Monday 22 October

Tuesday 23 October

Wednesday 24 October

Thursday 25 October

Friday 26 October

Saturday – Sunday, 27 – 28 October

 

Monday 22 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Liberals urge WACOT to stall staff crackdown (page 17)
    by Yasmine Phillips

    "The besieged WA Council [sic] of Teaching should postpone any decisions, including penalties for overdue registration fees, until full teacher representation on its board is restored, according to the State opposition.

    "Speaking after WACOT extended the final deadline from this Friday to December 5 for teachers to pay their annual registration fees, shadow Education Minister Peter Collier defended teachers yesterday, saying those with outstanding annual fees were not rebels or even a minority but held legitimate concerns about the current system.

    "There should be no decision on any way forward before those 10 elected representative sit on the board," he said, welcoming the decision to extend the deadline to avert impending teacher sackings.

    "WACOT director Suzanne Parry confirmed yesterday the $70 annual fee had been deferred to December 5, the date the board was expected to meet.

    "The board would then consider the need for self regulation through a representative board, how the actions of a minority group could disrupt schooling and reported evidence that teachers did not understand the implications of being deregistered.

    "Dr Parry said the board's election was already under way, with nominations closing on Friday.

    "The controversial registration fee - which has become the target of teacher dissatisfaction over their WACOT board registration - was originally implemented to standardise police and qualification checks across the teaching profession.

    "Mr Collier said the cause of the bitter stand off was the result of State Government tardiness and WACOT inefficiency.

    "So rather than shoot the messenger, in this instance a group of teachers that has some quite legitimate concerns, perhaps they (the government and WACOT) need to look in the mirror as to where the problem emanated from as to how we got into this situation," he said.

    "He urged WACOT to postpone discussions on teacher deregistration until after the election to allow for adequate teacher representation.

    "Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said WACOT had made a decision in the interest of students. "I have always maintained that common sense would prevail," he said. "I'd urge the teachers who are not members to join". [They're not teachers who haven't joined, Minister, they simply refused to pay this year's fee until an election has been successfully completed!  Web]
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Blame parents for abusive kids (page 3)
    by Yasmine Phillips
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan has laid the blame for disruptive students with their parents after a leaked DET document last week exposed a generation of pupils who do not respect authority.
    
    "Mr McGowan yesterday urged WA parents to stop pointing the finger elsewhere and start looking closer to home by taking an active role in their children's education.
    
    "The behaviour of students is predominantly the responsibility of parents," he said. "People should not blame schools or teachers if children behave badly. The overwhelming majority of parents do the right thing, those that don't need to start taking responsibility."
    
    "Violent and disruptive children make up 1% of the student population, according to Mr McGowan, who said WA students were generally better educated, more capable and brighter than ever.
    
    "Describing schools as a reflection of the wider community, Mr McGowan said the State Government had taken a strict stance on abusive students by establishing three trial behaviour centres this term.
    
    "Students who are violent and disruptive can be removed from the classroom and sent to one of these behaviour centres where specialist staff will work with them and their families with a view towards rehabilitation," he said. "However, all students have the right to feel safe at school and that is why we are taking a hard line approach."
    
    "The trial centres, which will be in Fremantle, Canning and Kalgoorlie districts, are due to open in coming weeks and five more are expected to open for primary schools next year.
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said the Government needed a multifaceted attack on behaviour management through comprehensive pastoral care in public schools. "Unfortunately we're getting to the point where the void between public and private schools is widening in that area," he said.
    
    "Mr Collier said the enormous, exorbitant and unrealistic demands placed on school psychologists were made worse by the inadequate student to school psychologist ratio of 2000 to 1. He called for at least one psychologist to be designated to every school. "But the school psychologist is just one string to the bow because a lot of students don't feel comfortable with a psychologist," Mr Collier said."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    • A reply from the PLATO Forum
      
      Mr McGowan is now saying parents are to blame for their children's bad behaviour. True but irrelevant. The parents are not to blame for how schools deal with this behaviour. The problem is not the behaviour per se but our inability to remove it from the classroom.

      Over the last 10 years, teachers and administrators have been stripped of their authority. Is it any wonder students don't respect them anymore? There is a culture of fear which makes administrators and teachers afraid of implementing any real consequences. If a school is suspending students the DO and DET accuse the administrators of having an ineffective MSB system. And if teachers start reporting incidents on a regular basis, the administrators use the same logic on them.

      There are direct parallels between MSB and OBE. The current philosophy of DET is not working and is only propped up by bullying and intimidation.

      These students must be removed from classrooms and it must be the classroom teacher who determines this. DET has to stop making excuses for its 'punishment doesn't work' philosophy that has failed so miserably.

      Consequences and punishment are two separate things. The most effective punishment is one where there is absolutely no doubt that it will be implemented. The consequences should include some sort of intervention to change the behaviour before accepting the child back into the classroom. At present, the students know that there is no automatic punishment for any behaviour and all consequences are negotiable. They can argue their way out of any situation.

      A little birdie told me that the new centres being set up by the Minister will only accept students on the say so of Principals, not classroom teachers. Here we go again! Principals will not refer students because it will reflect badly on their MSB skills. They will try and persuade classroom teachers to change their minds. Was it really that bad? Can't we give it one more chance? What if we move this student to another class? The centres will be poorly frequented, they will atrophy and die and the Minster will wonder what all the fuss was about.

      Until this or any Minister changes the culture of DET, the situation will only get worse.

      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Contracts for teachers do untold harm
    by Peter Job, who teaches at Dandenong High School and is completing a masters in education at Monash University
    
    Making life difficult for dedicated teachers forces them out.
    
    "It's that time of the year. A colleague of mine recently received the news that his teaching contract at the school would not be renewed. He was assured that this had nothing to do with the quality of his teaching. The school was aware of the work he had put in, not only the effective classes he ran, but also the regular sports coaching after school and the numerous ways in which he had encouraged his students in their lives as well as their studies.

    "The school was facing a potential excess of teachers in his subject, he was told, and under the global schools funding arrangements it had no choice but to make this decision.

    "In the last months of the year my friend will be using what spare time he can find between teaching, exam preparation, report writing, staff meetings and other duties to write job applications, address the extensive requirements of selection criteria, attend interviews (when he is lucky), and hang by the phone at the end of the year when potential unemployment looms.

    "If he fails to find employment at a Victorian government school before the start of school next year, he will miss holiday pay, amounting to thousands of dollars.

    "It is a path I know well. Like my friend, I came to teaching well into my adult life, choosing this career because I saw it as a worthwhile one in which I could make a positive difference to people's lives. I made this decision despite what I knew would be hard work on a limited salary in under-resourced government schools.

    "Then I discovered the contract system, a series of contracts in different schools ranging from one term to two years, taking almost six years in total before I was finally granted continuing employment.

    "According to the 2004 agreement between the Victorian Education Department and the unions, teachers should be given continuing employment after three years, but the exemptions granted to schools in applying this are so broad and the global budgeting situation so difficult that schools often have little choice but to resort to short-term contracts for staff.

    "To some extent, individual schools cannot be blamed for the difficult and distasteful decisions they are forced to take. The contract system is rigged that way as schools cannot control their future enrolments, nor the number of teachers on long-term leave.

    "But the contract system undermines the quality of education delivered to students as effective and dedicated teachers are driven from the profession. For a young, newly graduated teacher, uncertainty of employment means carrying a HECS debt despite economic uncertainty, banks refusing loans and financial decisions being postponed. For older teachers entering the profession, it means all this, as well as bringing up a family on a modest salary with the constant prospect of unemployment. Small wonder so many leave the public education sector for work in non-government schools, interstate, or in other professions.

    "A recent survey showed that more than 75 per cent of first-year teachers are on contracts. This often demoralising situation can cause teachers to wonder how the issues relating to teaching practice that inevitably arise in those early years are interpreted by those with the power to re-employ them.

    "An effective school requires staff prepared to voice their opinions in a robust manner and to engage intelligently with management, yet contracts make many afraid to speak out. Some of us are fortunate enough to know we have a principal professional enough not to hold outspoken views against us, but this is simply not true for all and an atmosphere of fear is not conducive to quality teaching.

    "The contract system also deters teachers from moving between schools and having the system benefit from the cross-fertilisation of ideas and experiences this brings.

    "After dipping slightly when Labor came to power, the numbers of teachers on contracts (as opposed to having tenure) has since risen steadily until at 16.5 per cent it is now close to its peak under the Kennett government. This is demoralising for good teachers, undermines staff solidarity, creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and eats away at the quality of public education.

    "This is not the only way to run schools. A system in which teachers are employed by the Education Department and offered transfers to others schools in cases of teacher excesses has existed in Victoria in the past, and continues to operate in other states.

    "Teaching has always been under-rewarded yet before the contract system became so prevalent, competent teachers were at least provided with some certainty about their future. In negotiating its new agreement, the State Government should realise that any short-term financial or administrative advantage the contract system may bring is undermined by the detrimental effect on schools, teachers and ultimately the quality of education delivered to the students."
    
    From The Age at link
    
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    

    • When in doubt, blame the others
      
      [Aimed at Kevin Rudd, but even more applicable to the OBE-at-all-cost crowd.  Web]
      

      "Tortophobia is the paranoid fear of being seen to be wrong. It is characterised by resistance to admission of fault, and, in more extreme cases, by actively seeking to make others wrong.

      "This trait is common in the aftermath of car crashes, divorces, wars and day-to-day domestic accidents.

      "Collective tortophobia was classically embraced by the Catholic Church during the Inquisition, and with the persecution of Gallileo when he proved the Earth was not flat.

      "Political parties are beset by tortophobia. The Kevin Rudd Variant is to agree with virtually everything espoused by his opponents, thus removing any opportunity to prove him wrong."

      John Allison, Kew
      
      

    • Living in hope that sense will break out

      "I agree, Natasha Davis (Letters 20/10) that many people criticising tax cuts probably then keep the money. There are also many who are appalled at this blatant pork-barrelling and who do redirect their bribes into the services where the money should have gone in the first place.

      "The trouble is, a hotchpotch, unpredictable system of personal donation is not an effective way to run our health and education services or to develop them into the efficient and all-inclusive systems we would love them to be. This requires a co-ordinated approach with proportional donations from all of society being used in a unified way.

      "It's called good government and some of us still hope that one day it will catch on."

      Heather Ebb, Tecoma
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Parents face new hike in private school fees
    by Milanda Rout
    
    "Parents are paying up to $100 a day to send their children to some of the country's top private schools, and face further hikes with elite schools increasing their annual fees by as much as 8.5 per cent.

    "Independent schools in Melbourne have increased their fees by up to $1300 for next year, and annual tuition has accelerated past $21,000 a year.

    "Some independent school fees do not include extras such as camps, uniforms, computers and sporting costs - and boarding can add up to $18,463 to the annual school fee bill.

    "Many private schools, including some in Sydney and Brisbane, are still finalising fees for next year. They have told The Australian they will release their tuition before the start of first term.

    "The fee hike comes as federal government estimates show it will plough $6.2 billion into non-government schools this financial year.

    "Victorian Parents Council executive officer Jo Silver said the steep fee increases would further stretch parents who were struggling to put children through private schools.

    "However, Independent Schools Council of Australia executive director Bill Daniels said there were several reasons why private schools had increased fees, including the rising cost of education, more capital works and higher teacher wages."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    

  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Teachers beat a hard-drive
      
      "If “kids of the future are ... going to have decent educational and employment opportunities” ("ALP to help put 21st-century tool in reach”, 20-21/10), more computers won’t make it happen.

      "Hard-working, dedicated teachers who keep up with what produces excellence in learning will make it happen.

      "Can we find, train and keep them?"
      
      Beth Johnson, Auchenflower, Qld
      
      

    • ALP policy misses the bulls-eye
      
      "In terms of the broader policy picture, I once had more in common with Labor. However, Rudd has lost me.

      "Given all my other costs, I’ve only just finished paying off a computer for my child’s therapy. It took five years.

      "My child and others like mine are being stuffed back into the mainstream education system without enough teacher’s aide support. Is an hour a week enough? Is it fair to make a bright child flounder because he can’t filter out some types of noise?

      "Obviously Kevin Rudd thinks that helping the truly vulnerable of this country is too big an ask. He can unveil pretty hip-pocket and frail-aged care packages, but stay deaf and mute about welfare for other vulnerable groups - just as Howard has failed Aborigines, children in poverty and anyone who needs good medical care.

      "They’re peas in a pod; obsessed with their own security."
      
      Jane Salmon, Lindfield, NSW
      
      
      

    
    © The Australian
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • US gap-year visa expensive and hard for students [20 October]
    
    It will be more difficult for Australian students to take advantage of a gap-year visa in the United States than it will be for their US counterparts to come here, with a greater administrative burden for Australians and slow interest from US organisers.
    
    
    
  • In the deep end: budding teacher goes to school to learn
    
    [21 year old Kellie] Evans is under the guidance of a teacher mentor at Bomaderry Public School on the South Coast and says the hands-on aspect of the problem-solving has been the most valuable aspect of the program. "This is the real thing. It's what you do when you are a teacher and it is not until you are thrown into these situation that you learn how to deal with it."
    
    
    
  • The case of the missing students [more "guide on the side"...  Web]
    
    Technology has given universities and their students the ability to expand on the traditional lecture format with everything from podcasts, PowerPoint, online lectures and virtual classrooms, but despite the whizzbang gadgetry, students are still deserting the lecture theatre.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    HSC? Welcome to my crib
    
    A wry look at exams.
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Rising Scores Might Say More About the Exam Than Student Achievement, Report Concludes
    
    A new report from an education think tank in Washington contends that states are creating a false impression of academic success through, among other tactics, manipulation of passing, or "cut," scores on standardized tests.
    
    
    
    • Knowing State Tests' 'Cut' Scores
      
      With more students taking more achievement tests than ever, one of the most influential but cryptic factors driving results used to rate schools for the federal No Child Left Behind law and enforce state graduation standards is the passing, or "cut," score. Numerous Washington area students and parents said in interviews that they do not know the cut scores, information they say would help them understand the test more and help them do better. Often, the benchmarks turn out to be lower than they might have guessed.

Tuesday 23 October

• The West Australian
  

  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • Why the rejection?
      
      "Yesterday teachers in WA were informed about whether they had received trensfers for 2008. Here is my story of what happened.
      
      "I am a third year primary schoolteacher and obtained my first teaching job through merit selection. I elected to go to the country.
      
      "At university I was told by the Education Department that if I went to the country for two years I would achieve permanency and a guaranteed job in the metro area.
      
      "I have completed three years in the country, obtained 12 transfer points due to completing an extra year in the country, yet I was informed yesterday that I have been unsuccessful in my transfer but, lucky for me, I can stay in my present location for another year and wait to reapply for transfers in 2009. No other options were given to me in my notification letter.
      
      "I phoned the Education Department to find out why I did not receive a transfer and they said it was because I did not put enough schools down (I put down 45 schools) and that I did not have enough transfer points (they said I have six because the computer failed to pick up that I actually had 12) .
      
      "I was asked: "Why did you only put down that you wanted full time work?" My reply was: "Because I want to work full time and I am a first home buyer with a new mortgage!" A computer works through the transfers and assigns teachers to jobs through a criterion, making it very impersonal. I have been informed that I can write letters to apply for temporary location, which does not guarantee me a job, or I can resign.
      
      "I would like to be recognised by the department for completing my country duties and be placed back in the metro area. I've had a wonderful job in the country for the past three years which has been very rewarding, but my partner and I are moving to Perth for a lifestyle change (this reason was not acceptable to the department).
      
      "I have achieved permanency but this has effectively blocked me out of positions that are saved for graduates and fixed term appointments. I have not seen the benefits of the so-called important permanency. So that's my story of yesterday's events.
      
      "I ask anyone to go to the Education Department website to see whether I have misread the section of "the benefits and incentives of working in the country".
      
      "The types of letters are becoming very monotonous in the letters to the editor and this one may not be noticed, but I thought I would add my story. So I ask the question; "What happened to the teacher shortage?"

      E. Morris, Kalgoorlie
      
      

  • Editorial
    Schools need more help with disruptive students (page 20)
    
    "Even if Education Minister Mark McGowan was indulging in some political blame shifting, he had a point when he said the behaviour of students was predominantly the responsibility of parents.
    
    "Schools cannot take over all the responsibilities of parents, and should not be expected to.
    
    "Mr McGowan was right again when he said schools reflected the wider community, but it is also the case that they have been asked to carry a disproportionately heavy burden of society's ills.
    
    "And in general they have had precious little support on this from the education bureaucracy. [emphasis added]
    
    "The proposal for trial behaviour centres is a move in the right direction, but much more has to be done to help schools cope with disruptive children."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Private school fees set to soar (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Parents who send their children to private schools should brace for a big jump in fees net year as competition for new teachers pushes up salaries.

    "Private school chiefs say the recent decision by the State government to pay graduate State school teachers a base salary of $50,000 from 2008 could lead to private school fee rises of more than 10%.

    "Graduates who start teaching at State schools next year will get an extra $4600 on top of this year's rate, taking into account a 2.5% pay rise that all teachers will get in February and an extra $800 graduates' start up allowance.

    "Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Audrey Jackson said pay rises for graduates would have a bigger impact on some private schools than others, depending on how closely their salary scales followed that of the Education department.

    "It's definitely going to impact within the sector to various degrees," Ms Jackson said.

    "It's certainly something that independent schools will have to factor into their budget depending on the nature of their enterprise bargaining agreement."

    "Anglican Schools Commission chief executive the Rev. Peter Laurence said 2008 could see significant fee rises because most of its schools paid teachers 2.5% more than State school teachers.

    "It might mean that schools will have to put their fees up a little higher, with a higher percentage increase in 2008, than they otherwise would have planned to do," Rev. Laurence said. "The fee increases this year in most schools in the non-government sector are likely to be between about 5 and 9 %. Now that's before this $50,000 announcement was made. So I hope they don't get to double digits."

    "He said about 1000 Anglican school teachers would be directly affected by the State pay rise, but that could double if the new graduate entry salary flowed on to second and third year teachers.

    "St Hilda's Anglican Girls School principal Joy Shepherd said even though her school's agreement was not directly linked to State schools teachers' wage increases, salaries would have to keep pace with those in other sectors.

    "Ms Shepherd said the school had not set its fees for next year but they would have to reflect any increase in teachers' wages.

    "Obviously all independent schools will be looking to make sure their teachers stay ahead of the game," she said. "I think you have to say that if teachers are going to get pay rises then they have to come from somewhere."

    "Catholic Education Office director Ron Dullard said Catholic school teachers' salaries would also lead to an increase in State government funding. If not, parents would have to come up with the extra 2% to cover wage increases, on top of the expected annual rise in school fees of between 6 and 9 per cent.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he made no apology for raising graduates' pay, adding: "We are pulling out all the stops to boost our teaching workforce."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • WA Schools struggle to teach migrants English (page 4)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "WA schools are groaning under the strain of the State's immigration boom, with new figures showing a dramatic surge in the number of children accompanying their parents on temporary working visas needing expensive English language tuition.
    
    "Fresh figures from the Department of Education and Training show that the number of non-English speaking children of 457 visa holders enrolled at State schools has almost doubled in the past year, ballooning from 480 students in July last year to 904.
    
    "Children who arrive under visa category 457, a temporary long term stay visa that allows their families to live and work in Australia for four years, receive no funding for English teaching tuition.
    
    "This is despite the fact that children of immigrants arriving under other visas receive English language support from the Federal Government.,
    
    "Some 457 visa holders brought in to tackle the State's skills shortage arrive from English speaking countries but many children enrolled in WA schools are from Vietnam, the Philippines, China, India and Korea.
    
    "Acting director of curriculum standards Chris Cook said the department was continuing to seek additional funding to cope with the influx. She said there were more than 1200 school aged dependents of 457 visa holders in WA public schools. Of those students, 801 at city schools and another 103 in the country had been identified as requiring support to learn English. Ms Cook said the department had allocated extra resources to help those children.
    
    "During this semester seven teachers were allocated to metropolitan district offices, either as additional teachers in schools with high numbers of 457 visa students, or to provide support to several schools within a district," she said.
    
    "State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the increase in children who could not speak English put unfair pressure on schools and teaches who did not have the resources or specialist training to cope.
    
    "He said the Federal Government had an obligation to look after the children of 457 visa holders.
    
    "I think it is utterly irresponsible of governments to put in place a programme and then say the education system can deal with the consequences," he said. "If you bring family out here and English is a problem, you don't leave the schools to pick up the cost."
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he had requested more funds from Canberra to deal with the problem, but to no avail.
    
    "The commonwealth has a special responsibility to these children considering they have invited them here, and should help the States with their additional education needs," he said.
    
    "But Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the WA government, as a significant employer of 457 visa holders, should meet its responsibility to adequately fund its schools."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• [author and source unknown]
  
  
  • SCHOOL DAZE

    Why today's classrooms are turning good teachers into bad crowd controllers.
    
    Take another deep breath. It won't slow your heart rate or curb the spurts of adrenaline, but it might help conceal the fear in your voice. Where you are going fear is fatal because you can't follow your normal instinct to fight back or run away.

    Inside the classroom your charges await. You can tell by the volume what to expect. Teenage girls bitching, texting, writing nasty letters and flirting with farting teenage boys who are throwing pencils and punches. Soaked with hormones, rampant with adolescent egocentrism, these kids are only interested in improving their lot in the pack hierarchy .... and drawing penises on the whiteboard. The last thing on their minds is learning, yet that is what you, dear teacher, have been entrusted with.

    Marking the roll, you have to shout over their iPods and indifference. Waiting for silence doesn't work on those without conscience or respect. You have designed your lesson to engage all your students, including those of 'diverse abilities' (edu-babble for those with the attention span of a junk-food commercial). But your worksheets are being converted into spitballs, paper planes and confetti faster than you can hand them out.

    Trying to organise the class over the din, you wonder what the hell you are doing there. No-one is listening. No-one cares. The high-minded pedagogic ideals of the education degree you completed are a distant, irrelevant fantasy. Bugger Piaget and Vygotsky; their child psychology doesn't mean a thing now that you've learned the brutal truth: teaching is crowd control. But unlike the sadists who caned you in the 60's and 70's, you're a riot cop without a water cannon; a lion tamer without a whip.

    William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, was a teacher. He understood that, in the absence of authority, the fragile social order of the adolescent world collapses frighteningly fast. We all know authority without consequence is meaningless - that's why we have fines and prisons. Yet today's public-school teachers are expected to manage and teach large groups of adolescents without enforceable rules.

    For the vast majority of public schools, the sacred tenet of Quality Teaching - a classroom environment in which learning of significance and intellectual merit can take place - is pure rhetoric; fancy sounding fluff on the noticebaord in the corner of a dilapidated staffroom.

    Teachers today age one year in just nine-and-a-half months. Either you give in to the madness of the system - selling your soul like a spruiker ignored on a busy street - or you burn out trying to fight the impossible fight. You find yourself struggling to sleep, waking at first light with dread like a brick in your heart: What will today hold? Another 15 year old screaming "Fuck off!" in your face with impunity? Being cast as the lead villain by some vindictive vandal from a dysfunctional family? It's not teachers that schools are protecting by refusing to install security cameras in classrooms.

    You learned all this the hard way, of course. You varied your approach; you worked on making the syllabus as user-friendly as possible; you held meetings with staff, your class and individual students. But undeveloped adolescent frontal lobes are simply not designed for cooperative collectivism. No amount of namby-pamby common sense is going to persuade a pack of adolescents to do only what's in their best interests.

    "To hell with the carrot!" I hear you cry. "Where's the stick?" Herein lies the paradox. When your Department Head agrees that lunchtime class detention would help improve behaviour, but then shrugs his shoulders and says it's probable no-one will turn up, you realise you're in a deeper hole than you thought.

    Stunned, you pay the Deputy Principal a visit. But the touchy-feely bureaucrat you encounter is a far cry from the demagogues of days gone by. Reassured by assertions of how important discipline is to the school, you are smoothly directed back to your long-suffering Head of Department (who now has the look of a hunted vole whenever you approach), wielding the school's thick and glossy discipline policy like Don Quixote's lance. It is full of policy. Beyond the non-existent detentions and 'responsible behaviour' classrooms, there are punitive actions such as sending letters to parents warning them that their child could fail if his behaviour doesn't improve, or her work is not completed. Getting the parents involved sounds great in theory. They should care that their child isn't learning. The school agrees, but then points out that that they can only send one or two letters. In other words, pick on two out of 27 who are just as bad as each other.

    Then it finally dawns on you. What you thought was an institution devoted to education is actually something else. It is a holding pen for youth. Education is second to keeping young people off the streets. Kids with no intention of learning attend so they can get the dole. As one rowdy fellow told me: "I'm only here for my youth allowance, not to learn, so get off my back."

    School executives have betrayed their long-suffering staff by implementing department directives and government policy that directly contradict the discipline policies of their schools. In a monstrous act of double speak, they have made teachers paper tigers; de facto minders for the dysfunctional and disinterested. Those kids willing to learn are hugely disadvantaged because their teacher's time is wasted on management that is doomed to fail.

    No wonder parents are abandoning the public school system and going private in search of discipline. Catholic schools are alarmed at the weight of numbers seeking their services. Twenty years ago, the proportion of non-Catholic students attending Catholic schools in Australia was around 20% - now it's 40% and rising.

    If there's one thing guaranteed to infuriate a teacher it's a non-educator glibly announcing that at least things are much better than they were "in the old days." I'd like to sentence them to one day - no, that would be inhumane - just one lesson teaching a difficult class and watch them implode. Few teachers would suggest returning to the bad old days of the cane - beating kids into submission is not the answer - but if learning is actually to take place in today's classrooms, then something has to be done.

    The funny thing is that when you take one of these adolescent miscreants out of the pack and have a one-on-one conversation with them, they invariably revert to their individual charming selves; the person their parents know and love. You can reach them and you can teach them. But a teacher can only serve the educational needs of the individual when the classroom is under control. Until public schools address this fundamental truth their decline will continue.

    Corporal punishment is not the answer, nor is chucking millions of dollars into better computers or meaningless reports, but perhaps something like a Green Corps is. Unmanageable students could be painting benches, planting trees, sprucing up their school or their local community and learning practical skills that might help them find a job. Some will love it; for those that don't, the trials of the textbook might seem like an attractive option after all. Either way, such meaningful discipline would provide a much-needed life lesson in a system that is dragging schools, teachers and students down to the lowest common denominator.

    
    
    
• Mark McGowan media statement
  
  
  • Western Australian teachers at the cutting edge of science

    A multi-million dollar program has seen a group of science teachers return to university to research and develop new classroom resources for all public secondary schools across Western Australia.

    Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said the State Government’s $5million SPICE program had given select public school science teachers the opportunity to work with leading scientists at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

    “The SPICE program is helping teachers bring the latest advances in science into the classroom to inspire students to develop a passion for science,” Mr McGowan said.

    “The resources have been developed by experienced science teachers to ensure they meet the needs of teachers and are interesting, practical and ready to use.”

    The first set of practical science teaching resources developed by the SPICE teachers are now available; more will be available next year.

    The resources include:

    * videos featuring scientists talking about their research and how they go about it;
    * interactive DVDs to help students understand science concepts;
    * fact sheets for students;
    * backgrounders for teachers with more details of scientific research;
    * tips for teachers on how to conduct interesting classroom experiments; and
    * teachers’ guides for each resource.

    Duncraig Senior High School physics and chemistry teacher Jenny Gull took part in the SPICE program and was a teacher-in-residence at UWA during the second half of 2006.

    Ms Gull investigated research on the biomechanics of movement in elite sportspeople as a context for use in Year 11 physics lessons and developed a series of practical classroom resources about vectors, velocity, displacement and acceleration for secondary physics lessons.

    One of the class activities Ms Gull outlined involved teachers encouraging students to video-record the motion of an object, for example a ball or a vehicle, and then data logging the images on the computer to plot them on a graph so students could analyse the motion.

    “The SPICE program was a fantastic professional development opportunity. It was wonderful to be involved in the latest research using cutting edge equipment,” Ms Gull said.

    “The experience has helped me inspire my Year 11 students to make the connection between their physics studies and solving real world problems.”

    Mr McGowan said science was critical to Western Australians’ daily lives and economic future and it was vital students received a solid grounding in science education.

    Public primary schools, district high schools and education support centres will also receive new teaching resources that link science with literacy, called Primary Connections, this term.

    The resources support the Department of Education and Training’s science syllabus for students from Kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    

• The Age
  
  
• NT intervention a crisis for schools
  by Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin
  
  "The Howard Government's intervention in remote indigenous communities is pushing thousands of children into already underfunded schools that do not have enough teachers or facilities, teachers say.

  "We are facing a desperate crisis out here. There's a chronic shortage of staff, support material and teacher accommodation," said Graham McKay, a teacher at the school in Ngukurr, 650 kilometres south-east of Darwin.

  "The teachers here simply can't cope and are angry and sick and tired of promises to fix the problems," Mr McKay said.

  "The Australian Education Union says as many as 7500 indigenous children in the Northern Territory have been missing out on school or preschool and that at least $1.7 billion in additional funding over five years is required to ensure they get the same opportunities as other Australian children.

  "Up to 5000 potential students under the age of 18 in remote areas have no access to secondary or vocational education services, the union says in a report released today.

  "Enrolments have surged in some communities as a result of the intervention, but schools have been left to struggle without additional support. The report says that at least 1360 extra teachers are needed in the remote areas, along with 585 additional staff, including bilingual indigenous assistant teachers, costing around $264 million. It also calls for up to $440 million to be spent on infrastructure.

  "Even before the intervention, under which welfare payments are to be withheld for failure to attend school, many schools in remote areas lacked basic facilities and struggled to recruit and retain teachers..."
  
  Full story in The Age at link
  
  
  

• The Monday Education Section has been updated, and has 12 articles, including:
  
  
  
  • Schools buckle under demands
    
    Primary schools find it "practically impossible" to fit everything into the curriculum yet are under pressure to include more, according to a national study.
    
    
    
  • Trouble in Cyberia
    
    To fight cyberbullying, parents and schools need to better understand the technology, writes Elisabeth Tarica.
    
    
    
  • Time to stop milking the cash cow
    
    We should treat international students as though they were our own.
    

   

• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • "The creation of an education market in which poor schools fade and die has been an abdication of society’s responsibility to the children in those schools."

    ‘What a contrast there is between the education minister, who understands that she is responsible for a system (Testing times, 15/10) and the think-tank denizen who advocates more of the market-based failure we have endured over the past 15 years (Charting a new course through schools red tape).

    "Bronwyn Pike’s signal to principals to provide better leadership is recognition of how much the quality of principals declined after 1992 and a step towards putting the “system” back into education. The creation of an education market in which poor schools fade and die has been an abdication of society’s responsibility to the children in those schools.

    "I was the timetabler of a disadvantaged school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne from 1976 to 1980. Its classes typically had fewer than 25 students. The average teaching load was 15 hours 29 minutes in 1979 – well below the 20-hour maximum imposed after 1992.

    "It was sufficiently staffed to employ 13 per cent of its teachers in literacy and numeracy programs. Its staffing allowed a measurable improvement in students’ achievement.

    "There were no performance reviews, no charters, no school-based hiring and firing, no glossy brochures, no box-and-whisper graphs, no short-term contract staff, no principals as tin gods bogged down in administrivia. That school was part of a system, not a stand-alone school left to sink or swim, its teachers were free to concentrate on actual education, and its principals accepted the collegiate professional judgement of the teaching staff.

    "By the time I left, in 1981, the state secondary pupil-to-teacher ratio had improved to 10.9:1, a ratio that would provide almost 2000 secondary teachers more than are provided today. In fact, our secondary schools are worse staffed now than they were in every year between 1976 and 1993.

    "The post-1992 experiment has failed. We need to return the teachers it took from our schools and to rebuild a sense of the system taking responsibility for all children."

    Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge [from The Monday Education Section, 22 October]
    
    

  • Tales out of school

    "I understand what Peter Job (Opinion, 22/10) and many other contract teachers have gone through; I am in my second year of teaching and have been told I am no longer needed at my second school, so am job hunting again. I have applied for 186 positions and this year have had six interviews. These have interrupted my teaching as I have had to take time off work, resulting in loss of teaching and assessment time, and, if I do not get a job soon, loss of earnings as I have used up my leave. This has caused myself, my school and family a huge amount of stress.

    "I hope the Government makes changes soon, as I have given myself five years in which to get an "ongoing" job, or I will leave teaching. The stress, possible loss of earnings and inability to plan my life (for example, to get a home loan) are taking over from the passion for teaching I left university with."

    Alicia Teather, Warrandyte
    
    

  • Hard lesson learned

    "It's not just teachers on contracts who are afraid to speak out. The public education system in Victoria is chronically under-funded and would collapse without the altruism and dedication of teachers.

    "Over the past couple of decades, the workload has increased to the point of lunacy. Most of it revolves around accountability tasks and reports imposed by the Education Department, and numerous extracurricular activities for no pay, a lot them more about attracting prospective students (and the funding that goes with it) than benefiting current students. The lament of most teachers is that they just wish they could be left alone to teach.

    "When I spoke out, my dedication and integrity were questioned. When my two boys were considering options for tertiary study, I advised them strongly against teaching. As for me, I've succumbed to the pressure of years of overwork and consequences of finally speaking out. I no longer teach."

    Alison Crofts, Mount Waverley
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • More Oz lit in schools
    by Anna Patty
    
    "The State Government will introduce more "home-grown" Australian literature into primary and high school curriculums.

    "The NSW Minister for Education, John Della Bosca, yesterday said he would ask the NSW Board of Studies to review the English curriculum to strengthen the study of Australian literature, with recommendations due by next year.

    "He said the primary school syllabus needed to become more prescriptive and he wanted a high level course to be introduced to the Higher School Certificate.

    "The measures will look at how to ensure high-quality Australian texts were being studied consistently across all NSW schools," Mr Della Bosca said.

    "Australian literature is important in providing students with a sense of identity, insight into our diverse culture, historical contexts and our unique place in the world.

    "But, particularly in the primary school setting, the syllabus may need to be more prescriptive to make sure all students are reading Australian authors."

    "The Board of Studies would also be asked to consider the development of an in-depth, high level course in Australian literature to be offered as one of the existing HSC Distinction courses."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • Same HSC exam, different days
    
    

A HSC timetable glitch has resulted in students sitting the same examination on two different days, raising teacher concerns about the potential for cheating. [Known as "Doing a WACOT"...  Web]




• The Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Schools funding injustice
      
      "It's sad that some people (Letters, 22/10) seem not to have read or understood your many reports and editorials on where total government funding for schools is spent.

      "Despite the lies put out by education unions, the great bulk of taxpayers’ education dollars collected by the federal Government is handed over to the states and territories and then spent by them in an egregiously discriminatory fashion.

      "Here in the ACT, for instance, for every dollar spent per head on a government schoolchild, less than 18c is spent on a child in a non-government school _ and similar figures apply in the states. This injustice has nothing to do with the Howard Government.

      "The separate direct federal spending on children in non-government schools, many of whom come from poorer families, is still way behind the total per capita government education spending and minuscule in comparison. This is the true ``unfair imbalance in education spending’’ which voters who value fairness in education opportunity for all students should already know about _ and should be demanding that parties in the states and territories work hard to redress it."
      
      John McCarthy, Pearce, ACT
      
      

© The Australian

Wednesday 24 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor (page 23)
    
    
    • We Disagree
      
      "I am very pleased that the WA College of Teaching has been sensible and deferred its plans to de-register 1500 teachers, who refuse to pay their fees until the long-overdue election has been held. But I think it disgraceful that the non-elected WACOT Board has appointed a new chairman just weeks before the scheduled election. Does desperation know no bounds?"
      
      Steve Kessell, Willetton
      
      
      
    • I blame the teachers
      
      "No, Mark McGowan, you should blame teachers... for the day around 14 years ago when every child in this State went home with a ruler showing the police phone number and informed their parents "I can do anything I want, and you can't stop me, because if you do I will tell the police"...
      
      J. Biwer, Boya
      
      I think J. Biwer has missed the point. Teachers did not initiate this campaign; they were directed by the hierarchy of DET to comply.  Web
      
      
      
      
  • Ministers row over fall in uni enrolments (page 18)
    by Bethany Hiatt and Amanda Banks
    
    "The State and Federal governments traded accusations over a fall in university enrolments yesterday after figures released in State Parliament revealed a 27 per cent decrease in country-based students enrolling in university since 2004.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan, who released the figures, said the statistics reflected a "massive policy failure" by the Federal Government, which should take urgent steps to halt the decline.

    "But Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the figures showed that the State Government's botched implementation of outcomes-based education had contributed to a fall in university enrolments by country students. [emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan blamed the fall on inadequate funding for WA under a loading scheme for university country campuses.

    "Students from the country completing Year 12 attend university at roughly one-third the rate of students from the city," he told Parliament.

    "There is a much higher number of students completing Year 12 in country WA who, whilst accepted to go into university, decline to do so."

    "He said that under a regional loading scheme aimed at making it economical for universities to offer courses in regional areas, Charles Darwin University in the centre of Darwin received a 30 per cent financial loading while the Broome campus of Notre Dame received just 7.5 per cent. "It is ludicrous to suggest that delivering higher education courses in Darwin is four times harder than delivering courses in Broome," he said.[emphasis added]

    "Mr McGowan said the fact that Queensland universities received $9.8 million for regional delivery this year compared with just $600,000 for WA institutions added insult to injury.

    "Regional participation is going backwards at the very time that we need to get more people into education and training to meet the skills shortages of our booming economy," he said.

    "But Ms Bishop said research showed that the most important factor in whether a student attended university was their achievement in reading, writing and maths at Year 9. "A combination of the WA Labor Government's disastrous implementation of OBE and neglect of its teaching workforce have been the major factors in a decline in standards across WA but particularly in rural and regional areas," she said. [emphasis added]

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • $2b schools shortfall in NT: teachers
    
    See very similar story in yesterday's The Age [already in our news archive]
    
    
    
    
  • Anglicans abandon high school plan
    
    The fight to establish a new Anglican high school in Broome has been abandoned after Education Minister Mark McGowan rejected a recommendation by an independent panel that it should go ahead.
    
    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Teachers union denies it's undermining recruiting campaign
    
    "The State School Teachers Union is on a collision course with the Education Minister after writing a letter to its counterpart organisations in other states, warning about the teaching conditions in Western Australia.

    "The Union's President, Mike Keely, says the letter simply advises that teachers considering moving to Western Australia should be careful, get appropriate advice, and ensure that all offers are made in writing.

    "The letter comes during the Government's $80,000 advertising campaign to lure teachers from the Eastern States and New Zealand to WA.

    "Mr Keely denies he is trying to undermine the Government's campaign, but says teachers should be aware that housing and other conditions are still unsatisfactory.

    "We welcome them over here, but the fact is they've got to be aware of the conditions and sometimes we believe that they are not getting an honest appraisal of the conditions in which some of them will be required to live," he said.

    "We don't want people coming over here and finding that it's completely different from what they were told and leaving again."

    "The Education Minister Mark McGowan only heard of the letter today, and spoke out against it in Parliament.

    "It is unacceptable and extremely disappointing Mr Speaker," he said.

    "Mr McGowan says the Union should be trying to encourage teachers to WA to alleviate the pressures on its members."

    From ABC News at link



The President of the State School Teachers Union, Mike Keely,
says the letter simply advises teachers to be careful.
© ABC News



• The Australian
  
  
• Compelling course on Aussie writers
  by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
  
  "Western Australia will become the first state in the nation requiring the study of Australian writers under a literature course to be introduced from 2009.

  "While school curriculums around the nation include in their recommended texts authors such as Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Les Murray and Tom Keneally, no state makes them a mandatory part of study.

  "The requirement to study Australian literature will be compulsory only in the specialist literature course, undertaken by about 3000 Year 11 students and 2000 Year 12 students, and not the more general English course, studied by all senior school students.

  "The literature course will have a set-text list for the university-bound students that includes Australian writers such as poets Murray, Kenneth Slessor and Banjo Paterson; playwrights Louis Nowra, David Williamson and Ray Lawler; and novelists Peter Carey, David Malouf, Christina Stead, Tim Winton and Henry Handel Richardson.

  "The draft course, released to teachers for consultation last week, is the third rewrite and part of the state's troubled overhaul of the Year 12 West Australian Certificate of Education. The latest version discards much of the literary theory and cultural studies in earlier versions, which required students to question the nature of texts and why "cultural value is assigned to one kind of text and not another". [emphasis added]

  "The focus of the latest course is the reading of literature, and the rationale says "one of the main benefits of literary study, particularly in a multicultural and diverse society such as Australia, is exposure to a variety of ways of thinking about the world".

  "The West Australian initiative came as NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca outlined plans to strengthen the study of Australian literature in schools and follows a roundtable on the study of Australian literature hosted by the Australia Council in August.

  "The plans by NSW and Western Australia were welcomed yesterday by the chairman of the Australia Council's literature board, Imre Salusinszky, and the Australian Society of Authors.

  "Dr Salusinszky, who is also a reporter for The Australian, said the board aimed to make Australian writing a sustainable living, and that studying writers such as Richardson and her opus, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney, would ensure it remained in print."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  Reader comments on this story in The Sunday Times / PerthNow
  
  Similar story at ABC News
  
  
  

• Surplus can support sector
  by Brendan O'Keefe
  
  "Australia's resources boom and $17 billion budget surplus should be used to fund the nation's universities, the Australian Democrats say in their federal election policy paper to be released tomorrow.

  "The surplus "shows that extra investment is feasible: all we require is visionary political leadership", education spokeswoman Natasha Stott Despoja says in the paper.

  "In calling for the abolition of full-fee degrees and HECS, the Democrats say they would compensate universities for the lost money with a corresponding increase in base funding.

  "On HECS, the Democrats would first raise the repayment threshold to average male earnings and lower the repayment rates.

  "The Democrats pledge to index grants to account for inflation and to provide a one-off grant of $2 billion over four years to fix the backlog of deferred maintenance on campus.

  "Senate stablemate the Australian Greens would release their education policy nearer to the election date.

  "NSW senator Kerry Nettle told the HES the Greens wanted to abolish HECS, which would cost $2.5 billion.

  "Compare that to $34 billion in tax cuts and it's pretty affordable," shesaid.

  "Senator Nettle said too many students were forced to work to support themselves.

  "We need to increase student support and we would like to see a living allowance (that was enough) to enable students not to have to work.

  "We want students to be able to focus on their university work."

  "The Greens did not have costings yet for raising student support levels.

  "The Democrats would change student support by lowering the age of independence to 18, making commonwealth scholarships tax-free and by pegging student income support measures to the Henderson poverty line.

  "Senator Stott Despoja said the election would be a challenging one for the Democrats.

  "I hope the public will recognise the contribution the Democrats have made over the last 30 years, particularly on higher education policy," shesaid.

  "We have opposed every fee hike. We have fought for students, university staff and universities, and hope tocontinue to do so for the next 30years."

  "Senator Nettle was confident that leader Bob Brown would be returned but that her own fight would be "much more difficult ... about 50-50".

  "The party had high hopes for new candidates in Western Australia and Victoria, and especially for Kerrie Tucker in the ACT.

  "If she can replace (Liberal senator) Gary Humphries, the Liberals will lose their majority in the Senate because ACT senators come in immediately rather than in July next year," Senator Nettle said.

  "Both parties said they would repeal voluntary student unionism legislation, although research by the Democrats found that 60 per cent of young people surveyed were against dropping VSU. Last year, almost the same proportion opposed VSU."
  
  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Kevin Donnelly Op Ed [23 October: not available on their website]
  
  "Maybe I saw a different leaders' debate on Sunday night. My gut feeling is that the outcome was too close to call; if anything, the Prime Minister had a narrow victory. According to the post-debate Herald Sun and the Sky News polls, a little more than 50 per cent of respondents agreed.

  "Yet media commentators such as Michelle Grattan and Hugh Mackay disagree, especially criticising John Howard's concluding comments on the need to raise standards and to give students a strong narrative view of Australian history.

  "In contrast, Kevin Rudd's so-called education revolution and his final folksy comments about an idealised past, where mum and dad sent their kids off to the local state primary school for a good education, have gone unchallenged. Rudd's argument that the ALP's commitment, if elected, to spend billions of tax dollars on education on the basis that spending more represents "the essence of an education revolution" also has been accepted as beyond reproach.

  "Wrong. The very Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report the ALP quotes as evidence that the Coalition, supposedly, has underfunded education - a report Rudd endorsed during the debate with the words "I stand by everything the OECD has said" - argues that there is little, if any, relationship between levels of investment and educational outcomes. The OECD report states: "Lower unit expenditure does not necessarily lead to lower achievement and it would be misleading to equate lower unit expenditure generally with lower quality of educational services."

  "Countries that outperform Australian students in mathematics and science spend less on education as a percentage of GDP, and the OECD report argues that the challenge is for "education to reinvent itself in ways that other professions have already done and to provide better value for money".

  "Examples to illustrate the ALP's education revolution, such as creating technical centres in 2650 schools and making sure that all young Australians have access to a computer and the internet, while making good headlines, also fail the reality test. Given the skills shortage and the fact that so many new teachers leave the profession after four to five years, not only will it be impossible to staff such centres, but, since the death of technical schools during the 1970s, education departments have lost the ability to develop viable technical-oriented syllabuses.

  "If Rudd believes Australian students are IT-deprived and that computers and the internet are crucial to raising standards then, once again, there is more spin than substance. A recent Australian Council for Educational Research report concludes that "all Australian students have access to a computer at school and most also have access to a computer at home" and that computer use does not raise standards. "The relationship between student performance and access to computers is ambiguous."

  "As many parents know, home computers often distract students from learning, especially in the key areas of mathematics and reading, and research about how children best learn shows that memorisation and rote learning are crucial if students are to develop higher-order skills.

  "Howard's concluding comments illustrate why he is such a formidable political opponent. Not only is he a conviction politician when it comes to education, somebody who has consistently argued against new-age and politically correct fads such as black armband history and postmodern gobbledegook, but Howard understands the electorate.

  "A federally funded survey noted that only 58.3 per cent of parents with primary school children were satisfied with the quality of education, while at the secondary level, the figure dropped to 39.9 per cent. Two of the top concerns related to fears about the quality of the curriculum and teaching standards.

  "Australia is ranked in the second XI in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study tests. The majority of universities now have remedial programs in areas such as essay writing and algebra. And thousands of Australian parents are flocking to non-government schools in search of a more academic approach to the curriculum.

  "On second thoughts, maybe it is a good thing that the media believes the PM lost the debate. The more he is seen as off-message by the Canberra press gallery, the more he must be in touch with the electorate."

  Kevin Donnelly, a former Howard Government employee, is director of Education Strategies in Melbourne.
  
  From The Australian
  
  
  

• Our universities fail specialist test
  
  Australia does not have one world-class "specialist" university, according to a report on the nation's tertiary institutions.
  
  
  

• Tertiary compo inquiry launched
  
  Every university and TAFE college in Victoria will be investigated by workplace safety inspectors in a bid to reduce the number of stress and injury claims made by academic staff... The audit follows 273 workers' compensation claims in Victoria made by university and TAFE staff during the previous financial year.
  
  
  
  
• Ethics code reaps contempt
  
  Public intellectuals view with "scorn and contempt" a medically biased code of research ethics that would make them wait at least a month for clearance just to make a phone call, according to political scientist Anthony Langlois.
  
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Computers teach nothing
    
    "The politicians’ support of computers for children’s education will be welcome by all parents and most teachers. That is apart from me and few others who see through the whole fraud that is the education technological revolution.

    "The idea that computers are essential to the education of students of compulsory school age is one of those popular myths that seem to have taken hold against all commonsense and the bleeding obvious. An obsession with the electronic has destroyed handwriting and the associated benefits of spelling. Cut and paste from Encarta passes for research and a power point presentation, full of gizmos and sound effects, passes for an assignment. Gone is verified information from a properly researched source. Maths games are substituted for real maths and students spend a vastly disproportionate amount of time fiddling with electronic editing and word art gimmicks instead of considering content. Teachers desperate for some peace can keep a whole class amused for hours fiddling away on a computer doing work that would be much better done the old-fashioned way in less time and with greater educational outcomes.

    "Computer use in schools needs to be assessed by some clear-headed educational researchers fresh from a cold shower. I have no doubt that in the cold light of day we will find that the benefits are small."
    
    Timothy Looker, Glenelg, SA
    
    

  • First byte
    
    "I don’t know who "won’’ the debate, but I do know we need Kevin Rudd’s education revolution. And the first person who should go back to school and learn about when an apostrophe is required is the dill who organised that huge "The Leaders Debate’’ sign behind the leaders."
    
    Alan Stobie, Hester, WA
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Basics lacking in education debate
    

    Kevin Rudd's computer rebate puts symbolism ahead of the needs of our students, writes John Roskam.

    "Kevin Rudd's tax rebate for parents to buy computers is gesture politics at its most meaningless. The reason that 15 per cent of students finish their schooling unable to adequately read or write is not because they don't have broadband at home. A new laptop is not much use to a child being taught by ineffective teachers in a dilapidated classroom.

    "The Labor leader has spoken of the education "gap between the haves and the have-nots". His policy does little to rectify that gap. The students most in need of a better education are unlikely to have parents who will now buy a computer because they'll be receiving a rebate of a few hundred dollars.

    "The families of more than 2 million schoolchildren will be eligible for the rebate. The announcement provided a good photo opportunity with the Labor leader brandishing a laptop as "the 21st-century toolbox". What the ALP hasn't yet been asked to explain is whether tax rebates for computers are the best way to spend $2.3 billion.

    "There's no evidence that the barrier to every household having a computer is cost. Seventy-five per cent of Australians already have a computer at home. International research overwhelmingly shows that attitude is a bigger barrier to learning than is the price of an internet connection. Parents who themselves have minimal education levels are less likely to make a financial investment in their children's education. If Labor had really wanted to target the students who didn't have access to technology, it could simply propose buying the computers and then giving them away free of charge. Instead it is likely that the families taking advantage of the rebate will be those who already have computers.

    "The Prime Minister lost Sunday night's debate. However he made one point to which Rudd doesn't have an answer. It might be old-fashioned but John Howard was correct when he spoke about the importance of students gaining literacy and numeracy skills. Parents would prefer that, instead of government inventing an ever-increasing array of initiatives, it concentrated on making sure schools first got the basics right.

    "A tax rebate for computer purchases is attractive to politicians because it's easy. It satisfies Labor's desire to appear modern. There's nothing more forward-looking than talking about technology. But the policy doesn't actually improve the quality of education.

    "Talking about attracting the best candidates into teaching doesn't attract the same media attention as do announcements about cash for computers. And anyway, the public has heard it all before. It is precisely because politicians prefer the symbolic to the necessary when it comes to education that we are still debating the question of how to attract and retain good teachers in our schools.

    "To be fair, the tendency to the trendy is not restricted to the Opposition. The Federal Government requires any school receiving Commonwealth funds to have a functioning flagpole flying the Australian flag. Under the "Flagpole Funding Initiative", schools can receive $1500 to install, replace or repair a flagpole. A flagpole is nice to have, but maybe there are more pressing issues facing the Australian school system.

    "The tokenism of Labor's policy is demonstrated by considering the other sorts of education expenses on which parents will not be allowed to claim a rebate. For example, school uniforms are an unavoidable expense. It's unclear why the federal government should assist parents to purchase educational software but not uniforms. The cost of school excursions is a problem for many parents. For them, a higher priority than a computer at home is ensuring that their child is not missing out on something that every other child in the class is receiving.

    "If Labor was truly interested in an "education revolution", it would extend the principle it has established beyond tax rebates for computer purchases. There's no reason why tax rebates should not be available to parents who make a direct and immediate investment in their child's education. And of course the way parents do this is by paying school fees.

    "In an ideal world, tax rebates for school fees would be available to all parents, regardless of family income and regardless of whether the child attends a government or non-government school. For the moment, at least, such a policy is too radical for any of the parties.

    "Something more realistic in the foreseeable future would be to limit tax rebates for school fees to families on low incomes. Not only would this ease the financial burden of education borne by parents; more importantly, by reducing the cost of schooling, whether in the government or non-government system, it would give parents a greater capacity to choose the most appropriate school for their child.

    "That is the best way of reducing the gap between the haves and the have-nots."

    John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. He was a senior adviser to the Kennett and Howard governments.
    
    From The Age at link

Thursday 25 October

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Top teachers' pay should double: Chaney [online only, added 4:55 pm]
    AAP
    
    "President of the Business Council of Australia Michael Chaney has called for a dramatic increase in teachers' pay, saying top teachers should receive almost double the salary.

    "Mr Chaney said the cost of pay increases for both public and private teachers would be about $4 billion.

    "He said the figure was a manageable amount.

    "We should consider such expenditure an investment rather than a cost," Mr Chaney told the annual BCA dinner in Sydney on Wednesday night.

    "He said a changed approach was needed in education by governments at all levels.

    "Mr Chaney's criticism of the current system was part of a broader argument that business needed to talk about social prosperity rather than focusing on economic reform.

    "There was no better time than during the current prosperity to tackle entrenched disadvantage and social problems, he said."

    From The West Australian online at link
    
    
    
    
  • Stay away from WA, union warns teachers (page 4)
    by Ben Spencer and Bethany Hiatt

    "The State School Teachers Union is about to warn teachers Australia-wide not to be duped by a WA Government recruiting campaign.

    "The Government is attempting to lure Eastern States teachers to WA in a bid to ease the chronic teacher shortage but problems have emerged, with teachers claiming they have been sent to remote locations and expected to live in sub-standard accommodation.

    "In an extraordinary move, the SSTU yesterday revealed it would write to teachers' unions across Australia warning them of the pitfalls of teaching in WA.

    "SSTU president Mike Keeley was unavailable for comment but the union confirmed an email outlining its concerns would be sent to teachers unions across the country today.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan launched a scathing attack on the SSTU after learning of its plans, accusing it of trying to "run down its own state" as the Australian Education Union's Victorian branch claimed Eastern States teachers would now be reluctant to move to WA.

    "Why would the schoolteachers' union representing members of the teaching profession in this State be undermining measures to try to improve the number of teachers here?" Mr. McGowan told Parliament. "If it is in fact true it is unacceptable and extremely disappointing."

    "The man charged with reversing WA's teacher shortage says salaries need to be increased, career structures and conditions improved and principals given more autonomy.

    "Lance Twomey, who is chairing a task force set up by the Government to tackle the shortage, delivered a preliminary report to Mr. McGowan last week. His final report is due in December. He said salaries for school and TAFE staff had to reflect the professional nature and importance of teaching. "Allowances need to genuinely compensate for varying living and working conditions," he said in an update on the task force's progress.

    "To encourage ambitious teachers to remain in the classroom, a more comprehensive career structure within the public education sector needs to be developed."

    "Professor Twomey said workloads could be better distributed if more staffing categories were introduced to schools, such as personal assistants for principals and more full-time education assistants. He said principals should have more professional autonomy to lead their schools, underpinned by centralised support.

    "The SSTU's dramatic intervention came after a distraught Victorian couple, lured to WA by the promise of more money for teachers, revealed they would soon return home after just nine months in some of the State's remote communities.

    "Jason McCrae, his partner Samantha and their six-week-old son Jack continue to live with friends in Warburton after rejecting transfer offers to other remote communities near the Northern Territory border. They claim to have been forced to endure substandard living conditions in housing provided by the Department of Education and Training.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said he did not condone the SSTU's actions but understood why the union felt such drastic action was necessary.

    "AEU Victorian branch president Mary Bluett said she was stunned by the revelations of the couple's apparent treatment, particularly given it came just weeks after Mr. McGowan launched an aggressive interstate recruitment drive to lure teachers from Victoria and Tasmania.

    "She said Victorian teachers would be put off by the couple's ordeal."
    

    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor: Education (page 22)
    
    
    • We needed a chair

      "WACOT had no choice but to elect a chairman weeks away from an election (Steve Kessell, Letters, 24/10). The WA College of Teaching Act 2004 states that the chairman must be elected by the board for a 12-month period, meaning the position expired in September. There is no provision in the Act for a temporary chairman. Nor can the college operate without one.

      "There is, however, nothing to stop the chairman or deputy chairman from stepping down part of the way through their term. [emphasis added] To suggest that this was "disgraceful" or an act of "desperation" is wrong. The college is operating within its Act - as it is bound to do by law."
      
      Suzanne Parry, director, WACOT
      
      

    • An act for parents

      "I concur with your editorial (Schools need more help with disruptive students). Education is a community enterprise and the more we work together and share the responsibility the lighter the load will become.

      "There are many factors that influence success of an individual over which the teacher has extremely little or no influence whatsoever. At the bottom line, it is the child who decides when and if he is to succeed and the decisions are based on how he has been raised to regard himself. The school simply perpetuates what has been established by the home.

      "I do not wish to absolve teachers of their responsibility for the factors over which they have no control. They perform the second most important function in society and this places on them tangible responsibilities for which they must be held accountable. Parents perform the most important function in society and this places on them tangible responsibilities for which they must be held accountable. Parents perform the most important function in society. Here again, this function carries tangible responsibilities for which they are not held accountable. Indeed, they are being encouraged to project more and more of their responsibility on to the school.

      "We have legislation that defines the responsibilities of schools. We need an Act for parents that defines their responsibilities and has in it sufficient means for holding them accountable. Perhaps then more parents would become directly involved in their children's schooling and lighten the load in overcoming the disruptive behaviour of students."
      
      Michael Detiuk, Perth
      
      

    • Labor is to blame
      
      "When it was reported that Tony Abbott, referring to the alarming number of teachers who have been the victims of violent attacks by schoolchildren, said in certain cases corporal punishment should be reintroduced, I believe Education Minister Mark McGowan was one of the usual crew who opposed it.

      "Mr. McGowan now blames parents for abusive kids (report, 22/10) when in fact it's the very ideology espoused by his side of politics, cheered along by academics, social engineers and lawyers, which has been so insidiously forced on the Australian people that is to blame for the alarming escalation of violence in our schools and society in general.

      "As a result, teachers and police officers are now rendered helpless as pupils and teenage partygoers run amok. It was the Federal Labor government under the leadership of Bob Hawke that signed the United Nations Rights of the Child Treaty (once again without the consent of the Australian people). It's one of the many treaties we have made with that discredited organisation which should be rendered null and void."

      Ernest Della, Westminster
      
      
      

• ABC News
  
  
  • Unions at odds over teacher recruitment letter