Monday 28 January

Tuesday 29 January

Wednesday 30 January

Thursday 31 January

Friday 1 February

Saturday – Sunday, 2 – 3 February

 

Monday 28 January

• The Age
  
  
  • State schools struggling to find teachers
    by Farrah Tomazin
    

    "Victorian state schools faced with teacher shortages are being forced to "wine and dine" job applicants, use unqualified teachers or poach staff from interstate in a bid to fill positions.

    "As students return to school this week, a new survey has found that almost half of state secondary schools are experiencing problems filling teaching positions.

    "The issue appears to be compounded in schools near the NSW and South Australian borders, where up to a quarter of schools reported having teachers leave last year to teach interstate.

    "The findings are likely to prove a political sore point for the Brumby Government in the lead-up to a 24-hour schools strike on February 14, when up to 25,000 teachers are expected to walk off the job over wages and working conditions.

    "Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett said the fact that Victoria had the lowest-paid teachers in the country had made it increasingly difficult to attract and retain staff, many of whom left for more money in the private sector, non-government schools or interstate and overseas.

    "And some principals admit they are going to great lengths to "schmooze" university graduates or would-be staff, particularly in rural schools.

    "Edenhope College principal Lynden Fielding said it was not unusual to woo prospective teachers by wining and dining them, or to pay for hotel accommodation and to show them the sights of her town, which is about 25 minutes from the South Australian border.

    "Ms Fielding said she had even spent two days last year personally calling up to 25 maths and physics teaching students at Monash University in the hope that one would apply for a position that was available at her school.

    "Attracting quality teachers is tough, particularly for schools like Edenhope, which is five hours out of Melbourne. If we're contacted by a university for a student placement, we nearly always say yes," she said.

    "Other schools have reported using "instructors" — staff who are not qualified as teachers — to take some classes.

    "Wodonga Middle Years College principal Vern Hilditch said schools near the border were often treated as "holding schools" by teachers who wanted to pick up a job in NSW, where they are paid 15% more.

    "He said the Government's offer of a wage rise of 3.25% a year — far short of the 10% the union is pushing for — was not good enough to attract or retain many teachers.

    "It is rare for teachers to be as concerned as they are about how they make ends meet. But 3.25% does not even match the inflation rate," he said."
    

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Keeping our teachers
    by Philip Riley
    

    A genuine education revolution would ensure appropriate training and support for the profession.

    "If the Rudd Government is serious about engineering an education revolution it will need to deal with the rate of attrition for new teachers as a matter of high priority.

    "Recently 2424 HECS places were offered for teacher training in the first round of university offers. Nearly half these places will be needed to fill positions vacated by teachers with fewer than five years' experience. If the new student teachers follow the same path as their predecessors, and if things don't change there is no reason to expect that they won't, nearly half of them will teach for no longer than five years. About a quarter of them will last only one. Then they will have to be replaced.

    "Industry sources suggest that the cost of training lies somewhere between one and three years' annual salary. On those figures, in Victoria alone the Government will be spending $46 million to $138 million for little direct benefit. Nationally, the figures are astronomical. For a new Government, committed to reining in wasteful spending and generating an education revolution, these are important considerations. Why are so many teachers leaving the profession early?

    "Money is clearly an issue. The systematic devaluing of teachers in economic terms was recently outlined

    "by Josh Gordon and Tim Colebatch (Opinion, 16/1). Pre-service teachers know that they are not going to be richly rewarded financially before they apply for their courses. Yet they still apply, albeit in declining numbers. While the salary issues and working conditions do need to be tackled, particularly in Victoria, new teachers leave early for other reasons as well.

    "From kindergarten upwards, teachers will be faced with moral and ethical dilemmas when they become privy to sensitive and confidential student information. This information about students' lives will be acquired alongside attempts to interest them in finger-painting, quadratic equations, foreign languages, the school musical and the myriad other activities associated with a rounded education. And many new teachers will become distressed at the information.

    "But once teachers have the information, whether they wanted it or not, questions arise that inevitably test their resolve. What information, if any, should they report and to whom? Will a tenuous relationship with a student, carefully built over time be irrevocably damaged if they report what they hear? What would the educational implications be for the student? Who benefits? Who loses? Is what I heard true or just a wind-up?

    "Mandatory reporting laws are clear as are teachers' responsibilities in such cases, but plenty of information relayed to teachers by students falls well short of mandatory reporting. This is not to say that it can't be disturbing for teachers, because it can. What is worse is that they are generally left on their own with little formal training in how to cope with their students and their own emotional volatility.

    "No wonder a recent survey in Britain found that teachers' stress levels matched those of police and ambulance officers. Like other front-line workers, most teachers will also find themselves in emotionally charged situations at some point. But unlike the other front-line workers, they receive little or no training in dealing with difficult people. For many, the more they care about their students, the worse it is for them. This is one of the reasons why nearly 50% of new teachers leave the profession early. The cost to the community in providing training for teachers who do not last long in the job is immense.

    "Recent research suggests that pre-service teachers expect that the rewards of the job will come from the relationships they form with their students and the chance to have a significant impact on the lives of young people. For many teachers this is exactly what they experience when they join the profession. And, despite the fact that they would like, and deserve, to be better paid, they stay in the job because of the rewarding and important work.

    "But many new teachers report that they are under-prepared for the difficulties associated with life in many classrooms. Unless they chance on a skilled mentor who is able to guide and protect them, these new teachers are likely to find the emotional aspects of the job overwhelming — hence the high rates of attrition. So what can be done? Recent research suggests the answer lies in expanding pre-service teacher training to include adequate study of the dynamics of personal relationships.

    "Having trained and worked as both a teacher and a counselling psychologist, I have been struck with the similarity of the issues facing teachers and counsellors who work with young people. Yet only counsellors receive specific training in how to manage themselves and their students/clients in difficult situations. Teachers are left to work it out for themselves. We have the training courses that would adequately prepare them already in operation.

    "What is needed to solve the problem of teacher attrition is a significantly increased investment in teacher education courses. This will actually reduce teacher education costs through cost savings. The pay-off comes by slowing the early exit by teachers. Also, investing in teachers is the most efficient way to invest in students.

    "Government funding to universities for teacher training is inadequate. This has created pressure on faculties to cut contact hours, increase class sizes and transfer knowledge through technology; all aimed at cutting the cost of delivery. These cost savings lead to early career attrition because teachers have not been adequately prepared to build and maintain relationships with students, particularly challenging students.

    "When teachers move into classrooms, it is their ability to form and maintain relationships with students, sometimes in difficult circumstances, that will form a large measure of their success or failure as professionals. It will also be a significant factor in their decision to stay in the profession. Teachers who stay teaching repay the cost of training. Continuous training of replacement teachers is a significantly higher cost to the community than adequately training teachers in the first place.

    "Increased investment in teacher education aimed at helping students acquire some of the skills taught to counselling psychologists would ensure that new teachers start their careers far better prepared for the reality of life in the classroom from their first day on the job. They would not be left in difficult classroom situations with little or no theoretical or practical support. This would see more of them enjoy their initial experiences and therefore stay in the profession. The net saving for increased spending on teacher education by government would run into many millions of dollars, even if attrition was reduced by only 10%."

    Philip Riley lectures in school leadership at Monash University and is a registered psychologist.

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Author Reinvents Science Textbooks as Lively, Fun Narratives
    by Valerie Strauss
    
    "To middle school teacher Chad Pavlekovich, most science textbooks are dull and lack the context students need to understand scientific principles. That's why he is exposing students in the town of Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore to three new textbooks that are unorthodox in concept, appearance and substance.

    "The "Story of Science" series by Joy Hakim tells the history of science with wit, narrative depth and research, all vetted by specialists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first book is "Aristotle Leads the Way," the second is "Newton at the Center" and the third is "Einstein Adds a New Dimension." The series, which has drawn acclaim, chronicles not only great discoveries but also the scientists who made them.

    "These books humanize science," Pavlekovich said.

    "We teach students this equation and this theory or this topic and that idea, but we never discuss the scientist behind it or how that scientist made the discovery," he said. "It helps students to understand how they struggled and overcame great obstacles to do what they did."

    "Hakim has also drawn attention for lively U.S. history textbooks she authored in a series used from elementary school through college. Her science texts, published by Smithsonian Books, target middle school..."
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    
    

• The Melville City Herald [Week of 26 January]
  
  
  • Scholarship delay as course start
    by Chris Thomson
    
    "Applicants for $60,000 government teaching scholarships are yet to be told if they've got one, even though Murdoch University's teacher education course has already started for 2008. "Fairness dictates that it would be inappropriate to determine who the recipients of the scholarships may be until all interviews are completed," WA education department chief recruiter John Serich told the Herald.

    "In a bold bid to tackle WA's chronic teacher shortage, education minister Mark McGowan last year announced scholarships up to $60,000 would be offered under a $19 million training program.

    "By the due date of November 5 last year, 184 applicants had thrown their hats into the ring. However, the process was extended until December 24 to attract specialists in areas such as English, Japanese and Physics.

    "Applicants by the original deadline were not told of the extension.

    "With Murdoch University's teacher training course having already started on January 21, budding teachers are now left twiddling their thumbs.
    
    "Many applicants have jobs they'll find difficult to leave at the drop of a hat. Most are relying on the scholarship to take a year out to study.

    "Murdoch's Dean of Education said he was unaware of the delay, and that it was up to the education department to administer its own scholarship processes.

    "For 20 years our course has started at this time of the year," Barry Kissane added. "Some people may well have been relying on the scholarships, I don't know."
    
    "Curtin University's course starts on February 19. Edith Cowan's starts late Burberry, followed by UWA's on March 3.

    "Following the deadline extension 306 applicants are now awaiting a decision.
    
    "Feedback received through the interview process has shown that the opportunity to apply for a scholarship is highly valued by candidates," John Serich said when asked if the unheralded delay could sour his department's reputation as an employer of choice."

    From The Melville City Herald
    

 

Tuesday 29 January

• ABC News
  
  
  • Cyber teaching for Goldfields students
    
    "The shortage of teachers means students in the Goldfields will be taught some subjects via video and phone conferencing when classes resume next week.

    "Remote teaching technologies were introduced last year when the Eastern Goldfields College did not have a geography teacher and the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School could not offer certain maths and science classes.

    "The Goldfields Education Director, Larry Hamilton, says he will not know which subjects will be taught using video and phone conferencing until he speaks to the principals of the affected schools this week.

    "He says while he would prefer face-to-face teaching, the tight labour market is making it difficult to attract teachers.

    "We've got jobs for the people with those sorts of skills but attracting them to these places is not always possible, particularly in an era where we've got full employment essentially," he said.

    "There is a lot of competitiveness between enterprises for people, I think we've just got accept that that's the case and do our best."

    "Mr Hamilton concedes it is not an ideal scenario.

    "Teaching's basically the sort of work where relationships between people are really important, when a teacher and a student have a really good relationship the results are better."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
  • UWA to overhaul degrees
    
    "The University of Western Australia is looking at a major overhaul of its undergraduate degrees.

    "Among options being considered are proposals to lengthen current three year degrees or for undergraduates to take compulsory general units.

    "This is similar to US universities where undergraduates must complete a basic degree before going on to specialise.

    "Emeritus professor of higher education, Ian Reid, is conducting the review, and says academic excellence is a priority.

    "But, he says it is also about providing students with breadth as well as depth.

    "There is the possibility of radically simplifying the range of degrees offered by the university so that even though students still do everything from engineering to commerce to law to medicine, etc, instead of having separate degrees for each of these, there might be just two or three degrees that the university offers," he said.

    "The president of the student guild, Nikolas Barron, says some of the proposed changes may have a big impact on students.

    "He says lengthening the time it takes to do a degree could be a problem.

    "Realistically, providing the best education in the world isn't going to matter if people can't access it and people don't want to access it because of the pressures that it will place on them, both during the time that they're at university and afterwards when it comes to repaying the debt that they owe," he said.

    "The public can make submissions on the options until the end of this month."

    From ABC News at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Professionals see teaching as the perfect career change
    by Bridie Smith
    

    "Almost 30 professionals and tradespeople will enter the classroom as qualified teachers this week, as the State Government tries to plug the growing teacher shortage.

    "While the Opposition has dismissed the scheme — which targets professionals working in maths and science-related fields to teach in hard-to-staff state schools — as a temporary solution, many of the former scientists, plumbers, chefs and builders argue that teaching has been the perfect career change.

    "Among them is 47-year-old Ken Johnsen, a former electrical fitter with Telstra, who will begin his second career today at St Albans' Brimbank College as an electrical technology teacher.

    "Mr Johnsen, who will teach years 7-12 students as well as some vocational education and training students, was among a group of 30 professionals who completed a two-year course last year and are undertaking full-time teaching at schools across the state.

    "I've always thought teaching would really suit me," Mr Johnsen said. "And by doing it this way, I got to study, get paid and then move into a new career."

    "Mr Johnsen opted for a trade after leaving school because he wanted to start earning as soon as possible. But he said teaching had always been on the wish list.

    "Under the scheme, participants — who range from their mid-20s to early-50s — work four days a week at a school as a trainee teacher with a mentor. They have a reduced workload and spend the fifth day on paid study leave.

    "They get a basic salary of $41,005, plus a study allowance that ranges from $8000 to $14,000 depending on the type of school. Teachers who complete the training are employed at the school on a permanent basis.

    "It's one of the best things I've ever done," Mr Johnsen said. "I really enjoy teaching."

    "Such enthusiasm will be welcomed by the State Government at a time when the teacher shortage is predicted to worsen in the next two years, as Melbourne University shifts to postgraduate teaching degrees under its US-style Melbourne Model and the profession ages. More than one in three Victorian state school teachers are aged over 50.

    "A teacher supply report by the Victorian Institute of Teaching found there would be 201 fewer graduate secondary teachers next year, compared with this year.

    "Figures released earlier this month by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre showed fewer school leavers were aspiring to the profession, with data revealing a 6.8% fall in the number of students opting to study teaching this year — what the teachers' union puts down to poor pay and job security.

    "Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said the professional trainee teachers brought valuable skills and experience to state schools, but shadow education spokesman Martin Dixon said the scheme was a temporary fix.

    "It's a way of trying to get teachers into the system quickly, when really, the big issue needs to be tackled about why young people aren't getting into teaching," he said."

    From The Age at link
    
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Clarification

      "The worsening of teachers' working conditions referred to in the letter from Chris Curtis (Letters, 28/1) did not necessarily apply to every school in Victoria. He was referring to the school at which he taught."
      
      

    • Thanks, from in front of the class

      "First day of term, 1970. Altona North Tech … the end of the known world. What was I doing there? Simple. I had no choice because I was on an Education Department studentship.

      "For 30 pieces of silver, I'd sold my soul to the classroom. By the time my three-year obligation was up, I, like most studentship holders, was hooked. Reasonable pay, reasonable holidays and a manageable workload.

      "Thirty years and numerous inner-city secondary schools later came retirement. A journeyman's contribution to education … yes, I had mediocre qualifications and, no, I never aspired to become principal.

      "But, as Carolyn Webb (Opinion, 28/1) generously affirms, I feel sure I made a difference. The call for higher qualifications and an increased salary will attract some into teaching, but the lack of job security and constant need for self-appraisal can only alienate committed teachers.

      "It has been said that "those who do, do; those who can't, teach; and those who can't teach, teach teachers". Maybe it is still a fair call."

      Andrew Jones, Torquay
      
      

    • An educated plot

      "It seems clear from recent publicity that all is not well in Victorian education. Might I suggest there are two reasons for the teachers' plight.

      "Firstly, the administrators in the Education Department appear to have understood only part of competitive market economic theory. Even the pin-up boy of the market forces set, Alan Greenspan, recognises the folly of making teaching unattractive.

      "Secondly, the Victorian Education Union leadership has been a relatively subdued witness to Labor's amateurish attempt at a business model for education. It's almost as if the AEU leadership subscribes to this model. How strange would that be?"

      David Serocki, Box Hill North
      
      
      

• The Australian
  
  
  • Even public schools are getting pricey
    by Sanna Trad
    

    "While Jeremiah Jones dreads returning to class after six weeks of blissful summer holidays, his mother is dreading the ever-increasing bills that come with sending children to school.

    "Jeremiah, 13, is one of more than a million students around the country who will return, most somewhat reluctantly, to school this week.

    "The term will begin for government and non-government schools today in NSW, Victoria, the Northern Territory and Queensland, and tomorrow in South Australia.

    "ACT students will return to school next Monday, while students in Western Australia will return the following day. Students in Tasmania will not be back at school until February 14.

    "Jeremiah, who attends Condell Park High School in Sydney's southwest, is starting Year 8.

    "I'm not too nervous about the new year because I started high school last year," he said.

    "I was very nervous on my first day, but I will be more settled down this year."

    "Jeremiah attends a public school but that doesn't spare his parents hefty bills for excursions, fundraising and uniforms. Some parents who send their child to a public school spend more than $5000 a year on expenses, including fees, books and laptops.

    "Jeremiah's mother, Jennifer Jones, said she had noticed a significant increase in school costs in the past few years.

    "I've noticed that school fees keep going up," the mother of seven said. "They go up by a small amount each year, but there's a significant increase in the cost of schooling.

    "All my children attend public schools. A few years ago they didn't have to pay school fees - they were voluntary contributions - but now they really press hard on you to pay and they've itemised some of the costs so they have become compulsory. Before, you just had to pay textbook fees, but now there are all kinds of costs."

    "For some education departments around the country, meeting their teaching requirements for the start of the new school year will be a challenge.

    "Australian Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos said teacher shortages were a serious problem.

    "The shortage is being concealed to a significant extent because teachers are being forced to teach outside their subject area," he said. "This is a serious matter. We need qualified teachers teaching our students, in every location across the country.

    "There are 600 teacher vacancies in Western Australia alone, and in South Australia schools are being forced to seek teachers from outside their borders."

    "Teachers in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia are engaged in salary negotiations.

    "In this year of teacher shortages, it is more important than ever that teachers are offered a competitive salary that can allow us to attract and retain teachers in the required numbers," Mr Gavrielatos said."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Call to abandon linear model of education
    by Catherine Armitage, Higher education editor
    

    "Universities need to flick their switches from "transmit" to "receive" to adapt to new patterns of knowledge transfer, a visiting expert on innovation has warned.

    "Michael Gibbons argues that universities must abandon their centuries-old model of linear knowledge transfer and instead open their doors and minds to knowledge exchange with competitors and students.

    "This would be “a revolution of the first magnitude,” said Professor Gibbons, director of science and technology policy research at Sussex University in the UK.

    "University people, left to themselves, always want to go back to first principles" of identifying a problem and solving it, he told the HES.

    "Universities need to develop a cadre of people who are good at finding out what already exists and using that in the innovation process.

    "If someone has already done it, you might as well move on. It is not a second-rate activity, it is a tough intellectual grind."

    From The Australian at link
    
    A longer revised version of this story was published on 30 January. Entitled Knowledge exchange key to new ideas, it's available at this link.
    
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Know your place ...
    
    A new book suggests none of the 'radical' education initiatives of the past 20 years have made any difference to the social segregation of schools. Report by Jessica Shepherd
    
    "The English education system is sliding back into Victorian times with today's schools almost as segregated by social class as they were in the 19th century, a controversial new book argues. The Education Debate, published tomorrow, draws a parallel between today's academies, faith and comprehensive schools, and the elementary, grammar and public schools of more than a century ago.

    "Its author, leading educationalist Professor Stephen Ball of London University's Institute of Education, claims that despite government rhetoric over the past 20 years, class inequalities are now almost as stark as they were in the Victorian era.

    "The debate follows an attack on the independent sector by Dr Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, who said earlier this month that private schools perpetuated an "apartheid" system of schooling, creaming off the most able students and leaving state schools to flounder.

    "In the Victorian era, Britain had a rigid class structure. The working class went to elementary schools, the middle class to grammar schools and the upper class to public schools. The Church and charitable individuals had considerable influence over the system. And all this is happening again at an ever-increasing pace, to the detriment of our society, says Ball, who is also an editor of the Journal of Education Policy.

    "He argues that faith schools are now primarily for the middle class, community schools increasingly for the working class, and private and public schools have been kept the preserve of the upper class.

    "Since the 1970s, education policy has been about 'radical' change, but the education system remains split along class lines," Ball says.

    "The class gap in participation rates in higher education is larger than ever before, despite the overall increases in participation; the poorest children, those with special educational needs, recent arrivals and those for whom English is not their mother tongue are clustered in certain schools. We are seeing the recreation of almost all the elements of the Victorian class-divided education system." This, Ball says in his "forensic analysis" of education policies over the past 20 years, is despite "unprecedented government activity" in education.

    "Between 2000 and 2007, the government issued 459 separate documents on the teaching of literacy in schools, he found. Our lack of progress, as far as inequality is concerned, is in part - despite the paperwork - because governments have only listened to the middle classes, Ball says. He claims inequality in the classroom has been tagged on to the long list of Labour and Conservative governments' priorities, rather than forming a central tenet in their decisions on education.

    "The north London family, with the Blairs as the archetype, is the dominant species in the world of English education reform, Ball argues. The Blairs chose an opted-out faith school for their son Euan - the London Oratory school.

    "Throughout history, the middle class has been seen as a problem whose [educational] needs need to be responded to, while the working class has been seen simply as a social problem," Ball says.

    "Our education system has always provided the means for middle-class families to gain social advantage and to separate themselves off from 'others'. Grammar schools, parental choice, ability-grouping, faith schools, gifted and talented have all been a response to middle-class concerns."

    "And while we're turning the clock back to Victorian times, we've also become obsessed by education's contribution to the economy rather than its value per se.

    "Education is a servant to the economy," Ball says. "Education is now thoroughly subordinated to the supposed inevitabilities of globalisation and international economic competition."

    Education and economics

    "Education can no longer be understood separately from economic policy, Ball claims. The meaning of education and what it means "to be educated" have changed.

    "Today's education policy is peppered with contradictions and Ball names a few of them. The government encourages parents to choose the "right" school for their children. This incites them to "look elsewhere" for schools. As a result, schools are disconnected from their local communities, particularly in cities. But the government is also concerned to renew neighbourhoods, to combat crime and antisocial behaviour.

    "Schools are given more autonomy than ever, but also subjected to a more detailed intervention in every aspect of school life.

    "Competition between schools for pupils is encouraged but, at the same time, schools are expected to cooperate with one another and share good practice.

    "Ball describes teachers as living in a "system of terror. Performance is measured by databases, appraisals, annual reviews, report writing, quality assurance visits, regular publications of results, inspections and peer reviews. And yet it is not always clear what is expected. Not infrequently, the requirements of such systems bring into being unhelpful or indeed damaging practices, which nonetheless satisfy performance requirements."

    "Pupils and students are now consumers, their learning experience a commodity that hopefully can be exchanged at some point for entry into the labour market, he says.

    "What response can those who helped shape education policy over the past 20 years give to such a stinging attack?

    "Charles Leadbeater is one of the intellectuals of New Labour and has been an adviser to the former Department for Education's innovation unit and the No 10 policy unit. He says this study is "unduly pessimistic and seems to ignore or neglect the mass of innovative practice that is taking place, some sanctioned by government, others in the wings of the system."

    "Yes, education policy has done too little to budge basic inequalities. In some ways the narrative of education has become too driven by a narrow account of economic imperatives. Education is too driven by national curriculum and assessment.

    "But there are many more opportunities for children to learn in new ways, partly with the help of new technologies. Many schools, especially primaries, are developing more personalised approaches. That is also taking root in the secondary sector, where it is most needed."

    "Leadbeater says the agenda of the last 10 years - of top-down targets, "national straitjackets" - is starting to run out of steam. "This is partly as results plateau and people look for a new narrative to energise the education system," he says.

    Winners and losers

    "But many academics and others in education will agree with Ball's findings. Professor Sally Tomlinson, senior research fellow at the department of educational studies at Oxford University, is one. She has come to the same conclusions as Ball in her analysis of education policy over the past 50 years. "Education," she says, "has moved from being a pillar of a welfare state, as intended by the postwar Labour government, to being a prop for a ruthless global market economy, which richly rewards winners and is draconian in its treatment of losers.

    "Larger numbers of young people now obtain educational qualifications, mainly due to comprehensive education and the work of further education colleges. But this has led to more support for exclusive strategies. These include A* A-levels, Oxbridge setting its own exams, vocational diplomas. Examination of the beneficiaries of 'high quality' education shows that, however it is defined, this kind of education has always been monopolised by higher socio-economic groups with some concessions to lower-class 'gifted' individuals."

    "There is one clue, however, that we'll only turn back the clock so far. "Gordon Brown is already different to Tony Blair," Ball says. "At least he is prepared to talk about inequality."
    
    From The Guardian at link

Wednesday 30 January

• Mark McGowan Media Statement
  
  
  • Teacher workforce strategies working
    
    Strategies by the State Government to tackle Western Australia’s teacher shortage are already beginning to pay off with vacancy rates for the start of the 2008 school year around half of what they were at the same time last year.

    Education and Training Minister Mark McGowan said there were currently 21,500 teachers signed up to work at WA’s 770 public schools, leaving a shortfall of 134 positions (100 full-time and 34 part-time) throughout the State.

    There were 264 vacancies at the same time last year.

    Mr McGowan said the majority of vacancies this year were for secondary teaching positions in the Fremantle-Peel, West Coast, Swan and Canning education districts. The Pilbara also had more than 10 vacancies.

    “I can assure the community that schools have strategies in place to deal with the situation and every regular class will have access to a teacher,” he said.

    “Over the past year, the Government has been relentless in its approach to workforce issues in the State school system.

    “While the vacancy rate is still too high, the fact that no school has more than five vacancies indicates that a number of the strategies we put in place throughout 2007 are beginning to bear fruit.

    “For example, due to our early graduate recruitment program, we have managed to employ 628 graduates to date, compared with 487 at the same time last year.

    “We have also appointed a further 48 teachers from overseas to start work during the 2008 school year.”

    The Minister said longer-term initiatives, such as the additional scholarships announced in October last year, were on-track to deliver teachers to country areas from 2009 onwards.

    “Many of the scholarships effectively lock graduates into Government contracts of up to four years at locations of need,” he said.

    “Successful applicants will begin coming through the system as of 2009 and deliver a steady stream of new graduates for State schools over the next five years.”

    Mr McGowan said 144 teachers currently working in desk jobs would also return to the classroom as part of the ‘Classroom First’ strategy.

    “I expect further positions to be filled as a result of the ‘Let the teachers teach’ initiative, which will encourage schools to employ non-teaching staff to fill positions that do not require a teaching qualification,” he said.

    “This will free up teachers to get back to what they do best - teaching.

    “For example a school’s computer network and infrastructure could be maintained by a computer technician, freeing up a teacher to return to classroom teaching.

    “Local clusters of schools will also be encouraged to share teaching resources with nearby schools that may not be fully staffed.”

    The Minister said the majority of industries in WA were having difficulty attracting qualified staff and this included the teaching profession.

    “Not all public schools in WA are affected by teacher shortages,” he said.

    “There is a larger supply of teachers for primary schools, which cater for about 65 per cent of our 250,000 public school students.

    “While we don’t have an across-the-board shortage, we do have a particular need for secondary teachers, particularly to take classes in Physical Science, English, Design and Technology, Maths and Society and Environment.”

    Mr McGowan said the Carpenter Government would continue to work hard on continuing current recruitment initiatives and developing new strategies to boost the workforce into the future.
    
    ABC News story based on the media statement
    
    Similar story in The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
    
    

  • Also from ABC News
    

    • Rudd names head of national curriculum board
      
      "Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has appointed a Melbourne academic to lead a new body charged with developing a national curriculum for schools.

      "Professor Barry McGaw from the University of Melbourne is a former director of Education for the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).

      "Professor McGaw will lead a 12-person board made up of representatives from the states and territories and the Catholic and independent schools sectors.

      "Mr Rudd says a national approach is needed to raise standards and make sure students complete their studies.

      "There is clear, indisputable international evidence that the more we have kids retained through to year 12 or year 12 equivalent then the better the outcome for them personally and the better to the overall contribution to the economy," he said.

      "Mr Rudd has described the board's task as formidable.

      "The objective we've set is for a national curriculum in the four key subject areas of English, History, Maths, Science to be delivered, as we're starting now in early 2008 by early 2011," he said.

      "It's a three-year task, it'll be tough and very intensive work."

      "Professor McGaw says he is confident the new National Curriculum Board can build on previous efforts to standardise the school curriculum.

      "This time around there is a real chance I think to do things nationally and effectively but the purpose has to be not achieving consistency for consistency's sake, but raising the performance levels," he said."

      From ABC News at link
      
      
      
      
• The Australian
  
  
  • Teachers walk legal minefield
    by Bernard Lane
    

    "Those slick advertisements could land universities in court.

    "(If) there are students out there watching those very expensive advertising campaigns saying you'll be in New York in three years earning a fortune, they're likely to sue," says PhD student Rosemary Dalby.

    "For her Queensland University of Technology thesis, Dalby is weighing the arguments for and against a duty of care that would require teachers to teach well or face an action for damages.

    "In the 2001 Phelps case, involving a failure to diagnose dyslexia, the British House of Lords signalled its willingness to impose a broad duty of care on schoolteachers.

    "Eighteen months into her PhD, Dalby is somewhat sceptical about such a cause of action.

    "For one thing, how do you prove the link between a breach of the duty and the damage done?

    "Even so, she believes educators are likely to face more lawsuits. And because universities are dealing with adults, they are vulnerable to a wider range of legal attack, including breaches of contract and of trade practices law.

    "We're not as litigious a country as the US, but we are getting much more so," she says.

    "We are more aware of law, we're a more legalistic society.

    "And there is that element: I want to get what I've paid for. It's no longer free."

    "She suspects that the legal onslaught has already begun. But cases tend to be settled before they reach court or and the public eye. Dalby has mixed feelings about more litigation on campus.

    "She says it might make universities more accountable: they'll have to live up to their claims or tone down their boastful ad campaigns.

    "At law school two decades ago she had "some appalling teachers; we all know they're out there".

    "And after all, fear of litigation has been long familiar in some parts of the education system.

    "That's what a phys ed teacher lives with when they do archery and a kid runs across the playground," she says. Yet as an ex-teacher herself - someone who knows what it's like to be "sweating in front of teenagers, being abused" - she feels for an educator who becomes a defendant."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Unis engineering a skills revolution
    by Milanda Rout
    

    "High school students as young as 14 will be targeted by universities as the nation's next engineers in an effort to ease the skills shortage gripping the profession.

    "Fifteen public and private schools have signed an agreement with five universities that offer engineering - the Australian Technology Network of Universities - to identify and encourage more school-leavers to choose engineering as a career path.

    "The ATN will help develop a specialised curriculum for students in Years 9 and 10 at the schools and report back to the federal Government, whose financial backing for the project includes $5000 grants to the schools, on the progress of the project.

    "The engineering industry says there is a shortfall of at least 20,000 graduates for the profession and it is likely to worsen unless immediate action is taken.

    "ATN chair and RMIT University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner said the group, which accounts for 26 per cent of the country's engineering graduates, was determined to do something about the skills shortage.

    "Partnering with senior schools to identify and encourage tomorrow's engineers is a unique and fascinating way forward for universities," she said.

    "Professor Gardner, who will today sign a memorandum of understanding with the schools at the ATN annual conference, said the universities would work with the individual schools - three each in Victoria, Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Western Australia - to tailor curriculum and other activities to allow students to "experience the engineering world".

    "It may well be that an environmental engineering component fits best for one state, while an electronics component more appropriately suits another," she said.

    "Overall, though, all students will be exposed to all key elements of a career in engineering in a time frame which allows them to make an informed decision."

    "Engineers Australia chief executive Peter Taylor said there was a "desperate shortage" of engineers in Australia. "There is no way that we can expect to satisfy this demand for engineers while we continue to graduate fewer than 6000 each year."

    "He said universities across the country were going into schools to help promote the profession to youngsters and the ATN plan was part of that strategy.

    "RMIT TAFE student Dylan Interlandi, 16, said he enjoyed studying engineering as part of his apprenticeship to become a refrigeration mechanic. "I think it is a great career and there are plenty of good opportunities once you are qualified," he said."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Let's debate what we should know
    by Luke Slattery
    

    "Here is an idea for deep education reform that won't break Kevin Rudd's first, and fast-diminishing, budget: sponsor a debate on literacy, cultural capital and the curriculum. Or, to put it plainly: What Australians Should Know.

    "Public debate on this incendiary subject really took off with two works of social criticism published 21 years ago in the US, and has never really lost its fire. Between 1987 and ‘88 Chicago University philosopher Allan Bloom’s highbrow critique of the higher education system, The Closing of the American Mind, rode the best-seller lists ahead of University of Virginia English professor E.D Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy. Both academics were traditionalists, though not necessarily political conservatives (Hirsch has always proclaimed his liberal credentials); they aimed to centre the school and university system on great, or canonical, books and ideas; and to anchor the national culture to this solid pedagogical core.

    "Their opponents were the canon-busting insurgents busy trashing the curriculum for its deification of dead white males, to use a refrain popular at the time. Aflame with anti-foundational continental theories that come under the broad rubric of postmodernism, they wanted the education system to speak to a diffuse polyglot culture. The conservative rejoinder was nicely captured in a phrase by Saul Bellow: “When the Zulus have a Tolstoy, then we will read him.” Bellow, incidentally, was a friend and admirer of Bloom’s.

    "With an articulate and powerful duo like this on their team it’s little wonder that the traditionalists got more public airplay than the insurgents. Throughout the 90s, in fact, it seemed that publishers were on the lookout for any grumpy professor with a case against the canon busters then upending the traditional curriculum. Popular titles in the genre include Roger Kimball’s Tenured Radicals and The Rape of the Masters, Keith Windscuttle’s The Killing of History; Bernard Bergonzi’s Exploding English; Bruce Wiltshire’s The Moral Collapse of the University. Titles like David Denby’s Great Books clearly come out of this debate, though their intention is more expository, and perhaps conciliatory.

    "In contrast, I can’t think of one mainstream work written to explain why the canon needed busting, and how the American or any other mind might be widened by this break from tradition. Which is surprising, as there is a splendid, ready-made literary model of a classics basher in Voltaire’s Candide. Moans the Venetian nobleman Count Pococurante, when asked about Homer: “I have sometimes asked learned men if they found this book as tedious as I do. Those who were sincere all confessed that it dropped from their hands, but they felt obliged to keep it in their library, like a relic of the past or like rusty coins with no current use.” Virgil’s Aeneid, for its part, is “frigid” and “displeasing”. Milton is simply a “barbarian who made a tedious commentary on the first chapter of Genesis in ten books of rugged verse”. While broadly sympathetic to the traditionalists, I’d like to read a pococurantist shredding of the canon, if only to expose the sham learning behind all those popular guides to the classics.

    "The multiculturalists’ failure to compete with the lively public rhetoric produced by Bloom and his clan didn’t, in retrospect, seem to matter much. The culture wars took place in a corner of the public sphere - the books were widely reviewed and discussed, and just as widely worried about – that barely touched the power sources of the education system. With the result that the New York Times was recently able to announce, in a piece surveying Bloom’s inheritance, that the multiculturalists had won the canon wars: “Reading lists were broadened to include more works by women and minority writers, and most scholars consider that a positive development.” In Australia, too, reforms to the school and university curricula were rolled out seemingly beneath the high-level turbulence created by Bloom, Hirsch and Windschuttle, as if on another plane: for two decades public policy more or less ignored public debate.

    "Now that the culture wars have lost their spark it should be possible to rekindle a debate about what-we-should-know in terms that are more appropriate to the first decade of the 21st century than the last two decades of the 20th, and in a rather more civil and less huffy tone. Interesting questions revolve around the value-shared cultural knowledge: if Shakespeare is important, is he important to everyone? And nationality? What would an Australian canon look like? Who, to invoke Bellow, is the Australian Tolstoy? I think, in short, that it’s possible to have these kinds of conversations in an ecumenical and analytical spirit, and important to do so.

    "One of the most powerful critiques of Allan Bloom was launched by his Chicago University colleague Martha Nussbaum within months of the publication of the book that would bring him fame and wealth. In the New York Times Review of Books, Nussbaum, a classicist, stressed the value of active practical reasoning and self-examination – Socratic values – and questioned the assumption that a “single curricular solution” would be appropriate in a diverse country. The pedagogical tension identified by Nussbaum - between great works and personal wisdom - is as relevant today as it was two decades ago. As relevant as it was two millennia ago.

    "Some sort of national attempt to get to grips with these issues and aerate the big questions would be an important cultural moment and, quite possibly, a lot of fun. I can think of no better prelude to Australia Day 2009, especially for a fiscally constrained government keen to assert its credentials in education."
    

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • University bypassed in teacher downgrade
    by Anna Patty, Education Editor
    

    "TAFE teachers, who also deliver Higher School Certificate vocational courses, will no longer need to complete university training under a State Government decision to lower the level of their qualifications.

    "As about 740,000 students return to school today, teachers say they are concerned the TAFE teacher qualification is being downgraded.

    "The State Government wrote to teachers late last year informing them of its intention to change the standard TAFE teaching qualification from a university diploma to a level-four certificate in training and assessment, delivered through TAFE or private community colleges.

    "The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, yesterday said HSC students who study vocational education and training courses through TAFE would feel an adverse impact from the decision.

    "That starts to worry us because a premium is not being placed on the qualifications required to be a teacher," she said.

    "Ms O'Halloran said she feared the decision would lead to compromise in the level of qualifications required of school teachers, as has happened in Britain, where teachers' aids had been employed to teach classes.

    "Forty per cent of the teaching profession in NSW is eligible for retirement within five years.

    "We are very worried this decision to lower the qualification for TAFE teachers may move across the school boundary," she said. "So far we have been able to staff the 2200 schools in NSW, but we are very worried about the shortage we are facing with so many experienced teachers leaving the system."

    "A report by the Australian Council for Educational Research, released last week, found that staff shortages were being hidden by principals asking teachers to teach outside their area of expertise.

    "The NSW Minister for Education, John Della Bosca, said the Department of Education was still consulting the profession about changes to TAFE qualifications. He said the decision aimed to remove barriers preventing industry experts becoming permanent TAFE teachers, particularly in areas of skills shortages.

    "The proposed minimum teacher training requirements for all TAFE teachers will be standardised as the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment," he said. "This is already the standard for part-time casual and temporary teachers in TAFE NSW and is also the standard for VET teachers in all other states.

    "In order to encourage new teachers to pursue relevant higher qualifications in the first two years of their appointment, TAFE will waive the fee for the TAFE-delivered Diploma of Training and Assessment or refund 50 per cent of their Higher Education Contribution Scheme and provide two hours' professional development per week."

    "A spokesman for the NSW Department of education said more than 60,000 kindergarten students would start school this year and 974 teachers and 72 new principals had been recruited to start work. Four new schools would open..

    "The department said it spent $26 million on capital works and maintenance in schools over the summer break."

    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    

  • School leaving age set to rise

    The NSW government wants to raise the minimum school leaving age from 15 up to 16, or even possibly 18, from the start of next year.
    
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Students deserve genuine educational reform
    by Neil Hooley
    

    "It seems that the energetic critics of schools in Australia have sniffed the wind and are claiming that the new Federal Government has adopted an essentially conservative educational agenda. This is a clever device, a means of expressing qualified support for the incoming administration while at the same time, maintaining their extremist conservative positions.

    "A realistic and progressive view of education is required to counter this situation and to advocate a genuine revolution in public education policy.

    "Strangely enough, proposals for a progressive revolution in Australian education need not involve large amounts of money. It should go without saying that in one of the world's wealthiest countries an adequate resource base should be provided and that funding levels for teachers, buildings and equipment are not in dispute. We can then turn our attention to what really counts, how the most appropriate and progressive environment for learning can be established for all children.

    "In the first instance, we must have a much more sophisticated analysis of questions related to equity, disadvantage and poverty. Why is it that where a student lives can still be an accurate predictor of exam results? Does society have the view that families who have a reasonable income are more intelligent than those who do not?

    "In a democratic country like Australia we must surely accept that all children are capable of meeting agreed outcomes provided that the conditions for learning are appropriate.

    "Children and indeed adults, generally go about their learning by incorporating three main approaches. There is usually some activity with materials and words, there is some connection between what is already known and what is being encountered and some attempt at explaining what is happening.

    "Interspersed throughout are changes to what was originally intended, changes to the activities, changes to the possibilities and changes as to how to proceed. We see all of these processes at work whether observing children at the beach, or observing scientists in the laboratory.

    "What this means for good teaching therefore is that all classes for all subjects need to combine a mix of approaches so that students can have direct experience of an idea or practice, they are encouraged to discuss and reflect on that experience and to make changes to see what occurs.

    "This approach emphasises a framework of inquiry where learning evolves from personal experience and where more abstract thinking is firmly located in concrete expression. Knowledge is being constantly built by the child, rather than being continuously transmitted by the teacher.

    "Inquiry learning connects more closely with the life experience of children and with how the brain works. Acting as a neural network, the brain incorporates and reconstitutes experience into new patterns of understanding in a dynamic, changing process. This compares with the filing cabinet view of learning, where static copies of reality are neatly filed for use when needed.

    "Attempting to file predetermined, abstract thought without the experience of active, concrete, experiential knowledge is very confusing alienating children from learning and producing deficits in understanding.

    "Arising from an inquiry approach to teaching are inquiry approaches to the monitoring and assessment of learning. This is the second initiative required for a genuine revolution in education. The philosophy of inquiry suggests that schooling is not so much concerned with the acquisition of truth, but the investigation of practice.

    "The latter does not preclude the former. It could be argued for example that an active process of experiment and reflection will lead to a more comprehensive and generalised understanding of the issue under study, than a mere requirement that preformed truth be accepted.

    "If different children go about their learning differently, if they combine active, concrete and abstract thought differently and if they construct different conclusions at different times, then it makes little sense to judge preset learning at preset times. In fact, the education system is disadvantaging children if it attempts to do so.

    "We need to monitor the learning progress of children in relation to agreed criteria and celebrate the learning that does occur as departure for ongoing investigation.

    "What happens if the process of inquiry learning results in children constructing the wrong ideas? Whether a conservative approach of passive transmission leads to children understanding the intended idea, is also a question to be asked. But for inquiry learning it is probably the wrong question.

    "At any point in time, a child will have a particular understanding that progressive educators will not consider as being wrong or unacceptable. It is the child's understanding at that time and in co-operation with teacher and classmates that forms the basis for new active learning.

    "From an educational point of view, it is difficult to justify a strictly time-based judgement of learning and to punish children through a multi-level graded system of assessment. Apart from the doubtful accuracy of this approach, most testing concentrates on the recall of knowledge and not the more integrated, creative and imaginative areas - students are not penalised for being precisely wrong, but are recognised for being vaguely right. Demanding that students are precisely right reflects a cultural view of schooling where knowledge is set by the few for the many.

    "It is a false dichotomy to argue that student background is unimportant and that good teaching will overcome economic and social barriers. Good teaching must precisely draw upon the child's daily and family experience to engage with significant ideas and to connect current knowledge with the emerging.

    "Students from what are generally seen as disadvantaged backgrounds are just as capable as anyone else, but schools need to provide the experiences and connections that support engaged learning.

    "It may be thought that these are modest demands for an education revolution. Inquiry teaching, learning and assessment however are not the dominant features of our schools at present. Many teachers across different subjects and year levels do attempt to work in this way, but their commendable effort is still in the minority.

    "The ideology and pressure of the examination system at year 12 also exerts a powerful conservative influence for teachers and parents that is difficult to resist. But if these issues are not taken up in a serious way then the revolution in education will exist in name only."

    Neil Hooley is a lecturer in the School of Education, Victoria University.

    From The Age at link
    
    
    

  • Op Ed
    Teachers should strike for more pay

    John Brumby and his yes-men have manipulated opinion against our teachers.

Thursday 31 January

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Editorial (page 20)
    Hard to believe Carpenter and his army of spin doctors

    "The events of the past week have served to reinforce the immense distrust among West Australians in what politicians have to say..."

    "And the Government's spin machine continues to treat the public with little respect as it tries to put a positive glow on the vast number of problems which it should be ashamed to preside over.

    "Yesterday, Education Minister Mark McGowan tried to claim success in the fact schools were 134 teachers short for the start of term one next week, about half the number of vacancies the public education system faced at the same time last year.

    "But the reality is 144 teachers have been pulled off desk jobs in district education offices to fill the vacancies. Those support staff will no longer be available to assist classroom teachers. And without their return to the classroom the shortages would be exactly the same as they were last year. It is a classic case of shuffling the deckchairs rather than solving the problem of attracting new teachers to the profession..."
    
    Full Editorial in The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Schools go back short of 134 teachers [Front page]
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "Thousands of WA children will start school next week without a regular teacher after a mult-million dollar Government campaign failed to fix the State's chronic teacher shortage.

    "Education Minister Mark McGowan conceded yesterday that State schools still needed another 134 teachers to fill classrooms when the new school year began.

    "News of the embarrassing shortfall came as Mr. McGowan refused to release a State Government-commissioned report into the teacher shortage which has been in its possession for the past six weeks.

    "Last year, State schools were left scrambling to find 264 teachers for classes at the start of the year. To prevent a repeat of last year's debacle, this year the Government provided lucrative scholarships, embarked on expensive overseas and interstate recruitment drives, recruited teachers halfway through their final year of study and offered big pay rises to first-year teachers.

    "The Education Department has appointed 48 overseas teachers for 2008, but just 21 will be available for the start of the year. It was unable to provide figures on how many teachers had been recruited from interstate.

    "The drive to recruit graduates before they were snapped up by private schools resulted in 141 more graduates than last year, rising from 487 to 628.

    "The department also ordered 144 bureaucrats who have teaching qualifications to return to the classroom from their desk jobs in central and district offices or from secondments to the Curriculum Council.

    "Mr. McGowan admitted the teacher shortage would take many years to overcome. "It hasn't been fixed," he said. "It is still an issue. However, it has improved on last year."

    "He said schools still needed teachers in the four key secondary subjects of science, English, maths, and society and environment.

    "Most vacancies were for high school teachers in the Fremantle-Peel, West Coast, Swan and Canning education districts. The Pilbarra district also had a shortfall of more than 10 teachers. The school with the biggest shortfall is Gilmore College in Kwinana, which is down five teachers.

    "The Opposition and the State School Teachers Union, which this week was still predicting the shortage could be as high as 600, claimed the true picture would be known only after teachers returned to schools.

    "SSTU president Anne Gisborne said the strategy which had proved most successful in boosting numbers - ordering teachers in desk jobs back to schools - had also resulted in less support for teachers and a reduction in specialist programmes for students, so it could only ever be a stop-gap solution.

    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier accused the government of burying the final report prepared by teacher shortage task force chairman Lance Twomey because it is likely to recommend salary increases for teachers.

    "He said Mr. McGowan was deliberately delaying its release until after negotiations for a new enterprise bargaining agreement for teachers had finished.

    "Ms. Gisborne said the report should be made public so its recommendations could be incorporated in negotiations for the new agreement.

    "Mr. McGowan said he would release the report after it had been considered by cabinet."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

  • Alston (page 20)



© The West Australian




• National Curriculum target date set for 2011 (page 6)
  by Rhianna King

  "The Federal Government has taken the first step towards creating a national school curriculum, appointing education expert Barry McGaw to develop common standards - but any changes will be at least 3 years away.

  "Professor McGaw will head a 12-member board which has until 2011 to create the curriculum to cover from kindergarten to Year 12. It will initially cover maths, English, science and history and eventually geography and the languages.

  "Professor McGaw is a former director of education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris and is now the director of the University of Melbourne's education research institute.

  "He said yesterday that OECD national benchmarks had shown that Australian students were falling behind their competitors. "They're not at the top end of understanding highly complex text in the way that we expect 15 year olds to do if they're going to build seriously in their further study on their reading capacity," he said.

  "Professor McGaw said while the States had previously been reluctant to embrace a national curriculum, he felt there was now a different mood. "This time round there's a real chance, I think, to do things nationally and effectively," he said. "But the purpose has to be not achieving consistency for consistency's sake but for raising the performance levels."

  "He said the best elements from each State would be combined to create the curriculum and he though WA ought to feature strongly because of its high ranking in OECD surveys on reading, maths and science.

  "He believed there should be a degree of prescription in the national curriculum, but also the capacity for professional decisions within schools.
  Professor McGaw said he had an open mind on the topic of a national school certificate, but said it was important to develop the curriculum before making that decision. Lifting the school retention rate, preventing the confusion for students who moved interstate and ensuring Australia was more internationally competitive were Labor's motivations for establishing a common curriculum.

  "Prime Minister Kevin Rudd admitted the task was formidable. "We've got 34 separate organisations contributing to the development of curriculums across the country at the moment," he said. "It will require co-operation. I know enough about Federal-State relations to know that that itself is going to be an arduous task."

  "WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said Professor McGaw was an outstanding educator with considerable expertise in education and curriculum issues. "I have always supported a more nationally consistent curriculum that includes strong local content," he said."

  From The West Australian
  
  Similar stories in The Australian, Age and Sydney Morning Herald below

   

• Letter to the Editor (page 22)
  
  
  • Schools should be a priority

    "Today my wife and the other teaching staff at her school officially return to work after the Christmas break and to a classroom environment that does little to assist teachers in their education of the children.

    "Air-conditioning to the classrooms is of the evaporative kind but has to be run at the minimum speed to avoid blowing papers in the room. This virtually makes it ineffective.

    "In a few months, when the cool weather sets in, there will be no heating.

    "The school board and the P & F have indicated their intention to partially or wholly fund the installation of heating/cooling to classrooms but old wiring needs to be replaced, the cost of which is an expense that the school cannot bear by itself. A business case has been presented to the Catholic Education Office but has indicated that it is unwilling to meet the rewiring cost.

    "In 2007, the Archbishop of Perth launched a programme in which every family in every Catholic school in Perth was asked to contribute an amount of $20 each year for the next three years towards the restoration and modernisation of St. Mary's Cathedral in the city. The same was also asked of all parishioners in all Perth Parishes. The Archbishop is ultimately responsible for Catholic education in the Archdiocese and there is an indication here where priorities seem to lie. The building of edifices seems to take preference over the provision of facilities and environments conducive to effective teaching and learning.

    "The school is undoubtedly not alone and I'm sure many ministry teachers also suffer the same intolerable workplace conditions. Pleasant teaching conditions equate to better teaching and education but some people seem to have trouble grasping this concept and direct funds and energies into more visible ventures."

    Name and address supplied

    
    

• The Australian
  
  
• Op Ed
  Drop the spin and work on education
  by Tony Smith
  

  "As more than 3.5 million students cover their new books, pack their bags and get into their uniforms to return to our 9600 schools this week, the new Rudd Labor Government has the opportunity to drop its election campaign spin and start working to solve the core problems holding back our school system.

  "But if they are to begin the transition, today's Council of Australian Governments working group meeting of state and federal education ministers will have to be more than a back-slapping, buck-passing love-in.

  "No doubt much of the meeting will discuss the finer details of Julia Gillard's roll-out of computers in boxes to schools for students in years nine to 12.

  "But to deliver a real "education revolution", today's meeting in Canberra will need to discuss more than which bureaucracy will deliver which computer in a box to which school.

  "Instead, it must move past computers and tackle the core problems crippling our schools. Top of the list should be escalating teacher shortages.

  "While no school will say no to more computers, as one teacher said to me, the computers will be "of no use if there aren't the quality teachers there to teach with them".

  "Attracting our best and brightest to teaching is proving more and more difficult, and keeping those who we manage to attract is just as hard.

  "As the recent Australian Council for Education Research survey of 12,000 teachers and school leaders uncovered, crippling teacher shortages are proving to be one of the greatest problems undermining our education system.

  "The report not only found two-thirds of public schools had difficulty retaining staff, but that there were chronic shortages of qualified maths, science, IT and languages teachers, with many teachers teaching outside their field of expertise in order to cope.

  "Add to this a 6.8 per cent decline in demand for places in undergraduate teaching courses, 40 per cent of the teaching workforce expected to retire in the next six years and 68 per cent of early-career primary teachers unsure how long they will continue teaching because of "better career opportunities outside teaching" and "dissatisfaction with teaching" and 20 per cent of teachers actually leaving within their first three to five years, and you have a severe problem that needs to be addressed by Gillard and the Labor states as a matter of urgency.

  "If any other profession or company in Australia was failing to attract quality employees and was losing their best staff as well, you'd find much quicker action than what's being taken in the education sector.

  "Few would disagree with the proposition that a school can only be as good as its teachers, and there is plenty of research to suggest that along with the quality of the curriculum, teachers have the greatest impact on how well students learn.

  "While computers in schools might be a great additional resource, they are no substitute for good teachers and a strong curriculum that ensures literacy and numeracy standards will be met and children will have the fundamental building blocks for a life outside of school.

  "As Clive James pointed out in The Australian last year, equipping every Australian child with a computer "is less likely to guarantee an education revolution than to provide an incentive for children to multiply their illiteracy". While a revolution would mean "restoring the erstwhile capacity of Australia's young people to read, write and do elementary arithmetic in their heads".

  "It is therefore why Gillard and her state counterparts must begin thrashing out what can be done to not only recruit our best and brightest teachers, but keep them, whether it be through higher salaries, better recruitment, greater accountability, better incentives such as performance pay, greater principal autonomy or a changed professional culture.

  "Addressing this problem is beyond party politics and not just a problem that has sprung up this week as schools return. Nor is it a problem confined just to Australia, as Alan Greenspan recently pointed out in his book, The Age of Turbulence when he suggested one of the greatest problems in the US today was the lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills due to a glut of maths teachers who "have been replaced with teachers with degrees in education but much too often with no math or science degree or competence".

  "But it is a problem that for too long has been swept under the carpet by the Labor states and ignored by the very union that is supposed to represent teachers.

  "Kevin Rudd and Gillard have promised wall-to-wall Labor governments will mean a new dawn for federal-state "co-operation". Today's test will be whether the COAG working group meeting will provide any real solutions to teacher problem shortages or simply more "co-operation" to ignore the problem."

  Tony Smith is the Coalition spokesman on education.

  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• Rudd's pick to seek national curriculum
  by Patricia Karvelas, Political correspondent
  

  "Kevin Rudd has handed a Melbourne academic the "formidable challenge" of leading the creation of a new national schools curriculum.

  "The Prime Minister yesterday named Barry McGaw as head of the new National Curriculum Board, to be established by January 1 next year with a mission of forging a single national curriculum.

  "The Labor Government's national curriculum, which will be implemented in 2011, will initially cover English, mathematics, science and history from kindergarten through to the end of high school.

  "Professor McGaw, director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute, will lead a 12-person board comprising representatives from state and territory governments, Catholic and independent schools.

  "Mr Rudd warned that it would be difficult to put a national curriculum in place because the states were attached to their own systems and had resisted adopting new approaches.

  "In terms of the task ahead, it's formidable. This is an area of work which historically has been paved with good intentions, but with very little outcome," Mr Rudd said.

  "Our intention is to make a difference, but it's going to be very hard and we recognise that. It's a three-year task - it'll be tough and intensive work. The nation hasn't done this before, so I'm being entirely up-front with you about how complex I think it's going to be."

  "With the national workforce increasingly mobile, the Prime Minister said, it was illogical that 80,000 children whose parents moved last year had to face a new curriculum at new schools this week.

  "He warned that the education system was not world-class because of the different curriculums across the country.

  "Right around the country this week we've got some 80,000 kids who are starting school in a different state or territory," Mr Rudd said at a public school in the NSW town of Queanbeyan yesterday. "If you're a mum or dad or carer for those kids, there are a whole lot of problems in moving from one state or territory to another because, frankly, the curriculums don't speak to each other."

  "Mr Rudd said Australia had 34separate organisations contributing to the development of curriculums, and more than 18 different senior history and English courses.

  "This had created significant disparities in educational attainment between states and territories, with a 26 per cent difference in the proportion of Year 3 students who meet national reading benchmarks.

  "Professor McGaw said the mathematics performance of Australian students was declining in comparison with those of other countries, and a national curriculum could help Australia become internationally competitive.

  "You could argue that we're small enough to do things as a whole," he said.

  "Professor McGaw said the states had never used the opportunity of having different curriculums to drive improvements."

  From The Australian at link

  Similar stories in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  

• Op Ed
  Revolution run by establishment
  by Kevin Donnelly
  

  Barry McGaw’s appointment as head of the proposed National Curriculum Board, the body charged by the Rudd Government with designing a school curriculum to be followed by all states and territories and implemented in 2011, should not surprise (writes Kevin Donnelly).

  "McGaw was involved in writing “Federalist Paper 2”, the state and territory Labor governments’ blueprint for education released last year, and he was employed by then Labor premier Bob Carr to review the NSW Higher School Certificate in the mid-1990s.

  "As a past head of the Australian Council for Education Research and a senior bureaucrat with the European-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, McGaw is part of the education establishment.

  "He is a trusted old hand. His appointment signals the status quo in education will be preserved and that Kevin Rudd’s education revolution is about playing it safe, instead of much-needed change.

  "McGaw is not a curriculum subject expert.

  "His formal qualifications relate to educational psychology and psychometrics, and most of his career has been spent designing forms of testing to measure educational outcomes - such as the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment.

  "As many educators across Australia know, focusing too much on accountability by imposing onerous and time-consuming testing regimes overwhelms teachers, reduces education to what is easiest to measure and detracts from the joy of teaching.

  "The history of developing anational curriculum in Australia is a minefield fraught with failure.

  "The Curriculum Development Centre’s “Core Curriculum for Australia’s Schools”, created in the 1980s, and the Keating government’s national statements and profiles both failed.

  "One reason is that curriculum development was carried out by representative committees made up of the usual suspects divorced from the realities of the classroom and the experience of teachers - a model the federal Government seeks to follow.

  "A second reason is that curriculum change was imposed from on high and schools had little, if any, flexibility to fashion what was taught to their local needs.

  "The challenge will be to develop a curriculum that best supports teachers and strengthens standards.

  "It will also be vital to see whether Rudd’s national curriculum will be compulsory or whether schools, especially non-government, will have the freedom to shape a curriculum that best suits their unique communities."

  Kevin Donnelly is director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies and author of Dumbing Down (Hardie GrantBooks)

  From The Australian at link
  
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Making schools relevant for all the big challenge
    

    The conversation about schools is always a little depressing at this time of the year. The general theme of the back-to-school period is the rising costs of education, as well as the usual scoring and ranking of students.
    
    

  • NT students lag behind in literacy

    About a third of year three students in the Northern Territory are failing to meet minimum reading and writing benchmarks, a national report shows.
    
    

  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • We'll pay a heavy price for lowering standards for TAFE teachers
      

      "At a time of a critical national skills shortage, the downgrading of public education systems and the commercialisation of education at all levels, Australia desperately needs highly qualified TAFE teachers that their students can respect and with qualifications they can trust.

      "The downgrading of NSW TAFE teacher education ("University bypassed in teacher downgrade" January 30), which set the quality standard for the rest of Australia, is an unnecessary and retrograde step that, like many other education changes, is greatly weakening education as a key component of Australia's economic competitiveness, security and prosperity.

      "As a company director and university-educated person from industry, who has lectured on a casual basis over a number of years to entry-level full-time TAFE teachers at the University of Western Sydney in the bachelor of adult education, I was really impressed with the way this course took experienced and competent tradespeople and technicians, and transformed them into well-trained, confident TAFE teachers..."

      John Girdwood, Clovelly
      
      
      
• The Age
  
  
  • Pressure builds on education spending
    by Farrah Tomazin
    

    "The Rudd and Brumby governments are under renewed pressure to bolster education spending amid new figures showing Victorian students continue to be the lowest funded in the country.

    "As more than 530,000 students returned to school yesterday, the Productivity Commission's annual report shows that Victorian children each receives an average of $8686 in government funding — almost $1000 less than those in NSW and almost $2000 less than Western Australia..."
    

    Full story in The Age at