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Monday 18 August

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Teachers want OBE killed off in all years (Front page)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “WA’s contentious outcomes-based education system has re-emerged as an election issue with a leading education group demanding the Labor and Liberal parties abolish it from kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    “Teachers’ lobby group PLATO, which had a pivotal role in Alan Carpenter’s backdown on OBE for Years 11 and 12 last year, said the discredited system still dominated education up to Year 10 and must be dismantled.
    
    “Does your party intend to remove the outcomes-based curriculum framework from legislation and thereby acknowledge the failure of the OBE experiment?” PLATO asked in its latest letter to political parties.
    
    “Group chairman, Marko Vojkovic demanded that whichever party won the State election, it commit to removing the “levels” which are at the heart of OBE assessments.
    
    “Under it, students are marked on their individual performances rather than being compared with other students.  There are claims it creates a lowest common denominator with little distinction between high and low achievers.
    
    “The OBE has been one of the Government’s most embarrassing episodes.  After ignoring the outcry from parents and teachers for months, the Premier, who said he was an ardent supporter of the system, backed down by eliminating key aspects of it for Years 11 and 12.
    
    “The debacle saw the Government attack The West Australian for its coverage and cost minister Ljiljanna Ravlich the education portfolio.
    
    “Labor abolished levels for Years 11 and 12 last year and restored traditional grades.  But levels remain at the heart of the system from kindergarten to Year 10, even though this is largely hidden from parents.
    
    “Teachers are required to assess students on eight broad levels in each learning area.  These are converted to grades from A to E which appear on report cards while levels do not.
    
    “Mr Vojkovic said relying on OBE levels should be abandoned because they were too broad for accurate assessment and it was illogical to have different marking systems in upper and lower school.
    
    “The fact that we had to get rid of the levelling assessment regime in upper school proves that it is an invalid method of assessment and now surely we should get rid of it in kindergarten to Year 10,” he said.  “Where’s the incentive to get 95 per cent when you can get an A with 55?”
    
    “Education Minister  Mark McGowan said Opposition Leader Colin Barnett introduced OBE to WA and abolished syllabuses from kindergarten to Year 10 as education minister. [Oh what a tangled web we weave....  Web]
    
    “I have reintroduced toe K-10 syllabus (and) returned to traditional forms of marking.” he said. “We’ve had to move away from the purist form of OBE put in place by Mr Barnett and supported by (shadow education minister) Peter Collier.
    
    “Mr McGowan said levels had been removed from State school reports to minimise confusion for parents.  Teachers had not been required to mark in levels since March last year.
    
    “But he said grades had to be linked to levels to maintain a “common standard” across WA.  New software to be rolled out this year would make it easier for teachers to input grades.
    
    “Mr Barnett appeared to distance himself from the issue, refusing to comment.  But Mr Collier said Labor had mismanaged to implementation of OBE and removing levels was now Liberal policy because they were “meaningless”.
    
    “He left the door open to dumping the curriculum framework, saying the Liberal Party would audit all assessment procedures.
    
    “Mr Collier said assessment had become a convoluted, confused and unworkable system for Years 1 to 10 and levels were too imprecise to judge progress.  Whole cohorts of students would be on the same grade because the levelling system was so vague.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    

  The Issue That Won’t Die [page 6] “It’s not my intention to roll anything back… we will be working to meet our implementation time frame.” LJILJANNA RAVLICH The West Australian, May 5, 2005 “I have said that we will move towards full implementation in 2007, if however for whatever reason one of the subjects or two of the subjects are not ready to proceed with… then we will not be proceeding with it.” LJILJANNA RAVLICH The West Australian, September 9, 2005 “I think OBE is a dead issue. It has been overplayed.” LJILJANNA RAVLICH The West Australian, February 2, 2006 “This change is absolutely critical to our students and the long-term interests of WA and it is a change that will work.” ALAN CARPENTER The West Australian, February 2, 2006 “Outcomes-based education is being introduced because it delivers better educational results. The government will proceed with the implementation of outcomes-based education because it is in the interests of young Western Australian people.” ALAN CARPENTER The West Australian, March 3, 2006 “OBE is dead and outcomes and standards education is the way forward.” LJILJANNA RAVLICH The West Australian, July 4, 2006 “We are keeping those parts of the system that are working.” ALAN CARPENTER The West Australian, January 23, 2007 “We rolled back lots of what was put in place in 1998. So now we have a system based on content, syllabuses, exams and traditional marking.” MARK McGOWAN The West Australian, January 1, 2008

  
  
  

  • Editorial
    OBE spectre continues to hover over WA schools (page 20)
    
    “The flawed piece of social engineering that is outcomes-based education refuses to disappear.  The State Government has reacted to public condemnation of the system by declaring it dead for students in Years 11 and 12 but its pernicious presence has not been eradicated from the classrooms of younger children.
    
    “Now the education lobby group PLATO has put OBE on the election agenda by demanding that is also be removed, once and for all, between kindergarten and Year 10.
    
    “The group says that the framework of OBE continues to dominate the education system in this State and should be dismantled.
    
    “At the heart of both PLATO’s and the community’s concerns about OBE is its absurd and illogical marking system.  Under OBE teachers are required to mark student achievement within a broad range of levels, instead of the easy-to-understand percentages and grades which parents have demanded.
    
    “This newspaper has long called for a return to the simple and concise marking system which leaves parents in no doubt about how their children are performing at school.  State schoolteachers are required to assess students against eight broad levels of achievement in each subject, a contrived system which many believe does not provide a clear picture of a child’s performance.
    
    “After fighting a long and bitter rearguard action, the State Government finally accepted the concerns of teachers and parents and all but abandoned OBE in Years 11 and 12.  But not before many teachers had quit, citing confusion and extra work associated with OBE as a reason for disenchantment with teaching.
    
    “Before is was changed, the TEE English course exemplified much that was wrong with OBE.  In its original form it was possible for a student to complete the course without studying any set texts.  It was the kind of idiocy which when added to the apparent determination to keep a child’s actual performance in the classroom a secret from parents, brought about the end of OBE in Years 11 and 12.
    
    “It took Alan Carpenter a long time to accept that there serious shortcomings with OBE and the Premier’s recalcitrance compounded the damage.
    
    “Yet the link between grades and levels has remained because, Education Minister Mark McGowan insists, there must be a common standard across the State.  He does promise, however, that new software which will be available by the end of the year will make it easier for teachers to use traditional grades in their marking.
    
    “PLATO intends making the complete removal of OBE an election issue.  While the Opposition has stopped short of promising to oust it from all school levels, education spokesman Peter Collier says he believes that assessment has become convoluted to the point that it is unworkable.
    
    “That is what the broader community has been saying since this lunacy was first revealed.
    
    “But the best Peter Collier can come up with by way of promise is that a Liberal government would audit all assessment procedures.  As education spokesperson for a significant part of the OBE debacle he should be able to do better than that and commit his party to a firm policy of removal, and the sooner the better.”
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Alston (page 20)


© The West Australian




• SSTUWA - Vote NO on EBA 3 "In Principle Agreement"
  
  
  • A must-see YouTube video
    
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
• Editorial
  Addled thinking
  
  "A national report advocating the study of Elle Macpherson's underwear alongside Picasso's pictures in schools highlights what a battle the Rudd Government faces with influential sections of the educational establishment. To its credit, the Government has flagged a national school curriculum focused on core subjects such as English, maths, science and history.
  
  "But the National Review of Visual Education, commissioned by the previous government, wants a rethink of arts education to end the distinction between art and other images. In claiming "it is no longer either defensible or responsible for the visual arts educator to focus only at the traditional end of the spectrum", it is replicating the addled thinking that has blighted English. This has seen literature relegated in favour of text messages, websites, junk mail, cartoons, advertisements, reality television and even road signs.
  
  "As parents are looking to the long-awaited national curriculum to lift standards, it is indefensible and irresponsible for a national review to be promoting "visuacy" - aptly labelled a "horrible neologism" by The Australian national art critic, Christopher Allen, on Saturday.
  
  "Australia's long educational tail of under-achievement in basic literacy and numeracy is well documented. Test results show significant numbers of Year 3, 5 and 7 students, especially in disadvantaged areas, failing to reach national benchmarks that some educators suggest are set deliberately low to maximise attainment rates.
  
  "Distracting teachers and students from improving the all-important "basics" by adding "visuacy" to the mix would be counter-productive in the extreme, especially for indigenous, non-English speaking and other disadvantaged children who are less likely to receive help at home.
  
  "Drawing, painting and learning about different schools of painters and sculptors through the centuries is also a vital part of education. Children are unlikely to be stimulated or have their appreciation of art enhanced by a curriculum that resorts to the most banal aspects of pop culture. As a subject, art is too important to be dumbed down.
  
  "Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard was correct in showing no enthusiasm for the report last week. She and state education ministers will need to be vigilant to ensure "visuacy" does not become a greater force in the classroom than it is already.
  
  "The drive to promote it was welcomed as long overdue by Australian Secondary School Principals Association president Andrew Blair, a member of the review's steering committee. And it is likely to have the support of teachers and heads of department whose perceptions have been limited by postmodern theory at university.
  
  "As many parents well know, analysing "visual imagery in every-day communication" - as advocated by the review - already occupies considerable classroom and homework time up to Year 12.

  "It should not be allowed to further encroach on subjects that matter."
  
  From the Australian at link
  
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Class struggle marches on [17 August online update]
    by Tony Smith, federal shadow minister for education
    
    "The world has had many revolutions - the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, to name just a few. Characterised by rapid and dramatic change, these revolutions altered cultural, socio-political and economic landscapes and uprooted the status quo.
    
    "So last year, when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised an "education revolution", school communities, parents and students expected big things quickly.
    
    "The pillars of this revolution included putting a computer on the desk of every upper secondary school student and a trades training centre in all of Australia's 2650 secondary schools. But just nine months on, not only are these policies failing in their implementation, they are chewing up billions of dollars of public funding while other issues that need to be addressed in education go unnoticed.
    
    "Despite what we were told last year, not all students will be getting their very own computers on their own desks as promised. Instead, at best, it will be a computer on every second desk, with a ratio of one computer to every two students now the "national benchmark".
    
    "Meanwhile, there will not even be enough money for things such as installation, maintenance, software, teacher training, security and extra electricity. Some estimates have these costs blowing out to more than $3 billion with the burden likely to fall on schools and parents through higher fees and more fund-raising.
    
    "But it is not only the digital revolution that has been watered down, so too has the $2.5-billion pledge to put a trades training centre in every secondary school.
    
    "In reality, this plan amounts to an average of $900,000 for each school at some time in the next 10 years. This might update the woodwork room, but will not create anything that resembles a centre.
    
    "To make the best of what is on offer, schools are having to pool their funding, meaning there will not actually be a trades training centre in every school.
    
    "The implementation of these policies hardly resembles anything like the storming of the Bastille.
    
    "At best this is a part-time revolution, complete with coffee breaks, smokos, sickies and a siesta.
    
    "Meanwhile the real issues needing reform continue to go unnoticed.
    
    "Such as the teachers - particularly young teachers - who leave the profession in droves, fed up with poor pay, inadequate training and no incentives in the classroom. And the issue of teacher quality: we now recruit many of our teachers from the bottom third of graduates, with some university teaching courses accepting candidates who have barely passed their HSC.
    
    "These problems must be addressed because it is teacher quality "that matters the most" when it comes to addressing educational disadvantage or doing anything to change the fact that one in 10 Australian children fails to meet the most basic literacy and numeracy benchmarks. This situation worsens the longer they are in school.
    
    "The problems could be solved with serious structural reform, which would include giving principals greater autonomy to hire and fire who they want, a performance pay model that would reward teachers for exceptional performance and improvements in student results and a more flexible entry and certification scheme to encourage - rather than punish - people who want a mid-career change into teaching. [emphasis added]
    
    "It could also mean supporting schemes similar to the successful Teach For America program and Teach First scheme in Britain, which have transformed the status of the profession by recruiting the best graduates to teach in the most disadvantaged classrooms for a no-strings-attached period of two years. It would mean having a more rigorous, back-to-basics curriculum.
    
    "As welcome as new computers might be, they will not create better teachers or dramatically improve educational outcomes.
    
    "Parents and students are waiting for a real revolution, a revolution that attracts the best and brightest into teaching and gives them a first-rate curriculum to teach with so that Australia can have the best education system in the world, not just win the race to have the most computers."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Teachers vote to stop work again [17 August online update]
    by Sarah Price, Education Reporter
    
    "Teachers will stop work again next month in their dispute over controversial staffing arrangements and pay.
    
    "Three hundred delegates voted in favour of the two-hour stopwork action on September 2 at yesterday's monthly NSW Teachers Federation council meeting.
    
    "Federation president Maree O'Halloran said no supervision would be provided by teachers at schools during the stopwork meeting, at which further industrial action would be discussed.
    
    "The dispute has been exacerbated by the absence of a full-time education minister, with John Della Bosca being stood aside in the wake of the infamous Iguanas nightclub affair. Police have completed their investigation into the actions of Mr Della Bosca and his wife Belinda Neal and the report is with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
    
    "While Attorney-General John Hatzistergos is acting in the role, teachers and parents say the lack of a permanent education minister has meant little is being done.
    
    "We haven't got a minister," Ms O'Halloran said. "The Government is just treating education with contempt."
    
    From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
    
    
    
    
  • Gillard goes ga-ga for New York state of schools
    
    The federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, arrived back from a US trip last week filled with enthusiasm for the educational fashions she saw in New York.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • The Monday Education Section has 10 articles, including:
    
    
    • Op Ed
      Reading by the book? No thanks
      by Christopher Bantick
      
      "This year marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Enid Blyton. For many school librarians, Blyton is a pariah. All those golliwogs and lashings of ginger beer were easybeats for the politically correct stewards of children's reading. In the 1970s and '80s, Blyton was banished from library shelves.
      
      "But maybe over-zealous librarians, so intent on improving children, missed something obvious. This was the way Blyton's books served as a kind of comfort food.
      
      "Many children in their pre-school years - and, if they are lucky, later primary levels - are read to by parents or teachers. Books become associated with pleasure. Mark Latham was on the money in 2004 with his Bookstart policy, when he declared: "I want children and families to feel at home in their library as they do in their own homes."
      
      "Mem Fox, author of 60 children's books, has underscored the importance of getting up close and personal with a book. "I know from my literacy work around the world, and from personal experience, that reading aloud to children makes them happier and smarter and sets them up for a much brighter future."
      
      "There is also mounting evidence that there is a significant link between familiarity with reading and books and positive health outcomes. Frank Oberklaid, director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital, says doctors should prescribe reading to children in the first five years of their lives to improve their chances of good health and wellbeing. "Research is overwhelming that investment in the early years is repaid seven times in terms of costs for remediation later on," he says.
      
      "But what about when children get older? What some school librarians and teachers fail to see is that books are not always about self-development or notions of worthiness.
      
      "It would be silly and irresponsible not to give children books that test them, but surely they also need to be able to read within their range of experience and comfort zone.
      
      "I find it hard to see how boys, for example, will get much out of Jane Austen. Notwithstanding her position as No.1 in the 101 best books ever written, according to one recent bookseller's poll, Austen's books work better for girls.
      
      "Books such as Pride and Prejudice are a turn-off for boys. The reason? Nothing ever happens - a reality that prompted England's former education secretary Alan Johnston to say tartly but truly last year: "To encourage reading, boys need not just Jane Austen but a necessary dose of Anthony Horowitz as well."
      
      "Ever-popular children's author Paul Jennings, who writes chiefly for boys, is onto something when he says: "Boys live within their own distinct culture and they have a right to stories about it."
      
      "Well-known author for teens John Moloney also has qualms about the books thrust upon young readers.
      
      "Some of the fiction that is offered to them is too much on the 'let's improve you as a person side'," he says.
      
      "Books such as the Goosebumps series and Blyton, not to forget Asterix and Tintin, have been dismissed as junk reads. But says who? Kids don't. The librarians do.
      
      "The late Pamela Bone wrote perhaps one of the most sensible pieces on reading in 2005. "There have always been born readers - those of us who read because we must - and always will be," she said. "But there are also many 'persuaded' readers, people who perhaps wouldn't have become readers had they not been encouraged by parental example, by teachers and by a general societal expectation that reading was a good thing to do."
      
      "Reading should not be misappropriated to instil preferred ideas and beliefs. To this end, the push for at least four Australian books to be studied in NSW classrooms by the end of year10 is cause for some unease.
      
      "According to the state's Education Minister, studying Australian literature is important in order to provide a sense of identity and insight into our national culture.
      
      "But - in the rush for eager librarians and teachers to thrust books into the hands of children declaring "You'll love it" - has an awareness that children might like to read something they like been lost?
      
      "It is a view pithily summed up by David Bell in 2005, when as the chief inspector of schools in Britain, he asked in a speech to mark World Book Day: "If we don't expect pupils to engage passionately with what they read, why should we be surprised that they can't see the point of taking a book home?"
      
      "If children are comfortable with books and get pleasure from reading, they may feel safer with a book when they are frightened, strengthened when they are weak, reassured when they have been criticised, find an escape from a demanding world, and be calmed when they are upset. This may be found, heaven forbid, in The Faraway Tree - or the even the Famous Five."
      
      Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer and education commentator.
      
      From The Age at link
      
      
      
      
    • Welfare quarantine 'will fail'
      by Farrah Tomazin
      
      "Giving welfare payments to Aboriginal parents in a bid to boost their child's school attendance is a simplistic measure that will fail to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students, according to a new report.
      
      "Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney have accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of following largely in the footsteps of the Howard government when it comes to indigenous affairs, and have hit out at Labor's decision to pay welfare as a condition of school attendance in some Aboriginal communities.
      
      "According to the report, such policies focus too heavily on "negative reinforcement" and blaming parents, rather than tackling other key problems behind non-attendance such as poor health and chronic underfunding.
      
      "Quarantining welfare payments is an extraordinarily expensive and inevitably ineffective short cut to increasing indigenous children's participation in education. Most importantly, it is diverting attention from what is known about what actually does work in getting children to want to stay at school and giving them opportunities in life that their parents didn't have," write researchers Larissa Behrendt and Ruth McCausland.
      
      "The report assessed past and current government policies based around "mutual obligation" - the notion that people receiving government payments should give back to society.
      
      "As part of an $18million Federal Government trial, for instance, parents in the Northern Territory who fail to enrol their children or get them to school regularly would have their welfare payments suspended until they boost their attendance. Schools are responsible for providing attendance figures to Centrelink, and full back-pay is only provided if parents can get their children to attend school within 13 weeks.
      
      "But the report, commissioned by the Australian Education Union and presented to its federal executive council in Darwin last week, argues there is little evidence to prove this approach would make parents more responsible, or improve their children's lives in the long-term.
      
      "Instead, researchers say the Government should focus on other measures to boost attendance in schools, such as: breakfast and lunch programs in schools making elders a part of the school community better training of Aboriginal teachers and teacher aides creating a more "culturally appropriate curriculum" for indigenous students.
      
      "The latest Productivity Commission figures show that the majority of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory fail almost every benchmark test of literacy and numeracy, with failure rates up to 10 times higher than the national average.
      
      "While the data suggests there has been progress in indigenous welfare, Aborigines and islanders lag far behind other Australians on almost every indicator.
      
      "In Victoria, one in four year3 indigenous students is not meeting basic reading benchmarks - well behind those in mainstream schools. In year5, the situation is even more pronounced, with almost 30% of students unable to read properly.
      
      "AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the report - Welfare payments and School Attendance: An analysis of Experimental Policy in Indigenous Education - showed underfunding was the biggest barrier to school attendance.
      
      "To date, Education Minister Julia Gillard has announced 19 of the 200 teachers promised over five years, and the NT Government an extra 10. This falls far short of the investment needed if the 2000 students currently not enrolled in schools in the NT do start attending," MrGavrielatos said.
      
      "A spokeswoman Ms Gillard declined to comment, saying the issue was a matter for Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin.
      
      "Ms Macklin's office said the minister could not comment onthe report as she had not seen it."
      
      From The Age at link
      
      
      
      
    • Liberals complain of uni bias
      by Bridie Smith
      
      "In its submission to a Federal inquiry into academic freedom, the Australian Liberal Students' Federation criticised what it considers a bias and promised to expose the "hideous intolerance of the very existence of the state of Israel" through the Senate inquiry.
      
      "President Byron Hodkinson cites Macquarie University as an example, saying "Khaldon", a blog run by academics, contained "shocking examples of anti-Semitism". The group's submission complains the blog asserted that the creation of Israel directly caused the development of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.
      
      "The word 'terrorists' was placed in inverted commas as if to say that organisations typically referred to as terrorist organisations were something else," the submission says..."

      Full story in The Age at link

      
      
      
• Op Ed
  Why academic freedom must be preserved
  by Dr Ben Saul, director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney
  
  "A last gasp of the Howard government's Senate was to order an inquiry into academic freedom in Australian schools and universities. The inquiry, which is expected to report in November, was triggered partly by a complaint by a Young Liberal about the Labor sympathies of her university lecturer, and by long simmering angst about the culture and history wars.
  
  "In a pejorative swipe at academics and teachers, the inquiry is considering "the level of intellectual diversity and the impact of ideological, political and cultural prejudice" in high schools and universities. It is also examining "the need for teaching … to reflect a plurality of views, be accurate, fair, balanced and in context"...
  
  Full story in The Age at link
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Real-world ratios
    
    "Brian Caldwell may think that preparing individual plans with weekly progress meetings in a special school of 150 students can easily be scaled up to a school of 1,500, but those of us in the real world can spot the difference immediately.
    
    "A special school may have one teacher for every five students, whereas in the typical primary school, the one teacher will be responsible for 25 or even 30 students, while in the typical high school, the one teacher will be responsible for 150 or even 200 students in different classes.
    
    "Even if the average secondary school had the extra five teachers it would have had under the 1979 staffing ratio, the task would still be impossible."
    
    Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge
    
    

• Values are neither right nor left
  
  "Mark Lopez's view (The Age, 15/8) that the left wing has taken over education sounds terrifyingly similar to the "reds under the bed" scare tactics of the past. It is a typical backlash from right-wing traditionalists whose historical place of power is being challenged by those who seek to give a voice to historical, social and political elements that have for too long been silenced in our textbooks and novels.
  
  "The argument that students with "politically incorrect" perspectives are disadvantaged just shows how little Mark Lopez knows about VCE assessment. Political views have nothing to do with success or otherwise. The capacity to deconstruct texts and defend a position using well-selected evidence and argument is what counts.
  
  "Issues such as indigenous and women's rights, racism, bigotry, poverty and suffering are not about a left-wing agenda and they are far from devoid of values. We are seeking to instil compassion, justice and care for others into the young people in our classrooms - the same young people who will one day become legislators, leaders and decision-makers and who will affect the fates of those who are suffering, disadvantaged or oppressed. That's the moral compass by which I want my own children and my students guided."

  Kate Hargreaves, Berwick
  
  

• Walk the talk
  
  "If, as Dr Mark Lopez suggests, our schools are dominated by leftist teachers, then why are right-wingers not rushing in to the teaching profession to even things out? Perhaps it has something to do with comparative wages and working conditions."

  Victor Rajewski, West Melbourne
  
  
  

• The New York Times
  
  
  • At School, Technology Starts to Turn a Corner
    
    Count me a technological optimist, but I have always thought that the people who advocate putting computers in classrooms as a way to transform education were well intentioned but wide of the mark. It’s not the problem, and it’s not the answer.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • The American school where teachers carry a pen, a ruler and ... a gun
    
    When teachers return for a new school term in the tiny Texas farming town of Harrold, they can bring a extra tool of the trade alongside books, pens and worksheets. To defend pupils from any gun-toting maniacs, they can carry loaded pistols into the classroom...
    
    Harrold's school board maintains that the move is necessary because the town is 25 miles from the nearest sheriff's office, making it hard to get swift help in an emergency. Its location just yards from a major highway, America's north-south interstate 287, makes it a potential "target" for armed maniacs.
    

Tuesday 19 August

• The West Australian
  

  • Assessment system in OBE falls short: expert (page 9)
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    “A renowned world education expert who specialises in assessment has backed claims by a teachers’ group that the discredited outcomes-based education assessment system is inadequate for use from kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    “University of WA education professor David Andrich said the same arguments used to eliminate the assessment system at the centre of OBE for Years 11 and 12 were equally valid for primary and lower secondary school.
    
    “Teacher group PLATO said this week the OBE system still dominated education up to Year 10 and should be dismantled. It has demanded that whichever party wins the State election should promise to remove the “levels” which are at the heart of OBE assessments.
    
    “A report by Professor Andrich – commissioned by the Curriculum Council in 2005 – played a pivotal role in the Government’s decision to abandon parts of the controversial system for Years 11 and 12 last year and restore traditional grades. It showed that levels were too crude a measure to use when ranking Year 12 students for university and for providing feedback to students.
    
    “The arguments against marking in levels for Years 11 and 12 are valid for students in primary schools as well,” he said.
    
    “Professor Andrich said he would be disappointed and surprised if OBE levels were still being used as the dominant form of assessment from kindergarten to Year 10. Although levels could be used as a general scale for curriculum planning or setting tests, they should not be used for individual student assessment.
    
    “He also was concerned that many schools apparently still expected teachers to determine a student’s level of achievement between one and eight then use a formula to convert that to a grade from A to E.
    
    “It seems to me that the levels should come last, not first,” he said. “There’s no need for grades to be dependent on levels because that elevates levels to being important.”
    
    “Principals’ groups yesterday rejected PLATO’s call for the abolition of OBE.
    
    “Speaking out on OBE for the first time, WA Primary Principals Association president Stephen Breen said the WA outcomes-based approach was world’s best practice. However, there were problems with OBE assessment.
    
    “WAPPA would support the levelling of students as an assessment tool to inform teacher planning but question its value in reporting to parents,” he said.
    
    “If OBE was abolished the question must be asked ‘what will replace it?’ If it is a rigid content-only curriculum based on grades, professional teachers would reject this approach.”
    
    “Mr Breen said OBE was not the enemy of primary education and the emotive OBE debate had the potential to divert attention away from other important issues such as staffing, resourcing and the national curriculum.
    
    “Secondary School Executives Association president Rob Nairn said OBE problems in Years 11 and 12 had been addressed and there was no need to move away from an approach based on sound education research. “Let’s not go back to outdated methods of teaching and learning from the mid – 1900s,” he said.
    
    “State School Teachers Union president Anne Gisborne said teachers wanted to be able to use different marking systems which could be collated into reports. “We have a range of people in our system, some who have only ever worked with levels and are being trained through the universities to assess in that way,” she said.”
    
    From The West Australian

    
    

  • Traffic warden cuts seen as a death trap (late pickup)
    by Stephanie Painter
    
    "Children could be killed walking to and from school because of restrictions on traffic wardens, according to the main group for the parents of State schoolchildren.
    
    "The WA Council of State School Organisations annual conference at the weekend asked the State Government to restore funding for wardens in areas that had failed to meet levels of vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
    
    "Council president Robert Fry said it was a matter of time before there was an accident and he could assume there had been near misses.
    
    “Having a sign alone is not sufficient, we need to ensure there are pedestrian crossings and they are properly manned and appropriately funded,” he said. “Let’s make it a community decision, not an arbitrary decision by a bureaucrat, that’s what it comes down to.
    
    “When there are traffic movements, small or large, there’s still the risk of an injury or the death of a child and that is just unacceptable.”
    
    "Shadow education minister Peter Collier said a Liberal government would review the traffic warden policy and it was unacceptable if children’s safety was compromised for $50 a week.
    
    “The Government has a bucketload of money and they’ve been dishing it out left, right and centre over the last two weeks,” he said. “So you’ve got to say, with all due respect, surely they can find something in the kitty to deal with the fundamentals.”
    
    "Police and Emergency Services Minister John Kobelke did not respond to questions yesterday.
    
    "The WACSSO also called on the Government to rid schools of asbestos by 2020. Mr Fry said most schools had asbestos and it should be removed and school infrastructure improved while there were budget surpluses.
    
    “While it’s left alone and is in good order, that is fine but things are getting older and things are deteriorating, so let’s get a program in place to get it dealt with before it becomes a more serious problem,” Mr Fry said.
    
    "Mr Collier said an independent audit of asbestos in schools was needed and the issue was urgent.
    
    "Education Minister Mark McGowan said he would consider the request but the Government’s asbestos management plan was consistent with that of Opposition Leader Colin Barnett when he was education minister, that student and staff safety was paramount.
    
    "The Department of Education and Training said it would cost “hundreds and hundreds of millions” to rid all schools of asbestos."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Alston (page 22)

  
  © The West Australian
  
  
  

  • Letters to the Editor (page 22)
    

    • No surprise

      “So the pollies have got yet another pay rise. Not surprising when you consider that the mineral boom has occurred because of their efforts and the fact that they are so much more productive than teachers, police and nurses.

      “Just watch out for flying pigs.”

      Eric Biddle, Boyup Brook
      
      

    • “If Alan Carpenter so trusts the salaries tribunal to set politicians’ salaries, why does he not let them set teachers’, nurses’ and the police rates of pay using the same national comparisons?”

      A R Crowder, Bickley
      
      

    •  “An election promise of more support for school leavers with disabilities – well done Mr Carpenter. If early elections can deliver this kind of response then I’m for early elections! I would, however, like to know why it has taken so many years for you to see the problem. Can I trust you to deliver?”

      Di Shepherd, Golden Bay
      
      
      

• The Independence Institute [USA]
  
  
  • The ABCs of OBE:Whats Wrong with "Outcome Based Education"
    
    A series of issues papers going back 15 years, and well worth a look.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Morris Iemma's Labor dead in water
    by Imre Salusinszky
    
    Labor is dead in the water in NSW, with voters reinforcing their preference for Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell over Premier Morris Iemma.
    
    "The Coalition continues to lead Labor on a primary and two-party-preferred basis, according to the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian in July and this month.
    
    "Labor is on 33 per cent primary support, with the Coalition on 40per cent. The two-point gain by Labor since the last Newspoll, published in June, is not statistically significant.
    
    "Mr Iemma is not the only Labor leader in the nation in deep trouble, with a Newspoll in The Weekend Australian on Saturday showing West Australian Opposition Leader Colin Barnett gaining on Premier Alan Carpenter ahead of the September 6 state election.
    
    "That poll showed Labor on 42per cent primary support, equal to the combined support of the Liberals and Nationals.
    
    "And Labor suffered a shock swing against it at the Northern Territory election earlier this month, losing a third of its MPs and hanging on to power by a single seat..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Premiers warned: beware the togglers
    by Imre Salusinszky
    
    Memo to Alan Carpenter, Anna Bligh, Mike Rann, John Brumby and David Bartlett:
    Be afraid. Be very afraid.
    
    "Put beside the shock result for Labor in the Northern Territory poll earlier this month, the latest dire Newspoll for Labor in NSW confirms the "toggle voters" are on the move. Toggle voting describes the phenomenon of voters hedging their federal and state voting intentions.

    "In NSW, during the 12 years of the Howard government, these voters were capable of voting for John Howard federally, then turning to throw their support behind Bob Carr or Morris Iemma at state level.

    "The question was always what these voters would do once the government changed in Canberra, and now we are starting to get an answer: they will stay true to form and wreak havoc on Kevin Rudd's state and territory colleagues..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    
    

  • Research using Aborigines makes maths breakthrough [late online update]
    by Andrew Trounson
    
    "Basic mathematical ability appears to be innate, or hard-wired into the human brain, according to an international study.
    
    "The research found that outback Aboriginal children with only a few number words in their language can still "count" just as well as English-speaking children.
    
    "The results of the joint study by University College London and Melbourne University, challenges notions that we need language in order to think and count.
    
    "It also suggests that mathematical disabilities such as dyscalculia, the little known maths version of dyslexia, is a genetic or neurological disorder rather than a memory or language deficiency.
    
    "The results have been published this week in the Washington-based journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences..."
    
    Full story in The Australian at link
    
    Related story on ABC News

    
    

  • Alert over ADHD guidelines in schools
    
    Guidelines for managing attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder have alarmed leading education researchers, who warn they will cause an exponential increase in children being labelled as having ADHD by schools chasing funding.
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • US to back 21st century learning
    
    The US Congress has given the go-ahead for a new centre to explore ways advanced computer and communications technologies can improve learning.

    The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will focus on "bringing education into the 21st century."
    
    
    

• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    It's not just VCE books the left controls
    by Tony Thompson, an English teacher at Princes Hill Secondary College in Carlton
    
    A quick look at much "good" literature shows the socialist conspiracy.
    
    It's about time that somebody blew their cover. For too long, VCE English teachers and their political wing, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, have been waging a secret war against everything decent and Australian. They are taking their orders from somewhere, Cuba possibly, and the directions are pretty clear: use the VCE English reading list to convert Victorian students from God-fearing consumers into bleeding-heart liberal lefties who worry about the environment and the treatment of marginalised groups.
    
    
    
    
  • Foreign students cry foul on college switch
    
    The lives of many international students have been thrown into chaos, with some saying they are thousands of dollars out of pocket due to a change in ownership of a college linked to Melbourne University.
    

---

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