Monday 31 March

Tuesday 1 April

Wednesday 2 April

Thursday 3 April

Friday 4 April

Saturday – Sunday, 5 – 6 April

Monday 31 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Poor maths skills puts uni studies in jeopardy (page 17)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "Increasing numbers of university students are forced to take catch-up classes in maths because they graduated from high school without the skills needed for degrees such as business and science.
    
    "The rise in holiday bridging course enrolments or compulsory maths units to bring them up to speed in engineering, science or business courses has coincided with a dramatic decline in school students choosing advanced maths.
    
    "Curriculum Council figures show enrolments in the most difficult of three TEE maths options, calculus, has dropped 20 per cent in 10 years from 1888 in 1997 to 1502 last year. At the same time, enrolments in the easiest maths choice, discrete, rose 19 per cent from 5816 to 6905.
    
    "Nearly 60 per cent of TEE students took discrete maths last year, compared with 13 per cent in calculus and 33 per cent who did applicable maths. In 1997, 49 per cent took discrete, compared with 16 per cent for calculus and 41 per cent in applicable.
    
    "University of WA maths and statistics head Les Jennings said it appeared more students were turning to discrete maths to boost their chance of a higher tertiary entrance rank for less work. But many of them struggled to pass compulsory catch-up units because they depended too much on calculators and lacked key maths concepts and skills.
    
    “You can get a pass in discrete by copying from the calculator to the page,” he said.
    
    "Professor Jennings said discrete maths was not set up originally to be a university entrance subject for science, engineering or business but for those doing courses not requiring maths.
    
    "But universities dropped many maths prerequisites in the late 1990s to boost flagging enrolments. He hoped the bar would be higher when new maths courses were introduced from next year.
    
    "The number of students with a discrete maths background who chose to study science at the University of WA, which needs advanced maths, had increased from about 100 in 2000 to nearly 500 this year.
    
    "The number taking intensive calculus courses in the summer holidays to get into engineering also increased, rising from about 30 in 2000 to 90 this year.
    
    "UWA business sub-dean Paul Lloyd said more students without advanced maths were also choosing business courses. This year, 34 per cent of firstyear business students had to take compulsory maths units because they had studied only discrete maths, compared with 23 per cent in 2000.
    
    "Curtin University pro vice-chancellor (science and engineering) Andris Stelbovics said new engineering students started first year with varied maths backgrounds but the university had developed increased support to bring all students who met entrance requirements for engineering to the required mathematics level.
    
    "Edith Cowan University runs bridging courses in TEE calculus, which about 80 students take each year. Murdoch University said it did not offer bridging courses."
    
    From The West Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor (page 22)
    
    
    • "M. Fontaine, of Duncraig, asks "Where are all our high school maths teachers?" (Letters, 28/3). I'll tell you.

      "Many have gone to an employer who values them. Many have gone to employment where they have not been asked to use their students as guinea pigs to implement an ideology that was tried and failed in other countries (OBE). Many have gone to employment where they are able to earn enough to support their family. M. Fontaine, please maintain the rage and demand you right for quality education for your daughter. Four of five different teachers in a core subject over less than one year is a disgrace."

      Patrick F. Whalen, Yokine
      
      
      

  • Flashback
    Quadrant June 2007
    
    
    • The Decline and Fall of the West
      
      Very relevant to the above article... a Must Read if you haven't already.
      
      
      
      
  • Call to focus on atrocities in history lessons (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt

    "History lessons in Australian schools should put more focus on the atrocities suffered by Aboriginals during colonisation, West Australian of the Year Mark Bin Bakar will tell the Federal Government's 2020 summit.

    "One of 15 people chosen to represent WA in the summit group discussing options for the future of indigenous Australia, Mr Bin Bakar said the way history was taught barely scratched the surface of the sacrifices made by Aboriginals in building the nation.

    "This country is able to introduce history in a much more honest form in that children are learning the true history of Australia and not just the Captain Cook arrival - the actual atrocities that happened as well as that reflect who we are as a nation," he said..."

    Full story in The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
• Indigenous students flock to medicine
  by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
  
  "The University of NSW recorded its biggest intake of indigenous medical students this year, with eight young people on the path to becoming doctors. It is a significant boost to a profession populated by just 120 Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders. There are another 120 in training.
  
  "I guess that's the sad thing about the history of indigenous health and the training of indigenous doctors in this country," the dean of medicine, Peter Smith, said. "Having eight doctors join our program this year is a great achievement and we're very proud of it." ...
  
  "At least 600 indigenous doctors were needed to cater to the indigenous population, said Peter O'Mara, the vice-president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association.

  "He said the number of indigenous doctors would double when these 120 students graduated in six years "and it took us 200 years to get our first Aboriginal doctor".

  "He said indigenous people wanted indigenous doctors."
  
  Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
  
  
  

• Another Flashback
  The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 February 2004
  
  

  • A job that shouldn't be about money
    by Clive Hamilton, executive director of the Australia Institute
    
    "... If the proposed changes to politicians' superannuation deter some people from running for office, then maybe we will be better off for it. Do we really want people to represent us if they are so out of touch with the community that they think it would be a struggle to live on $100,000 a year while in public office?

    "While some may believe that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, others believe that if you pay truffles you get greedy pigs."
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Education hot topic of summit
    by Bridie Smith, Ben Schneiders, Jesse Hogan and Jill Stark
    
    "The Australia 2020 Summit could go one of two ways. It could end up like an episode of trash-TV show Jerry Springer — or it could be a more serious discussion, along the lines of ABC's Lateline, Australian National University economist Andrew Leigh has predicted.

    "Associate Professor Leigh will be on the productivity agenda at the summit, whose 1000 A-list participants include experts in the fields of education, skills, science and training. Professor Leigh's big idea was to discuss ways to measure education policy more scientifically through random trials.

    "What we lack in education at the moment is a really strong evidence base; clear studies that tell us whether or not it's better to, say, cut class sizes or pay teachers more," he said.

    "Nicholas Gruen, chief executive of Lateral Economics and chairman of Peach Discount Mortgage Broking, said he was keen to discuss how well social institutions such as education and health work.

    "We need to empower the consumers of those services to know something about their quality so that … the value-add that schools are making is monitored and made public," Dr Gruen, also a delegate on the productivity stream, said.

    "Another delegate, research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, Jennifer Buckingham, said she would be advocating for a national audit of the and quality and effectiveness of teacher-training courses. Another of her summit priorities would be school funding.

    "Representing performers and writers through her position as Victorian branch president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Corinne Grant said she was interested in finding ways of encouraging new work.

    "We need to discuss whether that means Government or business subsidies or more funding," she said. "When you look at European models, funding is given to performers and writers on a much greater level than in Australia."

    "We do an extraordinary job with absolutely nothing, so if there was a bit of money it would be quite exciting," she said."

    From The Age at link
  
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
  • More locals studying medicine
    AAP
    

    "The University of Adelaide says it has lived up to its promise to take more local students to study medicine.

    "The university said today 70 per cent of this year's intake were from South Australia, with 94 starting their studies this month.

    "That compared to just 41 local students accepted in 2003.

    "“Many people are under the misapprehension that interstate applicants are taking the majority of medical school places at the University of Adelaide and that is simply not the case,” said executive dean Justin Beilby.

    "He said entry into medicine at the University of Adelaide was highly competitive, with 2,071 applications received from all over Australia this year.

    "But he said recent increases in the number of places available would help meet the growing demand for doctors.

    “Thanks to the additional 40 medical places allocated to the university in 2007 by the federal Government, as well as the extra rural bonded places funded by the state Government and the places offered through our tertiary transfer scheme, we are going a long way towards providing for our future medical workforce needs,” Professor Beilby said."

    From the Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Professor explores angles for funding
    by Rosemary Sorensen
    

    "It's time to challenge "long-held and cherished views about what it is to be an artist and what art is", Brad Haseman says, but that does not mean it is no longer worth pursuing art for art's sake.

    "There's still the expectation that you have to be poor and struggling to be an artist," Haseman says, "and then there are many young people who want to pursue art for the celebrity very often, so this is all veryvexed.

    "What we do in the arts is so important and significant that we shouldn't get too anxious about the diversity of applications in which we work. If we think of art practice as an ecology, there's a place for people who want to pursue art for art's sake and those who want to broker their skills for commercial and national benefit..."

    Full story in the Australian at link
    
    
    

• The Washington Post
  
  
  • New Microphones Are Bringing Crystal-Clear Changes
    by Jay Mathews
    
    "The little black devices, the shape and size of small cellphones, have begun to appear in hundreds of Washington area classrooms. Hanging from the necks of elementary school teachers in Alexandria and kindergarten and first-grade teachers in Prince George's County, they might herald the most significant change in classroom technology since the computer, some predict.

    "They are infrared microphones, designed to raise the volume and clarity of teachers' voices above the distracting buzz of competing noises -- the hum of fluorescent lights, the rattle of air conditioning, the whispers of children and the reverberations of those sounds bouncing off concrete walls and uncarpeted floors.

    "It makes it so much easier for the children but also for the teachers," said Lucretia Jackson, principal of Alexandria's Maury Elementary School, one of the first in the area to use the audio enhancement systems for all classrooms. All Alexandria elementary school teachers now have them. "They are no longer suffering from laryngitis," Jackson said. "They don't have to project their voices as much as they needed to do in the past."

    "Led by the area's longest-serving school audiologist, Frankie Mickelson, Prince George's is spending up to $1 million a year to install the systems in every classroom. The cost for the four ceiling speakers, microphones and other equipment in Alexandria and Prince George's is about $1,800 a room, a strain on tightening school budgets. But teachers have embraced them, and studies indicate they improve learning.

    "Electronic sound enhancement systems have been used in classes for hearing-impaired students for several decades. One of the first was developed by Claudia Anderson, a Utah advocate for the deaf with two hearing-impaired children. At a fundraiser in the early 1970s, she noticed a television reporter using a wireless microphone and asked how it worked. She started a company, Audio Enhancement of Bluffdale, Utah, that used the same FM radio technology in its speakers and microphones. But they could be used only in one or two classrooms per school because of the limited number of frequencies available.

    "In the late 1990s, an infrared system transmitting sound by light waves, which would allow every classroom to have wireless technology, was developed..."
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link

 

Tuesday 1 April

• The Daily Planet [An April the First Stop-Press Exclusive!]
  
  
  • Sharrryn O'Neill sacked, William Spady comes out of retirement to become new DET Director-General
    
    "In a related development, Neil Fong has replaced retiring Curriculum Council CEO David Wood. Mr Fong will take up the position after the Council moves to more salubrious accommodation in Subiaco.
    
    "Acting Premier Ljiljanna Ravlich had "no comment" on the appointments, but added "if you want more info, just Google it"...
    
    Full story being sought under FOI
    
    
    
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
  • Gillard tells states to act in good faith
    by Sid Marris
    
    "Julia Gillard has warned the Labor states not to hinder the Rudd Government's $1 billion computers-in-schools program.

    "The Acting Prime Minister yesterday reminded the states that they had welcomed initiatives by federal Labor during the election and she expected them to act in good faith now.

    "I think when you saw our election promises rolling out you would have seen much commentary from our state and territory colleagues," she said.

    "And that commentary, whether it was in education or whether it was in health or whether it was in water, it was all about how they would love to be in a position to end the blame game and to work with a federal government that was prepared to work with them." [So the states not having the feds to blame has come back and bit them on the bum? Web]

    "States secured an undertaking at last week's Council of Australian Governments meeting that the commonwealth should pay for its own election promises.

    "State ministers believe this includes the election promise of $1 billion to provide one computer for every school student in Years 9 to 12, as well as the $2.5 billion plan to build high-quality trade centres.

    "The concern for the states relates to paying for powerpoints, wiring, airconditioning, security, maintenance and training for teachers once the computers are delivered.

    "Despite more than half of all high schools having a ratio of one computer for eight students or worse, Ms Gillard would not criticise the states for the failure of their existing computer programs. She said they had programs in place but had lacked a federal government prepared to support them.

    "We have indicated to them ... to make sure that maintenance occurs; to make sure that professional development occurs for teachers so that the computers are fully integrated into the learning environment; that that takes a strategic co-investment and we are talking to them about the nature of that strategic partnership."

    "Ms Gillard said the negotiations would not affect the rollout of the first $100 million for computers to the most needy schools by July 1.

    "That program will lift the ratio initially to one machine for two students in up to 937 schools.

    "While the Government is confident of meeting that deadline, the Opposition has questioned the promise to roll out 20,000 skilled training places from today as a downpayment on its election commitment of 450,000.

    "Opposition training spokesman Andrew Southcott said it was still unclear where the courses would be offered.

    "Unfortunately, those who will benefit from this training and those who will provide the training have not yet heard from the Government when this training will actually commence," he said."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Indigenous kids start as equals
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "Indigenous children start school with a similar level of developmental skills as non-indigenous children, with gaps in achievement appearing to widen as they progress through school.

    "In tests measuring readiness for school and language comprehension, indigenous students aged five have the skills of non-indigenous students aged four.

    "The analysis by Australian National University researchers Andrew Leigh and Xiaodong Gong estimates that between one-third and two-thirds of the gap in test scores is related to socio-economic differences.

    "But Dr Leigh, from the Research School of Social Sciences, said the study showed that the big gaps in educational achievement occurred during the school years, not that indigenous students started school far behind the rest of the community.

    "Paradoxically, it's really quite an optimistic finding," he said. "It would be deeply depressing if we discovered that four- and five-year-olds were as far behind as 14- and 15-year-olds, which would basically tell us that the problem was in families," he said.

    "Governments are bad at fixing families but these results suggest we need to focus on schools, and that's something policymakers have been thinking for years now."

    "The study looks at the performance of about 5000 children aged four and five and their results in two cognitive tests measured in the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Children.

    "One test asked students to pick one of four pictures that best suited the word said by the examiner. The other asked students to perform 10 writing exercises, from copying shapes to completing a sentence to drawing a picture of themselves.

    "Indigenous students at the age of five were about one year behind their non-indigenous peers. Dr Leigh said other studies, and the national literacy and numeracy tests, have shown this gap widens substantially by late primary and early high school."

    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Age
    
    
    
  • Students face stress alone
    AAP
    
    "University students are suffering more stress than the rest of the population but are not seeking help, a new study has found.
    
    "The reality of the pressures of student life was a far cry from the notion of carefree student days, said psychologist and researcher at the University of Queensland Helen Stallman.

    "More than half the 384 students who attended a Brisbane university's health service in October last year for physical complaints also reported mild to very high levels of psychological distress, including depression and anxiety, Dr Stallman said.

    "Most were full-time, female undergraduates aged between 18 and 24, who said they were unable to work or study for an average of eight days each month and could only work at reduced capacity for another nine days.

    "Twenty-six per cent were likely to have a mild disorder, 16 per cent a moderate disorder, and another 16 per cent were likely to have a severe mental disorder, Dr Stallman said.

    "But perhaps the most disturbing finding was that 65 per cent had not sought any support or treatment.

    “That means they are just doing it tough on their own, which could have an impact on their studies,” Dr Stallman told AAP today.

    “They may withdraw or even drop out of uni completely and hence they are not reaching their potential if they do that,” she said..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
    
  • Classification regime revealed
    
    Cloud physics and private policing. String theory and nanomedicine. Ubiquitous computing. Consumption and everyday life. Understanding past societies not elsewhere classified.

    These are just a few, eye-catching research fields from the new regime for classifying the myriad objects of academic inquiry.
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Private school in refugees program

    A private girls' school in Melbourne's south will offer scholarships to Sudanese refugees in what is believed to be the first program in the state directly aimed at helping refugees enter non-government schools.
    

 

Wednesday 2 April

• American Educator: Spring 2008
  Published by the American Federation of Teachers [AFT]
  
  
  • Calling for Clear, Specific Content

    "The AFT has been calling for standards with clear, specific content for more than a decade. But by and large, state standards are still vague and repetitive. For this issue, we called on education and subject-matter experts, as well as new and veteran teachers, to explain why strong standards are necessary for a well-aligned education system-one in which teachers, curriculum writers, textbook and assessment developers, and professional development providers have a shared understanding of what students must learn in each grade. In addition to pointing out the major weaknesses of most state standards and their deleterious effects, this issue also presents examples of clear, specific standards—some from states, others from the International Baccalaureate and Core Knowledge."
    
    There are seven articles of interest:
    

    • There's a Hole in State Standards
      And New Teachers Like Me Are Falling Through, by a Second-Year Teacher
      
      
    • Plugging the Hole in State Standards
      One Man's Modest Proposal for Infusing More Content into the Literacy Block and Making Reading Tests More Equitable, by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
      
      
    • Common Ground
      Clear, Specific Content Holds Teaching, Texts, and Tests Together, by Heidi Glidden
      
      
    • California's Content-Rich History "Framework"
      
      
    • What's Missing from Math Standards?
      Focus, Rigor, and Coherence, by William H. Schmidt
      
      
    • No Contest
      Up Close, Typical State Biology Standards Don't Have the Content or Coherence of the International Baccalaureate, by Paul R. Gross
      
      
    • Informative, Not Scripted
      Core Knowledge Shows How Clear, Specific Content Supports Good Instruction
      
      Relevant to us and well worth a look !
      
      For future reference, this issue is linked permanently from PLATO's Examples of Curriculum Excellence page.
      
      
      
      
• The Manchester Evening News
  
  
  • Teachers vote for pay strike [1 April]
    
    "Teachers will stage the first national strike in 21 years on April 24, Britain's biggest classroom union announced today.

    "The National Union of Teachers said a ballot of its 255,000 members found a majority of those who voted were in favour of a one-day strike over pay.

    "The union is demanding a 10% pay rise, or £3,000 for every teacher in England and Wales this September, whichever is the greater.

    "Ministers have announced a 2.45% rise for teachers in England and Wales this year, with further rises of 2.3% in 2009 and 2010.

    "The NUT claims this offer represents a real-terms pay cut as it is below the rate of retail price inflation.

    "The proposed April 24 strike will come one week before local government elections and will hit thousands of schools in England and Wales in the run-up to tests and exams."

    From The Manchester Evening News at link
    
    Similar story in The Guardian
    
    
  
  
• The Australian
  
  
  • Aborigines 'locked out of real economy'
    by Natasha Robinson
    
    "Aboriginal people are condemned to poverty and treated as "museum pieces" by governments whose education policies have locked a generation out of the real economy.

    "Aboriginal leader Tracker Tilmouth has called for an urgent solution to the chronic underfunding of remote community schools, where up to 4000 indigenous children each year in the Northern Territory have no access to secondary education.

    "The former director of the Central Land Council, a member of the Stolen Generations who was educated at a mission school, backed the idea of boarding schools for remote indigenous students as one solution to the crisis.

    "Mr Tilmouth, one of Australia's most successful indigenous leaders who now works as an adviser to the Northern Territory mining company Compass Resources, said government policies on education were driven by the belief that Aboriginal people should continue living traditional lives.

    "This had resulted in a system that routinely produced students who could not read or write after sometimes more than 10 years of schooling. It was often left to mining companies who employed indigenous people to teach them to read and write, he said. [emphasis added]

    "There should be a royal commission into the state of education in the Northern Territory of Aboriginal children, because this is an act of genocide," Mr Tilmouth said.

    "We've got to move away from this ridiculous socialist experiment of (treating) Aboriginal people as museum pieces, living museums. We want to be able to look after ourselves, we want the economic independence. We can't do that unless we have a very good basis of education."

    "Indigenous children in the NT who are schooled in communities or outstations classified as "very remote" lag severely behind in literacy and numeracy.

    "The latest figures contained in the National Report on Schooling in Australia revealed that only 20per cent of very remote indigenous students in Year 3 met the national benchmark for literacy. Overall, less than 40per cent of indigenous students across the Territory met the national minimum accepted standard for reading.

    "Census figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week showed that 37per cent of the Territory's indigenous population had not gone to school beyond Year 8, with only 3000 indigenous people living in the NT having completed high school, compared with 45,000 non-indigenous people.

    "Just 397 Aboriginal people in the Territory completed a university degree, compared with more than 12,000 non-indigenous people.

    "Mr Tilmouth said he supported a proposal put forward last month by indigenous leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who said that dormitory-style accommodation should be built alongside remote schools.

    "Cape York leader Noel Pearson has also backed the idea of boarding schools.

    "Mr Tilmouth agreed that mission education was superior to the education being received by indigenous children today.

    "Mr Tilmouth, who has been heavily involved in a Central Australian horticulture project called Centafarm, has put forward a proposal to build an agricultural boarding school where indigenous students in communities surrounding Ali Curung, 370km north of Alice Springs, can be trained in Centafarm's project of growing grapes, oranges, citrus fruit, pomegranates and melons in the desert.

    "The indigenous leader blamed the education breakdown on lack of equipment, lack of teachers, a deficient curriculum that taught so-called culturally appropriate material instead of mainstream literacy and numeracy, and a flawed funding formula under which the Territory government chronically underspent the commonwealth money it was given for education.

    "But Mr Tilmouth said the problems in indigenous education ran deeper than the chronic lack of resources. He condemned cultural approaches to education that sought to fetishise Aboriginal culture.

    "We've got to move away from these socialist policies that 'Through your poverty you remain pure' ... this idea that this Aboriginal group is some strange lot of people from the Kalahari or somewhere like that," Mr Tilmouth said.

    "We've got to get away from the idea that the best place you can see Aboriginal people is on a postage stamp, to be amazed and wondered at, licked and then stuck on an envelope, which is what the case is at the moment.

    "If a child does not have access to education and is unable to go to school in a comfortable, reasonable manner and be trained accordingly, then you are sentencing that child to a life of unemployment, of dysfunction, of alcoholism, of drug abuse and substance abuse."

    "A spokesman for NT Deputy Chief Minister Marion Scrymgour, who holds the education portfolio, said the Territory Government was working closely with the federal Government to increase the number of teachers in remote communities."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Distant havens promote learning
    
    What is, and what could be the role of residential education for indigenous children who have been failed by families and schools in remote communities? This question stabs at the heart of black and white Australians who, with the national apology fresh in our collective psyche, are still coming to terms with the legacy of the Stolen Generations.
    
    
    
  • Curtin plays to its new strengths
    
    Curtin University of Technology plans to halve its 900 courses of study in favour of concentrating on its strengths and continuing to develop joint ventures with industry.
    
    
    
  • Business to back internships
    
    Business stands ready to help finance a widespread expansion of paid internships for university students with the promise of easing skill shortages and turning out more employable graduates.
    
    
    
  • Staff crisis first bill of order
    by Bernard Lane
    

    "The Government's higher education review will be pointless unless the sector starts to confront the crisis in academic staffing, recruitment expert Rohan Carr has warned.

    "Dr Carr, who was at the Sydney conference where Education Minister Julia Gillard announced the review last month, said an increase in funding would do little if universities could not find enough good academics to teach.

    "And the timetable of the review was too leisurely, given the acute shortage of academic talent in an ageing sector.

    "Something needs to be done now because it's going to take time (to fix the problem)," said Dr Carr, a director of the Insight Group.

    "In three years' time (when new funding arrangements are expected to arise from the review) we'll have lost three more years' (worth) of academics.

    "It's very easy to tip more money into the sector. What you can't do in a short timeframe is retain people or attract them into the sector."

    "Dr Carr said accounting, engineering and health and medical faculties had senior posts vacant, sometimes for as long as 12 months. There were 15 chairs of accounting waiting to be filled.

    "Some universities risked losing vital industry accreditation for their programs because they had fallen below the mandated number of senior, experienced academics on staff.

    "(If they did lose accreditation) students won't come (and) the publicity, you can imagine, would be very negative," he said.

    "About 30 per cent of the Insight Group's business was bound up in the search for senior academics: professors, deans and pro-vice chancellors.

    "One problem was an ever-greater emphasis on research, closing a career path for the teaching-only academics who could staff expanded programs in skills-shortage disciplines such as engineering.

    "Another was an imbalance between the heavier demands made of academics and the relatively poor payment and inflexible work arrangements on offer.

    "(As an academic) you have to churn out lots of research, you have to have a high teaching load, you have to manage," Dr Carr said.

    "The pressures on academics have well and truly exceeded the increases in their remuneration."

    "In accounting, for example, the rewards in private sector employment were much more attractive. Intensifying the competition for academic talent was the rapid construction of new universities in Asia, especially China and the Middle East.

    "Modern business had learned how vital it was to be able to attract and keep talent but most universities were oblivious to this truth. Their procedures often were too slow and cumbersome for hiring good academics and keeping them happy.

    "When it comes to people-management practices, they are a long way from leading edge," Dr Carr said.

    "Over the next decade, skill in securing and hanging on to first-rate academics might become more important for quality and reputation than the established advantages of a sandstone institution.

    "Already some universities are becoming more nimble at this than others," Dr Carr said."

    From The Australian at link
    
    

  
  
  • Research funding for cream of crop
    by Bernard Lane
    
    "The 1000 future fellowships promised to Australia's mid-career researchers will be thrown open to international competition, Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr has announced.

    "We can't demand that business become internationally competitive while shielding our researchers behind protective barriers," Carr told a gathering of business leaders in Melbourne last week.

    "The Australian Research Council will award future fellowships to the very best applicants, irrespective of nationality. We want to bring these scholars to Australia. This is how our competitors operate."

    "In last year's federal election campaign, Labor pitched the new fellowships - valued at $140,000 each - as an anti-brain drain policy that would "keep Australia's best and brightest mid-career researchers in Australia". At least 10 per cent of the fellowships were to be "targeted to encourage outstanding Australian researchers currently based overseas to come home toAustralia".

    "Carr says he expects the fellowships will "lure some of our gifted expatriates back" but has given no specific target..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Oz lit teaching in the spotlight
    by Jill Rowbotham
    
    "When The Australian's Rosemary Neill wrote a story under the headline "Lost for words" in December 2006, saying the teaching of Australian literature was being seriously neglected, it triggered a dramatic reaction.

    "Although Australia Council for the Arts literature board chairman Imre Salusinszky (also a journalist at The Australian) hailed articles Neill wrote on the topic as "groundbreaking", academics in the field felt badly wounded.

    "Neill reported a decreasing commitment to Australian literature measured in professorships and the number of courses dedicated to the genre.

    "Now, the University of Tasmania's Philip Mead, with colleagues at the universities of Queensland and Adelaide, armed with a $100,000 Carrick Institute grant, will take his own set of measurements, auditing the teaching of Australian literature at secondary and tertiary level.

    "The team will also set up a database of what they find for the benefit of those teaching the subject.

    "We used to teach Australian literature and think about it in terms of 'Australianness', and that we had to establish its credentials and had to do so in terms of nationalism and nationality," Dr Mead said.

    "Quite a lot of that establishing work had been done, he argued, with bibliographies written and some literary history.

    "So by the time the debate arose over the state and likely fate of Oz lit, he said, academics were already working out where it would go next and deciding the first thing to do was to establish its present position.

    "Now it's time to think in different ways about what the writers are doing," he said.

    "We need to find out what kinds of Australian literature teaching are going on now and in the recent past: where, what courses, what levels, whether they are stand alone or part of other subjects. Our challenge is to retrieve that information and get it into a useful form."

    "He will write a report on the findings for submission to the Carrick Institute by March next year, synthesising the findings. But he thinks it's already clear that better relationships are needed between the tertiary and secondary sectors, something the teachers and researchers of history have managed well.

    "If we are not going to teach Australian literature, who is?" Dr Mead said.

    "It's a vital aspect of our culture.

    "One of the starting points is to look at it from an undergraduate's point of view: What message are we sending? At the moment it looks fragmented and noncommittal in places. I think we need to have a clear sense of the way in which we value it and are committed to it.

    "One of the encouraging things is that there is a considerable interest in Australian literature among postgraduates. Some of the best and brightest are studying Australian literature.

    "For all the fragmentation at undergraduate level, somehow it still produces students who have an interest at postgraduate level."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Universities focus on science and maths
    by Jill Rowbotham and Bernard Lane
    
    "Adopting a cross-disciplinary approach to research, the University of Melbourne has created Australia's first physical biosciences program.

    "It has $6 million funding over five years, will be based in the university's school of physics and will use the Australian Synchrotron to facilitate research. A Thomas Baker professor of biosciences will be appointed to lead the program, named for the Baker Foundation, which is contributing $2.5million of the funding.

    "The professor will be responsible for marshalling researchers from diverse disciplines with the aim of bringing the strengths of physics to bear on bioscience problems.

    "Former head of the school of physics and Australian Research Council professorial fellow Geoffrey Taylor said that although biological sciences began by seeking to understand phenomena at a descriptive level, its modern needs had led to the embrace the techniques and knowledge of physical sciences.

    "As you get close to the drivers of biological processes you get closer to the molecular and atomic interactions - that's clearly physics - and you need to understand chemical reactions," Professor Taylor said.

    "The University of Newcastle also is in expansion mode, starting with the recruitment of maths stars Jon Borwein (visiting professor) and Natashia Boland (professor).

    "They're the nucleus around which we're going to build this new maths initiative," said John O'Connor, head of the school of mathematical and physical sciences.

    "The idea is to hire five more staff, sharpen the focus on applied maths (including computer-assisted work and operations research), attract more students and seek more industry collaboration, leaving the school stronger by two staff following the departure a year ago of Iain Raeburn's maths team for the University of Wollongong.

    "Extra federal money promised for maths seems to be reaching Professor O'Connor's school, rather than being swallowed up by central administration, as has been happening elsewhere in the sector.

    "An extra $1 million in income "certainly made it easier to argue for this ramp up (of the maths program)," Professor O'Connor said."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Free up study for foreign students
    by Bernard Lane
    
    "Allowing foreign students to take up scholarships for industry research should help ease skills shortages, according to John Ralston, director of the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia.

    "Professor Ralston, whose institute works on long-term industry problems, said the opening up of the Australian Postgraduate Awards Industry scholarships, announced last week by the federal Government, would "greatly help" remedy skills shortages.

    "In 2006 in the HES he pointed out that Australia was not producing enough talent in science, mathematics or engineering to fill these industry scholarships, thereby causing the abandonment of worthwhile linkage projects.

    "The problem had become "even more pronounced" since then, Professor Ralston said last week.

    "Margaret Sheil, chief executive of the Australian Research Council, which oversaw the linkage projects scheme, said the agency was approached at least once a week by applicants unable to fill an APAI locally.

    "They've got good international applicants (for APAIs) knocking on the door," Professor Sheil said.

    "She said the kind of engineering students suited to an APAI -- problem-solvers -- could command good money by taking up jobs in industry."

    "The shortage of APAI applicants in science and technology fields was a stumbling block, not only for linkage projects but for longer-term collaboration between university and industry. A project involving an APAI student often was the first step towards such collaboration.

    "Stuart Cunningham, president of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, welcomed the APAI initiative but urged Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr to take a bolder step.

    "Some places within the main scholarship program, the Australian Postgraduate Awards, should be opened up to overseas students, Professor Cunningham said.

    "Labor has promised to double the number of APAs by 2012. Asked about Professor Cunningham's idea, Senator Carr said: "We are considering a whole range of options."

    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Stop minding your language
    by Matthew Absalom
    
    "The push to revitalise the learning and teaching of Asian languages by Lu Kewen (Kevin Rudd's adopted Chinese name) and the federal Government is welcome and overdue. The Howard government's curtailing of National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy funding, which supported Asian languages education in schools from 1995 to 2002, has led tothe dramatic lack of expertise we experience today.

    "Educators musn't apologise for teaching other tongues, writes Matthew Absalom
    On Easter Sunday Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard indicated that her Government would work to significantly increase the number of students finishing secondary school with languages skills.

    "In media coverage of the languages push, two things stood out to me. First, Gillard noted the need for young Australians to "converse with people in our region in their own language". Second, it was reported that Gillard had sought information from the states on the extent of Asian language teaching and teachers. Along with an indication that languages will make it into the sights of the new National Curriculum Board, these are positive signs. I would sound a note of caution, however: don't let's put all our eggs in the one regional basket.

    "The solution is not simply to pour money into a limited range of (Asian) languages based on some limited perceived benefits, such as economic or geographic need.

    "The crucial first step, as my colleague Joe Lo Bianco has recently written, is to build success in language learning, both for students and for schools. One of the factors which limits our success is the apologetic nature of the language teaching profession in this country. We need to move past trying to justify the study of languages: the benefits of language study on literacy, intelligence, problem solving, reasoning and general study skills have been comprehensively proven and shouldn't have to be trotted out over and over. The message now should simply be that Australians will learn languages. It works for other areas of study. Have you ever seen a promotional campaign for fractions? Yet I'm sure that you, like me, accept that our children will study them at school without any need to be reassured about their positive effects on problem solving.

    "So, how to build success in languages learning? Here are my top three tips:

    • Teach English as a language. One of our great failings, and that of much of the English-speaking world, is to have gutted English of its status as a language. Recently appointed chief of the federal Government's push for the first national school curriculum, Barry McGraw, has identified phonics for inclusion in the primary curriculum. Phonics treats English as a language and is a step in the right direction to preparing students to study other languages. The present English literacy debate which paints grammar teaching in a negative light ignores the realities of the language teacher. In my teaching of Italian at Melbourne University, I have to teach general concepts about language (such as grammatical categories like verb, adjective, noun, or notions like verb tense) that apply to English because my students have rarely studied these before. This could be due to teachers' literacy standards. An approach to teaching English as a language would have exponential benefits for language learning success beyond school.
      
      
    • Focus resources. Australia is unique in its openness to languages in school education, which can be linked to our multicultural society and past. According to the National Statement for Languages Education in Australian Schools, in 2003, 146 languages were taught in both mainstream and non-mainstream school settings. This included 103 languages (embracing 68 Australian indigenous languages) taught in government, Catholic and independent schools; and 69 languages taught through after hours ethnic/community languages schooling.
      

      "By contrast, many non-English speaking countries mandate the teaching of English and, perhaps, one or two other languages of significance. A situation with a circumscribed number of languages would provide better opportunities for students for progression through the years of schooling. It would also alleviate the stress of finding teaching professionals across many languages. More teachers, and students, working with a smaller pool of languages would lead to fewer but larger communities of languages engagement. This would create a robust base for boosting success in languages in Australia. The system would need enough flexibility to allow for the study of other languages of significance to learners, such as community languages and those important for strategic reasons.

  • Adopt a two languages other than English approach: one Asian and one European. Research amply shows that speakers of European languages take considerably longer to acquire Asian languages than other European languages, and vice versa. Our Prime Minister knows this first hand. It makes sense that monolingual speakers of English would find quicker and greater learning satisfaction by studying a different European language. The sounds can be similar to English and easier to produce. The alphabet is the same or very similar for most European languages, with some noted exceptions such as Greek. Learning is always based on prior experiences so the success in another European language will galvanise the learner to approach an Asian language. European languages have also played a big part in the history of our nation. The two languages could easily be studied at the same time. Do your kids play more than one sport at the same time? More than one musical instrument? Why should languages be different? It's also important to remember that most of the world is at least bilingual; many people speak three or more languages well.
    

  "Asian languages are not intrinsically more difficult than European languages but for a monolingual English speaker they are genetically distant. European languages are like cousins whereas Asian and European languages are from two different families. With an Asian language a lot is going on at once: there is the question of managing a new writing system while taking on a whole new world view and grammar.

  "The tenor of discussion of languages at all levels of society shows that moves are afoot to address our appalling record of achievement in languages, rivalled only by that of Britain and the US. Initiatives such as UWA's languages other than English bonus for secondary school students who complete language study, to come into effect in 2011 for 2012 entry, are concrete strategies which should have a positive effect on the position of languages. We need a commitment to success, not a pot of money for a small group of languages seen to have economic benefits.

  "Research proves that multilinguals can quickly and easily add new languages to their linguistic repertoire. This flexibility is what's lacking and what we need to develop in our students. In this way we'll have enough eggs to fill all the baskets."

  Matthew Absalom is an academic in the Italian studies program at the University of Melbourne.

  From The Australian at link
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Cost of books blowing out debt
    
    Labor university students are calling on the Federal Government to increase their growing HECS debts by allowing them to defer the cost of their textbooks.
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • A Different Kind of Student Exam [from 30 March]
    
    Many schools across the region are requiring students to submit to a Breathalyzer test to gain entrance to school dances as part of efforts to curb under-age drinking.
    
    
    
  • Elite Colleges Reporting Record Lows in Admission [from 1 April]
    by Alan Finder
    
    "The already crazed competition for admission to the nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges became even more intense this year, with many logging record low acceptance rates.

    "Harvard College, for example, offered admission to only 7.1 percent of the 27,462 high school seniors who applied — or, put another way, it rejected 93 of every 100 applicants, many with extraordinary achievements, like a perfect score on one of the SAT [TEE] exams. Yale College accepted 8.3 percent of its 22,813 applicants. Both rates were records...
    
    "At Harvard, as at Yale, the applicant pool included an extraordinary number of academically gifted students. More than 2,500 of Harvard’s 27,462 applicants scored a perfect 800 on the SAT critical reading test, and 3,300 had 800 scores on the SAT math exam. More than 3,300 were ranked first in their high school class..."
    
    [Annual fees at Harvard are around US$50,000 BUT parents with incomes of US$180,000 or less are required to contribute significantly less to the cost of a Harvard education. Web]
    
    Full story in The New York Times at link

Thursday 3 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • MP accuses schools of 'dumbing down' TEE (page 3)
    by Kate Campbell and Amanda Banks

    "Some government high schools are failing to offer traditional TEE subjects such as English literature, languages and calculus, forcing students to study at other schools of through distance education.

    "The figures have prompted Independent MP Liz Constable to accuse the State Government of "dumbing down" the public education system and denying many students their desired career options.
    
    "But Education Minister Mark McGowan denied that standards were slipping, providing figures to show that a proportionate number of private schools also did not offer similar subjects.

    "He said the system was designed to ensure schools had the flexibility to offer courses to suit student needs.

    "The information, tabled in Parliament in response to questions by Dr Constable, reveals that 47 government high schools - nearly 30 per cent of the State's 160 public secondary schools - do not offer English literature in Years 11 and 12. More than 30 high schools fail to provide languages other than English and 23 schools do not offer Year 12 calculus.

    "The information reveals that course availability is being limited in country and city schools, with three high schools - Balga, Kwinana and Southern River - failing to offer English literature, chemistry, physics, calculus, applicable maths and languages other than English.

    "According to the information, schools do not offer subjects due to a range of factors, including students' choices, the likelihood of students' success and the "aspirations and expectations" of the school community.

    "Dr Constable said it was unacceptable that interested students at some high schools were forced to study the subjects at another campus or through the School of Isolated and Distance Education, suggesting more students would study the courses if available at their school.

    "Accusing the Education Department of stereotyping students in lower socio-economic areas, Dr Constable said she was surprised many of the high schools not offering the core subjects were in Perth.

    "It stratifies the community … by giving the impression that kids at Shenton, Perth Modern and Churchlands SHS can do the subjects but not kids at Busselton, Belmont or Kwinana because it's too hard and they don't need it," she said.

    "Mr McGowan said there was no evidence that the number of schools not offering traditional TEE subjects was increasing and the system which allowed individual schools to choose the courses they offered had been in place for decades.

    "This is common practice amongst government schools and private schools,"
    Mr McGowan said. "This is not new and it is not a trend. If we have a school where there is no demand for a course and no one enrolling, why (would) you have and empty classroom."

    From The West Australian
    
    Similar story on ABC News
    
    
    

  • Young pupils plotted to stab their teacher (page 28)
    Washington

    "A group of school children aged between eight and 10 took a broken steak knife, handcuffs and duct tape to a US school in a plot to attack their teacher.

    "As many as nine boys and girls were involved in the scheme at Center Elementary School, Waycross, South Georgia. Each was assigned tasks, including covering windows and cleaning up afterwards.

    "School officials alerted police after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school.

    "Police chief Tony Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock out the teacher with a crystal paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her.

    "We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Mr Tanner said.

    "The children were apparently angry at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, he said.

    "Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges on Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students had told investigators they had not taken the plot seriously or had insisted they had decided not to take part.

    "Some of the kids said, 'We thought they were just kidding', Mr Currie said.

    "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol and he told a detective he didn't bring it because he thought he would get into trouble."

    "The children are too young to be charged as adults and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention centre.
    
    "Mr Currie said he would seek juvenile charges against two girls, aged nine and 10, who took the knife and paperweight and an eight-year-old boy who took the tape.

    "He said the three faced charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault and both girls were being charged with taking weapons to school.

    "Nine children had been punished, including one who had been given a long suspension, Theresa Martin, a spokeswoman for the school system, said. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case cam to light.

    "The purported target was a veteran teacher who taught students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, parents said.

    "Mr Tanner said the teacher told detectives the children involved were not known as troublemakers."

    From The West Australian
    
    
    

• The Australian
  
  
  • Editorial
    Rudd should take a long-term view
    
    ... In education, computers for every Year 9 to 12 student do not constitute a revolution. While welcome, the computers will pose new cost challenges for schools in terms of IT support staff and maintenance. It remains to be seen whether the chairman of a new National curriculum Board, Barry McGaw, a part of the education establishment, is brave enough to give students and parents the rigorous curriculum the nation needs. Without effective testing and transparent reporting, the education revolution will prove hollow.
    
    
    
  • Students 'forced' to accept ID scans
    by Brad Norington and James Madden
    
    "A Sydney high school has been accused of intimidating students into having their fingerprints scanned for a new attendance monitoring system, and branding parents who object as "idiots".

    "Parents of students at Ku-ring-gai High School in Sydney's north say their children have been bullied into taking part in a trial of the scheme introduced this week.

    "According to a principal's note sent home with students last Friday, parents were permitted to opt out by sending an "exemption" letter to the school.

    "Parents told The Australian yesterday their children were told their fingers would be scanned anyway, and data later deleted, only if there were still objections..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    

Friday 4 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Poor denied TEE options (page 9)
    by Kate Campbell

    "Students in poorer areas are being pigeonholed and dissuaded by their schools from pursuing difficult TEE subjects, shadow education minister Peter Collier says.

    "Mr Collier said several concerned teachers had told him of a disturbing Education Department trend of strangling students' TEE aspirations.

    "His criticism follows the revelation that dozens of WA high schools fail to offer traditional TEE subjects including 47 that do no offer English Literature in Years 11 or 12, prompting accusations the Government is "dumbing down" public education.

    "More than 30 secondary schools do not offer languages other than English and 23 do not provide Year 12 calculus. A number of schools do not offer applicable mathematics, physics and chemistry. Students are forced either to study the subjects at another school or though the School of Isolated and Distance Education.

    "The figures revealed that 36 students studying physics and 23 studying chemistry were using distance education because their schools did not offer the subjects.

    "But Education Minister Mark McGowan said the lack of these subjects was not confined to government schools, revealing 32 non-government schools did not offer Year 12 English Literature and 23 failed to provide Year 12 calculus, which was on par in ratio with public schools.

    "Principals at some of the government schools conceded that the subjects offered were largely dependent on the school's demographics.

    "Mr Collier yesterday accepted it was not practical for some schools to run certain courses but he was disappointed that discouraging students from taking up difficult TEE subjects was becoming an "entrenched phenomenon". He said the Government was pigeonholing students into non-academic areas.

    "Many students in Perth's northern suburbs will struggle to study English Literature, with Balga Senior High School now a VET (vocational education and training) school and big high schools in Girrawheen, Mirrabooka and Warwick not offering the subject.

    "You can't assume every student at Balga or every student at Mirrabooka or every student at Girrawheen is non-academic inclined," Mr Collier said.

    "Karen Read, principal at Southern River College in Gosnells, which does not offer any of the TEE subjects listed in the figures, said many students chose a VET pathway to follow their parents. Principal of Cecil Andrews Senior High School in Armadale Dick Hunter said the lure of big money in skilled trades was a big factor in the drift away from TEE subjects.

    "State School Teachers' Union president Anne Gisborne said the Government needed to provide reassurances that teacher shortages were not limiting students' choices.

    "Catholic Education Office director Ron Dullard said most Catholic high schools had a full range of TEE subjects."

    From The West Australian
    
    

  • NSW teachers set to strike [late update: online only]
    AAP
    
    "Teachers have given the NSW government three days to return to the negotiating table over staffing agreements or face statewide industrial action.

    "All public schools across NSW are expected to be disrupted next week, with the NSW Teachers Federation confirming it would push ahead with a two-hour stop work meeting on Tuesday morning.

    "It is expected teachers will then vote on whether to stop work for 24 hours in May.

    "The federation is angered by the NSW government's changes which will allow principals to directly hire staff, fearing the move will undermine a long-standing incentive transfer scheme.

    "Under the incentive scheme, teachers are encouraged to take up rural and remote postings, making them eligible to go to the top of the transfer list for a more desirable posting later in their career.

    "NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca has said the new staffing arrangements will take effect on April 28, the start of term two.

    "But federation president Maree O'Halloran said if the direct-hiring reform went ahead, it would do away with incentives and could lead to a shortage of teachers willing to work in country NSW.

    "She said teachers did not want to take industrial action, but the state government had left them with no alternative.

    "It's always terrible if teachers have to take industrial action," Ms O'Halloran told AAP.

    "It's awful for the parents and the students, and for the teachers because they feel responsible and they are losing salary when they stop work.

    "There are a whole range of reasons why it would be good not to have industrial action, but we've got a government who has just walked away from an industrial agreement we've had for 15 years."

    "Ms O'Halloran said the two staffing arrangements could not co-exist and the government should take up the federation's recommendation of delaying the changes for 12 months until the issues were worked through.

    "A number of schools around the state have already held stop work meetings to discuss the detail of the government's changes.

    "However, Mr Della Bosca said the government was committed to pushing ahead with the changes from term two.

    "We are committed to putting in place these improvements," Mr Della Bosca said.

    "The Department of Education is not dismantling or abolishing the transfer system.

    "The centralised staffing system will remain and transfer incentives for remote schools are untouched."

    "A spokesman for Mr Della Bosca said the Teachers Federation had been invited to be part of a working party to oversee the implementation of this issue, but it had withdrawn from the process.

    "The federation was welcome to return to those meetings at any time, the spokesman said."

    From The West Australian online at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • 10am starts may heal school daze
    by Adele Horin
    
    "High schools should start at 10am to tackle the chronic sleep deprivation of teenagers, says a researcher who has studied adolescent sleep patterns.

    "Greg Murray said adolescents were getting almost an hour less sleep a night on average than they needed during school term.

    "But Mr Murray, convener of clinical psychology programs at Swinburne University, said modern technology was not to blame. "It's not just that these young people are choosing to play on the 'net," he said. "Our findings strongly suggest if you took all that away they'd be sitting on their beds twiddling their thumbs."

    "As children turned into adolescents, they naturally became sleepier later. But they still needed as much sleep as primary school students between eight hours and eight hours and 45 minutes a night, he said.

    "Sleep deprivation contributed to the students' irritability, bad mood, inability to concentrate, poor memory, lethargy and possibly to depression, reports from the students indicated.

    "Adolescents who have to get up at 6 or 6.30am to get to school in time for extracurricular activities or an early school start, or to travel long distances to get to school, we know that's not the best for them," Dr Murray said.

    "A forward- thinking school would look seriously at how to modify their schedule to improve the outcomes for adolescents."

    "Dr Murray and fellow researchers Suzanne Warner and Denny Meyer compared the sleep patterns of 310 year 11 students during school term time and holiday time. Unsurprisingly, students went to bed later and woke up later in the holidays than during school term.

    "The difference in sleep duration in term time and holidays was particularly marked on Sunday to Thursday nights. The young people slept on average one hour and 17 minutes less on these nights during the school term than in holidays, with most trying to catch up on the weekend. On school days they got up 2½ hours earlier than they did in the holidays."

    From The Age at link [also in The Sydney Morning Herald]
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Now teachers vow to strike over housing [late update from 3 April]
    
    The state of teacher accommodation is so bad in Queensland that security doors had been fitted to houses so damaged by termites that burglars needed only to kick in the walls. Queensland teachers in remote areas have followed the state's nurses in issuing an ultimatum to the Labor Government to fix their housing or they will go on strike.
    
    
    
  • High school suspends fingerprint scanning
    
    A Sydney high school has suspended a fingerprint scanning program for its students after complaints that they were bullied into co-operating.
    
    Similar story in The Sydney Morning Herald
    
    
    
    
  • Poor miss out on 'elite' tertiary places
    by Matthew Franklin, Chief political correspondent
    
    "The nation's universities are becoming more elite, with rates of participation by the poor going backwards in the five years to 2006.

    "Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a higher education forum in Sydney yesterday that Australian universities had "a major problem with equity" with people from rural and regional areas and lower socio-economic groups, as well as Aborigines, dramatically under-represented.

    "Vowing that Rudd government policies would begin to correct the problem, Ms Gillard said: "When it comes to university education, while total numbers of students have grown spectacularly since the early 1980s, the socio-economic mix of students has hardly changed for the last 40 to 50 years.

    "While we have many high achievers, our tail of lower performers is long. We suffer from weak literacy performance in the bottom layer of school students and high drop-out rates."

    "Ms Gillard said the participation rate of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds fell from 15.1 per cent to 14.6 per cent between 2001 and 2006, despite the groups making up about 25per cent of the population. In the same period, participation by students from rural and regional areas fell from 19 per cent to 18 per cent. Students from those areas were also less likely than those in cities to complete Year 12..."

    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    • Gillard matches Bishop's equity pledge [from 3 April]
      
      
      
      
  • Boom times mining university talent
    by Guy Healy and Paige Taylor
    
    "Three universities in the mining boom states of Queensland and Western Australia have relinquished hundreds of student places as school-leavers increasingly choose the quick money of the resources industry over a university degree.

    "Last month's return of more than 1700 tertiary places by Edith Cowan University in Perth, Central Queensland University in Rockhampton and Queensland University provides solid evidence to back up what to date has been anecdotal reports of the mining boom syphoning off potential students..."
    
    "For Justin Warburton, it was an easy decision to give up a commerce degree at the University of Western Australia for a job with a mining company..."
    
    "Mr Warburton, who turned 18 last month, can earn up to $135,000 a year on remote mine sites when he finishes his four-year apprenticeship. Perhaps not surprisingly, his parents were not disappointed when he told them he wanted to drop his university plans and instead start an apprenticeship in the mining sector..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    

    • Feature: Sucked in to the mines
      
      
      
      
• The New York Times
  
  
  • School’s New Rule for Pupils in Trouble: No Fun
    by Winnie Hu
    
    "Cheektowaga, N.Y. — Like a bouncer at a nightclub, Melissa Gladwell was parked at the main entrance of Cheektowaga Central Middle School on Friday night, with a list of 150 names highlighted in yellow marker, the names of students barred from the after-hours games, crafts and ice cream because of poor grades or bad attitudes.
    
    “You’re ineligible,” Ms. Gladwell, a sixth-grade teacher, told one boy, who turned around without protest. “That happens. I think they think we’re going to forget.”

    "In a far-reaching experiment with disciplinary measures reminiscent of old-style Catholic schools or military academies, the Cheektowaga district this year began essentially grounding middle school students whose grade in any class falls below 65, or who show what educators describe as a lack of effort.

    "Such students — more than a quarter of the 580 at the school as of last week — are excluded from all aspects of extracurricular life, including athletic contests, academic clubs, dances and plays, unless they demonstrate improvement on weekly progress reports filled out by their teachers.

    "The policy is far stricter than those at most high schools, which generally have eligibility requirements only for varsity sports teams. It is part of a larger campaign to instill more responsibility in young adolescents in this town of 80,000 on the outskirts of Buffalo. Starting this week, the students also automatically get detention on any day they fail to wear their identification cards; 13 were punished on the first day of the new policy and 14 the second, including several repeaters.

    "And there are social rules that govern nearly every minute of the day, from riding the bus to using the bathroom, as part of a program known as “positive behavioral interventions and supports.” Students are required to keep to the right of the dotted yellow line down the middle of hallways. They are assigned seats in the cafeteria and must wait for a teacher to call them up to get food. If enough students act up or even litter, they all risk a declaration of “silent lunch” in the cafeteria.

    “I’d like to go to a normal school,” said Anthony Pachetti, 12, a seventh grader who has been barred from activities for failing math, science and social studies. “It’s not doing anything for me except taking everything away.”

    "Such harsh regimens are rare, and generally have been found in tough urban schools like Eastside High in Paterson, N.J., where Joe Clark, an Army-drill-instructor-turned-principal, famously expelled dozens of students in a single day in the early 1980s, and inspired the movie “Lean on Me.” Now tough policies are spreading to outlying areas like Cheektowaga at a time when they are facing increased pressure to improve academic achievement. Middle schools, in particular, have long struggled with performance slumps and competing theories on how to strike the right balance between structure and independence for students at a transitional, volatile age. But few have gone as far as Cheektowaga has in clamping down on the natural disorder of early adolescence.

    "Even Joe Clark’s Paterson district backed away from requiring that 10th, 11th and 12th graders maintain a 2.5 grade-point average to participate in extracurricular activities in 2006. Instead, it adopted a lower standard — a 2.0 average only for athletes — after community opposition.

    "Critics of the tough-love approach cite studies showing that students active in extracurricular activities tend to perform better in class, and they worry that without structured activities after school, troubled youngsters will be more apt to find trouble.

    “A child who only has detention to look forward to at the end of the day is less likely to come to school,” said Laura Rogers, a school psychologist in Harvard, Mass. and the co-author of “Fires in the Middle School Bathroom.”

    "Deborah Meier, a senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education and a former New York City principal, said that such “law and order” approaches are counterproductive.

    “Sounds like prison,” she said of Cheektowaga. “It’s such a sad, sad commentary because, in my opinion, the improvements that it can make in behavior are marginal, and it does not begin to touch upon what engages the students in school.”
    
    "Some similar tactics have been tried recently in places as varied as rural Twin Falls, Idaho, where high school students with grade-point-averages below 2.0 were barred from competing in extracurricular activities and required to attend tutoring starting this year, and in the Pittsburgh suburbs, where the Penn Hills school district set a 1.5 minimum average in 2006 to qualify for activities, raised that to 1.75 this school year, and has bumped it up again, to 2.0, for next fall.

    "Here in Cheektowaga, the new policy arrived with a new principal, Brian Bridges, who said that over four years as an assistant principal at the school, he saw less and less respect — and more and more attitude — from students growing up in a society that he believes is too permissive.

    "At the same time, many teachers were not prepared for the new students brought by the demographic changes sweeping the school, he said; its enrollment has gone from overwhelmingly white and working class to 35 percent black and Hispanic in recent years as minority families have moved in from Buffalo. And nearly half the students are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-price lunches.

    "Mr. Bridges, 39, is a former social worker who said that he was raised by a strict single mother who smacked him when he so much as gave her a disrespectful look. Teachers here nicknamed him “Joe Clark” and gave him a bullhorn, which he gladly accepted and sometimes uses in the hallways and to direct students to buses. He said that bringing more structure and discipline to the school creates a safer environment and teaches students to be members of a community.

    "So along with barring failing students from after-school activities, he has added things like pep rallies and hat and pajama days during school hours, and rewarded those who succeed under the new rules with raffle prizes.

    "On Friday afternoon, Mr. Bridges straddled the yellow line in a hallway to force students passing in both directions to stay on the right side.

    “Go back!” he roared at an eighth grader bounding by him.

    "The boy stopped, protested, went back, then made the trip down the hallway again — at a fast walk.

    “I’m the first one in the hallways wanting to have fun with my kids,” Mr. Bridges said. “But I know I have to have a stronger hand.”

    "It is too soon to see whether the policies will have an effect on state test scores, since this year’s results will not be released until late spring. Last year, 53.8 percent of eighth graders passed the state’s standardized math tests and 51 percent language arts, compared with 58.8 percent and 57 percent statewide.

    "Ms. Gladwell and other teachers said that there has not been an overall improvement in classroom grades, but that they had seen more homework turned in, more class participation, and fewer fights in the hallways and cafeteria. Attendance has stayed steady at about 95 percent.

    "The new eligibility policy for extracurricular activities drew complaints from more than two dozen parents last October after the school barred 75 students from attending the first dance, Mr. Bridges said.

    "But Sondra LaMacchia, a stay-at-home mother of five, said that after years of telling her 14-year-old daughter, Cortney, to study harder, the message came through much clearer when Cortney had to watch her friends and younger sister attend school dances from which she was barred.

    “It’s nobody’s fault but hers,” said Ms. LaMacchia, 35.

    "Some teachers have complained that enforcing the policy takes time away from academic instruction and burdens them with paperwork. There have also been concerns that the eligibility policy was keeping students from pursuing academic interests like the math and science clubs.

    "Ms. Gladwell, who is also the school’s volleyball coach, benched one of her top players in October because she forgot to bring her progress report. Afterward, she said, the player’s mother came up and thanked her.

    “She never forgot again,” Ms. Gladwell said. “It’s about teaching them responsibility.” [emphasis added]

    "Ellen Pieroni, 13, an eighth grader who is co-president of the student council, had considered boycotting a dance in December because her friends could not go, but now says that she supports the policy. “I think they get lazy and don’t do the work,” she said. But other students said that the school had too many rules.

    "Having forgotten his identification card for the seventh time this year, Cameron Kaeding, a sixth grader, had to wear a temporary sticker and wait to get his lunch because students without their ID cards are served last. He has also been kept from a pep rally and two dances because of his struggles in math and social studies. “It’s horrible,” he said. “I think it’s going a little too far because kids aren’t perfect, and this school thinks that they are.”

    From The New York Times at link

Saturday – Sunday, 5 – 6 April

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Fourfold increase in teachers’ quit rate adds to shortage fears (page 16)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "More than 700 teachers quit work in State schools last year — four times the number who resigned in 2006 — fuelling fresh fears that WA will struggle to cope with growing teacher shortages.
    
    "Department of Education and Training figures show that 419 of those who handed in their resignations in 2007 were from high schools and 304 were primary school teachers.
    
    "In comparison, 163 teachers resigned from the public education sector in 2006, 73 from primary schools and 90 from high schools.
    
    "Indications are that the flight is continuing, with 281 teachers resigning already this y