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Breaking
News: Week of 2 July 2007
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Wednesday 4 July [Happy Fourth of July, Pat and Steve]
- The West Australian
- Fresh storm over report cards (page 3)
by Bethany Hiatt"The State's school marking system has been engulfed in fresh controversy with revelations almost every student in some classes will receive A grades on their first semester school reports because of difficulties in the way academic performance is assessed under outcomes-based education.
"The controversial levels system has resulted in up to 90 percent of students in some year groups receiving an A because the method is incompatible with the Federal Government's directive that all pupils be awarded traditional grades, teachers say.
"The marking farce has resulted in the teachers' union telling its members to refuse to sign reports if they lack confidence in them.
"A state school head of science said most Year 10s at his school would receive an A in that subject, which would raise false expectations about how well they would cope with Year 11 work. A teacher in charge of English at another State school said 47 percent of its Year 10 cohort would receive A grades, compared with 18 percent in past years. And a teacher at a big metropolitan State school said that in his Year 9 Society and Environment class of 31 students, 28 students would be awarded As, two would receive B and one a C. Making it so easy for mediocre students to achieve an A was demoralising for pupils and teachers.
"The Federal Government tied school funding to compulsory use of A to E grades last year amid growing disquiet over how students are marked under the controversial OBE levelling system.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan banned State schools from showing OBE levels on school reports early this year. But the Education Department still uses levels to assess students, running them through a computer generated algorithm or a grading chart to calculate A to E grades.
"WA Secondary School Executives Association president Alison Woodman said the skewed grades came about because they were linked to levels which were designed to be consistent across the State. This meant some high achieving schools might have many students in one year receiving As and Bs while the majority of pupils could be awarded Cs and Ds.
"Even though Mr McGowan and the department have also told teachers they can override grades that are calculated in this way if they do not agree with them, many schools are still forcing teachers to use the conversion programme. State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely confirmed many high schools were reporting concerns about inflated grades and said the problem arose from the mismatch between two incompatible systems.
"Education director-general Sharyn O'Neill said she was confident parents would receive accurate information on their child's report."
From The West Australian
- ABC News
- Union: Teachers given conflicting demands on marking
"The State School Teachers Union says teachers are struggling to meet the conflicting demands of a federally-imposed marking system which requires students to be graded from A to E."The union's President Mike Keely says teachers are being forced to combine conflicting directives from the Federal and State Governments which are simply incompatible.
"Under the Federal system teachers are forced to award students traditional A to E grades, while the State Government requires levels-based assessment through grading charts.
"Mr Keely says in many cases politicians are enforcing systems without any idea of their implications.
"We are now coping with the Federal Minister's A-B-C and D system and E system, even for students in year one which is absurd, and we are also coping with a levels system which for many teachers in the state is still problematic," he said.
"He says the two systems are simply incompatible and the union is doing all it can to change them, but teachers are working hard to overcome the challenges within the marking system.
"I have a great deal of trust in teachers. Teachers have always been able to say to students look you will do well if you pick up this course, this course and this course, in year 11 and on to year 12, we are very good at that, we have been doing it for a long time, we will tell students and parents if necessary that grade doesn't give a good indication."
"The Opposition spokesman for education, Peter Collier, says the state government needs to scrap all forms of outcomes-based assessment.
"Parents and students themselves are comfortable with grades because they do provide meaningful feedback in terms of individual student progress, and where students stand in comparison with their peers, however the levels cannot be used as the determinate to create these grades," he said." [emphasis added]
From ABC News at link
- The Australian
- Welfare penalty for 'bad' parents
by Patricia Karvelas
"All parents - black and white - who waste welfare money on alcohol, drugs or gambling, or do not send their children to school, will lose access to up to 40 per cent of their payments."Cabinet will tomorrow discuss a plan to force parents across Australia to account for their children during school hours or face Centrelink taking control of their family assistance payments.
"Children identified as at risk will be the first to be targeted, with Centrelink intervening to ensure essentials such as rent, food and medical expenses are paid.
"It would allow the Government to quarantine 40 per cent of the family payment for 12 months.
"The initiative is similar to the project about to be implemented in the Northern Territory as part of the Government's radical measures to tackle child abuse in remote communities.
"But there is a key difference. Under the national plan, only "bad" parents will have their payments quarantined, whereas the NT welfare measures will apply to all Aboriginal parents in a targeted community, regardless of their abilities.
"The plan relies on Centrelink getting accurate data from state governments on school attendance..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Teacher pledge
by Patricia Karvelas and Ashleigh Wilson
"A Labor government would spend $30 million to provide teachers for indigenous children in the Northern Territory, under a plan to get kids into school."Labor leader Kevin Rudd said at least 2000 children in 60 remote Aboriginal communities were not attending school, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.
"One in five Aboriginal children in remote communities in the Northern Territory is not even enrolled in school," Mr Rudd said yesterday.
"But the Howard Government says it funds enough student places in the Northern Territory.
"Mr Rudd said federal Labor's investment would fund an extra 200 teachers. "If these children turned up to school tomorrow, they would not have a classroom to go to, nor a teacher to educate them," he said."
From The Australian at link
- The West Australian
- UWA deplores falling school maths standards (page 9)
by Bethany Hiatt"The standard of Maths teaching in schools has dropped so dramatically since the introduction of outcomes-based education that students at WA's leading university struggle to get through their first year, academics claim.
"University of WA Mathematics and Statistics lecturer Mike Alder said Maths test results showing that first year science students achieved an average of 4 out of 16 this year, compared with 14 out of 16 in 2000, were solid evidence of a crisis in standards. The most common mark this year was two out of 16.
"The was given to about 80 first year Science students each year, which Dr Alder said was enough to be statistically significant.
"Writing in the June edition of the Quadrant magazine, Dr Alder said this decline coincided with the introduction of OBE, though that did not necessarily mean OBE was to blame.
"Dr Alder said three students in his third year class recently had difficulty multiplying four by eight as part of a geometry calculation, providing the answers 24, 36 and 28.
"He said giving children calculators was depriving them of the chance to learn about the Mathematics structures contained in times tables.
"Perhaps the real crisis is not that the students entering the best university in the State to do Science are grossly uneducated, the real crisis is in the abandonment of critical thought that permitted it to happen," he said. "We have given our education system over to fools, it is too late to reclaim it and the consequences are inevitable."
"UWA Head of Mathematics Les Jennings agreed that standards had plunged.
"Certainly the standards are going down, we are having great difficulty getting students through first year at the moment," he said.
"Professor Jennings said there were not enough students in WA who were qualified to study the kind of Science that the universities wanted to teach.
"Every Science or Business student at UWA had to take Maths units, but many were not equipped to deal with the complexity of the material. "We are having to teach Year 11 Calculus to first year students here," he said.
"But he did not blame the crisis on schools, saying that part of the fault lay with the universities dropping the advanced TEE Maths subjects, Calculus and Applicable Maths, as pre-requisites for many courses.
"Many students were choosing to study Discrete Maths instead because it was easier and more effective in maximising their tertiary entrance score, but he said that did not provide the grounding for university Science or Business courses.
"He hoped that the new Year 11 and 12 Maths courses to be introduced in 2009 would improve students' background in Maths skills."
From The West Australian
Senators question A-grade debacle (page 9)
by Bethany Hiatt"The Federal Government fired more shots at WA's outcomes-based education system yesterday as more controversy flared over revelations that almost every student in some classes will be awarded A grades.
"Senators who grilled leading WA educators as part of the Federal Government's inquiry into academic standards in school education said they were concerned that making it too easy for students to achieve A grades would discourage pupils from doing their best.
"Teachers claim that up to 90 percent of students in some year groups are receiving As because of the way OBE assessment has been aligned with the Federal Government's requirements to provide grades.
"Senator Mitch Fifield told education director-general Sharyn O'Neill the system seemed bizarre to a casual observer. "Doesn't it render an A grade to be practically meaningless?" he asked.
"Ms O'Neill said the Education Department was trying to introduce the notion that an A in one school was equal to an A in any other school. Instead of a bell curve distributing marks across a school year group, they were distributed across the State.
"This meant that schools in high socioeconomic areas were more likely to return more A grades, but balancing that were the schools where most students achieved Cs and Ds.
"Education Department acting executive director of curriculum Chris Cook said only 10 percent of WA students in Year 10 would receive an A. Parents would get comments on their child's effort and attitude alongside the grade on the report.
"But Senator Judith Troeth, who is chairing the inquiry, said parents would find it hard to reconcile an A grade with comments that their child should work harder.
"Ms O'Neill said improvements in WA literacy and numeracy tests and a rise in the average tertiary entrance rank over the past five years showed that OBE was working.
"Notre Dame University education dean Michael O'Neill claimed that schools had demeaned success by trying to expunge "the F word" (failure) from education.
"Professor O'Neill said that grades debacle pointed to fundamental flaws in the system. He said most parents wanted to know how their children performed against other children in their class, not across the State."
From The West Australian
- The Australian
- Op Ed
Conditional welfare makes sense
by Peter Saunders
"Following its dramatic intervention in 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, it is reported that the federal cabinet now wants to extend the principle of conditional welfare to all Australian families, white and black, urban and rural."The plan is that any parent who allows their child to play truant from school, or who spends their family payments on alcohol, drugs and gambling rather than putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their children's heads, will have 40 per cent of their payments withheld by Centrelink. This money will then be spent on ensuring their rent is paid and that their children's food and medical expenses are covered..."
"In the case of truancy, this shouldn't pose too much of a problem, for schools keep attendance records and Centrelink should be able to access these to identify parents who are failing to send their children to school..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Letters to the Editor
- Our children need history to give them a wide world view
"After a second reading of Greg Melleuish’s letter (30/6-1/7) on the place of history in schools, I am perhaps less depressed than I was after the first."He seemed to be saying that only subjects that prepared students for the workforce and to earn money should be mandated by government. In other words, don’t bother to educate our future citizens, just train them. Of course there is nothing wrong with money or jobs, but if training for the world of work is all that schools provide, they are failing.
"It is strange that an academic in the field of history and politics should be so dismissive of history, saying that it does not fall into the category of necessary skills. That may be so but surely an educated person needs something more than the skills necessary to function in modern society. He or she needs a wide view of the world (indeed the universe) in which we live, and of his or her place in it, and of the achievements and follies of others who live in it. History, whether Australian or wider, would be a good subject to choose. So would art, music, poetry or literature - subjects studied for their intrinsic value."
Alasdair Livingston, Mitcham, SA
- "Memo to Greg Melleuish: some of the skills future citizens need is to be able to make intelligent voting decsions. History helps avoid the mistakes of the past. I don’t argue for Australian history, but I do argue for history."
Tim Nelson, Drysdale, Vic
- "I'm convinced that to ignore Australian history is to deprive our children of a precious God-given right. Greg Melleuish, representing a prestigious university school of history and politics, should know better than to disparage it."
Jane Leigh, Bundaberg, Qld
- "How can our children understand or appreciate the wider world before they have a thorough understanding of themselves first?"
Coral Baker, Elsternwick, Vic
- The West Australian
- Schools look at ban on calculators (page 3)
by Bethany Hiatt"Children would be forced to learn their times tables by heart and the use of calculators would be limited severely under a push by Maths teachers to raise appalling standards in the subject.
"Murdoch University Mathematics professor Ken Harrison yesterday said some teachers and university lecturers wanted to split Maths exams, with one part done without a calculator, after new senior courses were introduced in 2009.
"They would do half the exam without their calculators, then they could have a break for a few minutes and go and get their calculators and do the rest with them," he said.
"University of WA Mathematics and Statistics head of school Les Jennings backed the move, saying it would reverse declining standards among tertiary students who often struggled to complete simple arithmetic without reaching for a calculator.
"He hoped it would have a trickle down effect on the way maths was taught in lower secondary and primary school.
"Children need to learn their times tables by heart," he said. "What's happening now is that students are relying too much on calculators. After a while they tend to rely on their fingers rather than their brain."
"Curriculum Council chief executive David Wood said a reference group for the new course was investigating the proposal for part of the exam to be done without a calculator.
"Mathematics Association of WA president Michelle Ostberg said splitting the exam would let examiners assess students' routine Maths skills and their ability to apply those skills to more complicated questions.
"Victoria introduced "technology free" Maths exams last year. Students sat for one hour exams without a calculator and two hour exams with one.
"International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics schools project manager Michael Evans, who set the Victorian Year 12 exams, said it had become increasingly difficult to design exams that tested students' Maths skills because programmable calculators were so advanced.
"The International Baccalaureate programme also is considering banning calculators during exams."
From The West Australian
- The Australian
- The Higher Education Supplement contains 17 articles today, including:
- Rising cost a rural disincentive
The divide between city and country students is widening as fewer rural students enrol in university because of the soaring costs of tertiary education.
- It's a woman's world on campus
Women continue to outnumber men on Australia's university campuses, the 2006 census confirms.
- Op Ed
Tackling the tough questions
Raimond Gaita says one of philosophy's primary tasks in public discussion is to be an uncompromisingly severe judge of intellectual laziness
- All parents to face loss of welfare payments
by Patricia Karvelas
"Cabinet has approved a controversial plan to force parents across Australia to account for their children during school hours or face Centrelink taking control of their family assistance payments."Children identified by state child protection agencies as being at risk would be targeted first and Centrelink would intervene to ensure essentials such as rent, food and medical expenses were paid.
"The plan would allow the federal Government to quarantine 50 per cent of the family payments for 12 months.
"A spokesman for Family and Community Services Minister Mal Brough said cabinet accepted the plans yesterday.
"A statement would be released today, the spokesman said.
"The move follows the announcement two weeks ago that welfare payments for indigenous people in the Northern Territory would be withheld, and used for basic needs, as part of the Government's drive to stamp out child abuse and restore law and order.
"Under the national plan, only parents who fail to care for their children will have payments quarantined, whereas the Territory welfare measures will apply to all Aboriginal parents in a targeted community, regardless of their actions.
"The plan relies on Centrelink receiving accurate data from state governments on school attendance..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Tackle basics to fix crisis: Chaney
by Amanda O'Brien
"Reconciliation leader and former Fraser government minister Fred Chaney has called for massive intervention by the federal Government - including billions of dollars of extra funding - to bring civil order and basic services to remote Aboriginal communities across Australia.
"Mr Chaney said yesterday John Howard's response to the Northern Territory child sexual abuse crisis was "positive and necessary", but he warned it would come to nothing if it was only tackled on a narrow agenda."He also warned against using "fly-in, fly-out politicians and public servants" to lead the strategy, saying it was essential community members were engaged in an environment of mutual respect.
"I've lived through this crisis now at least six times and it's always the same: a flurry of concern, a flurry of outrage ... big reports, then on to the next problem and nothing much happens," he said in a passionate speech to a West Australian business lunch..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Letter to the Editor
- All history is contemporary
"I’m sorry my friend and colleague Greg Melleuish (Letters, 30/6-1/7) has abandoned the idea of the compulsory teaching of Australian history in the nation’s schools."He will know better than most the work of Bendetto Croce, who taught that all history is contemporary history, and who argued that the present needs to relate to the past. Without knowledge of their history, nations are like people without memory: they are dangerous, unstable and uncontrolled.
"We should teach history to show children what really happened, why it happened and why other possibilities didn’t happen. To do this, one needs to be logical, lucid and analytical. One needs to master scientific method and to learn to write clearly, concisely and succinctly. Surely these are skills which will assist Australian society?
"Finally, when are we going to outgrow the cultural cringe that Australian history is boring? School teachers in this state need to put aside their yellowed European history notes and to start reading Blainey, Hirst, Melleuish, Kingston, Windschuttle, Quartly and MacIntyre. They could also have a look at the rich historiography of the discipline. And it would help if some new Australian history texts were bought for study in the nation’s schools.
"We are supposed to be in the History Wars. It looks very much a phoney affair. We need total war."
George Parsons, Ashfield, NSW
- The West Australian
- High school puts out its own version of report (page 4)
by Bethany Hiatt"A leading State school has sent parents its own version of a report card in addition to that mandated by the Education Department because it believes the official format does not give parents enough information.
"News of the additional report card by Churchlands Senior High School emerged as the department demanded that principals hand over copies of any letter they sent to parents explaining official reports.
"The West Australian revealed this week that almost every student in some schools would receive A grades because of the way outcomes-based education assessments had been aligned with the Federal Government's insistence that schools provide A to E rankings. The teachers' union has told members to refuse to sign reports if they lacked confidence in them.
"Churchlands principal Neil Hunt said some students who got A grades on the official report were given C grades on the Churchlands version. He said Churchlands students sat exams in lower school but there was nowhere to list exam results on the department reports. "The parents want to get that mark so we like to put out some additional information which gives the students' exam results, what we consider a Churchlands standard grade, to that result," he said.
"Mr Hunt said the department reports were comprehensive and they also provided valuable information to parents. "But at certain points it's not fine-grained enough," he said.
"There was also a big difference between the standards of students awarded an A grade under the new system, which made it difficult to advise Year 10 pupils on which subjects to choose for senior school.
"He said the department was trying to develop consistency across schools but that had created confusion.
"WA Secondary Schools Executives Association president Alison Woodman said many principals were concerned about the department's directive to supply copies of their letters to parents.
"Education Department spokesman Keith Newton said collecting the letters would help ensure that extra information to parents was clear, accurate and consistent." [Unlike the DET official reports, which are neither clear, accurate nor consistent??? Web]
From The West Australian
Teachers urged to ban annual tests (page 4)
"The teachers' union has reinforced its ban on annual reading, writing and maths benchmark tests because members were vilified after poor results achieved by their students were revealed publicly last year.
"A State School Teachers Union fax yesterday reminded members the results of WA Literacy and Numeracy Assessments had been used in the The West Australian as league tables.
"They have targeted schools and individual teachers," it said. "This exemplifies the worst outcomes of this sort of testing."
"Union president Mike Keely said the WA Industrial Relations Court had refused an Education Department request to lift the ban.
"This meant the union could continue it boycott of the tests, which will be held early next month for Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 students.
"Mr Keely said teachers had reported incidents of being targeted after the results were published."
From The West Australian
Boys accused of kidnapping, whipping teen schoolmate (page 5)
by Christiana Jones
A group of schoolboys aged 12 to 14 kidnapped a 13-year-old student, whipped him until he bled, threatened him with an axe and dug a grave before considering whether to kill him, Perth’s Children’s Court was told yesterday.
In a six-hour ordeal described by Magistrate Timothy Schwass as “nothing short of horrific”, police prosecutor John Dart said the boy was so terrified he wet his pants twice before being made by his attackers to walk one hour home rather than being left to catch a bus.
The alleged actions of the five attackers from Eastern Hills Senior High School led to them being charged with deprivation of liberty, threats to kill and assault occasioning bodily harm.
The court was told the young victim, a fellow student at the Mt Helena school who is smaller than his alleged attackers, was dragged into a toilet block shortly after he arrived at school about 8am last Wednesday and told he would be taken to bush where he would have to obey orders or risk being assaulted.
After being dragged out of the toilets, he tried to escape but was caught and taken to nearby bush where he was kept while the boys hid until school had started.
In what Mr Dart suggested was a planned attack, the boy was then taken to a makeshift hut built out of tree branches by the five accused where much of the alleged assault took place.
During the ordeal, the boy was allegedly made to gather logs for the hut, given “wedgies”, and hung by his underpants from a log so that his pants tore. The court was told he had his packed lunch smeared in his face, his lunchbox urinated in and was forced to kiss one of his alleged captors on the cheek.
Disturbing allegations were also heard in court about the alleged victim being told to drop his pants so he could have a piece of wood put into his anus, and ordered to defecate on a road, both of which he refused to do.
A “grave” was allegedly dug with one of the accused suggesting the group kill him. He was allegedly pushed into the grave and prevented from escaping as one began shovelling dirt over his legs.
During the alleged assault, the boy was made to act like a dog and a chicken, forced to jump into thorn bushes, whipped with thorny branches until his legs bled, threatened with a plank of wood embedded with nails, threatened with an axe, punched in the arm and had rocks thrown at him.
The court was told the boy feared his captors would kill him.
About 2.45pm, after more than six hours, it is alleged the group told him to go home but threatened to throw rocks at him if he caught a bus, forcing him to walk for one hour to get home.
Police were alerted after he told his mother what happened and the boys were charged and suspended from school.
During their first court appearance on the charges yesterday, Mr Dart asked for their bail to be revoked, arguing that the seriousness of the alleged offences was too great for bail to be appropriate.
But Mr Schwass denied the request, renewing bail for all but one of the boys and ruling that bail conditions would prevent the four contacting the alleged victim or one another.
The one exception was the 12-year-old alleged “ringleader” who the court was told had a conviction for assaulting a fellow primary school student in 2005. Aged 11 at the time, he kicked the victim so hard that the boy needed surgery on one of his testicles.
Outside court yesterday, the remanded boy’s angry mother described her son as a good boy. They were not required to plead.
From The West Australian at link
Similar stories in The Australian and ABC News
Truants' parents to get food vouchers, not cash (page 4)
See very similar story in The Australian [already transcribed, below]
- ABC News
- Perks to lure retired teachers back to school
"The State Government is offering retired teachers better pay and generous superannuation benefits to get them back into classrooms."The Education Minister, Mark McGowan, says an aging workforce and a booming economy have left a shortfall of teachers, especially in regional areas.
"Mr McGowan says the new package includes a salary of $75,000 and the option to put 100 per cent of pay into superannuation.
"He says a change of environment might prove a winner for some retirees.
"I think a lot of people leave the workforce and look for something interesting to do and the opportunity to go to a country location in the north of the state, where it might be a different environment, it might be something completely outside of their experience that they can do for a few years and do something very interesting would be very attractive to many people," he said.
"The pay is up to seventy-five thousand dollars, and if you are prepared to go to some country locations its up to ninety thousand dollars per year to teach, that involves salary packaging which means they will get excellent superannuation benefits out of this."
From ABC News at link
- Education Minister: 'blame parents, not school for bullying'
"The West Australian Minister for Education, Mark McGowan, says the perpetrators of bullying and their parents are to blame, not the school community."Five boys aged between 12 and 14 appeared in court yesterday accused of kidnapping a fellow student from a high school in Perth.
"It is alleged they forced him into nearby bush, assaulted him over six hours and threatened to kill him, while they dug a grave and forced him to crawl into it.
"Mr McGowan says although the alleged attack happened during school hours, it is not the school's fault.
"If those students who have allegedly done this thing have done it, I hold them and, to a degree if their parents are not dealing with this issue, I hold their parents to a degree responsible," he said.
"The Department of Education says text messages were sent to the parents of boys to inform them their children were absent from school, but there was no response."
From ABC News at link
- Lobby group: 'hold parents accountable for school bullying'
"The West Australian Council of State School Organisations says the parents of five boys accused of kidnapping and assaulting a teenager for six hours should be held accountable."The boys aged 12 to 14 are accused of grabbing a 13-year-old boy from a school in the Perth hills last Wednesday and dragging him into bush where they assaulted and threatened to kill him while they dug a makeshift grave and forced him to crawl into it.
"The Education Department says the parents of the boys were contacted by text message on the day to say their children were absent from school.
"The president of West Australian Council of State School Organisations, Robert Fry, says parents should take more notice of what their children are doing, or be called to account.
"It's extremely disturbing and the fact is to behave like that to anyone is not acceptable. You wouldn't treat an animal like that and for them to treat another human person in that way it worries me for where their future is going."
"If a parent has been notified and has failed to follow up on that, that has grave concerns too and that's what I mean at the end of the day the parent has got to be held responsible as well for the behaviour of their children and knowing where they are," he said.
"We're talking about young children here that should know better and obviously their parents should be taking more control and knowing what their children are doing and if behaving in such a manner the parents have got to carry a lot of the responsibility of this."
From ABC News at link
- The Australian
- Parents failing to enrol kids
by Patricia Karvelas
"Thousands of parents suspected of not registering their children for school will be tracked down and penalised under a new federal government push to enforce parental responsibility.
"Family and Community Services Minister Mal Brough said yesterday he believed thousands of children, not only in indigenous communities, received no education because their parents failed to register them at schools."Mr Brough, who is behind a move to seize control of indigenous communities in the Northern Territory to eliminate child abuse, said he would demand states send him school attendance lists to be cross-checked against welfare records.
"Any parents receiving welfare who were not sending their children to school would have their welfare cheques quarantined.
"There will be thousands," Mr Brough told The Australian yesterday. "I don't know the number. We have to find that out and we have to find what circumstances those children are living in and what we can do to assist them and bring the parents to account.
"They mark the roll every day, but they can't mark the roll for a child that's never been (enrolled)." [emphasis added]
"As state education ministers questioned his plans, Mr Brough said he also wanted states to provide truancy records to identify parents consistently turning a blind eye to their children's failure to attend school..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Boy 'tortured' by schoolmates
In what could be one of the worst bullying cases in Australia, a 13-year-old Perth boy allegedly endured six hours of torture in which he was dragged from school to a bush camp, punched, bashed, forced to lie in a grave and told he was going to die... The victim and his alleged attackers are all Year 8 students. All five of the alleged attackers have been suspended, but with the term ending tomorrow the Education Department is yet to decide how long to ban them from school.
- Letter to the Editor
- Hypotheses in their heads
"It's intriguing to ponder on the nature of Greg Melleuish’s “recent experiences’’ that led him to reject the study of history in schools (Letters, 30/6-1/7)."So what does he think we need to study? Language, mathematics and science, which he says are skills “necessary to function in our society and ... acquired later in life only with difficulty’’.
"But is language acquisition not a lifelong process? Did James Joyce, Sartre or Goethe stop getting better at language as they got older? Regarding a second language, cognitive testing suggests its acquisition is only ``easy’’ if children learn it along with their native tongue. For the rest of us, at any age, the degree of difficulty depends on many things, cognitive and otherwise.
"Why not study history whilst learning another language? Thousands of English speakers learned Greek by progressing through the extraordinary adventures of Xenophon in Anabasis. Julius Caesar’s autobiography was slightly drier, but his logic was exemplary and his Latin impeccable.
"Likewise, I’m a little hard-pressed to think of any famous scientist who ceased to acquire further knowledge ``later in life’’. I believe when Galileo and Albert Einstein were old men, they still had pens in their hands and/or hypotheses in their heads.
"Why should Australians be taught their history? Mostly because future citizens who acquire the knowledge of who, how and how hard it was to settle this country become citizens with a greater political and social consciousness."
Kay Adams Leiper, Lane Cove, NSW
- The West Australian
- Plan to lure 1000 retired teachers is 'desperate' (page 10)
by Kate Campbell"A State Government plan to lure retired teachers back with big pay packages and superannuation incentives has been labelled by the Opposition as a desperate last-gasp measure that will only temporarily fix the teacher shortage.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan said yesterday the package would focus initially on 1000 retired teachers with promises of salaries from $75000 to $90000 to work at severely understaffed country schools and flexible job arrangements, including part-time work and the option to put all the pay into superannuation.
"Teachers can work full time for a short period of time such as one term, a semester or a year, or part time for as many hours a week as they choose," Mr McGowan said. "We recognise we have to do some long term workforce planning and come up with new ideas to attract people to the workforce."
"When people retire they often think the grass is going to be greener on the other side. For some it is, for some people it's not. An opportunity to go to a school in the north of the State where it might be a different environment….. I think would be very attractive to a lot of people."
"Regional allowances of up to $8500, remote bonuses up to $15000 and subsidised housing also applied.
"Mr McGowan said the teaching shortfall was about 30 out of a workforce of 22000 but he expected that figure to rise at the start of the new term, with teachers taking long service leave or retiring.
"He said teachers who left before June 30 last year were eligible.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier welcomed the news, but warned it was only a stop gap measure offering temporary pain relief.
"We do need to re-engage these teachers, they are experienced teachers, they have just come from the classroom and it would be terrific to have them back in the classroom," he said. "But quite frankly, it will only resolve the issue in the very short term and in the long term we've got to make sure teaching is a viable and attractive career option."
"The incentives were adequate and many teacher, who missed the energetic and passionate profession, would be pleased to come back for a short time. "The average age of teachers is 47 ….. at least a quarter of them would be 55 plus. In the next five years we are going to lose thousands of teachers," he said.
"State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the measure was desperate and unavoidable and the incentives would attract some.
"This is not in any sense a long term fix, it isn't even a medium term fix," he said. "The thing that will keep people working longer is a better salary, and cutting down the workload which is driving people crazy." He suspected that the plan would put existing teachers earning less offside."
From The West Australian
- ‘Get tough’ against bullies at schools (page 10)
by Kate Campbell and Christiana Jones
"Shocked teachers and MPs have called for stronger measures to stamp out what they say is rampant bullying in WA schools as parents say allegations of a horrific assault on a schoolboy have left them fearing for their children’s safety.
"Angry parents from Eastern Hills Senior High School said yesterday they should have been told of the incident, in which the 13-year-old was allegedly abducted, whipped until he bled and threatened with an axe by five fellow students during a six-hour ordeal last week. The attack allegedly began on school grounds before the boy was taken to nearby bush where much of the torture is believed to have occurred.
"One student’s mother said she was “stunned” that news of such a serious incident was provided so late to parents. A letter was sent to parents on Wednesday, six days after the school was notified of the alleged attack.
"Education Department district director David Price yesterday defended the school, blaming the late letter on the fact that the charges were not made public earlier. He said the school used a number of anti-bullying strategies.
"Parents said they were no longer confident their children were safe at school. “Every parent has got the right to feel that their child will be perfectly safe at school. That is now absolutely compromised,” one mother said.
"They were also upset that four of the accused boys could return to the school from suspension by next term, with Mr Price admitting no decision had been made on whether the boys would come back after the holidays. The alleged ringleader has been remanded in custody.
"Education Minister Mark Mc-Gowan said bullying was widespread in WA schools, but expected this extreme case to be exceptional. He said the parents involved were sent an SMS by the school asking why their children were absent, but the school did not receive any responses.
"Mr McGowan said that three trial specialist behaviour centres, to be operational by October as part of Government anti-bullying initiatives, would remove regular troublemakers and violent students from the classroom.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the allegations pointed to a premeditated attack and he would not be surprised if the victim had suffered in silence for years.
"State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said that teachers and schools were doing their best to control student behaviour, but often when aggressive and disruptive children reached high school it was too late to change their behaviour.
“If what is alleged happened, it’s not bullying — it’s criminal assault,” he said."
From The West Australian at link
- Employer ignored my grief (page 37)
by Jessica Strutt
"A grieving father has lashed out at the Education Department, saying he will never return to work for it because of the appalling way he was treated after the death of his son who was allegedly murdered over a small drug debt."Steve Dix, who has worked for the department for 25 years as a teacher and program coordinator, wrote to department director-general Sharyn O'Neill to express his disgust at the "lack of care, support and compassion" shown to him and his family by the department..."
"He said it was unbelievable that the department had not offered any support, particularly grief counselling..."
Full story in The West Australian
See the 19 June speech by Peter Collier on this in Hansard [scroll down to third page of the file]
- Letters to the Editor (pages 18-19)
- "I wonder whether the Luddites who are now railing against the use of calculators in schools would also have us dispense with, say, electronic ignition so we can all experience the joys of cranking our cars each day. Calculators are no different from other useful tools: their responsible use must be taught and practised in appropriate contexts. This is just one of the many areas of neglect in teacher-training courses. The time is long overdue for the ubiquitous teacher-bashers to direct their attention to all aspects of these courses and those responsible for their planning and lecturing."
Ray Jamieson, Willeton
"Hey, hey, finally some common sense. Making children actually use their brains instead of a calculator will be something worth seeing. What's next? Hopefully computers as well."
Ken Hudson, Midland
- The Australian
- Blame flies over horrific schoolboy bullying case
by Amanda O'Brien, WA political reporter
"Mounting anger over one of Australia's worst bullying cases sparked a political war yesterday as the West Australian Government and Opposition blamed each other for the state's bullying epidemic."Education Minister Mark McGowan said parents must take more responsibility for their children and slammed the Opposition's refusal to support legislation that would have fined parents $2000 if they refused to control truant or anti-social behaviour.
"He said the plan would have ensured parents became accountable but was defeated in the upper house in March.
"But the Opposition blamed a chronic lack of school counsellors for allowing bullying to take hold, saying victims were being denied vital help.
"It was alleged on Wednesday that five boys aged 12 to 14 years dragged a 13-year-old student to a bush camp in Perth where he was punched and bashed, hung from a tree by the back of his underpants and forced to lie in a grave they had dug for him. The ordeal lasted six hours.
"Mr McGowan revealed yesterday that none of the parents responded to text messages from the school asking why their children were absent, sparking a new wave of concerns. And, while unable to comment further on the case, which is before the courts, he stressed the need for parental responsibility.
"Sometimes, when parents are not doing the right thing, when they are not listening to advice, when they refuse to take up the case to make their children behave a little better, you have to put in place some compulsory elements," he said.
"But Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier said fining parents and seizing property if they failed to pay was bizarre. "This young man, the alleged victim of this bullying, must have been suffering in silence for months, if not years. And quite frankly, if our schools had been adequately provided with counselling facilities it may never have occurred," he said.
"We have a situation where you have one school psychologist for 2000 students. That is hopelessly inadequate."
"The State School Teachers' Union said both sides were missing the point by labelling the incident as bullying. "These are allegations of assault and they are a matter for the police," state secretary Mike Keely said. "There's no way in the world you can expect schools to deal with this sort of behaviour."
"He agreed that more school counsellors were needed but said more resources also had to go into identifying children with problems from a very early age.
"Here we are looking at probably the consequences of a failure at a social level," Mr Keely said.
"I won't cop it being linked to the school. We educate.
"We do not train a child from Year 2 or 3 about their whole social obligations."
"Rob Fry, head of the state's peak parent body for public schools, said the allegations were sickening. He was also concerned at parents' apparent failure to respond: "If the parents don't care, the courts and the social system have got to step in and take some control here, because you just cannot allow society to degrade itself to this level."
From The Australian at link
- States to skip on truancy figures
by Patricia Karvelas
"A Federal push to quarantine welfare cheques of parents whose children skip school has fallen at its first hurdle, with several states refusing to hand over truancy data."And it has emerged that some states do not compile figures on truancy.
"Family and Community Services Minister Mal Brough wants state and territory governments to hand over their records to allow quarantining of welfare if parents fail to ensure their children attend school.
"On Tuesday, Mr Brough, a long-time advocate of enforcing parental responsibility, convinced cabinet to back his plan to require parents across Australia to account for their children during school hours or face Centrelink taking control of their family assistance payments.
"So far, only Western Australia has committed to supply the information and only if the commonwealth provides funding for the work to collate it..."
"Western Australia's Deputy Director-General for Schools Keith Newton said school non-attendance data indicated that about 9 per cent of students attending public schools across the state were absent from school on any given day. But he said the department did not have truancy figures..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Kids get $5 a week to attend school
by Patricia Karvelas
"Children in Aboriginal communities across the country could be paid $5 a week to attend school following the success of a pilot program aimed at tackling truancy."Every child enrolling at the Western Cape College Aurukun campus receives a savings account with an initial deposit of $10 from the Bendigo Bank.
"The bank adds $5 to the account whenever a child completes a full week of school.
"As a further incentive not to skip classes, those who attend a full semester receive a new bike and helmet, in a move supported by other businesses in far north Queensland.
"The Aurukun campus has 290 students. More than 160 are now attending on a more regular basis, and that number is increasing.
"The program is the joint initiative of Bendigo Bank and Cape York Financial Project."
From The Australian at link
- Hitchhiker's galaxy guide on the money
After pondering the weighty question of the mass of the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have come up with an answer: 42. That is, our galaxy weighs three times 10 to the power of 42 kilograms - a number written as 3 followed by 42 zeroes, which has echoes of author Douglas Adams's fictional answer to the question of life, the universe and everything in his series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- Letter to the Editor
- History is not fail-safe [Greg Melleuish replies... again]
"Reading the letters in support of compulsory Australian history over the past few days, what has struck me are two common types of arguments."The first is that the study of Australian history will make students better citizens. The second is that knowledge of history will increase one’s capacity for what is best termed practical reasoning, ie, a knowledge of the past will lead to individuals making better decisions in the future.
"Both of these arguments are questionable. It is difficult to see how the acquisition of historical knowledge can improve our moral character. Certain Nazis knew a lot of history but it was history of a very odd type. A knowledge of history can lead to individuals making decisions in the present based on a misinterpretation of the past and creating false analogies. History tries to explain why things happened; it is a big jump from that to providing a guide of how one should act.
"The key to all of this is whether history should be compulsory. If it is, the stakes become very high and individuals and groups can see an opportunity to impose their versions of history on students on the assumption that they can mould the character of a generation and guide that generation to act in a particular way. History should be taught in schools. It just should not be compulsory." [emphasis added]
Greg Melleuish, School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, NSW
- The West Australian
- Curriculum Council scrapped
by Bethany Hiatt
"The beleaguered Curriculum Council, the body which has overseen the disastrous implementation of outcomes-based education, will be scrapped because the State Government says it is fundamentally flawed.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan said the council could be abolished as early as next year if new legislation was passed by the end of this year.
"The Curriculum Council will be gone. There will be an Education Standards Authority comprising five people and their role will be to act in the interests of educational standards and the public interest," he said.
"Members of the new authority would be 'eminent West Australians' to be appointed by the Minister. They would take charge of curriculum, assessment and standards from kindergarten to Year 12.
"Mr McGowan said the new body should remove doubts about the quality of the State's education system.
"He said that in the past, Curriculum Council members had been torn between public interest and the interest of the groups they represented.
"They (the new body) will be a group of people who aren't pulled every which way by each of the different points of view out there. They'll be able to look objectively at issues to do with curriculum without being conflicted.
"Set up in 1997, the council has drawn repeated fire in the past two years over the bungled implementation of the new Years 11 and 12 courses. Nearly 30 courses due to start next year were delayed 12 months because teachers said they were not ready.
"Under the changes, the council would become part of a curriculum and assessment committee which would provide advice to the Education Standards Authority, but would play no part in its ultimate decisions.
"Council chairman Bill Louden said the most significant aspect of the new model was its separation of the roles of education regulator and providers.
"A review of the Curriculum Council Act last year was highly critical of the council's provider and regulator functions because it was responsible for both writing and accrediting its own courses.
"People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes president Marko Vojkovic said the restructuring was long overdue. "Hopefully this signals the death of the OBE levels marking system and puts assessment back in the hands of trained experts rather than ideologically driven amateurs," he said.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier said he hoped the move would return sanity to the system."
From The West Australian
- Letter to the Editor
- Good Example
"The WA Education Minister says that retired WA teachers should take a leaf out of John Howard's book and continue to work longer. There is, unfortunately, a great deal of difference in the conditions. Mr Howard is assured of a decent salary, set by an independent tribunal, and very generous conditions, set by his fellow politicians, to work under.
"I am sure that the majority of the teachers would not have retired if their conditions, salary and superannuation benefits (set by politicians) were more attractive."
Conin Benporath, Hillarys
- The Weekend Australian
- College has 'sad history' of sex abuse
A prestigious private Catholic school yesterday acknowledged for the first time a "sad and tragic" history of sexual abuse, after The Weekend Australian threatened to expose claims of widespread pedophilia by a teacher.
- Welfare threat over health test refusal
Indiginous parents who refuse to allow medical inspections of their children under the Howard Government crusade to stamp out Aboriginal child abuse will face welfare checks.
- Op Ed
Dickens shines after dark
by Imre Salusinszky
I firmly believe the experience has shown my kids something it may otherwise have taken them years to understand: that a story made of words, in the hands of a writer of genius, can turn into a world.
- Letter to the Editor
- Melleuish misses the point
"Greg Melleuish’s argument (Letters, 6/7), that the the Nazis “knew a lot of history but it was a history of a very odd type’’ absurdly misses the point."It is not what the Nazis knew but what they deliberately transmitted as history for their own political ends that is the issue. Their explanation for the German defeat in World War I blamed Jewish conspiracy and political weakness at home, not defeat at the front. As such they created, in the German people, a sense of false vengeance in the prosecution of World War II. If the German populace had studied the verifiable and not mythical reasons for their disaster in World War I, then the Jews, and the entire world, might have been spared a bloodbath between 1939 and 1945."
Geoffrey Wright, Potts Point, NSW
All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
All media quotations, photographs and cartoons © their respective publishers
This page last updated 13 August, 2008 0:39 AM
