Literacy Educators Coalition

If you want to contact your Federal or State politicians, a full listing is provided at:
www.aph.gov.au/whoswho/index.htm

Information, and hints on how to get politicians' attention, is given at:
www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/lobby.html

Professor keeps it simple for teachers Patricia Karvelas, Dr Barry McGaw The Australian Higher Education 21-2-08	The New National Curriculum The new national curriculum for preschool to Year 12 will provide guidelines for teachers that are "light" and not cumbersome, according to Prof Barry McGaw (the man heading the review).
Resourced for a world of difference Dr Barry McGaw The Australian 1-8-07	Debate about education in Australia is often conducted in the context of a manufactured quality crisis. Yet the international evidence does not support the claim of a crisis.

Date	Author(s)	Title
26 Jun 08	Erica McWilliam, Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan Australian Policy Online	Cognitive playfulness, creative capacity and generation 'C' learners A study of student engagement with new digital media technologies in a formal schooling environment to demonstrate the importance of playfulness as a learning disposition.
26 Jun 08	Harriet Alexander Sydney Morning Herald	Reading, writing and virtual reality Students grasp concepts better and are more engaged in lessons when teachers use digital technology such as interactive whiteboards.
23 Jun 08	Editorial the New York Times	Better-Qualified Teachers The US has a long and dishonorable history of dumping the least-qualified teachers into schools that serve poor and minority students. (And in Australia???)
22 Jun 08	Sarah Price Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Boys climb aboard and sail into a good book Holy spirit Primary School, St Clair, has set up a fun 'Survivor' challenge that has helped boost participation from boys and reluctant readers.
20 Jun 08	Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne	Linking schools and early years services Addressing the low literacy levels of many children from disadvantaged backgrounds requires identifying and removing barriers these children face when starting school.
20 Jun 08	Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne	Rethinking school readiness Report on the importance of schools services and communities supporting children and families and providing the conditions and experiences needed to ensure that all children reach school able to take advantage of the academic and social learning experiences.
19 Jun 08	Paige Taylor The Australian	Behaviour of kids sending teachers packing The increasingly bad behaviour of children is driving many teachers out of the profession.
19 Jun 08	Denise Gelberg Teacher	Closing the Achievement Gap: Schools alone cannot succeed The author relies on years of classroom experience as well as data on the health and well-being of the nation's children to make the case that schools alone cannot address the gap in achievement between economically advantaged and disadvantaged youngsters.
13 Jun 08	Garry Collins President, English Teachers Association of Qld (ETAQ)	Some thoughts on grammar Garry Collins' response to articles about grammar in "The Australia"
11 Jun 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Fallacy of learning grammar by osmosis School English courses are based on the fallacy that students studying literature will pick up grammar and writing style by osmosis.
10 Jun 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	School English too hard: principal The head of one of the nation's elite private schools has questioned whether English should be compulsory for the senior years, saying the courses being taught are beyond the intellectual ability of most students.
9 Jun 08	Sydney Morning Herald	New way of knowing to bring results Different cultures have their own ways of knowing or ways of creating knowledge. For aboriginal students, holisitc knowledge is the cornerstone of a unified world view.
8 Jun 08	Sarah Price Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	A good book converts kids into a captive audience Debra Oswald, playwright and author, reads to children and reminds us that good books captivate kids.
6 Jun 08	Jill Rowbotham The Australian	Seven unis take a bite of Apple site Seven universities in Australia and New Zealand will make a great leap into online lecturing today when American computer giant Apple launches a local iTunes U education site.
6 Jun 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Test results for basic school skills delayed The results of the national literacy and numeracy tests conducted last month will not be given to schools and parents for four months, when schools are about to finish Term 3.
5 Jun 08	Linda Jacobson Education Week (edweek.org)	Long-term economic payoff seen from early-childhood education For every $1 spent on children of low-income families, almost $10 is returned by age 25 in benefits to society or to the participant in the form of higher earnings.
5 Jun 08	Prof Ray Fisman Columbia Business School	Why giving poor kids laptops doesn't improve their scholastic performance If we really want to help poor kids, we may want to focus on approaches that provide structured, supervised access through after-school programs or subsidies that bring technology into low-income chools. But just giving kids computers? Might as well just ship them PlayStations.
3 Jun 08	Ralph Catts and Jesus Lau UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Australian Policy Online	Towards information literacy indicators There is a tendency to focus almost exclusively on the technology, yet the real interest lies in monitoring the impact of these technologies (not simply access to them).
3 Jun 08	Louise Doyle and Regina Hill Australian Policy Online	Our children, our future: achieving impoved primary and secondary education outcomes for indigenous students This report covers eight interventions aimed at improving education outcomes of Indigenous children and young people.
2 Jun 08	Caroline Milburn The Age	Canberra urged to take charge of teacher training Teacher training should be taken over by the Federal Government, says business.
1 Jun 08	Sarah Price Education reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Well-read students out to prove who knows the story Avid readers at two Sydney schools are engaged in a battle of the brains to see which has more bookworms.
31 May 08	Stuart Rintoul The Australian	Leg-up to the top Joe Ross, chairman of the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, imagines children of a different dreaming.
31 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Meeting aims to 'reclaim' literature Literature has lost its place in school English courses, pushed aside by the focus on practical skills and the social theories imposed on the subject.
30 May 08	Lee Borkman Letter to Sydney Morning Herald	You don't dictate what we debate, Ms Gillard By all means dispense with the divisive public/private, religious/non-religious, selective/non-selective debates. The real issue is inclusive-versus-exclusive. Schools that are segregated along economic, religious or academic lines teach appalling lessons. Why can't all of our children just go to school together?
30 May 08	Anna Patty Education editor Sydney Morning Herald	Private schools hog funding Private schools serving the wealthiest families are overfunded by as much as $3306 per secondary student.
29 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Scheme rewards top teachers The NSW government yesterday unveiled its verion of performance pay for teachers.
29 May 08	Julia Gillard Sydney Morning Herald	No more public v private debate For too long in Australia debates about the quality of education have revolved around public versus private schools. We need to leave these old-style debates. We need a conversation about a transparent, high-quality, well-funded education system for the 21st century.
26 May 08	Morag Fraser The Age	An ear to the classroom door Open letter to Julia Gillard from Prof Morag Fraser, La Trobe University.
26 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	No excuses for indigenous students The indigenous community has to discard the misguided notion that gaining an education makes them less Aboriginal. Dr Chris Sarra, a respected indigenous educator, has called on the Aboriginal community to ensure children take their rightful place in the Rudd Government's education revolution.
25 May 08	Sarah Price Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Youngsters tough critics, says award-winning author Literature for children and young people is just as challening to write as adult fiction and the critics are just as tough, says award-winning author James Roy.
25 May 08	Roger Highfield Science editor telegraph.co.uk	'Formal play' better prepares children for school Children aged around four can be much better prepared for school by using "formal play". The TOOLS OF MIND curriculum has been tested for the first time. Conclusion: it would be cheap and effective.
23 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	States holding back shools, warns Julia Gillard The Federal government has effectively put the states and territories on notice over the reporting of school and student performance, saying they are hampering efforts to raise standards.
22 May 08	Darren Devine Western Mail, Wales	Texting is actually good for children's spelling Prof David Crystal, an internationally-known linguist, says texting helps literacy standards simply because it means children are spending more time reading and writing.
22 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	Board disigning first national curriculum wll rule on teaching methods The National Curriculum Board will act as a clearing-house for education research, informing teachers of the best methods to use in the classroom.
19 May 08	Prof Brian Cambourne Principal Fellow, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong.	Letter to Julia Gillard, Minister for Education A study just released by the US Department of Education casts serious doubt on the evidence to which the Minister refers.
19 May 08	Mem Fox	Letter to Crikey.com re Julia Gillard's comments on phonics So Julia Gillard has been kissed by the phonics fairy.
19 May 08	Simon Breakspear Online Opinion	Re-branding education as a career choice The key to an "education revolution" is the attraction, development and retention of a new generation of quality teachers and educational leaders.
19 May 08	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	International research to guide teaching methods The federal government will provide direction on the methods used in the classroom, as part of its plan for the national curriculum. (But whose research has Julia been reading? Let's hope it not from the US or the UK, where the so-called 'research evidence' has proved to be shonky.)
19 May 08	Jeff Thornton Broken Hill (letter in SMH)	These tests are a farce Having just spent a week supervising the national numeracy and literacy tests, I've realised what a joke they are. (The link takes you to all the SMH herald; you need to go to page 4 for this letter.)
18 May 08	Sarah Price Education reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Students suffer in teacher shortage A severe shortage of casual teachers means almost two-thirds of NSW schools cannot find one when they need one.
17 May 08	Janice Creenaune Sydney Morning Herald	School league tables will test common sense The possible use of results form recent literacy and numeracy tests in schools may prove to be an increasingly interesting journey. The possibility of league tables, it seems, is real.
15 May 08	Maralyn Parker Daily Telegraph	Flawed tests a waste of time It was more than Kevin Rudd's first budget day yesterday, it was also the first day of the nation's school standards testing regime.
15 May 08	Suzanne Rice Curriculum Leadership (reported in Australian Policy Online)	Getting good teachers into challenging schools There have been calls to give top teachers salary incentives to work in disadvantaged settings. But is money the only answer?
14 May 08	Ben Eltham newmatilda.com	Viva La Evolution It's a far cry from a "revolution" but the budget has been good to education.
13 May 08	Peter Jones On Line Opionion	Reversing the trend In a multi-lingual world, yet one where languages are dying out every month, it is essential for Australians to speak a second language. It is hoped that the Rudd Government will reverse the trend of the last decade when language teaching was run down.
12 May 08	Maureen Douglas Principal of a primary school. The Age	We're teaching children, not fattening pigs A well-respected principal says it's time for Australia to be mindful of what has happened to teaching and learning in American and English schools since the introduction of high-stakes standardised testing.
11 May 08	The Age	Gillard hails start of new schools tests New literacy and numeracy tests being held in schools across the country next week for the first time will be good news for parents and government.
9 May 08	ABC News (online)	Teachers ordered to carry out national literacy tests The Industrial Relations Commission has ordered the teachers' union to scrap its plans to boycott national literacy and numeracy tests. Teachers are concerned about how the results could be used.
9 May 08	John Roskam The Age	Missed chance to really shake up education The announcement by the Brumby Government in Victoria that it will hire the best school principals, pay them up to $200,000 a year and sendthem to improve the state's worst government schools is an important reform. The next step is to expand it to include teachers. Our best teachers should be working in our lowest performing schools and they should be paid accordingly.
8 May 08	John Stapleton The Australian	Rein plays role in literacy project Therese Rein demonstrated yesterday she will be quite different from her predecessor, Janette Howard, when it comes to public speaking. The wife of PM Kevin Rudd has become the patron of the Indigenous Literacy Project.
7 May 08	Jim Goodnight Business Analytics The Australian	Hi-tech children tuning out Education is stuck in the days of the horse and buggy to the detriment of schoolkids who live in a world of virtual gaming, YouTube and Google.
7 Apr 08	Farrah Tomazin The Age	Shake-up targets bored teachers Bored teachers would be moved out of the classroom and parents would get unprecedented information on how schools perform under a proposed shake-up of Victoria's education system.
2 Apr 08	David Hursh FairTest	Testing: the real crisis in education Article based on the book, High Stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: the real crisis in education, by David Hursh. Are we going the way of the USA?
2 Apr 08	Alexandra Smith Sydney Morning Herald	Jail parents of truants, says Iemma Education and welfare experts have ridiculed Morris Iemma's plan to send parents to jail if their children repeatedly miss school.
1 Apr 08	Sid Marris The Australian Higher Education	Gillard tells states to act in good faith Julia Gillard has warned the Labor states not to hinder the Rudd government's $1 billion computers-in-schools program.
31 Mar 08	Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Indigenous students flock to medicine The University of NSW recorded its biggest intake of indeigenous medical students this year, with eight young people on the path to becoming doctors.
29 Mar 08	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Funding alarm over private school's $2m fraud A private school principal sacked for defrauding $2 million says he is not alone in rorting the controversial Commonwealth funding scheme. ... He said the (Howard) government had not audited his school in the 16 years he was there.
29 Mar 08	Inside Higher Ed insidehighered.com	'Multiple Intelligences' launched 25 years ago Gardner launched the "multiple intelligences" movement 25 years ago and believes there is no single measure of intelligence. However, there are some who still believe in standardized tests in ways that Garnder finds both offensive and irrelevant.
28 Mar 08	Ewin Hannan The Australian Higher Education	Must raise bar for new teachers Aspiring teachers should be tested to meet minimal standards in English literacy, numeracy and science before they are registered.
27 Mar 08	Greg Toppo USA Today	Size along makes small classes better for kids New research showing that smaller classes DO help students.
		We apologise for the gap in news during March. Computer problems prevented up-dating.
1 Mar 08	Bridie Smith The Age	Exodus in State School attendance The exodus from Australia's battling state schools has grown. In 1997, 70% of students were in government schools. In 2006, it fell to 66.8%. In 2007 it was 66.4%.
29 Feb 08	Justine Ferrari Prof Barry McGaw The Australian Higher Education	National curriculum to rate performance Barry McGaw envisages a program that sets out different levels of student performance linked to the national assessment system. "...the standards might need to be reconfigured once the national curriculum had been produced."
28 Feb 08	McKinsey and company Australian Policy Online	How the best performing school systems come out on top Why do the world's top performing school systems perform so much better than most others? And why do some educational reforms succeed spectacularly while most others fail?
27 Feb 08	Andrew Dowling On Line opinion	Defining disadvantage Australia's annual 2 billion school funding system is in disarray and requires urgent reform to ensure that fair and adequate funding is provided to all of the nation's schools.
27 Feb 08	Dale Spender On Line opinion	Playing catch-up with digital realities A teacher's role used to be clear. But the realities of the digital world have changed the teacher's role forever. There are no tried and true models that teachers can follow to deliver an appropriate education for today's students.
27 Feb 08	Milanda Rout The Australian Higher Edn	Public school students missing out on uni offers Public school students more likely to miss out on university education as competition for places intensifies. ... There is also a decline in the number of students from a low socio-economic background getting into the prestigious Group of Eight universities.
26 Feb 08	Justine Ferrari The Australian Higher Education Prof Gordon Stanley	Academic questions multiple choices It is time to stop introducing change in the nation's classrooms without discovering whether students' learning improved as a result.
22 Feb 08	Howard Gardner Washington Post	The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading Reading will never disappear. But it may well change beyond recognition.
21 Feb 08	Stephen Hagan On Line Opinion	Offering educational opportunities The inducement of money to entice experienced teachers to remote communities is a step in the right direction but not if the home environment isn't also remedied.
21 Feb 08	Kevin McDonald, John Turner & Peter Williams On Line Opinion	Education: it's child's play Three retired, tertiary educated, senior citizens writing about the kind of education they want for their grandchildren.
19 Feb 08	Lawrence Ingvarson ACER On Line Opinion	Good teachers, excellent teachers There is widespread agreement that Australia needs to place greater value on teachers' work. Simply paying teachers more will not achieve this.
19 Feb 08	Harriet Alexander Sydney Morning Herald	Graduates 'sms' in job l3tt3rs University graduates using text message abbreviations and gaming slang inappropriately in job applications.
18 Feb 08	Ilana Synder Monash University Canberra News	Reading and writing in a cultural battleground A literacy agenda is rich with possibilities and the way to construct it is not in a highly politicised campaign of [public abuse of teachers but through civil open discussion and dialogue.
18 Feb 08	Geoff Masters CEO of the ACER On Line Opinion	An excdellent teacher for every child Providing every child with excellent teaching certainly will require an education revolustion. But can we afford anything less?
18 Feb 08	Lesley Lamb The Age	Children's learning flourishes in the right atmosphere It was the expectations of my teachers that really made the difference.
17 Feb 08	Simon Marginson Professor of Higher Education, University of Melbourne. The Age	Making the cap fit University of Melbourne Professor of Higher Education relates how the educational landscape has changed for students beginning university in Victoria this year. (Not all commentators would agree that the new American-style double degree will improve uiversity education.)
15 Feb 08	Susan Wight On Line Opinion	Education is too important to leave to schools The "education revolution" can not be just about schools.
13 Feb 08	Michael Hureaux & Robert Femiano Seattlepi.com	Teachers key to school reform It's time to stop blaming and start trusting teachers. Give teachers the ability to tailor curriculum to the learner.
13 Feb 08	Tess Livingstone The Australian Higher Education	Aussie girls beat US young physicists Three 16-year-olds from Brisbane have taken on the best in the US in physics – and won hands down.
9 Feb 08	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	How private schools owe taxpayer $2b Private schools have been over-funded by more than $2 bilion over 4 years and some will be overpaid by as much as $23 million each in the next funding cycle, the federal Department of Education reveals in a secret review.
8 Feb 08	Milanda Rout The Australian Higher Education	Australian unis ranked third in world by students Overseas students have ranked Australia as the third best country in the world for university education.
6 Feb 08	Jennifer Buckingham On Line Opinion	For a real revolution we need reform The central components of the Rudd education revolution include computers, trade centres, national standards, and a focus on the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. These are all necessities but are hardly transformational or visionary.
4 Feb 08	Dr Sue Thomson (Project Manager for PISA in Australia) The Age	Lessons to learn from high achievers The PISA results show that Australia has a world-class education system. ... The results of PISA 2006 show that Australia's performance is above the OECD average in scientific, reading and mathematical literacy.
4 Feb 08	Christopher Bantick The Age	Teaching is a calling more than a vocation Teaching has never been about the money. This year applications for teaching degrees in victoria are down by 6.8%. The question is why?
2 Feb 08	Tess Livingstone The Australian	Skills tests put students at odds Universal skills tests advantage certain groups of students and marginalise others.
1 Feb 08	MCEETYA	Reading, Writing and Numeracy Benchmark Results for 2006
1 Feb 08	Farrah Tomazin The Age	Stop holding back top students: curriculum chief Australia has fallen behind in reading because there is too much focus on lifting the results of struggling students, rather than also making our top students perform even better, says the man spearheading the Federal Government's first national school curriculum.
30 Jan 08	Teachers College Record	The Hidden Curriculum of Performance-Based Teacher Education Superficial demonstrations of compliance with external mandates rather than authentic intellecutal engagement.
30 Jan 08	Neil Hooley The Age	Students deserve genuine educational reform An articulate argument for inquiry based learning.
30 Jan 08	Catherine Deveny The Age	Teachers should strike for more pay John Brumby and his yes-men have manipulated opinion against our Victorian teachers. The teachers deserve more.
28 Jan 08	Philip Riley Monash University The Age	Keeping our teachers A genuine education revolution would ensure appropriate training and support for the profession.
28 Jan 08	Bridie Smith The Age	School year to start on a meditative note By 9:30 am, at the Reservoir Maharishi School in Melbourne, shoes will be off and all will be quiet. Breathing and pulse rates will slow as students quickly settle into their transcendental meditation. Benefits: reduced stress levels, no bullying, greater awareness.
28 Jan 08	Farrah Tomazin The Age	Victorian state schools struggling to find teachers Victorian state schools faced with teacher shortages are being forced to "wine and dine" job applicants, use unqualified teachers or poach staff from interstate.
27 Jan 08	Sarah Price Education Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald	Parents bear pain for private schools Half the Australianparents who send their children to private school are finding it a financial strain.
25 Jan 08	Milanda Rout the Australian Higher Education	Research council calls for transparent funding The ACER is critical of the current funding system. The $30 billion federal and state government funding system is highly political, inefficient, in disarray and needs to be urgently overhauled.
25 Jan 08	Anna Patty Education editor Sydney Morning Herald	Funds formula benefits private schools: report Private schools are becoming more advantaged and receiving greater amounts of Commonwealth funding because public schools are taking on a greater load of disadvantaged students.
10 Jan 08	Stephen Lunn Social affairs writer The Australian	Half of us lack modern world skills Study in eight countries. Switerzerland and Norway came out ahead of Australia, but the US ranked much lower than Australia.
22 Jan 08	Patricia Edgar and Barbara Biggins Sydney Morning Herald	Chidlren's media: clean the slate and start again The content provided by technology is banal, exploitative and damaging to children's wellbeing.
19 Jan 08	Anna Patty Education writer Sydney Morning Herald	Casualties of the literacy wars The shift to a more traditional approach to literature shows some capitulation to political pressure.
18 Jan 08	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Teachers' $50K bush bonus A program developed by Cape York Institute and Sydney's Macquarie University aims to raise funds largely from the private sector to install 500 high-quality teachers in remote schools. (How does such a program, with no independent evaluations, get this kind of support?)
16 Jan 08	Josh Gordon & Tim Colebatch The Age	Devaluing our teachers Principals in Wodonga have a serious problem: their teachers are crossing the Murray River every morning and taking jobs at schools in Albury. Why? Senior teachers in NSW are paid almost $10,000 more than their counterparts in Victoria.
16 Jan 08	Justine Ferrari Education writer the Australian	Teachers back merit-based pay Overwhelming support has emerged among the nation's teachers for merit-based pay, with a majority believing wages should be pegged to competence and qualifications.
16 Jan 08	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Classes combined as teacher shortage bites Close to half of all secondary school principals have been forced to ask staff to teach outside their area of expertise to cover shortages. 19% removed subjects from the curriculum when teachers were not available.
15 Jan 08	Josh Gordon and Adam Morton The Age	Students turn their backs on teaching Victorian students are turning their backs on teaching careers, with experts blaming poor pay and job security.
9 Jan 08	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Report into school funding revealed A report completed by the Howard government found that many private schools are receiving more than their fair share of taxpayer's money. Greens MP Dr John Kaye says it is outrageous that the review was conducted behind closed doors and that the report had been buried.
7 Jan 08	The Age	Melbourne: city of literature and literacy Melbourne has all the qualifications to be the Edinburgh of the south.
3 Jan 08	Prof Stephen Krashen California	Overseas Educational Research: Take A Closer Look Stephen Krashen corrects Kevin Donnelly's mis-readings of the research. (See Donnelly in 'The Australian' 3 Jan 08. He continues his constant, ill-informed attacks on education.)
30 Dec 07	Sarah Price Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	The never-ending story: reading in the holidays NSW government school program provides students with a reading plan as well as material to read. (US research found a drop of up to 25% in reading skills during a 5 to 6 weeks holiday.)
20 Dec 07	Geoff Masters Australian Council for Educational Research	A world class education system? Evidence from PISA 2006 At one level, Australia already has a world-class education system. However, there are fetures of the most recent PISA results that may be a cause for concern.
20 Dec 07	Bob Harris Australian Education Union (Source: Australian Policy Online)	Why ranking schools would do more harm than good Paper presented by Bob Harris from Education International and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD.
20 Dec 07	Dr Barry McGaw University of Melbourne (Source: Australian Policy Online)	International benchmarking of Australian Schools Assessment of Australia's recent performance against new OECD data.
19 Dec 07	Andrew Brennan and Jeff Malpas On Line opinion	Universities have been starved of support The OECD singles out Australia as the only developed country to reduce public spending on higher education in the ten years up until 2004 and shows that Australia devotes a lower proportionof GDP to the sector than the world average. There can be no education revolution without a revolution in higher education.
19 Dec 07	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Grammar tests return to classroom Spelling, grammar and punctuation will be assessed national for the first time next year with the introduction of uniform tests for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
15 Dec 07	Tamara Davis The Australian Higher Education	Teachers 'bullied more' in public schools Teachers at government schools are bullied more frequently than their colleagues in the independent and Catholic sectors.
13 Dec 07	Emma Tom The Australian	Lettuce use grammar as ideas garnish Once again we need to face up to the fact that punctuation, spelling and grammar are just like brussels sprouts, zucchin and broccoli. Boil them into a soggy mush and ingestion will rarely be enthusiastic.
12 Dec 07	Tanya Plibersek Sydney Morning Herald	Love of reading opens up a world of possibilities Good fiction is not a waste of time. We want young Auystralians exposed to the best the English language has to offer ... because we want to develop the part of the brain that feeds creativity and complexity, that understands subtlety and wit, that allows high communication and an ability to see things from the perspective of another.
10 Dec 07	Peter West On-line Opinion	Making an education revolution happen The new OECD report: Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
9 Dec 07	The New York Times	In Gaps at School, Weighing Family Life Schools are judged according to state standardised tests. But a US study has found that a lot of the low scores can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools.
8 Dec 07	Samantha Maiden Political correspondent The Australian	No education blank cheques Education Minister Julia Gillard has warned the states she will not be offering a "blank cheque" on schools funding without a guarantee of targets on transparency, literacy and numeracy.
6 Dec 07	Peter Freebody Australian Council for Educational Research	Literacy education in school: reserach perspectives from the past, for the future A false dichotomy has developed in literacy theory between 'code' and 'meaning-emphasis', ... This leads teachers of early literac to believe that they must choose between (phonics and whole language) when in fact effective teachers use elements from both.
5 Dec 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Australia slides down global reading list Australian 15-year-olds are slipping down the world literacy rankings, apparently because they are reading less. ... Six years ago, Australia was ranked second behind Finland. But in the latest study it has also been outstripped by South Lorea, Hong Kong, Canada and New Zealand.
15 Sep 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Aboriginal languages help more stay on Learning an Aboriginal language - in addition to English - will become compulsory in schools with large indigenous populations under a NSW State Government strategy to improve Aboriginal retention rates and literacy standards. The scheme was tested successfully at Bourke High School this year.
14 Sep 07	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Teachers need more than just a degree A Senate committee report warns that teacher training focuses excessively on teaching methods and behaviour management and neglects the disciplinary content of subjects.
14 Sep 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Rewards may split teachers Performance pay for teachers could create disharmony between colleagues and damage teaching quality,a federal parliamentary committee says.
10 Sep 07	Milanda Rout The Australian	Steiner school faces scrutiny Collingwood College, offering the Steiner method, is under investigation after more than 60% of the Prep students failed to meet state government standards for reading and maths.
7 Sept 07	Mercury (Tasmania) news.com.au	Shedding light on literacy Stumbling through this complex world without basic reading and writing skills is difficult but not impossible.
4 Sept 07	Maralyn Parker The Daily Telegraph	Money can't buy training Teacher training courses are in the spotlight and there is a push to regulate and improve quality. So the Federal Government provided funds to double the number of days in school (practicum). However, universities are already finding it extremely difficult getting schools to take student teachers.
3 Sept 07	Michael Clyne, Susy Puszka, Leonie Brown. The Age.	Why we must fear core values A move by principals to simplify the primary curriculum by concentrating on a smaller number of subjects has triggered a backlash from those who believe important disciplines will be devalued.
3 Sept 07	www.sciencedaily.com Association for Psychological Science.	Cramming doesn't work in the long term
1 Sept 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Educators round on English syllabus English teacing in schools is in danger of losing its richness and emphasis on literature in its growing obsession with improving student test results, a group of education leaders believes.
31 Aug 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	IQ at five foretells earning potential Quality day care and preschooling could help raise the intelligence levels of young children and were of greater benefit to their long-term future than later interventions. ... Governments need to provide more resources for preschools.
25 Aug 07	The Age	Principal adds value and makes the grade "A good school is one tha tturns the poor kid into an average kid, an average kid into a good kid and a good kid into an excellent kid."
23 Aug 07	Gerald Coles	What? Children's health has something to do with academic success? You're kidding! A study shows that children's health status when beginning school predicted third grade achievement scores and "children in poor general health had significantly lower achievement scores than children in good general health in third grade."
22 Aug 07	Melissa Jackson BBC News education reporter	Are school standards slipping? "We never had perfection in the past ad we are unlikely to get it in the future." (Institute of Educational Assessors) Einstein may have been dyslexic and Shakespeare survived without spelling well. However, we shouldn't judge evryone by academic ability. Some real people, including the David Beckhams and Sir Richard Bransons of this world have proved there are other routes to success.
22 Aug 07	Tom Calma Race Discrimination Commissioner	Recommitting to multiculturalism The federal government and all major political parties must recommit to multiculturalism. Fear and prejudice is a potent mix that leads to mistrust and social conflicts: we must recognise and celebrate the role that multiculturalism can and does play in breaking thses negative, destructive cycles.
21 Aug 07	Stephen Law ON LINE opinion	The war for children's minds If authoritarian political schools are utterly beyond the pale, why are so many of us prepared to tolerate the religious equivalents?
18 Aug 07	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	Labor 'winning' the education debate Former Liberal Party adviser and outspoken critic of the school curriculum Kevin Donnelly says Labor is winning the public debate on education and has presented a more persuasive vision of the reforms required to raise academic standards. ... By contrast, Education Minister Julie Bishop had a piecemeal approach to education reform that resulted in shallow policy.
16 Aug 07	Bruce McDougall Education Reporter Daily Telegraph	When your school is a place of fear and pain The parents of two children injured in bullying attacks in NSW schools have accused the State Government of failing to ensure bullies are disciplined.
15 Aug 07	Australian Primary Principals Association, AustralianPolicyOnline	Draft Charter on Primary Schooling The charter is aimed at assisting clarity about what is expected in the 'core' subjects of English, maths, science and history. It aims to restate the importance of a rich, vibrant classroom and of schools which focus on creative, cooperative and inoovative teaching and learning.
15 Aug 07	Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	More than 100 degrees cost students $100,000 University students will be charged more than $100,000 for full fee paying places in more than 100 courses next year, and some will pay more than $240,000.
11 Aug 07	James Allan, Prof of Law, University of Qld. The Australia Higher Education	Performance pay scheme won't work As politicians consider the introduction of merit-based salaries for teachers, Prof James Allan is sceptical it would work.
6 Aug 07	Muriel Reddy The Age	Clear the chalk dust, learn afresh David Loader, former principal at two of Melbourne's private schools, says the system does not encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and establishes a pattern for later-life dependency.
Aug 07	Tara Ross The Press, NZ	Schools drop literacy tool Schools are abadoning NZ's internationally recognised literacy programme, Reading Recovery, opting instead to use unproven programmes and untrained teacher aides to help struggling readers.
1 Aug 07	Russell Tytler (ACER) AustralianPolicyOnline	Re-imagining Science Education Engaging students in science for Australia's future.
1 Aug 07	Jane Caro ON LINE opinion (Australia's e-journal of social and political debate)	The stupid country Almost alone in the OECD, Australia has a funding system that sets up one system of schools to succeed and the other to struggle. Caro, J & Bonner, C (2007) The Stupid Country: How Australia is Dismantling Public Education. UNSW Press.
30 Jul 07	Herald Sun	School recess in danger Morning recess could be cut from school timetables and children wold spend less tiem on key subjects under expanded literacy and numeracy testing to be introduced next year.
30 Jul 07	Adam Morton The Age	More school leavers failing to go on to uni The proportion of young Australians going to university has stalled despite Federal Government claims that it is tackling the nation's professional skills shortage.
30 Jul 07	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	Primary teaching doesn't add up People who are no good at maths but want to teach tend to end up working in primary schools, leading to a further erosion in numeracy skills among children.
28 Jul 07	Milanda Rout The Australian	Early concern about Steiner method Learning to read and write are delayed until adult teeth come through at age seven. ... (The) ban on computers and multimedia in primary school is in 'direct contradiction' to department policies.
26 Jul 07	IBN news	Plan for mass literacy tests "flawed": AEU The Australian Education Union has refused to endorse plans for a national literacy and numeracy testing program. The experience of other countries has shown mass testing was a flawed approach.
26 Jul 07	Bridie Smith & Farrah Tomazin The Age	Principals threaten test boycott Principals accuse federal Labor of "politicla grandstanding" over its contentious plan for schools to publish league tables comparing student performance.
26 Jul 07	Imre Salusinszky NSW Political Reporter The Australian	State 'fails' on school reports One in 10 state schools in NSW refusing to grade students according to A-E scale.
24 Jul 07	Prof Richard Teese (University of Melbourne) The Age	For the affluent, private is no longer the only schooling choice "...where public high schools serve better-off communities, they very ably exploit their freedom of action. The offer distinctive advantages, beginning with low fees and a favourable academic mix of pupils..."
24 Jul 07	Farrah Tomazin and Adam Morton The Age	Less choice, cash cause school drift Parents have accused the Victorian Government of failing to promote public education as aggressively as NSW.
23 Jul 07	Justine Ferrari Education Writer The Australian	Teachers launch election lobby kit The Australian Education Union has launched a federal election website with a kit for teachers to lobby politicians.
23 Jul 07	Peter Job The Age	Students must value dialogue about our past The recently leaked draft curriculum framework is conservative and arguably overly prescriptive, emphasising events and dates rather than themes and issues, but nevertheless leaving teachers scope to incorporate themes, issues and investigations into their courses in appropriate conjunction with narratives and events. That Howard finds even this conservative document unacceptable is an indication of how extreme and limited his vision for history teaching is.
23 Jul 07	Adam Morton & Farrah Tomazin The Age	Wealthy embrace state school system Parents in Melbourne's affluent eastern suburbs are increasingly turning away from private schools and returning to the public system.
18 Jul 07	The Age	Memo, parents: choosing a school is about your child, not you. You can't tell if a place is right for your kid simply by wandering around the corridors.
18 Jul 07	Dorothy Illing The Australian	Focus shifts to teaching Two universities, including a member of the research-intensive Group of Eight, are breaking with tradition by creating new academic positions that focus on teaching, not research.
18 Jul 07	Bernard Lane The Australian	Nelson rejects to be cited The long-held secret of which nine Australian Research Council grants were vetoed by former education minister Nelson may soon be out, with the affected researchers to be asked whether they want the details made public.
16 Jul 07	Milanda Rout The Australian	Students ignoring science a primary concern Students should be doing more experiments and hand-on investigations in scienc class and be made aware of science as a career option as early as primary school.
11 Jul 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	National testing reduces learning, says expert An international education authority, and professor at Stanford University in California, has warned Australia against introducing national testing in schools because it has lowered literacy and numeracy standards in the US.
10 July 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	School gap blamed for nation's stupidity Australia is on it's way to becoming "the stupid country" through neglect of public education and a widening gap between its best- and worst-performing school students, an influential principal has warned.
9 Jul 07	Australian Policy Online	Ten policy principles for a national system of early childhood education and care Experts at a national workshop agreed on the need for a new nationally coordinated, planned approach to an integrated system of early childhood education and care (ECEC).
6 Jul 07	Australian Policy Online	Official Spin: Censorship and the control of the Australian Press A creeping authoritarianism has been the hallmark of the past 12 months in the Australian press. A host of prominent Australian journalists and the Alliance reflect on the slow erosion of press freedom.
5 Jul 07	Guy Rundle Crikey.com	History is more than just recitative Howard seems to want a history curriculum from an earlier era, when the majority of students left school at 14 or 15 and sources of media and information were far more limited ... Education has changed because childhood has changed, not because sinister lefties have been developing curriculum bombs in basements.
3 Jul 07	Joe Tuccie, Janise Mitchell and Prof Chris Goddard, Australian Childhood Foundation. AustralianPolicyOnline Posted 3-7-07	Children's fears, hopes and heroes - modern childhood in Australia This report examines the experiences of modern childhood through the results of an online survey taken by a national sample of 600 children and young people aged between 10-14 years. Some key themes emerged (eg children's sense of their place in the world is under threat; children are particularly concerned about the environment; etc).
2 Jul 07	Simon Marginson Prof of Higher Education, University of Melbourne. AustralianPolicyOnline Posted 27-6-07	Missing the mark on national education policy Policy makers need to shun short-term politics for long-term vision, argues Simon Marginson.
2 July 07	Ian Anderson Prof of Indigenous Health, University of Melbourne.	Remote Communities: Unexplained differences Ian Anderson compares the federal government's response to the Little Children Are Sacred report with the authors' recommendations. None of the measures announced by Howard are to be found in the strategies recommended by the report. The "new paternalism" is in clear contradiction to the report.
2 Jul 07	Neil Hooley Lecturer, School of Education Victoria University	Indigenous education demands community learning circles If we have learnt anything about indigenous education in Australia, it surely concerns the total participation of local communities in school life. This is a democratic process, an acceptance that there is an indigenous frame of reference or state of being that is not the same as European understanding.
29 Jun 07	Guy Rundle Crikey.com.au	More on the history wars The Federal Government wants to deliver a socially conservative curriculum so tight that it wold leave a minimum of room for history teachers to raise questions about the interpretation. But curriculum design is about more than content - and just being a historian (Blainey) or a hack who thinks he's a historian (Henderson) isn't enough. The final result of this blatant political fixing will probably be unteachable.
28 Jun 07	ASCD SmartBrief Editorial (www.ascd.org)	Recipe for success A school in Rhode Island was designed to create education experiences for each student as a holistic person and it has a 95% graduation rate. Schools that engage students with challenging courses and personalized learning have higher achievement gains than schools that focus on results of tests.
26 Jun 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	For teachers, the future spells grammar All students learning to become teachers will be required to stud spelling and grammar and how to control classroom behaviour.
25 Jun 07	Bridie Smith and Adam Morton The Age	On your mark For these parents, federal Labor's pledge to publish statewide league tables, ranking schools on literacy and numeracy, is a real turn off.
25 Jun 07	Jewel Topsfield, Canberra The Age	Labor plans release of school rankings All states would be aswked to publish school league tables comparing student performances in literacy and numeracy under a Labor govrnment, in a move that continues the party's shift to the centre on education
17 Jun 07	Deborah Gough The Age	Radio king gives teacher pay plan an F One of John Howard's most public champions, radio personality Alan Jones, has taken a cane to the Government's plan to introduce a performance-based pay scheme for teachers.
13 Jun 07	Jack Waterford Australian Policy Online	Try Harder Minister I expect Bishop will fail, and for a simple reason. Performance pay systems based on bonuses for demonstrated extra performance don't work.
13 Jun 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Alarm at private funding of unis The commercialisation of universities has led to fossil fuel companies funding an increasing number of teaching positions and research positions, raising concerns about their independence. Report: "Universithy Capture - Australian universities and the fossil fuel industries."
12 Jun 07	Alex White	Merit pay for teachers has no merit An interesting blog site on merit pay.
12 Jun 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Conflict a step closer on teachers' pay model The Federal Government today invites consultants to develop a performance pay model for teachers, despite strong opposition from the states.
1 Jun 07	Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter Sydney Morning Herald	Unis under federal power may lose research control, academic warns
30 May 07	Barry Jones Former Federal Minister. Former Chair of the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission.	Our education failures In Victoria, our educational priorities have been skewed by managerialism.
30 May 07	Catherine Deveny The Age	It would take real guts for society to fund schools properly I want children to succeed on ability, persistence and merit. Not on some bizarre, anachronistic club that parents pay for them to join.
17 May 07	Anna Patty Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	School funding comes under fire Report shows Australia is the only OECD country to funnel a disproportionate level of public funding into non-government schools. This is helping to entrench social disadvantage in rural and suburban Australia.
16 May 07	Joanna Medelssohn Author of Which School? Beyond Public vs Private.	Education: On Schools, Bullies and Politicians The crucial nature of leadership in a school which successfully reduced bullying. ... If the Prime Minister wants to stop bullying in schools he will have to start by modifying his own behaviour and that of his subordinates.
15 May 07	Caroline Overington The Australian	Broaden student minds, unis told University students are too focused on learning skills that will enable them to get well-paid jobs and not on learning for its own sake.
11 May 07	Dorothy Illing Higher Education writer The Australian	Ministers accuse Bishop of bullying to control unis Bishop threatens to use federal corporations powers to seize control of institutions' financial management; accused by State ministers of bullying.
11 May 07	Justine Ferrari The Australian	Standardised tests fail students, say teachers National literacy and numeracy tests are invalid measures of students ability and they cannot measure much of what is important. See also Nichols & Berliner (2007) Collateral Damage: how high-stakes testing corrupts America's schools
11 May 07	John Garnaut & Anna Patty Sydney Morning Herald	Bishop spends $53m on apples for teachers But head of NSW Secondary Principals Council says "offering bribes to teachers" would place principals in an impossible position.
11 May 07	Phillip Coorey Sydney Morning Herald	Rudd fires back in duel over schools Rudd promises $2.5 bilolion over 10 years to establish training centres in schools to encourage non-academic students to stay on and learn a trade.
10 May 07	Ronald Wolk Teacher Magazine Vol 18, Issue 5, p. 65	One size fits whom? The core curriculum stymies reform. If the main purpose of curriculum is to designate what every student should know, then core curriculum makes sense. If the purpose is mainly to provide an essential component in learning to think and solve problems, then specific knowledge is of secondary importance. ... It is arrogant and counterproductive to set grade-level standards and curricula that define what every student should know.
9 May 07	Jewel Topsfield The Age	Unis get their own future fund An overdue funding injection for tertiary education, but with strings attached. As Kerry O'Brien said on the 7:30 Report, universities will get the funds if they toe the government line.
8 May 07	Glynne Sutcliffe (for Australia Council of State School Organisations)	Hot stuff on little kids: Dr Mustard adds spice to the reading wars Fraser Mustard, Adelaide's Thinking in Residence until March, reminds us about the vital importance of early childhood.
6 May 07	The Age	One in eight young Aussies obese: study 13% of young Australians are extremely overweight, and most have piled on their extra kilos since childhood. (Adolescence is the defining period in the fat fight.)
4 May 07	Bridie Smith The Age	Parents pay for help as private schools fail test Parents are being forced to seek additional help from private tutors despite paying private schools thousands of dollars a year to educate their children.
3 May 07	Sydney Morning Herald - letters	A word on literacy Staff at the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University (North Ryde) are concerned about the dismissive manner in which Miranda Devine has characterised literacy education, and her gross oversimplification of a complex issue.
3 May 07	Anna Patty Sydney Morning Herald	Teacher fury at rating website People are anonymously able to make comments about teachers but the site can't be shut down because it's based in the US.
2 May 07	Anna Patty Sydney Morning Herald	Schools are too left wing, says Stoner New NSW Opposition spokesman on education, Andrew Stoner, accused Labor of using schools as "a vehicle for left-wing indoctrination."
1 May 07	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	Public schools told: lift profile ACSSO wants government school principals to receive training in marketing and communications to combat the recruitment of students by private schools.
30 Apr 07	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	Schools still fail on reading And Justine Ferrari (reporter) fails to check her sources! Read Brian Cambourne's response to Ferrari's flawed article.
30 Apr 07	Anna Patty Sydney Morning Herald	Values push for public schools Labor's policy on values education.
25 Apr 07	Justine Ferrari The Australian	Labor plan for national exams in core school subjects National exams being considered by state and terriroty Labor governments.
24 Apr 07	Farrah Tomazin The Age	Back to basics: studies scrapped in curriculum revamp State premiers have vowed to scrap SOSE and replace it with the traditional disciplines of history, geography and economics.
21 Apr 07	Anna Patty Sydney Morning Herald	Labor promises primary school focus If the Labor Party wins the federal election it will look at ending an anomaly in schools funding that means it costs $2000 more a year to educate a high school student than a child in primary school.
17 Apr 07	Jewel Topsfield The Age	Languages languish in schools: report Foreign language teaching in schools has been neglected over the past decade as Federal Government rhetoric about Australian values and the "downgrading of multiculturalism" have turned the nation more inward.
14 Apr 07	Brian Hewat East Melbourne	Hidden results The influence that teachers have on students' lives can be hidden until years later.
14 Apr 07	Hugh Mackay Social commentator	Bishop fails test Julie Bishop's obsession with performance-based pay for teachers has raised serious questions about her judgement, her sensitivity and her grasp of reality.
14 Apr 07	Justine Ferrari Education writer The Australian	National model for schools Students will have to meet common standards in English, maths and science after education ministers agreed to develop nationally consistent curriculums.
14 Apr 07	Anna Patty, Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	Bishop's proposals rebuffed States and territories may keep their own school curriculums and work together to develop more consistent standards instead of adopting the same national curriculum.
13 Apr 07	Anna Patty, Education Editor Sydney Morning Herald	National school tests in doubt New national literacy and numeracy tests due next year are at risk because the states and territories say they cannot afford to implement them.
13 Apr 07	Farrah Tomazin The Age	School plan for battle of the bulge All year 5 students would be required to undertake weight and fitness tests under a contentious Federal Government plan.
12 Apr 07	Peter Hendrickson Principal, Sunbury College, Vic	Trying to measure the unmeasurable When outcomes are easily measurable (eg making motor cars) performance-based pay is probably useful. However, we cannot accurately and consistently measure student achievement.
12 Apr 07	Tony Thompson Teacher	Listen up, Julie, Kevin and Steve, merit pay is a bummer There is no reliable way to assess a teacher. Surveying students will be inconclusive, as student like and dislike teachers for a variety of reasons.
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