  
  

• Switched-on kids switch off in class
  
  Children are losing up to half an hour's sleep a night because of technology such as mobile phones, electronic games and television, according to a study that shows the less sleep they get, the less effective they are in the classroom.
  
  
  
  

Thursday 31 May

• The West Australian
  

• Op Ed
  Carton case rips open Balga box (page 21)
  by Jessica Strutt
  
  Opposition seeks parliamentary inquiry into $2 million spent on a training scheme
  
  "In early 2004 a self-confessed former heroin user, alcoholic and sexually abused bankrupt by the name of Michael Carton travelled to Perth from Victoria, where he ran an apparently successful vocational training program for disadvantaged youths, to meet the then principal of Balga Senior High School, Merv Hammond.
  
  "At that time Mr Carton, a Balga SHS graduate, was a director of the Melbourne-based Manufacturing Industry Training Services and Mr Hammond, a former State school principal of the year, was known for innovative approaches to difficult educational issues.
  
  "They met with the then-chairman of the WA Community Safety and Crime Prevention Council, Gary Hodge, and in May that year all three were in Melbourne inspecting the MITS program in operation.
  
  "By August Mr Carton, Mr Hammond and Mr Hodge had found their way to then-education minister Alan Carpenter’s ministerial office where they pitched a plan for establishing a similar program in WA.
  
  "To listen to Mr Carpenter in November last year, you could have been mistaken for believing that was where the matter ended.
  
  “Although I thought that the ultimate outcomes were laudable . . . I actually did not think that the program stacked up at all,” the Premier told Parliament. “I think it had Federal Government funding. My understanding is that it was approved at the local level and that this is now the subject of a CCC inquiry.
  
  “The amount of money that was being talked about for State support for such a program was exorbitant. My recollection is that I did not support the program at all.”
  
  "But someone did. In November last year, The West Australian revealed that the Education Department had launched an investigation into how more than $2 million of taxpayers’ money had been funnelled to a private company, Hurson Pty Ltd, which ran what became known as the Balga Works Program at Mr Hammond’s Balga Senior High School.
  
  "The department was acting on complaints from at least 22 former employees of Hurson about alleged unpaid wages and superannuation both at Balga SHS and an accommodation facility they ran for disadvantaged youths in Joondalup.
  
  "When The West Australian raised concerns about how the Joondalup accommodation facility was operating in December, the Department for Community Development, which poured $360,000 into the program, announced it would withdraw the youths from the hostel.
  
  "Two months after the initial meeting in Mr Carpenter’s office, the Office of Crime Prevention, at that time part of the Department for Premier and Cabinet, handed Balga SHS Parents and Citizens Association $44,000 to fund a feasibility study into the program.
  
  "The funding was approved by the then-community safety minister Michelle Roberts on the recommendation of the Office of Crime Prevention director.
  
  "And even though Mr Carpenter claims he did not support the program, his own department with approval from the deputy director-general of finance and administration, Peter McCaffrey, put more than $185,000 of taxpayers’ money into Balga Works on February 1, 2005.
  
  "For an idea Mr Carpenter claimed “didn’t stack up”, Balga Works was attracting a lot of money from both Government and private sources. Mr Carpenter was education minister until February 26, 2005.
  
  "And some time in February Mr Carton, acting for MITS, and school principal Mr Hammond signed a memorandum of understanding which ultimately saw the Education Department pay Hurson more than $2 million to operate the program.
  
  "Mr Carton was then a director of MITS, which was part-owned by Hurson. His wife, Katherine Day, was a director of Hurson. By Easter 2005, Mr Carton had resigned as director of MITS and the program was operated through Hurson.
  
  "As shadow education minister Peter Collier told Parliament in December last year, from there it was all downhill.
  
  “This was when the web of intrigue set in,” he said. “It was like a spider’s web that captured more and more victims as it went along.”
  
  "In February this year Mr Carton narrowly escaped imprisonment after pleading guilty in a Victorian court to using forged documents to rip off more than $140,000 from a Federal Government training scheme during the late 1990s. The court heard Mr Carton was declared bankrupt in 2003.
  
  "Balga Works Program management committee chairman Jonathan Cook, the husband of Education Department acting executive director curriculum standards Christine Cook, appeared as a witness for Mr Carton at the court.
  
  "Mr Cook told the court that former education minister Ljiljanna Ravlich had been sacked over the Balga Works scandal. He also claimed that Mr Carton was not a suspect in a Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry into the whole mess.
  
  "How Mr Cook became the Balga Works Committee chairman and what he knows about the CCC inquiry is just one of the many mysteries still to be solved. In December The West Australian learnt that detectives have had an inquiry into the Balga Works Program running since September, with the Corruption and Crime Commission also involved.

  "The Opposition is now hoping to convince the Greens to back an Upper House parliamentary inquiry into the matter. Let’s hope someone can get to the bottom of the complicated scandal."

  From The West Australian at link
  
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor (pages 22 - 23)
  
  
  • Three Letters on education today: two deride OBE, and the other discusses poor attendance at remote Aboriginal schools.
    
    
    
    
• Foreign students provide half of revenue [late update: online only]
  AAP
  
  "Foreign students have become so lucrative they now account for almost half the revenue earned by at least one Australian university, a senate estimates committee has been told.

  "Education Department officials were quizzed on Thursday on the contribution of international students - the country's fourth-biggest export industry - to university finances.

  "The department's funding and student support branch manager, Rod Manns, was asked by Labor senator Kim Carr what percentage of Central Queensland University's (CQU) revenue came from international students, who are not eligible for HECS and must pay full fees for their courses.

  "For 2005, Central Queensland had 45.7 per cent of its total revenue from overseas student fees," Mr Manns said.

  "CQU was singled out during the hearing for breaching commonwealth guidelines that require universities to fill their government-supported student places before taking on domestic full-fee-paying undergraduates.

  "The university has advised us, or advised the minister, that initially in 2005 and then again in 2006 it took on domestic fee-paying students without having filled all of its commonwealth-supported places," Mr Manns said.

  "However, he said, the government had decided not to take action against CQU in 2005 because it had experienced a sudden and expected decline in enrolments in commonwealth-supported places.

  "Education Minister Julie Bishop had ordered the university to ensure it did not breach the rules in future, Mr Manns said.

  "Student unions say reduced federal government funding for higher education has left universities with no choice but to shift costs onto students and increase their proportion of full fee-paying students.

  "This year's federal budget removed caps on full-fee positions in all courses, giving universities carte blanche to seek more money from international students provided government-supported places are filled.

  "Full-fee degrees in some courses like medicine and law can exceed $200,000."

  From The West Australian Online at link
  
  
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
  • Sport star approach to boost sciences
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Students could be forced to study science in Year 12 and teachers would be urged to treat scientists like sporting heroes to help reinvigorate interest in the subject.

    "Retired maths and science teachers could be called back into the classroom to stem the brain drain contributing to the maths and science crisis in the nation's schools.

    "The radical proposals were among a series of recommendations raised by 50 top Victorian teachers, scientists and industry heads yesterday at a forum designed to improve maths and science teaching and attract more students.

    "The forum comes amid growing concern about the level of interest in science and maths - among students and teachers - and the declining numbers of university science students.

    "Suggestions from the workshop of experts - brought together by the Bracks Government to help form its maths and science education strategy - included making scientists heroes like the nation's sportsmen.

    "The roundtable, hosted yesterday by Victorian Governor and eminent scientist David de Kretser, also recommended paying teachers more and improving their professional development.

    "Chancellor-elect of Monash University Alan Finkel, who helped organise the roundtable, said making science compulsory to Year 12 would help students develop evidence-based thinking.

    "At the moment science is only compulsory up to Year 10," Dr Finkel said. "And a lot of us felt it would be of value for students to become proficient members of society to take science up to Year 12.

    "You have to do English so why not say you have to do ascience or a maths subject?"

    "He said this would not fix the maths and science skills shortage, but rather equip students better to deal with scientific issues in everyday life.

    "Dr Finkel said it would involve creating a new science subject to meet all student needs, as not all students would be able to complete specialist subjects such as physics or chemistry.

    "You would have to add to the sciences on offer, have a more generalist science subject," Dr Finkel said.

    "Victoria University engineering school program manager Joe Micallef, who was also at the workshop, said a number of people believed that making science compulsory would help students become more interested.

    "But he said it was more important that students were engaged in science because they chose to, rather than being forced to take the subject.

    "Mr Micallef supported the idea of bringing back retired teachers, saying a lot of former science and maths teachers would be willing to return and help part-time.

    "Dr Finkel said it would be helpful if scientists could be held in the same regard as sporting heroes.

    "But scientists can become heroes to the students by just visiting schools (and) providing some inspiration," he said.

    "Victorian Education Minister John Lenders said the roundtable brought together leading thinkers in the areas of maths, science, industry and education.

    "He said the workshop was the start of formal consultations for the Government's maths and science education strategy to be released later this year."
    
    [Bring on the clowns, acrobats and dancing bears, too?  Web]
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Quantum leap of faith

    Once we ditch Platonism we can apply modern physics to the universe's natural laws, writes Paul Davies
    
    The origin of life is one of the great outstanding mysteries of science. We do not know whether life occurs because of an extraordinary fluke of chemistry that is unique to Earth, or whether the universe is teeming with life. But either way, we can be sure of one thing: the universe permits life in at least one location. That basic fact, while blindingly obvious, conceals a subtle mystery about which scientists hold strong, and strongly differing, opinions.
    
    A late update from yesterday's Australian and a very interesting read.  Web
    
    
    

  • Editorial
    Rudd confronts union elephant
    
    Our concern is that while Mr Rudd presents himself as a modern Labor leader, a fiscal conservative interested in issues such as productivity growth and the introduction of high-speed broadband, some within his party are more interested in restoring power to the likes of Mr Reynolds and Mr Mighell. Mr Mighell was not confronted by Mr Rudd because he had changed his view but rather because he had been indiscreet.
    
    
    
    
• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Teachers lag in pay

      "Some people may regard Catherine Deveny's suggestion of paying teachers $100,000 a year as absurd. However, relatively speaking, that is about what they were paid in 1975. After seven years, a teacher reached the top of the scale and was paid 166.6 per cent of male average earnings. That equates to $96,256 at the start of this year. However, today's teachers reach the top of the scale (about $65,000) after about 11 years, unless they take on a leadership role or extra responsibilities.

      "The budgetary implications of undoing these pay cuts would be serious, but do not worry. Current teachers are industrially naive and weak and will settle for 3 per cent as they always do."
      
      Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge
      
      

    • Education's great divide

      "About 200 years ago when I was in my first year at Toorak Teachers College, a mate and I were waiting in a queue to get into a trendy nightspot. The manager poked his head out the door and said: "Anybody from Grammar?" Since then, I have been acutely aware of our education system's injustices.

      "This was reinforced by teaching in inner-city government schools and experiencing the lack of resources for children whose only crime was to be a newly arrived migrant or born into a poverty-stricken family.

      "Bundles of bouquets to Catherine Deveny, and to Barry Jones (Opinion, 30/5) for pointing out that public education should be "an instrument for personal and societal transformation".
      
      Neville Garner, Bright
      
      
      
      
      

Friday 1 June

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Huge rise in education bureaucrats (page 8)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The number of education bureaucrats has ballooned a staggering 48 per cent in the past three years at the same time the State Government has failed to find enough teachers to work in schools, the Opposition claimed yesterday.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said new figures showed an extra 728 administrators had been employed in the Department of Education and Training's central office in the past three years, increasing from 1503 employees in 2004 to 2231 this year. The number of administrative staff in district offices had also increased 22 per cent in that time.

    "Mr Collier claimed the increase in administrative staff was "ridiculously high" given that teacher numbers had increased just 3 per cent in that time and schools were struggling to find enough teachers. [Of course none of the Silver City educrats would be caught dead in an actual classroom!  Web]

    "How can the department justify this massive blowout in administrative staff and yet sill preside over a department that could not manage to process or appoint sufficient teachers for the start of the 2007 school year?" he said.

    "Mr Collier said the number of central office employees leapt by 130 in the three months between December 2006 and March this year, at the same time schools were suffering teacher shortage.

    "He said the Carpenter Government seemed to think it could solve problems by adding more employees to the public service.

    "The reality is that we are not getting better service and efficiency for the millions of dollars they are spending on bureaucrats," he said.

    "Since Labor took office in 2001 the number of central office employees declined for several years, dropping from 1662 in 2001 to 1503 in 2004, but rose suddenly to 1898 in 2005, before continuing to climb. [Clearly it takes a lot of Silver City educrats to write and re-write and re-re-write all those level descriptors.  Web]

    "Education acting director-general Sharyn O'Neill said the increase in numbers occurred when a shared services branch was set up after the Education Department was merged with the Department of Training.

    "She said most of the additional positions at central and district offices provided direct, practical support and resources to teachers in areas such as literacy and numeracy, early childhood education, behaviour management, indigenous education and syllabus development." [emphasis added] [All areas where DET has failed, miserably!  Web]

    "Staff in those projects work directly with teachers and schools and also develop practical teaching and learning resources, such as what to teach, to support teachers in the classroom," she said.

    "Central office staff also included people at different sites, such as West-One in Leederville, which produced classroom materials."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • It all adds up to a grand sum total (page 8)
    by Robert Taylor
    
    "It’s not easy getting to the bottom of the latest public service figures, but simple arithmetic says that if there are 3166 new staff in education and training and only 1927 of them are teachers and TAFE lecturers, then there are an extra 1239 in there doing something other than teaching.
    
    "The Government says these people work "to ensure that our schools and TAFE colleges run effectively, that is teaching assistants, cleaners, caretakers and support staff".
    
    "That goes close to confirming the worst fears of people such as CCI boss John Langoulant, who has long argued that while the public sector has grown, spectacularly as it turns out, since Labor came to power in 2001, service delivery has not improved..."
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • 4300 join the public service in three months (page 8)
    by Robert Taylor
    
    "The number of full-time employees in the WA public service grew by more than 4300 in the first three months of this year, taking the total growth to 16,932 since Labor came to power in 2001.
    
    "But while Alan Carpenter said the recent increase was because of more teachers, nurses, health professionals, law and order officers and child protection workers, more than half of the growth is because of the Education Department re-signing contracted and casual staff who dropped off the employment roster at the end of last year.
    
    "At the end of the March quarter, full-time public servants in WA numbered 104,811 but the big growth figure took into account 2474 casual and contract education department staff who were released at the end of last year and then largely re-employed for the start of the 2007 school year.
    
    "The Premier said the department grew by 3166 full-time workers in the first three months of this year, including 1387 teachers and 540 TAFE lecturers and service staff but the Government could not say how many of those were re-employees.
    
    "Acting Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said that while real increases in teaching numbers had occurred they would not reduce workloads.
    
    "A spokesman for Mr Carpenter said about 1200 staff other than teachers employed by the department comprised “people who work within the education and training system to ensure that our schools and TAFE colleges run effectively — that is teaching assistants, cleaners, caretakers and support staff”.
    
    "The Premier said his Government had employed 589 health workers, including 323 nurses, 96 medical staff and 92 medical support staff, 218 people in law and order including 42 police cadets and 54 police staff, 10 prison officers, 13 legal graduate trainees and 11 vacancies filled at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and 88 staff in the old Department for Community Development."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• Media Statement, Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier
  
  
  • 879 more administration staff but still not enough teachers
    
    "While the State Government continued to struggle to find teachers for Western Australian schools, they have had no trouble filling the central and district offices of the Department of Education and Training with 879 more administrators over the past three years.

    "Shadow Education Minister Peter Collier said the increase in administrative staff levels in the department was ridiculously high, particularly considering the fact that the same offices couldn't find teachers.

    "Between 2004-07, DET staff ballooned by 48 per cent at Silver City and 22 per cent in district offices," Mr Collier said.

    "There was a combined increase in administrative staff - many former school teachers - of 40 per cent.

    "During the same period the number of teachers employed in WA class rooms increased by just 3 per cent.

    "How can DET justify this massive blowout in administrative staff and yet still preside over a department that could not manage to process or appoint sufficient teachers for the start of the 2007 school year?

    "Many of the former teachers at central office could be better utilised in the class rooms.

    "Mr Collier said another alarming figure was that between June 2005 and December 2006 an additional 148 people at central office were paid between $100,000 and $200,000 a year.

    "The people of Western Australia are expected to believe that 148 more people in the Education Department are worth these high wages yet could not perform their duty to ensure WA's schools had enough teachers for the start of first term this year," he said.

    "Mr Collier said the number of central office employees had increased by 130 in just three months, between December last year and March of 2007, the same period in which the state witnessed the ridiculous situation whereby sufficient classroom teachers could not be found.

    "Only through the Opposition raising the matter and the subsequent media attention did the Minister and his department begin to get their act together," he said.

    "Two days before the end of the first school term, there were 345 teachers awaiting accreditation and dozens of classes without teachers," he said.

    "Over the next two weeks this number was narrowed down to 44. One wonders what the Education Department had been doing in the previous three months?

    "It also prompted the acting director general, Sharyn O'Neill to put out the only media release her department issued on staffing shortages in a year.

    "In this release, Ms O'Neill said: 'We have worked tirelessly to bring the number down…' which is commendable but begs the question - what had the additional 728 employed at Silver City since 2004 been doing before?

    "The Carpenter Government is tied to this kind of thinking: Add more employees to the public service and the problem may go away.

    "The reality is that we are not getting better service and efficiency for the millions of dollars they are spending on bureaucrats, many of whom are being paid nearly double the average weekly wage and, in some cases, much more than double."
    
    
    

• The Melbourne Age
  
  
  • Quality lacking in secondary schools
    by Farrah Tomazin
    
    "Two-thirds of Australian parents do not believe children are getting a quality secondary school education and most say students are graduating without adequate skills in literacy, numeracy, history and science.

    "With education a key battleground at the federal election, a report informing the Howard Government's policies in the lead-up to the poll has painted a damning picture of parents' attitudes to schools — public and private.

    "Based on a telephone survey of 2025 parents, the Education Department report found slightly more than one-in-three parents rated the quality of secondary school education as "good" or "very good", while less than two in three rated the quality of primary school education with the same regard.

    "And while most parents are choosing schools based on security, discipline, values and reputation, more than half of them want sweeping improvements, particularly in the quality of the curriculum, teaching standards and facilities.

    "The $77,000 study was based on a random telephone survey conducted earlier this year. Senior Education Department officials — under questioning at a Senate committee hearing in Canberra yesterday — said the survey would be used to inform government policy in the months leading up to the election.

    "The last departmental survey of its kind was taken in 2003, the year leading up to the 2004 poll.

    "With the pre-election debate focusing on standards in schools, the Government and federal Labor yesterday said the report highlighted the need for improvements in education, which their own parties were best-placed to provide.

    "But Australian Parents Council executive director Ian Dalton said the findings were an indictment on the funding of schools. "It's a reflection that parents are generally concerned that schools continue to be under-resourced in this country," he said.

    "The report, Parents' Attitudes to Schooling, found that:

    • Less than half the parents surveyed believed their children were leaving school with adequate skills in science (46 per cent); numeracy (39 per cent); literacy (37 per cent); job-related skills (31 per cent) and history (23 per cent).
      
      
    • The majority of parents cited national consistency in teaching standards, the school curriculum and school starting ages as important areas.
      
      
    • Sixty-seven per cent of parents of children in private schools want them to attend university, compared with about half of parents with children in public schools.
      
      
    • Ninety per cent of parents choose a school based on how secure an environment it provides, while more than eight in 10 are drawn by discipline, values, academic reputation and the school's facilities.
      
      

  "Federal Labor's education spokesman Stephen Smith said the findings of the survey underlined Labor's calls for improvements in school results and standards.

  "But Education Minister Julie Bishop said the research reinforced the need for the Government to "take a leadership role in raising standards in our schools".

  www.dest.gov.au

  From The Melbourne Age at link
  
  

• ALP hits out over uni fees
  
  Linked below, with similar story from The Australian
  
  
  
  
• The Australian
  
• Degrees for full-fee students only
  by Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent
  
  "Universities will be able to offer prestige degrees in law and dentistry to full-fee students only and exclude publicly funded HECS students under budget reforms.

  "Despite Education Minister Julie Bishop's assurances that this was unlikely to happen, Department of Education officials yesterday confirmed it was possible under the new laws during a grilling by Labor senators at Senate estimates hearings in Canberra. As long as the places were offered in a new course that did not previously have HECS places allocated, department officials indicated, full-fee-only degrees were possible.

  "The federal Government has removed caps on full-fee places, allowing universities to dramatically increase the number of students who pay to gain entry after missing out on a HECS place on merit. The day after the budget, Ms Bishop rejected claims that the removal of the cap on the number of full-fee degrees would allow some universities to stop offering HECS places in some popular courses.

  "But public servants yesterday undermined her claims. "Is it possible for institutions ... to specify that they do not want HECS places in a certain discipline?" Senator Kim Carr asked.

  "Department higher education group manager Colin Walters said it would be possible, provided HECS places were maintained within that cluster of courses.

  "Some universities don't have courses in particular clusters at the moment; for example, if you didn't have any education students you wouldn't have anybody in that basket," he said.

  "Senator Carr asked: "So in the medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and agriculture cluster, it is possible for auniversity not to offer any commonwealth-funded places in one of those disciplines?"

  "Mr Walters said: "Most universities don't have a dentistry school, so that would be obviously the case."

  "Ms Bishop remained adamant last night that the changes were unlikely to lead to full-fee-only courses."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  Similar story in The Melbourne Age
  
  
  

• Education union calls for audit
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "An audit of the 13 government inquiries held into education over the past decade should be conducted to determine whether the federal Government has implemented their recommendations.

  "The Independent Education Union, representing 65 per cent of teachers in private schools, argues a first step in the Senate inquiry into academic standards of school education should be assessing the Government's follow-up to research undertaken.

  "A comprehensive audit of the reports and recommendations ... would give insight into whether well-founded recommendations by serious researchers have been implemented," the IEU says in its submission to the Senate inquiry.

  "Rather than scapegoating teachers and schools about falling standards, governments must take responsibility for implementing the recommendations from the inquiries and commissioned reports.

  "Quality research over significant time has been provided to governments about critical areas of the curriculum which need to be strengthened if Australia's economy and productivity are to have the benefit of highly educated communities."

  "The submission notes maths and science teaching has been the subject of considerable research and policy debate for many years, with recommendations made in a 1995 report echoed almost 10 years later.

  "Critically, the shortage of science and mathematics teachers remains the subject of much debate, with ad hoc solutions often put forward," it says. "It is this failure on the part of government to develop considered public policy on workforce planning in a timely way which will impact negatively on teacher quality and student learning."

  "The IEU accuses the federal Government of politicising the education debate and creating a crisis in public confidence in the standard of education. "More than ever before, education - and in particular curriculum and student performance - has been politicised," it says. "The federal Government has given a tone to its statements of an educational crisis in the country because, it alleges, schools