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2010

Note: The administrator of this website is working interstate and overseas from early February until early March.
It will not be possible to keep this page up-to-date until he returns. For leading news and commentary, see http://soscanberra.com

8 Feb 2010 Miki Perkins
The Age
My School website a 'crock', says top educator
The principal of Victoria's top-perfoming government school has slammed the Federal Government's My School website, describing it as a "crock". Jeremy Ludowyke, the principal of Melbourne High - which last year was the top government school in the VCE - said selective-entry schools like his that stood to gain themost from published league tables should be the loudest critics against "this nonsense".
8 Feb 2010 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Reading, writing and number crunching
My School aims to raise standards, but the idea is a huge gamble. Gillard's technique has failed to improve literacy and numeracy skills in the US and Britain. Even worse, she may be encouraging a system that corrupts the way these skills are measured.
7 Feb 2010 Prof Stephen Krashen
(letter sent to The Australian)
Test-Prep: Higher test scores without increased learning
Trying to raise test scores by teaching test-taking strategies won't help children. ... Raising test scores through test preparation is like claiming you have raised the temperature of the room when all you have done is light a match under the thermometer.
7 Feb 2010 Natalie Craig
The Age
Fast learners
They're young and smart and they're being thrown into the classroom after six weeks of teacher training.
4 Feb 2010 John Passant
Teachers' union is right to oppose school league tables
Many former advocates of publishing school results are now opposed because of the damage it does to education. Even Kevin Donnelly, a former Howard government advisor, admits that school reporting of this kind in Britain and the US has failed to raise standards. Gillard however, has ignored all the evidence, as well as protests from a wide range of teacher and parent organisations.
3 Feb 2010 Dr John Collier
Headmaster of
St Andrew's Cathedral School
Syd Morning Herald
Ranking by NAPLAN results rates a fail
NAPLAN resulta cannot validly carry the weight of community judgment of each school. Parents and society in general need muchbroader measures to make such judgments. This is a problem for politicians who want quick, measurable achievements within an electoral cycle.
2 Feb 2010 Trevor Cobbold
Australian Teacher Magazine
Gillard's case for publishing school results is based on faith not evidence
None of Gillard's arguments for publishing school results withstand scrutiny. Even the head of ACARA, Pter Hill, admits there is little evidence to support his Minister's claim.
1 Feb 2010 Chris Bonnor
On Line Opinion
The launch, the crash and the recovery of My School
To create the Index of Community SocioEducational Advantage (ICSEA) ACARA used the socio-educational characteristics NOT of each student's family, but of their census collection district (including households with no kids). In trying to account for differences between schools ACARA is already off to a shaky start. But it needs to get everyting right: when you et into the business of comparing schools, there can be little margin for error - too much is at stake.
The biggest problem is that 70% of the differences between schools are due to which students each school enrols,not what they actually do as schools. No less than Prof Barry McGaw,the head of ACARA, has repeatedly stated this.
31 Jan 2010 Stephanie Peatling
Sydney Morning Herald
Teachers slam index comparisons
Some of the most elite private schools have been classed as comparable to regional public schools on the controversial My School website in a move teachers say is another sign that the website is deeply flawed.
30 Jan 2010 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Funding details not included on site, say teachers
The My School website failed to reveal the wealthiest private schools each received up to $8.5 million in annual government subsidies and up to $42 million in private income. This data is vital for juding their performance.
30 Jan 2010 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Tests just child's play for top-performing school
Read further down in this article. It quotes a mother from the top-performing Catholic primary school: "There was enormous pressure at the school on both teachers and students from day one of term one to achieve good results. The preparation for the tests was intense, with extreme pressure to practise through regular class time and heavy-duty homework. Many children felt overwhelmed and stressed by the level of work and the performance expectations. ... Publishing these tables proves what all the critics had feared, that schools will be judged primarily on the results of one academic test alone rather than all-round performance and their ability to nurture young individuals to achieve their potential."
29 Jan 2010 Miki Perkins & Dan Harrison
The Age
Top schools lagging on reading, writing tests
Some of Victoria's most prestigious schools are underperforming on national reading and writing tests when compared with similar schools.
29 Jan 2010 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Focus falls on big-fee schools as parents get reality check
Some elite private schools charging tens of thousands of dollars a year in fees scored lower on the national literacy and numeracy tests than neighbouring public schools. ... Public Primary Schools, in particular, performed well compared with their private counterparts in some of the nation's most affluent areas. ... Some of the national's most exclusive schools could face some tought questions from parents, who in some cases pay $20,000 a year or more in Year 12.
29 Jan 2010 Dan Harrison
Sydney Morning Herald
Rich or poor? Gillard plans to put it all online this year
The financial resources of every school in Australia will be on public display in the next version of Julia Gillard's My School website, due later this year.
29 Jan 2010 Chip Le Grand and Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Site comparisons just don't add up
Dargo PS is an abandoned building. Last year it had one student. this year is has none. Yet according to My School, it is statistically similar to privately operated Camberwell Grammar, with 12,055 enrolments in Melbourne's inner east. ... Geelong Grammar, which has the most expensive school fees in the nation, has been grouped with Kangaroo Ground PS, a small government school of fewer than 150 students on the semi-rural outskirts of Melbourne. ... Another high fee school, Haileybury College, is grouped with the Cleveland St intensive English HS in inner-city Sydney that caters for new migrants who do not speak English. (Does that make sense to anyone???)
28 Jan 2010 Samantha Maiden
The Australian
Public schools in wealthy areas outperforming private colleges
Public (government) schools in wealthy areas are outperfoming some the nation's most expensive and prestigious schools, according to the new My School website.
28 Jan 2010 Mike Williss
On Line Opinion
Gillard's "best practice" mantra
This article outlines three flaw in formulating "best practice" and accuses Gillard of "overconfidence bias" (the belief that very thin NAPLAN data will lead to "best practice").
27 Jan 2010 Lucy Carter for 'The World Today'
ABC News
My School website 'biased'
Independent policy think-tank the Grattan Institute has added to growing criticism of the Federal Government's My School website, saying it will not give an adequate assessment of a school's performance.
27 Jan 2010 Prof Richard Teese
Melbourne University

The Age
The transparency myth
The transparency Julia Gillard talks about may only serve to divide parents and split both cultural and professional resources across schools. ... Neither transparency nor choice strikes at the roots of failure in our schools. Both have aggravated the problem. Transparency has been used to injure the schools of the poor, and choice to strengthen the schools of the rich.
27 Jan 2010 Tim Hawkes, Headmaster, The King's School, Parramatta.
Sydney Morning Herald
Ladder of opportunity rises above league tables
Evidence from overseas, particularly from Britain, indicates this sort of public information is quickly turned into "league tables" to the detriment of many schools that may not rank well despite doing many wonderful things in education. Educators should be outraged.
27 Jan 2010

Dan Harrison & Heath Gilmore,
Sydney Morning Herald

Principals rally troops to combat new website
Principals will enlist parents and former students to counter any negative publicity stemming from the launch of the My School website tomorrow.
27 Jan 2010

Cathy Hooke letter to
Sydney Morning Herald

Remove yourself from my class, Ms Gillard
If Julia Gillard wants parents to tell off deficient teachers, then teachers and principals must also be able to complain about poor parenting. Are parents ensuring their children get enough sleep, read regularly, limit time spent on mindless computer games and learn some manners and respect?
27 Jan 2010 Dan Brown letter to Sydney Morning Herald Publish names and addresses of parents
My fellow teachers and I would like to enshrine in law our right to publish the names and addresses of those parents whose delinquencies have resulted in their stupid, troublesome children interering with the education of those who really want to learn.
25 Jan 2010 The Australian Richest and poorest schools ranked
The Rudd government has ranked the richest and poorest schools in Australia to develop the new MySchool website but will not be releasing the findings to the public. (Why not?)

 

TESTING & lEAGUE TABLES (articles from 2009)

new star

Prof Margaret Wu
Assessment Research Centre
University of Melbourne

 

NAPLAN Results for the Layperson
"The Australian federal government's education transparency agenda should begin with providing the layperson with clear guidelines for interpreting the NAPLAN results." Professor Wu's key points:

(1) a student's NAPLAN score might vary by 12%. ie. A student's score of 70% on the test might vary from 58% to 82% on similar tests! This uncertainty makes the results unreliable for comparisons.

(2) The growth measures based on two 40-question tests have an error margin greater than one year's growth!

(3) A teacher can expect his/her class average score to vary by around 10% from year to year due to random fluctuations of student cohort and inaccuracies in test scores. If we use the class average to judge a teacher's performance, the average could be higher or lower to some extent depending on a teacher's "luck" of whether the current students are relatively better or poorer academically.

(4) NAPLAN results alone CANNOT show, with confidence, which schools are more effective and which schools are less effective. (See also, Prof Steve Wilson's letter below.)

new star

Assoc Prof Steve Wilson

Letter to Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
13 Nov 09

No commentary  +  no context  =  no good

Your story illustrates why many are so opposed to the publication of these results. You have lined up the results of three schools. You have not provided informed commentary or contextualised them, making one of the schools, Macarthur Girls High, look comparatively inferior. This is not the case.  ...

Macarthur Girls High School was recently confirmed as the first centre for excellence under National Partnerships funding for its outstanding record in building its students' achievement. My university is the academic partner for Macarthur Girls under this program. We are proud to be associated with a school that takes girls from many parts of western Sydney, many from families where English is not the primary language spoken in the home, and provides them with such a successful education.

If you are going to break the law by publishing school results in future, please consider how to do so fairly and responsibly.

Associate Professor Steve Wilson, Head, school of education, University of Western Sydney

Australian Education Union

 

See Website page: Stop League Tables

Check out the latest news
Read the background information and research
Sign a protest letter
   
Jackie Schneider
Guardian.co.uk
1 Dec 09
Underperforming league tables must go
Parents aren't stupid – we can tell if a primary school is good or bad. It's time to stop wating teachers' time on this charade.

Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
17 Nov 09

 

Schools unite against rankings
Six peak national groups representing parents, teachers and principals from public and private schools have signed a letter to the Federal government asking it to prevent the publication of "misleading and damaging" league tables.

The letter says NAPLAN test results provide only a snapshot of academic achievement and provide a statistically unreliable basis for comparing schools.

Farah Tomazin
The Age
16 Nov 09
Gillard may give ground on schools report
Julia Gillard may give some ground to principals on the new schoolsreporting system, admid fears it could result in league tables that name and shame underperforming schools. Ms Gillard has promised to examine what other items the Government could include on the website.
Telegraph.co.uk
11 Nov 09
UK Exam Factories
One of England's most senior examiners has suggested schools are being turned into test-fuelled "production lines" which are potentially damaging children's education. He blamed the pressure of official league tables and (the) inspection regime. It represents a hugely damaging blow to the Government.
His comments follow repeated criticism from academics and teaching unions who claim that the growth of "high-stakes" exams, targets and league tables force schools to "teach to the test" to get the best results.

The Age
8 Nov 09
Principals say national ratings will not take the whole mix into account
More than half the students at Meadow Heights Prmary cannot speak English when they first take their seats in class. Some are refugees whose first day at school is as a Year 6 student, unable to read or write. It's no surprise that some do not score well on national literacy and numeracy tests.

new star
The Daily Telegraph
28 Oct 09

The minefield that is school league tables

PETER HILL ADMITS: LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT PUBLISHING SCHOOL PERFORMANCE DATA IMPROVES STUDENT OUTCOMES.

Peter Hill, chief executive officer of ACARA, was asked what evidence there is that publishing school performance data improves student outcomes, he had to admit that there is not much evidence at all really.
Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian

12 Oct 09

National literacy and numeracy tests 'not reliable'

NAPLAN TEST RESULTS UNRELIABLE; CANNOT BE USED TO COMPARE SCHOOLS

The results from the national literacy and numeracy tests are unreliable and cannot accurately compare compare a school's performance from year to year or track the progress students make as they go through school.

With aberrant results, "it is difficult to have confidence in the overall NAPLAN 2009 results," says Prof Margaret Wu.

"...the government is going beyond the accuracy and the validity of the NAPLAN results. It basically means linking NAPLAN results based on student performance with teacher performance. That link is conjecture."

Prof Margaret Wu
The Age (Letters)
1 Oct 09


http://www.theage.com.au/
news/opinion/letters/
prejudice-not-faith/
2009/09/27/
1253989823564.html?
page=2

Professor Margaret Wu, a statistician with the ACER, has written a letter to The Age:

Like with Like

Professor Barry McGaw asked if it is fair for parents not to be told how badly a school is doing. As a statistician, I ask: ''Is it fair to accuse a school or a teacher of not doing their job when they are?''

NAPLAN results have large error margins. This can be shown statistically. But common sense will tell you that if we ever change the VCE to be based only on a couple of tests with 40 questions, there will be an outcry on the lack of reliability in the results. So how can NAPLAN results be used to assess school and teacher performance, when the performance of students is not measured well?

When schools are grouped into ''like'' groups, we need even more precision in the measures to detect differences between schools. It will be easy to demonstrate the difference between a high-profile private school and a low socio-economic government school, but it will be more difficult to determine significant differences between two high-profile private schools.

NAPLAN results just do not provide the precision to do that. Linking low student performance to school performance is at best a conjecture.

ABC News
27 Sept 09
School league tables 'deepen inequality'
The AEU says the proposed new reporting system will do more harm than good. International research is clear: league tables narrow the curriculum and deepen inequality.
Farrah Tomazin
The Age
26 Sept 09
Backlash at schools ranking
The Rudd government is headed for a showdown with principals and teachers about grouping schools according to the backgrounds of their students and ranking them on academic performance.
Prof David Berliner
Harvard Graduate School of Education
14 Sept 09
The need for a moratorium on high-stakes testing
There is a growing movement in the US to abandon high-stakes tests because they don't work as anticipated and are costly. School accountability systems based on high-stakes have proven to have no effects or negative effects on the achievement and the attitudes of the children.
Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
14 Sept 09
Parents don't want schools names and shamed: poll
Close to two-thirds of parents want new laws to prevent the creation of school league tables according to a national poll.
Justine Ferrari
The Australian
10 Sept 09
Progress 'key test of good school'
Peter Hill, incoming chief executive of ACARA, said the assessment of school performance had to move away from simply reporting test results to measuring the progress and improvement students made at school. He admits there could be difficulties and mistakes.
Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
22 Aug 09
Private school's league table fear
The prestigious Sydney private school Cranbrook is inclusive rather than academically selective. However, it will be compared with others which are selective - including Sydney Grammar. Cranbrook is proud of its open enrolment policy, but league table comparisons will be unfair.
Joe Kelly &
Justine Ferrari
The Australian
14 Aug 09
Thumbs down from the coalface
Phil Walker, Primary School Principal, views league tables as a misleading indicator of school performance ... a school shouldn't be judged on three days of testing in literacy and numeracy. "You've got to look at the whole picture."
Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
11 Aug 09
League tables can play to fears of parents
Dr Ken Boston, former director-general of NSW education, has warned that national testing results should not be used to construct school league tables. Dr Boston address principals in Sydney yesterday, and said that league tables had damaged the curriculum in England and could not be relied on to provide fair and accurate comparisons.
Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
7 Aug 09
Tables will compare rich, poor schools
New league tables would compare the performance of schools in the same local area, so that rich private schools will be compared with poor government schools in the same area. eg. The Scots College in Sydney will be compared with public schools in poorer suburbs such as Eastlakes. Geelong Grammar in Victoria (one of the nation's richest schools) will be compared with schools in disadvantaged suburbs such as Corio and Norlane. This, depite the PM saying he doesn't want to see Geelong Grammar compared with the school where he went because of its circumstances!
Elissa Gootman &
Robert Gebeloff
The New York Times
3 Aug 09
Gains in tests in NY schools don't silence critics
In NY, standardized test results are used for ranking schools, making or breaking their reputations, determining which schools will go out of business, grading students, determining principals' bonuses. But the validity of the tests is being questioned and the exam techniques the students learn are poor substitutes for understanding of key concepts.
Lex Hall
The Australian
14 Jul 09
Strike threat over school rankings
NSW teachers are planning an intense campaign of industrial action and of lobbying MPs to block the publication of school league tables. They are threatening to refuse to carry out next year's national assessment tests.
Farrah Tomazin
The Age, 9 Jul 09
League tables carry risk of 'unfair comparisons'
The man hand-picked by education ministers to develop a new online report card detailing the resources and results of each school admits that the project could be damaging if schools are unfairly ranked through leagues tables. (The comparisons are made on incomplete data.)
Trevor Cobbold
Save Our Schools
The Fudging of School Results Begins
Far from improving transparency and school results, school performance reporting leads to manipulation of school results, greater opaqueness and complexity. It misleads rather than informs. It fails to achieve real improvement in student outcomes at school. (The future for Australia can be seen in recent US reports which are referenced in the article.)
Trevor Cobbold
Save Our Schools
15 July 09
New League Table exposes hollow assurances
It is clear that Education Ministers cannot ensure that school results will not be misused. 'Save Our Schools' National Convenor, Trevor Cobbold, has called for an inquiry into the harm caused by league tables.
Geoff Masters, Glenn Rowley et. al. (ACER) Reporting and comparing school performances
Nationally comparable data about school performances should be reported to the public, but should NOT be used to create league tables. Instead, ACER proposes provision of information in the form of school profiles or comparisons of 'like' schools. School profiles allow an almost limitless range of information to be presented, while still allowing schools to be sorted by factors such as geographic location, school fee structure or religious affiliation.
Chris Bonnor
24 June 09
League Tables - Why just for schools?
Why not for doctors, milk bars, car servicing? How do we choose amongst these services when we move into a new neighbourhood? Why doesn't the government monitor doctors and give them marks for having healthy patients? Why not pay higher scoring doctors more?
Prof W. James Popham
University of California Los Angeles

Is assessment literacy the "magic bullet"?
Most accountability tests are NOT capable of evaluating the quality of schools. These instructionally insensitive tests tend to measure the socioeconomic composition of a school's student body, not the effectiveness with which those students have been taught.
   

Back to top

Date
Author(s)
Title
4 Dec 09 Education Week Motives of 21st-Century Skills Group Questioned
Questions are being raised about whether the push for 21st-century skills is anattempt by technology companies to gain more influence over the classroom.
3 Dec 09 Teacher Voices Scoring the Testing Industry
Selected responses are cheap to administer; they can be scored solely by machine and the results obtained quickly. But many think we need more. See Todd Farley's book, "Making the Grades: Why Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industy."
2 Dec 09 Justice Michael Kirby
Sydney Morning Herald
Stop bagging public education
I am fed up with media, and some politicians, criticising public education in Australia. I am fed up with suggestions that public schools neglect education in values. I am fed up when I go to wealthy private schools and I see the neglect of the facilities of famous public high schools. (Justice Kirby gives many reasons for being proud of our public school history.)
30 Nov 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Shows promise – rating the revolution
The Education Revolution may be a snappy marketing phrase but it is apt in one respect: audacity. No other recent administration has tried to overhaul the nation's early childhood services, the school system, and universities.
30 Nov 09 Adele Horin
Sydney Morning Herald
Children young for grade do less well
Children who start schoolyoung for their grade perform less well than their older peers by the second year of school (research by Australian Institute of Family Studies).
28 Nov 09 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Poorer schools outshine the rest
Data released in Victoria highights the greater improvement made by students in disadvantaged schools cmpared with their more affluent peers.
28 Nov 09 Mary-Ruth Mendel
Sydney Morning Herald
First languages first, the English
First languages provide the linguistic clues that assemble the mosaic of sound patterns and word knowledge needed for English literacy preparation.
27 Nov 09 Debra Jopson
Sydney Morning Herald

Talking 'bout their generation comes last
Remote students siply don't have the advantages of urban students, yet we expect the outcomes to be the same. (Some remote students have dirt-floored classrooms with no walls, and they hear English only when their teacher visits three days a week. National tests compare them unfairly.)

26 Nov 09 Aden Ridgeway
The Age
Language is power; let us have ours
Language goes to the heart and soul of one's identity and gives connection to family, country and community. Yet the NT and Federal governments have mandated a requirement that all Aoboriginal children in all Territory schools must learn in English for the first 4 hours of learning, sidelining education in indigenous languages.
25 Nov 09 Jessica Mahar
Sydney Morningn Herald
Lend a hand for literacy
Only one in five children in remote indigenous communities can read to the minimum standard. The "Hands Accross the Nation Indigenous Literacy Appeal" will ask people to raise their hands if they care enough to want to help the most marginalised Australians become literate and numerate.
23 Nov 09 Angelo Gavrielatos
Sydney Morning Herald
League tables don't tell a school's whole story
Julia Gillard has, on many occasions,acknowledged the damaging impact of school league tables. But so far, we see nothing being done about it. Without action,Gillard risks the education system having unintended but devastating consequences for students, teachers and parents.
18 Nov 09 Catherine Deveny
Sydney Morning Herald
Watch those grammars - Private School Values
Two private schools show an astonishing lack of insight and values that need scrutiny.
17 Nov 09 Sydney Morning Herald Teaching isn't only about test results
Education Minister Bronwyn Pike's confirmation that national literacy and numeracy test scores will be used as part of a trial next year to determine teacher eligibility for bonus pay will be of concern to many of Victoria's teachers. In August, she said the system "is not about rewards for results. I'm interested in rewarding people for passion, commitment and professional competency." So, what has changed?
17 Nov 09 Sydney Morning Herald Learning to read English is hardest – brain expert
A French brain expert believes English is "the worst" language to learn to read. (However, he seems to be defining reading as the ability to turn letters into sounds.)
16 Nov 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Early signs of success
Australia should try to learn from Britain's mistakes in rolling out its plan to give all 4 year olds access to kindergarten. If programs are low quality, it's better if the child stays at home.
Currently, Australia has the second lowest level of investment in early childhood education among industrialised countries.

14 Nov 09

 

Miki Perkins
The Age

 

Victorian teachers take note:

Primary English test 'a waste'
Victorian teachers slammed a new English test undertaken by thousands of primary school children, saying it produced wildly inaccurate results and was a waste of time. Principals have reported Prep students shown as performing at Year 5 level -- "flattering but impossible."

9 Nov 09 Nigel Hoffman
Sydney Morning Herald
A higher education worth having
Most Year 12 students see university primarily as vocational preparation. Most would be surprised to hear that a main task of universities was once to educate the souls of students, to help them come to terms with questions about life. ... The sense that some height and depth was missing in their "higher education" was behind student revolts in the US and Europe in the 60s. It's almost impossible to imagine such revolts taking place today.
5 Nov 09 Andrew Leigh
Online Opinion
Boosting education in the downturn
A government that's serious about an Education Revolution doesn't let university places shrink in hard times.
2 Nov 09 Brian Caldwell
Sydney Morning Herald
Education revolution fails grade
The much vaunted "education revolution" is heading for failure because it has not adopted key strategies that international experience tells us are important for success.
1 Nov 09 ABC News online

Weapons maker funds school curriculum
An Adelaide public school has come under fire for reaching a deal with the world's largest manufacturerof guided missiles to fund a new curriculum.

26 Oct 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Call to schools: open your books
Parents of government schools are used to transparency, where parents are elected to school council and audited financial reports are available. A parent of Wesley students finds that this is not the case. Meanwhile, a larger battle about transparency and accountability is being waged at the national level. The Federal Govt will make all schools publish information about their performance on a national "My School" website. However, reporting of income will be missing because the main players can't agree on how to report details. Principals are urging the government to delay the website's introduction until funding categories are included.
26 Oct 09 Sydney Morning Herald Principals have their say at education forum
Julia Gillard will bring 150 principals to Canberra next month to discuss how the government can help them lift educational standards.
24 Oct 09 Sydney Morning Herald Elite schools splash out on property deals
One of Sydney's wealthiest private schools squirrelled away funds for years to pay $35.2 million for an historic estate this week. It still receives more than $4 million annual funding from state and federal governments!
19 Oct 09 Patricia Edgar
Sydney Morning Herald
Childhood policy straight out of fantasyland
The Federal Government's anti-obesity guidelines want to ban television for children under two, and limit viewing to one hour for two to five year olds. Such recommendations emanate from a fantasyland where officials never seem to learn from the past or understand the real world where most of us live.
19 Oct 09 Dan Harrison
Sydney Morning Herald
We can learn from US on schools, says Gillard
But others say it's bizarre to look to the US for ideas on education. Trevor Cobbold (Save Our Schools) says, "Why would you sign a memorandum of understanding with a country that's so far behind us on average results and on dealing with low socio-economic students and minority students?" Australia should instead look to Finland, which outperformed both Australia and the US.
13 Oct 09 abc.net.au
Prof Brian Cambourne
See hear
Cambourne counteracts recent claims in "The Australian" newspaper with evidence that teaching intensive phonics actually interferes with children's ability to construct accurate meaning.
11 Oct 09 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Schools lack basic funding: Labor MP
Federal Labor MP Jennie Goerge has criticised her Government's "education revolution" for failing to address the urgent needs of public schools.
5 Oct 09 unesco.org Build the Future: Invest in teachers now!
Globally, 10.3 million teachers (1.3 million each year) need to be recruited over eight years (2007 to 2015) just to provide universla primary education by 2015.
5 Oct 09 Dan Harrison
The Age
Not measuring up
New research has raised doubts about the reliability of results from controversial national literacy and numeracy tests. Principals have urged the Federal Government to post information about the margin of error of the tests on its website of school profiles.
26 Sep 09 Horace Lucido
Fresnobee.com
High-stakes testing makes teaching bleak
The author argues that those pushing the high-stakes testing think they know and think they understand, but they don't. He uses a sports analogy to make his point.
"Why is it so difficult for so many to see the tyranny of high stakes testing? The answer is simple; they are not in the classroom."
23 Sep 09 Marion Brady
Education Week
National subject-matter standards? Be careful what you wish for
Buckminster Fuller, the visionary thinker and inventor, says: "American education has evolved in such a way that it will be the undoing of the society." Do we really want to go that way? Brad aruges that national standards will fail because they will be driven by data derived from simplistic tests keyed to simplistic standardskeyed to simplistic, obsolete, 19th-century curriculum.
16 Sep 09 Dan Harrison
Education Correspondent
Syd Morning Herald
Gillard urged to publish funding details
Primary Principals and the education union are calling on Julia Gllard to abandon plans to publish individual schools' results in national tests until she can also publish how much funding each school receives.
14 Sep 09 Stephen Lunn
The Australian
Kids 'treated as fodder for production'
Australia's children are increasingly being raised as 'fodder for productivity', trained in skills we want them to have as adults at the expense of allowing them a proper childhood.
12 Sep 09 Oprah.com The best ways to teach kids to read
A miracle: 'Harry Potter' helped learning-disabled students improve their reading more than three grade levels in under two years.
10 Sep 09 Economist.com The more help children get, the worse they seem to do
Research commissioned by the Dept for Children, Schools and Families in Britain suggests that support staff may be holding children back.
9 Sept 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Private schools' cash boost
Victoria's wealthiest private schools are set to receive massive increases in federal funding. Hailebury College will get more than $52 million, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar will get more than $39 million, Carey Grammar $20 million and Scotch College $16 million. Government schools can only dream of getting that kind of money.
7 Sept 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
'Four hours of English' strategy doomed to fail, say academics
A new strategy to improve the literacy of Aboriginal students in the NT is doomed to fail and will threaten the survival of indigenous languages and culture.
4 Sept 09 BBC News Pupils receiving help 'do worse'
Pupils who receive help from teaching assistants make less progress than classmates of similar ability because they spend less time with the teacher (a study by the Institute of Education in London).
2 Sept 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
School stimulus plan fails test for neediest
The neediest high schools in Australia have been denied funding to build science labs and language centres after the federal government ignored its own guidelines and redirected $200 million to help pay for a blowout in its primary school building program.
31 Aug 09 Kirsty Needham
Sydney Morning Herald
Uni lecturers prepare to stop work in four states
Staff express their frustration with increasing workloads and a shift towards casual teaching and fixed-term contracts.
24 Aug 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Rudd's $26b funding gift to private schools
The Rudd Government will deliver an estimated 32% increase in funding to private schools despite a review which uncovered entrenched inequities in the system set up by the Howard government.
22 Aug 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Teacher pay plan to offer $7000 bonuses
A "rewards" model will be piloted in Victorian schools next year. Education Minister Bronwyn Pike says, "This is not about rewards for results. I'm interested in rewarding people for passion, commitment and professional competency." Hmmm....will be interesting to see how that's done.
19 Aug 09 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Rudd increases funds for Brethren schools
The federal govt was criticised yesterday for increasing funding for Exclusive Brethren schools to an estimated $62 million over the next four years. In 2007, Rudd referred to the Exclusive Brethren as an extremist cult and sect.
15 Aug 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Report card gradings score F, says expert
ACER chief Geoff Masters has called for a dramatic rethink in the widespread practice of reporting school achievements as A to E grades.
4 Aug 09 Trevor Cobbold
Save Our Schools
Performance pay schemes are unreliable and misleading
A major new study from Princeton University challenges the assumption that teachers' salaries can be successfully linked to 'value-added' factors in student achievement.
4 Aug 09 Justine Ferrari
Education writer
The Australian
Schools 'call kids disabled for for cash'
The number of children diagnosed with behavioural or emotional disorders is soaring, driven by funding programs that give schools extra money for students with disabilities.
4 Aug 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Dud teachers caned by union
The NSW Teachers Federation says more needs to be done to address teacher quality and has conceded that underperforming teachers should leave the profession if they fail to improve.
3 Aug 09 Sydney Morning Herald A persuasive push all the way to university
A breakthrough mentoring scheme for indigenous secondary students.
29 Jul 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Teacher scheme takes off
Hundreds of university students have applied for the Australian adaptation of the Teach for America program. By the end of the year, about 60 graduates from non-teaching courses will be chosen. They will get 6 weeks of intensive training and then teach for two years in some of the most disadvantaged schools in Victoria.
27 Jul 09 Peter Singer
The Age
We must nurture the humanities
Australian Universities need to do much more to fulfil their most important role: teaching students to think for themselves. ... Leading American universities cherish the ideal of a liberal arts education that in Australia seems to have been overwhelmed by vocational and professional training.
25 Jul 09 Adele Horin
Sydney Morning Herald
An education revolution does not compute without quality teachers
The Rudd Government's education revolution will amount to little if it fails to lift teacher quality.
24 Jul 09 Natasha Bita
The Australian
Teachers' work is worth $100,000
Teachers will demand six-figure salaries to rival accountants and lawyers in a national pay push to start next year.
24 Jul 09 Greg Whitby
Sydney Morning Herald
Teachers key to improving the education system
The greatest influence on the future of quality Australian schools will not be the Federal Government's school building program or the national publication of league tables. It will be the collective wisdom of a teaching profession and community committed to shaping educational policy based on professional integrity and intellectual rigour.
20 Jul 09 Peter Martin
Sydney Morning Herald
Rudd's laptops send standards backwards
An American study finds that children in homes with computers tend to do better than those in homes without, but those homes also have a lot of other things other homes don't have (and often more educated parents).
17 Jul 09 Andrew Leigh
ON LINE Opinion
When small isn't beautiful
Few education policies are more popular than class size reductions. However, if the education budget is not increased, smaller classes translate into pay cuts for teachers. Since the mid-1980s, average teacher pay has fallen by about 10% (relative to other graduates). In the same time, student-teacher ratio fell by about 10%. Teachers have bought class size reductions from their own wallets!
15 Jul 09 Andrew Fraser
The Australian
Queensland joins NSW in truancy blitz
The Qld government has followed NSW in taking a tougher line on school truancy.
7 Jul 09 Alexandra Smith
Sydney Morning Herald
Rees turns tables on O'Farrell over release of school results
Labour Premier of NSW, Nathan Rees, will reintroduce league tables legislation to pressure Liberal Leader (Barry O'Farrell) to back down from his decision to block the publication of school results. O'Farrell maintained it was not Liberal policy to "stigmatise great teachers or great students" and parents could obtain sufficient information on a school's performance through annual reports.
6 Jul 09 Adele Horin
Sydney Morning Herald
First three years key to school success: study
How children are faring before they futn four is a strong guide to early school success. It is more important than what happens to them in the year immediately before they start school.
3 Jul 09 Stephanie Peatling
The Age
Child care to get young school-ready
All child-care centres will be required to begin baby learning and child development programs as soon as possible to make sure children are ready to learn when they start school. (Really?)
3 Jul 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Literacy and numeracy problems among indigenous students
Government programs and school interventions are failing to narrow the gap in performance bwtween indigenous and non-indigenous students.
3 Jul 09 Sydney Morning Herald Tables stance is right: O'Farrell
NSW Liberal Leader, Barry O'Farrell, has defended himself against a growing chorus of Liberals who have criticised his opposition to school league tables.
2 Jul 09 Tony Moore
Brisbane Times
'One class size does not fit all'
Abandoning the flawed philosophy of 'one class size fits all' would lift literacy and numeracy standards.
30 Jun 09 Brisbane Times Would-be teachers put to the test
Aspiring teachers will have to pass literacy, numeracy and science tests before they can be registered in Queensland from 2011.
30 Jun 09 Sean Cavanagh
Education Week
Top-scoring nations share strategies on teachers
Singapore and Finland have risen to the top in very different ways, but in both countries, only the top applicants get in to teacher education courses. In Finland, all teachers must have a masters degree. In Singpore, recruits are taken only from the top third of graduating classes. In both countries, teachers are held in high esteem.
30 Jun 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
School data 'not wanted by parents'
The Federal Govt insists parents want the ability to compare the results of similar schools – but a new survey suggests most private school families don't actually care for such information.
30 Jun 09 John Kaye
Sydney Morning Herald
School league tables must be stopped
Julia Gillard does not want school league tables. Neither does NSW Education Minister Verity Firth. Brian Caldwell (former Dean of Education at Melbourne University) urges "agitation on an epic scale" against them. The NAPLAN tests were not designed to rank schools so league tables would be false and misleading; this is what happened in New York.
29 Jun 09 Jennifer Buckingham
Sydney Morning Herald
School-reporting policy in league of own as Greens get their clause into it
School-performance reporting and league tables are NOT the same thing. The former, done properly, can provide useful information about a range of school characteristics. League tables, on the other hand, are lists of schools based on a single indicator, without reference to context or location. They are misleading.
27 Jun 09 Laura Clark
Mail Online
Central prescription of literacy hour scrapped in England
The 'literacy hour' which prescribed synthetic phonics in English classrooms has failed (no change in standards since the 1950s). Now, in a stunning U-turn, schools are being freed from central control.
27 Jun 09 Nicolas Perpitch
The Australian
Language fund risks being lip service
Without the staff to teach languages, the Rudd government's $500 million injection into school language centres could be pointless. New language teachers need to be trained, and the language centres need to be interactive so students can engage via the internet with native speakers in other countries.
25 Jun 09 Tim Matthews
Sydney Morning Herald
There is no excuse for funding private schools
Tim Matthews, vice-captain at Caringbah High School, argues that public funding of private schools in unconscionable. "Julia Gillard claims Australia suffers from a 'serious educational equity problem'. The irony seems apparent to most but the minister herself, for it is not the schools failing the children of Australia but the irresponsible distribution of government money.
24 Jun 09 The Australian UK's school exam system fails to pass test
An independent think tank has condemned Britain's examination system.
23 Jun 09 Andrew Trounson
The Australian
Teacher training 'needs fund boost': Field Rickards
Funding for teacher training needs to be boosted to the levels enjoyed by nursing to allow more intensive in-school training, according to Melbourne University's dean of education.
20 Jun 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Wealthy schools win cash bonanza from grants
Sydney's wealthiest private schools are being given as much as $3 million each from the Federal Government's school building program while making annual surpluses of up to $3.6 million. The bonus is on top of the $13 million in government funding some already receive.
19 Jun 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
NSW Minister lifts ban on schoo league tables
NSW introduced a bill to lift its 10-year ban on the creation of school league tables.
18 Jun 09 Nicolas Perpitch
The Australian
Spend money on teachers as quality education needed in revolution
Leading academics believe Gillard's education revolution lacks focus on improving the quality of teaching.
18 Jun 09 Henry Grossek
Principal's edited letter to The Australian
Schools' pride felled by bullying bureaucrats
The School Council found the Victorian Edcation Department negotiators to be provocative, insulting and heavy handed, and Federal government MPs expressed outrage about siphoning off vast sums from government schools to private schools.
18 Jun 09 Rick Wallace
The Australian
It's a bungle out there, says Berwick principal
Principal Henry Grossek has given an insider's account that paints a murky and disturbing picture of the Victorian government's blungling and bullying as he reveals how an upgrade to his school was mishandled.
17 Jun 09 Carol Nader
The Age
Mental health issues soar among children
Hundreds of children aged 10 to 14 are being hospitalised after harming themselves, and the rate has grown by 35% in just under a decade.
17 Jun 09 The Australian Good teachers given no incentive
Efforts to improve school performance are being undermined by a failure to recognise good teachers.
15 Jun 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Taking the language leap
Every Wednesday after lunch at an inner-Melbourne primary school, the students make a mental leap and stop writing in English and spend the rest of the week learning in Mandarin or Vietnamese. The curriculum doesn't change; just the language.
15 Jun 09

Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald

Mixed response to curriculum plans
History teachers are concerned about lack of detail for the senior years, but English teachers are confident that a balance will be achieved.
13 Jun 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Principle has been abandoned, say principals
Education Ministers are no longer committed to avoiding "harm" to school communities in the publication of school league tables.
12 Jun 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Revolution shapes tale of contrasts
There's much to recommend the school building program, but money is distributed according to number of students at the school. As a result, the nation's richest schools are receiving the maximum grant as if they had no existing facilities, resources or income.
11 Jun 09 Nicoloas Perpitch
The Australian
Adviser slams $14.7bn school cash as a 'missed opportunity'
One of Rudd's hand-picked infrastructure Australia board members has slammed the government's $14.7bn education revolution program, claiming it has missed a generational opportunity to build environmentally sustainable schools across the nation.
10 Jun 09 Natasha Bita
The Australian
Labor's largesse to private primary schools
Elite private schools that boast of their superior facilities were handed hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for new libraries, halls and refurbished classrooms yesterday.
9 Jun 09 The Age Gillard to unveil $1.4bn school works program
Victorian Primary Schools will receive $1.4bn under the latest instalment of the Federal Government's stimulus spending.
9 Jun 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
NSW Education Minister moves on school league tables
NSW will change the Education Act to allow school league tables. Greens MP Kaye said she will find herself isolated in a battle with principals and unions across every education sector.
5 Jun 09 Jane Caro
Sydney Morning Herald
High-stakes tests run on the cheap
I am not against transparency, information or data. However, there are two things we need to be ever-vigilant about when it comes to data: how it is collected and how it is used.
4 Jun 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
School progress to appear online
Every Victorian school will have its performance and programs published in a new state register.
2 Jun 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Public school's $700 plea to parents
A North Shore public high school is pressing parents to make "voluntary" contributiions of up to $700 a year to make up for a shortfall in government funding.
1 Jun 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
A league of their own
A principal explains the devastating effects when his school was "named and shamed" as a result of one measure which wasn't a true measure of the quality of the education they were providing.
1 Jun 09 Tanya Chilcott
Courier Mail
Universities failing our teachers
Universities are under attack from fellow educators for failing to produce teachers ready for the classroom.
1 Jun 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Agent of Change
As he oversees the reform of what is taught in Australian schools, Barry McGaw rides the storms with a Zen-like calm.
28 May 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
League tables slammed as a disaster
Melbourne University Dean Brian Caldwell has accused the Federal Govt of being "hell bent" on creating league tables ahd has urged parents to boycott national tests. He says Australia is entering an era of "unprecedented centralisation in the control of public education" with state and federal leaders paving the way for potential disaster in the push for schools to be more accountable.
28 May 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Prof Barry McGaw hits back at critics who claim phonics syllabus backdown
26 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Stand-off looms over high school league tables
High school principals are threatening to withhold results of tests from the Federal Government to prevent the creation of school league tables.
26 May 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Schools threaten testing boycott
The Federal Government is on a collision course with principals who are considering boycotting the national literacy and numeracy test.
25 May 09 Philip Riley
The Age
Tested by a test too many
The National Curriculum Board has decided that all students will now be judged by a single standard every year -- a one-size-fit-all approach. Teachers will adopt a "teach to the test" instruction method because their job and promotion prospects will rely on these scores. This approach has failed in the US.
22 May 09 Karen Dreher
The Age
Testing, testing ... a teacher's perspective
A single test won't tell us a story about where we are in schools. It will provide a benchmark for limited achievements. It's usefulness must be questioned.
22 May 09 Richard White
(former Dean of Education,
Monash University)
The Age
A view through the keyhole
Before continuing to spend money on mass testing of children, the minister of education should think about two questions:
1. Will the results of the test tell me what I need to know?
2. Will the tests have a good effect on what happens in schools?
(Answers: 'No' and 'No')
22 May 09 Neil James
Sydney Morning Herald
To teach grammar, get to the point
Everyone wants grammar back in our schools. Not surprisingly, that's as far as the consensus goes.
20 May 09 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Vague school syllabuses in the firing line
The incoming head of the NSW Board of Studies has declared the days of the vague curriculum over, saying syallbuses have to specify precisely the knowledge students should be taught.
18 May 09 Maureen Douglas
(retired principal)
The Age
New assessment program can only fail students
Testing such as NAPLAN testing has made neither Britain nor the US leaders in education.
18 May 09

Angelo Gavrielatos
Sydney Morning Herald

League tables will not improve choice, just cause damage
Pitting schools against each other over performance is not progress.
14 May 09 Emma Tom
The Australian
Rebels without a clause
Traditional grammar is like hardcore porn. We may struggle with definitions, but we know it when we see it.
14 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Independent schools ask for a fair result
Independent schools fear unjust public comparisons of their income with that of government and Catholic schools in school reports to be released later this year.
13 May 09 Martina Simos & Callie Watson
Adelaide Now
National literacy tests are only all write
Students who took national literacy tests yesterday had mixed feelings. Some battled nerves and stress but still found it "easy".
12 May 09 Tim O'Dwyer
ON LINE Opinion
The newly illiterate
A glance at a handout for a Year 10 English class revealed appalling expression (careless, clumsy, ungrammatical, unintelligible and unworthy of any Year 10 student, let alone whoever wrote it.
12 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Teachers will boycott standardised schools tables
Teacher unions have threatened to ban national literacy and numeracy testing if school league tables are pubished from data in national report cards.
11 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Schools face ranking to help parents choose
Parents would be able to sue university entry scores to compare high schools under a new national system of reporting to be recommended to education ministers.
9 May 09 The Age Beyond the cane
High expectations and firm discipline are givens at every successful secondary school.
8 May 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
National English curriculum to include grammar guide
Barry McGaw, who is expected to remain head of the new Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, said yesterday that the draft grammar guide would set out a scope and sequence for teaching grammar.
8 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Principals afraid of report cards
Principals fear reports that rank schools according to pupils' test results will ruin their reputations, encourage test results rorting and lead to intensive coaching. The APPA will call on the Federal Government to safeguard public report of the results. It also wants to ensure the retention of a balanced curriculum.
8 May 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Cyber bullies run amok at top school
Interesting for literacy educators to know that this school also introduced the Spalding Method some years ago!
8 May 09 Rowan Callick
Australian IT
IBM in Asian literacy push
Across the country, 87,000 students learn Chinese but by Year 12 almost all have dropped out. With our future economy depending on Asia, big businesses have established the Business Alliance for Asia Literacy.
7 May 09 ASCD SmartBrief Four comprehension programs don't help students
Four programs used widely in the US have failed to increase comprehension scores. More evidence that programs don't teach - teachers teach! Invest in teachers, not programs.
6 May 09 Kerry Jones
ON LINE Opinion
Civics education for a vibrant democracy
Australia is recognised as a vibrant democracy, yet we suffer from a lack of interest in issues of international and domestic importance, and our politicians are lowly regarded. Despite millions of dollars spent on civics and citizenship programs, reports continue to show no improvement in understanding.
5 May 09 Sydney Morning Herald School teachers the victims of bullying
Almost all school teachers have been bullied in the workplace, often by senior staff or the principal.
2 May 09 Paul Austin
The Age
$1bn for schools as Labor boost its education credibility
About $1 billion will be spent upgrading Victorian government schools as the Rudd and Brumby governments seek to bolster their education credentials and create jobs.
1 May 09 Anna Patty
Sydney Morning Herald
Teachers give ground on performance pay
NSW teachers have opened the way for quality teaching to be rewarded with extra pay, signalling an end to their long-standing opposition to so-called performance pay.
27 Apr 09 Margie Smithurst
ABC News
The silence epidemic: NT kids can't hear, can't learn
When indigenous children turn up at school, they often can't hear what the teacher is saying.
22 Apr 09 Farrah Tomazin and Carol Nader
The Age
Cash to narrow gap between rich and poor students
Schools in Melbourne's poorest suburbs will get measures such as literacy coaches, breakfast programs and more teaching staff.
21 Apr 09 ASCD Smartbrief Science should engage students and testing turns them off
Students are being driven away from science by tests that encourage memorization and lack the excitement of science.
20 Apr 09 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Testing times for reporting regimes
Just as Australia is set to introduce a new method of reporting student and school performance results, a similar system in Britain has fallen into chaos.
20 Apr 09 Carol Nader and Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Early learning is no game: it's a bumper start in life
The pre-school years are so important, but a 2006 OECD report showed that Australia is at the bottom of the class when it comes to spending on pre-school education.
20 Apr 09 Karen Cruickshanks
Sydney Morning Herald
Let kids be kids, homework can wait until later
A parent complains about unnecessary homework and discovers there is overwhelming evidence that homework is at best wasted timed and at worst harmful to self-esteem and damaging to family relationships.
18 Apr 09 Farrah Tomazin and Carol Nader
The Age
Poor children 'less likely to improve'
Most students from Melbourne's poorest families struggle to improve in reading and maths ... State Government research shows that being rich or poor affects how well you can break the cycle of under-achievement.
18 Apr 09 Justine Ferrari
and Corrie Perkin
The Australian
Arts profile gets boost in national curriculum
The status of the arts was boosted yesterday when education ministers decided to add the creative and performing arts to the second phase of the national school curriculum
17 Apr 09 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
Parents to check schools via internet
Parents will be able to compare their child's school with others.
15 Apr 09 The Australian Power of narrative
David Malouf recalls the power of a poem read to his class when he was in Year 4. Today's school children dqaully deserve to touch base with the most enduring aspects of Western cultural heritage in literature, music and art.
14 Apr 09 Phil Cullen
On Line opinion
A view of school in Australia
I don't take my motor car to a plumber for service, yet I have been witness to some extraordinary appointments in school authorities to senior postions ... we need people who know what they are doing, who have "been-there, done-the-hard-yards."
13 Apr 09 Sarah Dingle
ABC News (AM)
NT educators responsible for Indigenous 'underclass'
Dr Chris Sarra has just completed a review of education in the Northern Territory and says the education department has inadvertently created an underclass.
9 Apr 09

Jason Hill
Sydney Morning Herald

Games 'valuable learning tool'
Computer games can be a positive learning tool for children as young as three.
6 Apr 09 The Australian Treasurer defends posh school grants
The nations' most exclusive schools have received grants of up to $200,000 each. The posh King's School in Sydney got $200,000 to construct outdoor sporting facilities and student amenities! So did Scotch College in Melbourne.
6 Apr 09 Trevor Cobbald
Sydney Morning Herald
Competition policies will leave only losers in our schools
Not only has Labor maintained the previous government's privatisation and competition policies, but it is extending them by publishing tables of school results.
4 Apr 09 Australian Policy Online What price the clever country? The costs of tertiary education in Australia
Australia has the third highest university fees out of all OECD countries.
3 Apr 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Double standards in schools blasted
Julia Gillard has delivered a stern warning to private schools, telling teachers she will not accept "double standards" - they must publish information like public schools regarding funding and results.
1 Apr 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Schools funding boost 'fails public system'
A $14 billion Federal Government plan to bolster the economy by upgrading schools won't solve the gap between public and private education. Allocations will be based on school size, rather than needs. Last year, investment per private school student was $1774, but only $948 per public school student. This year, it will be $3020 per private school student and only $2470 per public school student. Astounding, and certainly inequitable.
1 Apr 09 Chris Bonnor (Co-author of "The Stupid Country: How Australia is dismantling public education.")
The Age
Education is no place for a free market
We need to dismantle policies that widen the gaps, policies that mock our rhetoric about equity and support for the poor. We must commit to funding on need and jettison policies that strip disadvantaged schools of their achieving kids.
1 Apr 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Isolation good for country schools
Rural schools in NSW perofrm better in the HSC the further away they are from larger competing schools.
29 Mar 09 (name supplied)
Personal communication
Letter to Brian Cambourne
Support for basic teaching of phonics, in context, rather than extreme phonics approaches.
28 Mar 09 The Australian Publicly ranking schools is essential to improve education
Gillard made a case for standard performance measures.
28 Mar 09 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Gillard canes carping lobbyists
Gillard carpeted the public education lobby yesterday for allowing a culture that accepted the underachievement of children and urged it to concentrate on implementing government reforms. She made no apology for the Government keeping the flawed model of private school funding.
28 Mar 09 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Government cut school days to save money
NSW teachers ay the State Government has shortened the school year by two days to save money.
25 Mar 09 Nick Stone
Senior Lecturer
Melbourne University
Letter to 'The Australian' re lopsided reporting
24 Mar 09 Dan Harrison (Canberra)
The Age
Gillard urged to ban league tables
Teachers and principals are calling for new laws to prevent the media ranking schools in "league tables" based on student test results.
23 Mar 09 Prof Brian Cambourne Phonics, Reading, Common Sense and The Dangers of "Readicide"
It makes much more sense to teach phonic knowledge in the context of learning to write, than in the context of learning to read.
23 Mar 09 Sydney Morning Herald Whole language approach to literacy reaps rewards
There is an impressive wealth of evidence to substantiate holistic approaches to literacy.
18 Mar 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Male teachers shifting schools
It seems that male teachers are shifting from public schools to work in independent and Catholic schools.
16 Mar 09 Margaret Cook
The Age
Kinder surprise
Where are we going to get all the preschool teachers needed to deal with the wave of new students?
14 Mar 09 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Different reading methods on trial in NSW
The NSW government is planning a pilot study assessing a reading program that teachers letter-sound combinations as the first step in reading. (However, Justine Ferrari reports it with her bias, and lack of knowledge, evident.)
10 Mar 09 Heath Gilmore
Sydney Morning Herald
Pressure on universities to attract poor
Elite Sydney universities need to do more to attract poor students if they accept public funding.
4 Mar 09 Andrew Trounson
The Australian
Massive shake-up of higher education funding
The Federal Government is planning to link funding for tertiary places to student demand.
3 Mar 09 Yuko Murushima
Sydney Morning Herald
Research, teaching funds paid for services
Voluntary student unionism must be overturned immediately to free up money diverted from teaching and research, says Prof Richard Larkins.
1 Mar 09 Christopher Bantick
The Age
To improve teaching standards, first improve teachers
Vidtoria's Auditor-General has called for a stronger focus on educational standards.
24 Feb 09 The Herald Sun Mobile phone texting may be good for literacy skills
The research debunks fears that abbreviations were leading to an illiterate "underclass" language.
22 Feb 09 Minette Marrin
Times Online (UK)
I'll spell it out: if children can't read, lives are ruined
The biggest independent inquiry into primary school education in England for 40 years finds: a focus on literacy and numeracy and testing has squeezed out other learning and the children's education, and their lives, are impoverished.
20 Feb 09 Richard Garner
The Independent (UK)
School children's lives are being impoverished
Too much testing and too little learning in primary schools has let down a generation, says major inquiry. ARE WE HEADING THE SAME WAY IN AUSTRALIA?
16 Feb 09 The Australian Kids' Lit seeks its laureate
A children's laureate to chapion reading among kids will be appointed from next year under a program established by an alliance of authors, teachers, librarians, publishers, booksellers and arts administrators.
5 Feb 09 Farrah Tomazin
The Age
Funding splurge fails to improve student results
Victorian students' literacy and numeracy skills have barely improved - and in some cases, performance has slipped - despite taxpayers spending more than a billion dollars on school programs designed to lift results. CLEARLY THE VICTORIAN PROGRAMS ARE INAPPROPRIATE.
29 Jan 09 Charity Corkey
Washingtonpost.com
It's Not the Books that are Dog-Eared
A program called Paws to Read helps students with their confidence by having them read aloud to dogs. The program is said to be effective because chidlren do not feel that the dogs pass judgment on their reading abilities.
29 Jan 09 Farrah Tomazin and Dan Harrison
The Age
PC program 'doesn't compute'
Some of Victoria's most well-resourced schools are among the biggest winners of the Federal Government's contentious plan to provide computer access to all senior secondary students.
28 Jan 09 Andrew Trounson and Angus Hohenboken
The Australian
Must try hard on education, Kevin Rudd told
Two-thirds of voters do not believe the Rudd Government is investing enough in public schools, despite Labor promsies of an education revolution.
19 Dec 08 Jay Mathews
Washington Post
How poverty influences learning, and vice versa
One of the best books written about this topic: "Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America."
17 Dec 08 Australian Policy Online Review of Australian Higher Education
Australia is falling behind other countries in performance and investment in higher education. Other countries know that there are strong links between productivity and the proportion of the population with high-level skills.
17 Dec 08 Mark Davis
Sydney Morning Herald
Sweeping reforms to fix universities
Australia needs to spend billions more on universities. Bradley review says higher education has deteriorated as a result of inadequate spending.
15 Dec 08 Andrew Trounson
The Australian
School scores fail uni test on picking best
Universities are concerned that school results are too narrow and are failing to identify talented students who fail to make the grade, especially from among the disadvantaged attending under-resourced state schools.
15 Dec 08 Jane Caro
Sydney Morning Herald
Letting parents vote with their feet on school choice doesn't add up
Julia Gillard is going to allow parents to 'vote with their feet'. The trouble with choice is everybody tends to "choose" the same thing; in this case, the same "prestigious" schools. Marketers know that nothing is more desirable than the hard-to-get and nothing is less desirable than that open to everyone. This bears no relation to quality, it is simply how marketing manipulates human desire.
12 Dec 08 Duncan Fine
Sydney Morning Herald
Don't blame Summer Heights High for turning kids into racists
Scots headmaster avoids responsibility for students' racist comments on Facebook.
6 Dec 08 Garry Collins
Arrogant attack on critical literacy
Read here the FULL response from Garry Collins ('The Australian' published only part of it).
6 Dec 08 Kenneth Davidson
The Age
So, Ms Gillard, the education debate is about values. Whose?
The clear conclusion re education funding is that the Federal Government is hell-bent on making government schools the residual system. ... The values that underpin the increasingly inequitable funding that is leading to a two-tiered education system can no longer stand the light of day in a civilised society.
5 Dec 08 Andrew Trounson
The Australian
Senate inquiry dismisses left-wing bias in universities
The inquiry ended as it began with government members dismissing allegations of left-wing bias at universities and schools, but with the minority coalition members deploring a biased "monoculture" and calling for academics to be more accountable to their students.
3 Dec 08 Jack Thomson
Balmain, NSW (in
The Australian)
Philosophical attack draws fire
Luke Slattery (education writer for The Australian) is criticised for misrepresenting Thomson's work and the work of some of the leading philosophers of the 20th century.
1 Dec 08 Patricia Buoncristiani
The Age
School is about more than tests
The experience in America has shwon that rigid adherence to passing tests is not necessarily best for children and Australia should find its own way. Instead of talking with Joel Klein about New York's system, she should speak with some of the principals and teachers and parents - they would give a different picture.
1 Dec 08 Matthew Franklin
The Australian
PM targets education inequality with $1bn handout
Kevin Rudd will identify the nation's 1500 poorest-performing schools and flood them with $1.1 billion over the next 5 years in a front-on attack on inequality of access to education.
29 Nov 08 Justine Ferrari
Education writer
The Australian
More funds for primary schools
Primary schools will receive an extra $100 a student a year and schools in disadvantaged areas will have access to $1.1 billion over the next 4 years under the federal Government's schools funding proposal.
29 Nov 08 Andrew Trounson
The Australian
University education still beyond the reach of many
Wealthy students remain about three times more likely to go to university than those from poorer backgrounds.
29 Nov 08 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Aboriginal students make short work of success
A school's investment in Aboriginal children is starting to pay off, with dramatically improved literacy and numeracy results.
27 Nov 08 Kenneth Davidson
The Age
Ratings scheme for schools fails the test for improving them
Joel Klein, corporate lawyer, is here to spruik the virtues of Gillard's wacky plan to publish a rating system for schools, but the results in NY do not stand up to any statistical analysis.
27 Nov 08 Angelo Bavrielatos & Susan Hopgood
AustralianPolicyOnline
Joel Klein and the NY school accountability model
Klein's model has not produced remarkable outcomes, and it will not address the issues of inequity and achievement in the Australian education system.
26 Nov 08 Shaun Carney
The Age
The best of both worlds
Australia's greatest living capitalist (Rupert Murdoch) and a flae-haired Melbourne left-winger (Julia Gillard) did more to redirect and re-energise education policy in this country than any two leading public figures for a very long time.
26 Nov 08 Sharon Beder
Sydney Morning Herald
Big business dominates educational planning
Joel Klein is in Australia to "spruik" his business-friendly school reforms courtesy of the Swiss bank UBX, the recipient of a multibillion-dollar bailout from Swiss taxpayers! Klein has also referred to children as cars in a shop, a collection of malfunctions to be adjusted!
25 Nov 08 Anna Patty
Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Don't mimic US school model: experts
Eduation authoritis have warned the Federal Government against following the NY education model, saying it has failed to deliver reported improvements in student results.
25 Nov 08 Chris Bonnor
Online Opinion
The Education Revolution – one year on
The achievements so far, and the need to 'get back to the barricades and have another go'.
23 Nov 08 The Sydney Morning Herald
Maxine McKew
Tackling a big learning curve
A new approach to early education is already here and it looks promising. As Prof Frank Oberklaid and Prof Fiona Stanley keep saying, babies come out of the womb ready to learn.
21 Nov 08 The Australian
Justine Ferrari
Schools debate misses the real issue ... funding
A typical primary school receives less than $2 a week per student to buy teaching resources such as readers, maths equipment, pencils, crayons, paper, art materials and sporting equipment. Debates over league tables, accountability and public versus private schools miss the real problem in education -- an extreme lack of fudning.
19 Nov 08 Education Week
Kathleen Manzo
No effect on comprehension seen from 'Reading First'
The previous Federal Government's "Teaching Reading" report was almost totally baed on the National Reading Panel's recommendations in the US. The $6 billion US program based on these recommendations ('Reading First') has failed.
17 Nov 08 The Age Outback schools need 'new themes'
A revised curriculum for indigenous students is being mooted.
17 Nov 08 The Age
(Gerard Wright in LA)
Brain wave: How technology changes our thinking
The wonders of our digital age are affecting us more than we know.
14 Nov 08 Online Opinion
Chris James
De-schooling Australia
Kevin Rudd's heavy hand of authority could see his 'education revolution' become the deschoooling of Australia. (People on welfare will have their welfare cheques removed for up to 3 months if their children avoid school.)
11 Nov 08 The Age
Dan Harrison
Gillard reassures schools
Julia Gillard has reassured independent schools that the national curriculum will accommodate alternatives such as Steiner and Montessori programs.
6 Nov 08 The Australian
Jennifer Buckingham
Brightest and Best miss out
The OECD described Australia as a high quality, LOW equality country in 2000. Since then, there has been much talk about the long tail of educational underachievement.
1 Nov 08 Matthew Denhold
The Australian
Gillard praises Tasmania for lead on school ratings
Tasmania has become the first state to release ratings of every state primary and high school based on literacy, numeracy and other key performance indicators.
1 Nov 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Primary schools 'need more cash'
Primary school students are neglected in education funding. Spending as a proportion of GDP on Years 3-6 was among the lowest of the OECD countries.
30 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
Call to fast-track school reforms
A 5-year project examining six countries has concluded that core issues such as teacher quality are the keys to achieving a genuine education revolution. ... Prof Caldwell and Dr Harris outline a 10-point plan, including "minimising or even abandoning plans for national testing programs."
29 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
History should be like a detective hunt, says author Carol Baxter
A course in practical history allowing students to trace the stories of Australia's early settlers would revitalise the study of the colonial past.
27 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
School testing 'backfires'
The federal government's policy requiring schools to publicly report their results in national tests was described yesterday as macho and populist by an international education researcher. He warns that testing regimes and 'league tables' are counterproductive.
27 Oct 08 Gerard Noonan
Sydney Morning Herald
Avoid school league tabls, says experts
A leading British education academic has warned Australia not to copy the obsession in Britain and the US with league tables and report cards for schools.
25 Oct 08 Gabriella Coslovich
The Age
Uncovering history in black and whitewash
An article about SBS's new television series First Australians. The author questions why Australia's colonisation history isn't taught.
25 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
A slow, steady learning curve
National Curriculum Board chairman Barry McGaw says the draft outlines for English, maths, science and history released last week are intended to set out a broad direction before sniping begins over the details.
21 Oct 08 Stephen Lunn
Social Affairs writer
The Australian
Children don't come first here
Australia's prosperity is masking an unpalatable truth - the health and wellbeing of our children lag unacceptably behind those of many developed countries.
21 Oct 08 Stephen Lunn
Social Affairs writer
The Australian
Education divide reopening, childhood expert warns
Australian Institute of Family Studies director Alan Hayes said evidence was mounting that access to quality education, the key driver of outcomes for children, was being decided increasingly along class lines.
20 Oct 08 Matthew Knott
The Australian
'Activist' academics black list under fire
Academics names as militant left-wing ideologues in a black list tabled in federal parliament claim they are victims of a Young Liberals "witch-hunt".
19 Oct 08 Sarah Price
Sydney Morning Herald
Eager readers rewrite the records
Record numbers of students have completed the 2008 Premier's Reading Challenge (NSW)
16 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
The Australian
British history is not the whole story
Call for British history to be the focus of school courses overlooked the importance of the values and traditions Australia inherited from Western Europe, historian John Hirst has said.
14 Oct 08 Farrah Tomazin and Dan Harrison, The Age Review urges hands-on, relevant science
Science classes will be revamped to place more emphasis on contemporary topics such as climate change, stem cell research and hybrid cars under proposed changes to the school curriculum.
14 Oct 08 Justine Ferrari
Education Writer
The Australian
History curriculum author defies his critics to find bias
Historian Stuart Macintyre, the author of the draft national history curriculum and a controversial figure of the history wars, has chalenged his critics to find any political bias in the new curriculum.
13 Oct 08 The Age Muddle in the middle, review finds
The benefits of middle-school programs for students aged 12 to 16 are not backed by hard evidence, according to a review.
6 Oct 08 Caroline Milburn
The Age
Upper pimary the 'forgotten' years
Leonie Trimper (president of the Australian Primary Principals Association) says this years NAPLAN results reveal the extent of the problem.
6 Oct 08 Tom Worthington
On Line opinion
Digital education revolution is not sustainable
When Julia Gillard talked about a digital revolution, she mentioned "sustainability" - but in an economic sense, not environmentally or educationally.
4 Oct 08 Kenneth Wiltshire
The Australian
Higher Education
Worldwide shortage of teachers
UNESCO estimates that 18 million more teachers needed for universal primary education, but author argues that teachers get less than top marks when it comes to status. He also argues that
it was a big mistake to give universities responsibility for teacher education.
4 Oct 08 Jonathan Porter
The Australian
Higher Education
Ideological divide in state leaders' choice of schools
State leaders are divided along party and ideological lines on the question of whether to entrust their most valuabl treasure - their children - to state or private education.
19 Sep 08 Anna Patty
Education Editor
The Sydney Morning Herald
Parents unite to learn the lesson
Australian parent groups will explore the boundaries of parental expectations of schools after concerns that some parents become too pushy with teachers.
15 Sep 08 Jenny Allum
Principal of SCEGGS Darlinghurst.
Sydney Morning Herald
A national curriculum, a bad choice
The principal of a well-known school in Sydney compares opportunities for consultation with the National Curriculum Board with the opportunities to consult with current State curriculum committees.
  NOTICE Unfortunately, the person who maintains this site is overseas. The site cannot be updated until mid-September.
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.
12 Apr 07 Jewel Topsfield
The Age
States step up merit pay row
The States have branded the federal proposal unworkable and ideologically driven. 
12 Apr 07 Bridie Smith & Jewel Topsfield
The Age
Labor plan to lift skills of teachers
Under a Labor government, trainee teachers would sit literacy and numeracy tests at the start and finish of their university courses. 
12 Apr 07 Ronnie Elgar
Teacher
Not me, thank goodness
Ronnie Elgar taught the same 36 Aboriginal students for three years and reflects on the implications of merit pay.
11 Apr 07 Catherine Armitage
Higher Education editor
The Australian
Bishop plan to cut unis
Only room for "perhaps a dozen" fully comprehensive, generic universities says Bishop. 
11 Apr 07 Farrah Tomazin
Education Editor, The Age
Pay as you learn
History shows that most attempts to introduce merit-pay schemes to schools have been fraught with difficulty and short-lived. ...  A recent ACER report, designed to back Bishop's plans, highlights the massive difficulties of performance pay schemes and gives the States ammunition to oppose Canberra's plans.
11 Apr 07 John Garnaut & Mark Davis
Sydney Morning Herald
Performance pay plan fails experts' exam
The Federal Government's own report warns that previous performance pay schemes have not worked.
11 Apr 07 David Keyes
Washingtonpost.com
Classroom caste system
The No Chld Left Behind act in the US has created a gap in American education. Its pressure to raise test scores has caused many schools to give poor and minority students an impoverished education that focuses on basic skills.
10 Apr 07 John Della Bosca
NSW Minister for Education
in Sydney Morning Herald
Competitive pay does nothing for students
Julie Bishop is trying to impose on the states a simplistic, ill-definted and unworkable proposition for individualised, performance-based pay.
 9 Apr 07 Lyndsay Connors & Jane Caro
Sydney Morning Herald
Parity's the question for teachers
While performance pay might motivate a vacuum cleaner salesman to work harder, it's unlikely to have the same result when you're in a cage with the big cats (read 30 adolescents).
 9 Apr 07 Letters
The Age
Many factors contribute to success
Several concerns about the current proposal for rewarding teachers by results.
 7 Apr 07 Judith Wheeldon
The Australian
Teacher perfomance model won't perform
Julie Bishop's plan to improve school education through performance pay for teachers is no plan at all.
 7 Apr 07 Letters to the editor
Sydney Morning Herald
There's no simple way to assess how the best teachers do their job
Measuring merit is not straightforward at all
 7 Apr 07 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Plan for principals to set teacher pay
Principals would be final arbiters of teacher salary increases under Federal Govt plans to intorudce performance pay.
 5 Apr 07 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Research points the finger at PowerPoint
Australian researchers have pronounced the death of the PowerPoint presentation.
 5 Apr 07 Justine Ferrari
The Australian newspaper
Literacy project attacked
The federal government's program to combat rising levels of illiteracy has been condemned as being mired in the past and an embarrassment.
 4 Apr 07 Des Treacy OAM
(was with Queensland Education for 44 years)
On-line opinion
Convenience of teachers or education of children?
The author argues that bureaucrats have lost sight of education's primary goals.
 4 Apr 07 Vaishali Honawar
edweek.org
Curriculum-development group urges focus shift to whole child
The definition of a successful student has to change
 1 Apr 07

Prof Stuart Macintyre
(President, Academy of Social Sciences; former dean of arts at Melbourne University.)
The Age newspaper.

Learning's heavy load
By all means ensure that the core disciplines are there in the school curriculum; but before imposing its dogma on the states and territories along with the compulsory national flag, the Commonwealth might first attend to its own responsibilities in higher education.
30 Mar 07 Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
edweek.org
Dark themes in books get students reading
Using recently published books to provide a more varied, and palatable, literary menu for students.
27 Mar 07 Justine Ferrari
The Australian newspaper
Swamped schools need to send social welfare back home
Primary schools are swamped by a cluttered curriculum that places equal importance on issues traditionally taught by parents, such as awareness of dog attacks and nutrition, rather than the core skils of literacy and numeracy.
26 Mar 07 Benedict Carey
NY Times
Poor behavior is linked to time in day care
Keeping a preschooler in day care increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive, a study found.
 3 Mar 07 Carol Cruzan Morton
(Focus Online, Harvard)
Child enrichment program still pays off after 15 years
Well-designed experiences in a child’s earliest years can overcome certain environmental and biological disadvantages.
2 Dec 06 Adele Horin
Sydney Morning Herald
Must try harder: Australia's inqeuitable education system
What's really wrong with our system?  It lets down youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds.
29 Nov 06 Melinda Houston
The Age
The truth about boys
By chasing 'masculine' ideals – subjects and careers – young males may be sabotaging their chances of excelling.
24 Nov 06 Kate Corbett
The Daily Telegraph
Childhood nurturing crucial in poverty fight
"The early years of a child's life determined literacy levels and thus their future."  Dr Fraser Mustard. 
8 Nov 06 Letters to The Age (Melbourne) Teaching good manners in schools
6 Nov 06 Margaret Grove, Abbotsford
Sydney Morning Herald
No financial woe
Private school recorded surplus of $2 million when it received $4.3 million in government funding.
4 Nov 06 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Court rules against demand for A-E reports
31 Oct 06 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Grading of young pupils given F by studies board
- independent educational advice against compulsory grading of young children
19 Oct 06 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
No hint of Mao: HSC English cleared of bias
The education research authority commissioned by the Federal Government to help shape a new national curriculum has found no evidence of political bias in the NSW HSC.
16 Oct 06 John O'Hagen
The Australian
Left's dominance
'To ridicule left-wing thought by linking it to figures like Mao Zedong is no less fatuous than waving Hitler under the Right's nose.'
14 Oct 06 Adele Horin
'HSC mother'
Sydney Morning Herald
At this rate, they'll grow up fast
A to E reporting and HSC results may seem easier for parents to understand, but '...it will be personal qualities, like kindness, that will matter, not a few digits on a piece of paper.'
13 Oct 06 Carmel Tebbutt
NSW Education Minister
Sydney Morning Herald
A broad view is the key to the best education
The public debate over school curriculums has descended to a farcical level. Bishop's comments belittle teachers and undermine students and their parents' confidence in schools.
11 Oct 06 Emma Tom
The Australian
How public education failed me with no mention of Mao
"It's depressingly common for people to brand others' opinions as insidious ideologies while insisting their own views are values."
10 Oct 06 Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Rise of the Testing Culture
A warning for Australia? 
 9 Oct 06 The Australian Kennett slams national education plans
'Plans for a national education curriculum would deny Australian students the best education possible.' (Jeff Kennett)
 9 Oct 06 Samantha Maiden
(The Australian)
Reading tests for 5-year-olds
 7 Oct 06 Anna Patty, Education Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
World-leading educator denies standards are sliding
Prof Barry McGaw, a world-leading education authority, says Federal Government claims that national literacy and numeracy standards are falling are wrong.
7 Oct 06 Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Teens in top five out of 41 countries
7 Oct 06 Judith Wheeldon
(The Australian)
Learning to lose our diversity
Enforcing uniformity across the entire nation wold lose great strengths Australia enjoys now.
 7 Oct 06 The Melbourne Age Thatcher v Mao – what a week for ideology
23 Sep 06 Adele Horin and Anna Patty
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Stop doing the homework, overzealous parents warned
Parents risk damaging their children and robbing their self-esteem by rewriting their essays or trying to do their study for them.
23 Sep 06 Adele Horin
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Ask those who judge best: students
By middle primary school, students are reliable judges of who is a competent teacher.
22 Sep 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH)
Australia adopting a class-based model of schooling
John Ralston Smith, award-wining Canadian author
18 Sep 06 Tony Thomson
(Letter published in the Melbourne Age)
C is meaningless when assessing children
The new reporting system will be easy, and utterly meaningless. 
18 Sep 06 David Rood
(Melbourne Age)
Teacher marks down A-to-E grading system
A prominent English teacher will give all of his students a C if forced to use the new A to E reporting system.
10 Sep 06 Deborah Gough Schools to revolt on federal report plan
The Age newspaper, Melbourne, 10 Sept 2006
9 Sept 06 Adele Horin
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Told to learn, denied the right
The PM complained that some refugees fail to integrate or learn English, but he blocked refugees from the free English lessons we've provided for decades.
7 Sept 06 Jason Hill
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Why learning is child's play
Prof James Paul Gee, a highly respected academic, urges more use of games in education.
6 Sept 06 Ross Gittins
(Sydney Morning Herald)
Teachers know money isn't everything
(Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 2006)
6 Sept 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH)
School principals rank new grading system bottom of the class
(Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 2006)
23 Aug 06 Tanya Plibersek
(Member of Parliament)
A lot to learn about education
(Sydney Morning Herald, 2 August 2006)
21 Aug 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH)
Leading principal gives new reports system an E grade
11 Aug 06 Dr Paul Brock
 
Breaking some of the myths – again  (Full monograph)

Myth No.1 – Things were always better in the 'good old days'
                                                      (link to an extract)
2 Aug 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH)
Report card stance risks school funding
A-E grading causing much angst and confusion.
Published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 2-8-06
28 July 06 Jane Caro & Lyndsay Connors Smart phrases, but the outcome for education is none too bright  Published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 28-7-06
12 July 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH) 
Look who's talking when parents are seen, not heard
The positive effects of parents reading to children and allowing them 'think time' and 'talk time.'
27 Jun 06 Deb McPherson Lament No Longer
Submitted to the Sydney Morning Herald, 27-6-06
23 Jun 06 Michael Doyle
New Reporting System is a Recipe for Failure
Published in The Age, 23-6-06
23 Jun 06

Maria Tumarkin
(The Age, Melbourne)

Telling Children a Dangerous Lie About Life
School reports do not tell children, or parents, how they are doing.

13 Jun 06 Anna Patty
(Education Editor, SMH) 

Fears for English Syllabus under national test plan
Published in Sydney Morning Herald 13 June 2006
It will be interesting to see Minister Bishop's response         
to the claims of "dumbing-down" in this article.

27 May 06 Dr Jan Turbill A to E not as simple as ABC
Published in The Age, 27-5-06
17 May 06 Prof Brian Cambourne Beware of Hardline Ideologues
Submitted to The Australian, 17-5-06
15 May 06 Prof Brian Cambourne The Golden Whip Award to Donnelly and Nugent
Response to articles in The Australian:  Donnelly (13-5-06) and Nugent (14-5-06)
15 May 06 Mem Fox Kevin Donnelly bores me stiff
Response to Donnelly, The Australian, 13-5-06
10 Apr 06 David Hornsby, Marie Emmitt, Lorraine Wilson No Kevin Wheldall, YOU have it wrong.
Response to Wheldall's letter, Sydney Morning Herald, 10-4-06
10 Apr 06 Prof Brian Cambourne Wheldall misinterprets role of phonics
Response to Wheldall's letter, Sydney Morning Herald, 10-4-06
10 Apr 06 Dr Maureen Walsh Puzzled by Wheldall
Response to Wheldall's letter, Sydney Morning Herald, 10-4-06
17 Mar 06
Emeritus Prof
Peter Rousch AM
Member of National Inquiry Panel Guilty
Response to Miranda Devine, Sydney Morning Herald, 16-3-06
16 Mar 06

Mark Howie
President, English Teachers Assoc NSW

No sound logic in a simplistic argument
Response to Miranda Devine, Sydney Morning Herald, 16-3-06
1 Feb 06
Literacy Educators Coalition The 3 Rs and Social Justice
Response to Donnelly, Sydney Morning Herald, 30-1-06
1 Feb 06
Lorraine Wilson, Carlton Education is a Journey, not a Commodity
Response to Sunday Age article, 29 Jan 06

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New assessment program can only fail students

Maureen Douglas (retired principal)
18 May 2009

Such testing has made neither Britain nor the US leaders in education.
I HAVE no doubt that politicians, policy makers, parents, carers and teachers all have a common goal for the students in our schools: they want the best, and that includes enabling them to develop those all-important literacy and numeracy skills.

But we are doing them a disservice if we think the Federal Government's impending testing program will improve performance in literacy and numeracy. Assessment is a highly complex process, yet we are being asked to believe that the National Assessment Program can be all things to all people, that it can, at once, tell parents how their is child performing, give teachers the information they need to plan programs to meet students' needs, and enable policy makers and politicians to judge the performance of schools and make meaningful comparisons between schools, states and systems.

It has become the single most important tool for judging achievement in literacy and numeracy and takes precedence over the ongoing assessment of teachers. Along the way, it risks taking the joy out of learning, and stifling our children's potential as dynamic and creative learners.

 

This year, the Education Department has held briefings for principals to stress the importance of the tests and to remind them to set time aside to prepare students. Emails have been sent to schools emphasising the importance of Victorian students performing well. Regions are issuing schools with lesson plans and hints to make sure students are "test ready". Clearly, schools are being asked to teach to the program, and therein lies a real danger for schools and, most importantly, our students.

Last year, I visited primary schools in two countries where high-stakes testing has dominated the education agenda for many years, the United States and Britain. I was struck by the effect of such testing on schools and students. Preparation for the tests dominates each day from the start of the year. This means students are streamed according to ability for the three core subjects: English, maths and science. Sadly, many students, particularly those for whom English is not their first language and those with learning difficulties, find themselves in the lowest-achieving group. This constant negative labelling leaves them despondent and many simply give up. And for the more capable students, there is little incentive or opportunity to use and extend their skills.

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Arrogant Attack on Critical Literacy
Garry Collins (President, English Teachers Association of Queensland) 6 Dec 2008

In his piece, “Uncritical elevation of a loopy fad” (HES, 26/11), Luke Slattery asks: “Why, once the press had lifted the lid on critical literacy and exposed it to criticism, was it defended with such autocratic fervour by groups such as the English Teachers Association?” This prompts some questions in return.

Does Slattery arrogantly suppose that, just because he and a handful of other commentators (who don’t teach in schools) criticise an idea, thousands of English teachers across the country will obediently jettison what they consider to be a very useful element in their teaching repertoires? Does he assume that his pronouncements will automatically put a definitive end to debate on a professional issue about school English teaching, a profession in which he does not himself engage?

What constituency does Slattery represent? Who appointed him to attack critical literacy with “such autocratic fervour”?

A couple of other points are worthy of note. There is no single organisation in the country officially known as “the English Teachers Association”. Each state and territory has an English teachers association but the umbrella national body is the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE). In his opening paragraph, Slattery refers to “the new training document”. The relevant document recently released via the National Curriculum Board’s website is, in fact, called a “framing paper”.

It used to be that getting the basic facts right was considered to be important in journalism. Perhaps teachers are right when they refer to a crisis in reporting and comment on education and suggest that standards in journalism related to education have been falling for decades.

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Some Thoughts on Grammar
Garry Collins
(President, English Teachers Association
of Queensland)

One of the “rules” of traditional grammar that I had drummed into me when I attended primary school in the 1950s, that golden age when everything in education was apparently done so much better than today, was that it is not permissible to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as the word “and”. In today’s second editorial (“Silencing grammar, 13/6), this “incorrect” construction is to be found not just once, but twice.

Another of the “rules” that I was taught was that a sentence must contain a verb. At the end of a paragraph in the second column of the editorial we find, between the capital letter and full stop indicating sentence boundaries, the single word “Pathetic”. This word is an adjective, not a verb. Are we then to deduce that a leader writer for a major daily newspaper is unable to consistently write in complete sentences? The “split infinitive” in the previous sentence was quite deliberate since it serves to highlight another of the so-called “rules” of traditional grammar that is of no practical use.

It is interesting that what is condemned out of hand by the use of the comment “Pathetic” is the suggestion that students should apply grammatical concepts to material like TV guides that they might voluntarily choose to read in their spare time. I suppose the idea here is that grammar can only be character-building when it is confined to boring work-book exercises conducted outside of any meaningful context. That, after all, is how it was routinely done in the good old days.

In expressing outrage about some errors in the ETAQ journal, the editorial claims that a pair (both words in italics) is “a noun”. This is clearly incorrect. The second word is certainly a noun but the first is an indefinite article or what some authorities would classify as a determiner. The old adage about people who live in glass houses comes to mind. In addition, the fact that the word “a” is classified by some as an article and by others as a determiner indicates that some grammatical terminology is not as fixed and clear-cut as the editorial would suggest.

Yet another of the traditional grammar gems that I learnt in primary school was that it is incorrect to end a



sentence with a preposition. Winston Churchill’s comment on this dictum was that it was the sort of arrant pedantry up with which he would not put. No doubt Churchill would be chided by The Australian for his poor use of the English language. As quoted on the front page, even the erudite Emeritus Professor Rodney Huddleston commits this grammatical sin when he talks about “the worst published material . . . that I have come across.” Any dictionary will confirm that “across” is a preposition.

Traditional grammar, as it used to be taught in schools, includes a number of Latin-based notions that do not accurately describe how the English language actually works. Perhaps those who advocate a complete return to it should have the good grace to practise what they preach in their own writing.

When Kevin Donnelly asserts that, in functional grammar, nouns become participants and verbs become processes (“Class-based waffle”), he indicates that, while he may have heard some functional grammar terms, he does not really understand them. His ignorance is coupled with rather astonishing arrogance when he goes on to describe as “dense and arcane” some simple and very useful concepts solely because he has not bothered to understand them properly. To be consistent, he would have to deny the value of most human knowledge simply because he is not familiar with it.

Incidentally, I have taught secondary school English for twice as long as Kevin Donnelly ever did. It might also be worth remembering that, as far as I am aware, Professor Huddleston, for all his acknowledged erudition, never taught a single day at primary or secondary school level and never produced any materials that were useful in teaching grammar to school students.

In conclusion, I would like to thank The Australian for providing my 15 minutes of fame. To be the subject of attack in the pages of this newspaper is confirmation that ETAQ is making a valuable contribution to English teaching.

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You don't dictate what we debate, Ms Gillard

Julia Gillard (Opinion, May 29) ignores a fundamental point about schools and learning. Learning does not simply take place in the classroom, but in the playground, in the school "community". By all means dispense with the divisive public/private, religious/non-religious, selective/non-selective debates, but do not ignore the wider issue.

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? Why do we have to corral them into educational ghettoes? Each and every school needs diversity within its walls.

Ms Gillard, you may be the minister in charge, you may even be the Deputy Prime Minister, but you don't get to dictate what should or should not be debated. Education is about so much more than service delivery, and the Julia Gillard we put into power knows it.

Lee Borkman Menangle

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Letter from Brian Cambourne to Julia Gillard re phonics failure in the US

Why Has The Australian Media Ignored This Story ?

In her column of May 19, 2008, The Australian's education reporter (Justine Ferrari) implies there is clear scientific evidence that children need intensive phonics instruction before they can become effective comprehenders of what they read. Why has she ignored a study which casts serious doubt on such evidence? The results of this study were released by the US Department of Education about two weeks ago, and were reported in most USA newspapers well before she would have penned this piece, Why hasn't The Australian (or indeed any other Australian news media) picked up these results?

They clearly show that intensive "phonics first" approaches have failed.

The "Reading First Impact Study", presents a scientific analysis of Reading First, the federal program authorised by the No Child Left Behind Act to teach US children to read. The instructional model underpinning Reading First is based on the recommendations of a group of US academics appointed by the Bush administration as a National Reading Panel. This group argued that a heavy " phonics first" emphasis would raise reading achievement, especially among low-income students.

The Reading First Impact Study clearly shows that a after six years of intensive phonics-first instruction at a cost of $US6 billion, children enrolled in Reading First scored no better on tests of reading than children in comparison schools. Furthermore after six years of implementation Reading First has failed to produce gains in state or national reading tests.

The UK study Ms Ferrari cites to support her claims is equally as suspect. It is based on the results of a single study done in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. A careful reading ofthe study shows that children taught with synthetic phonics were not







“three years ahead of their peers in reading,” as is claimed in the reports in the UK media. They were ahead only on a test that asked them to pronounce words presented in a list. On a test of reading comprehension, which required understanding the text, they were only three months ahead of national norms when tested six years after their phonics experience. This is an insignificant advantage.The Clackmannanshire study confirms thatlearning to pronounce words through phonics instruction does not contribute much to the ability to actually read with understanding,

I am not anti-phonics. Explicit phonics instruction is absolutely necessary if children are going to learn to spell and write with power and fluency.

I am one who has spent the last forty years sitting in classrooms observing and documenting how teachers teach literacy I am concerned by a shift to the mindless, lock step teaching of phonics at the expense of exposure to, and enjoyment of good children's literature.

Sincerely,

Brian Cambourne

Associate Professor Brian Cambourne,
Principal Fellow, Faculty of Education
University of Wollongong


Member International Reading Association's Reading Hall of Fame
Life Member USA National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
Language Arts Educator of the Year 2001
Winner Australian Literacy Education Association's (ALEA) Inaugural Garth Boomer Award for Services to Literacy Education.

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Letter from Mem Fox to Crikey.com re Julia Gillard's comments on phonics

So Julia Gillard has been kissed by the phonics fairy. This is bad news for literacy teaching and worse news for Australia’s economic future.

The last important political figure to be kissed by the phonics fairy was George W. Bush who knew as much about the way children learn to read as he did about helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina. He’d been lobbied successfully by those who stood to make billions out of a reading scheme based on phonics which they claimed was the most successful ‘evidence-based’ method of teaching reading. George Bush is not known for his skills in interpreting the evidence of research. He never discovered that the evidence in a huge piece of research had been either ignored or skewed, for financial reasons, in favour of the phonics method.

The result today is such a horrifying ten-year slide in literacy standards in the USA that the state of New York now employs hundreds of our best primary teachers to teach reading properly and successfully, and to teach teachers how to do it our way.

 


Our way is to teach phonics also—surprisingly!—and to teach phonics well. It’s the way we do it that’s different and it’s made all the difference to literacy learning in Australia. Our literacy levels are among the four highest in the world consistently, which feeds into our economic well-being—there’s nothing like a well-educated workforce to boost the country’s economy.

But to throw out what we’ve been doing so well and thereby sink to the current levels of literacy in the USA based on ‘evidence-based’ research is more than this particular fairy can stand. It must not happen. I couldn’t bear the divine Julia to turn into an education frog.

And by the way, there wouldn’t be anyone in this country who’d be able to make a mint out of a universal phonics program would there? Just asking.

Mem Fox

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History is more than just recitative
Guy Rundle (Crikey.com  5-7-2007)

News that PM John Howard has been micro-managing the drafting of the new history curriculum (Crikey, yesterday) should come as no surprise.

For a long time many people were fooled into the belief that John Howard worked from a set of political values befitting a conservative. As his sudden reversal on a lifetime’s support of states’ rights – once Labor had the whole set – showed, this is bollocks.

Howard is a cynical professional politician and the polls would seem to indicate that most people now share this belief. Part of Howard’s problem is that public dislike of him is now categorical – if he donated blood folks’d say he did it to get the free biscuit.

But like all cynics, Howard is not bereft of sentimental attachments to concrete objects in place of values. The Don, the flag … and those old High School Readers that taught generations of students a unitary narrative history and a particular interpretation of it.

The Victorian State Readers announced in their foreword that they were telling the "story of our Race and its role in history" (paraphrasing from memory). It wasn’t necessarily a pernicious triumphalist version – after WW1 it spoke of the role "our race" had to play in ensuring peace.

Howard seems to want a curriculum pretty much of that form, even if the R word is removed. But it’s a fantasy, a memory of schooling suited to an earlier era, when the majority of students left school at 14 or 15, in an era when sources of media and information were far more limited. Your family, your neighbours, your church, a handful of newspapers, ABC radio, a dog-eared copy of Esquire left in the barber's … that was about it, all within a pretty much monocultural society, with international travel a dream for most.

 


Education has changed because childhood has changed, not because sinister lefties have been developing curriculum bombs in basements.

From the age of three or four one of the main tasks of growing up is synthesising a world-view from an oversupply of information. Kids asks questions because they’re engaged with a world in which a multiplicity of contradictory info comes at them constantly, and because they’re constantly engaging with that world.

So curriculum design includes questions because kids ask them anyway, and any history course that doesn’t include such will bore them rigid. You can try and nail down "the story of WW1" as a given if you’re fool enough – but if your class includes anglo, Turkish, Greek and Arab-descended kids you’ve got at least four perspectives before you’ve even started. They will compare it to Iraq anyway, ask questions about the nature of war, invasion, etc etc. Any teacher worth their salt will encourage that, and any feasible curriculum has to be designed on that basis.

You’re also educating kids for a world not of stable and unchanging trades and professions but for a world in which the world, work, etc changes rapidly, constantly, unceasingly. Education is about teaching kids how to keep revising their world view, not giving them a fixed stock of "true" info.

Having looked at the leaked framework, it seems to me that it’s got more of a narrative spine than older versions – a good thing – but that the method – questions, issues, themes – is virtually unchanged. As it cannot but be.

Should Hendo and Blainey try and nail down a recitative as curriculum, teachers simply won’t teach it. The whole thing is shaping up as another Howard fiasco.

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Indigenous education demands community learning circles

Neil Hooley (Lecturer, Education, Victoria University)

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.

For non-Indigenous educators, this different way of viewing the world may be impossible to access. How islander people navigate across the seas, or how desert people are never lost seems a mysterious process. Indeed, as one example, the concept of wilderness may be entirely metropolitan.

These are matters of essence and culture involving how humans perceive their place in the universe. Indigenous viewpoints see everything connected with everything else and a literal connection of the living with the land. When these environmental connections are broken, life itself is in peril.

Australian schools as elsewhere have found it extremely difficult to respect these cultural relationships, let alone construct curricula that embody such principles every day. There is an argument however that Indigenous ways of knowing are good education appropriate for all children.

As a first step to cultural inclusiveness, schools need to develop structures that enable Indigenous families, children and Elders to participate as respected equals in the learning process. Wherever we live, there will be Indigenous co-ops, health centres, education houses and local identities through which contact can be made.

To see formal education as a community partnership involving all stakeholders is surely not a radical idea. In Sweden for instance, a system of study circles has existed for over one hundred years. This is seen as a form of liberal education and a means of strengthening democracy for the entire country.

Swedish study circles have over two million participants each year and arrange about 200 000 cultural events annually. They follow the same tradition of the folk high school established in 1868, where programs are decided by the people according to current interests and needs.

In general terms, study circles can be envisaged as a systematic process for public dialogue and community change. They usually comprise small groups who meet together over a period of time, who set their own procedures and who may engage a facilitator to assist the discussion. They often begin with personal stories and accounts from which themes, ideas and ways of proceeding emerge.

It is not intended that one view will dominate the outcomes of a study circle. Rather, the circle reaches out to all participants so that knowledge and experience is shared and a range of possible pathways can be explored. The study circle seeks to reach consensus and a heightened respect and does not impose a particular will.

In working with Brazilian peasants, the educator Paulo Freire used what he termed culture circles as a means of pursuing literacy. Small groups of peasants would begin by discussing what was important to them, such as fresh water for the village and from that, Freire would introduce new ideas and written forms.

Study circles have a more recent history in the United States, but they have been used there to consider race relations, poverty, education and many other community issues. In a country that is anticipated to be fifty percent non-white by the middle of the century, the US has a vested interest in creating healthy communities and in maintaining its democratic heritage.

Indigenous peoples in Australia are also familiar with this type of organisation. In attempting to make progress on reconciliation matters, a number of learning circles were established to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together for cross-cultural understanding. Key features again included a sharing of experience and explanation through story telling and the identification of common themes arising.

There appears to be therefore a range of agreed principle and successful practice from Sweden, the US, Brazil and Australia involving a study circle process. It seems to be most appropriate when Indigenous issues are involved and beginning with a construction of local narratives, can lead to the respectful resolution of problems.

It is very realistic to suggest that each school or group of schools in the urban, regional and remote areas throughout Australia undertakes to establish a learning circle with their Indigenous neighbours. Which name is best to describe its work will need to be agreed. A learning circle however could concentrate on the broad parameters of curriculum, ensuring that Indigenous ways of knowing are included.

There are many difficult social and educational issues that will need to be discussed, probably over extended periods of time. Indigenous forms of mathematics, of science, history and culture will be introduced as Elders see necessary and it is shown that the engagement is serious. There will be a sharing of language. This is a two-way process of inquiry and communication as both cultures interact and learn from each other.

Depending on the circumstances, a learning circle exists inside other structures. For schools, there are constraints of time and regulation including the need for formal assessment. The purpose of the learning circle is however to go beyond such barriers and to work with other structures that are enduring, democratic and respectful. The learning circle provides a structure to enhance human agency, not to restrict it.

Impulsive, short-term action designed to have one view assimilate another is not appropriate for education and is definitely not appropriate for reconciliation across cultural divides. Study circles or learning circles on the other hand, can defend, vitalise and extend the democratic character of our society. Indigenous education demands that it be given a chance.

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The History Wars
1915 and all that: History in a holding pattern
Guy Rundle (Crikey.com.au)  28 June 2007

So, after a lot of sound and fury, a one-day conference, a lot of tut-tutting about hysterical accusations, the development of the new high school history curriculum turned out to be a fix after all. After Professor Tony Taylor, a specialist in history education, presented his draft curriculum developed after a heavily right-slanted one-day conference on the issue, the Government has called in Geoffrey Blainey and Gerard Henderson to rewrite it.

I suspect they were always going to. It seemed clear at the time that Minister Julie Bishop, who had set up the process, hadn’t really understood what was required of it and of her – to deliver a socially conservative curriculum so tight that it would leave a minimum of room for history teachers to raise questions about the interpretation.

Thus, say, Gallipoli would be presented as ‘the making of a nation’ and though some old bearded leftie in Wooropna High might be able to suggest that it was a chaotic imperial adventure that shows you should never trust what governments say about war, there’d be less scope to suggest that the real making of Australia was the Harvester judgement that set our social, political and economic form for a century to come – because it wouldn’t be on the exam.

But Bishop stuffed up – deliberately or otherwise – and Taylor has allegedly delivered a curriculum much like the previous ones, with (according to Greg Melleuish one of the right-wing placemen) a variety of different modules and a focus on the way social movements have shaped the contemporary political environment.

 

 

I say allegedly because the Government won’t release the draft before Blainey and Hendo get their hands on it. Clearly, Howard realised that this had all gone pear-shaped, and the intervention was planned at a pretty early stage.

It’s hard to know how much difference this sort of blatant political fixing would really make. Curriculum design turns on a lot more issues than content – it has to be designed so that it keeps students interested, develops their research skills, connects with worlds they know etc. It’s a specialist art and just being a historian (Blainey) or a hack who thinks he’s a historian (Henderson) ain’t enough. You can never really tell which Blainey you’re going to get – the conscientious historian or the shameless booster of books like Windschuttle’s farrago on Tasmania And if Henderson’s contribution is as boring as his columns on Doc Evatt, students will just do what the editor of The Age did.

Most likely the final result will be a dog’s breakfast, unteachable, and have to be thrown out anyway. And it’s deckchairs on the proverbial in any case if Rudd gets in, coz he’d never let stand such a blatantly conservative cultural fix, would he?

Would he … ?

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There's no simple way to assess how the best teachers do their job


John Della Bosca's aim to pay teachers according to merit is certainly laudable, but he will find that measuring "merit" is not straightforward at all ("Della Bosca push for teacher merit pay", April 5). If he sets an exam for students as a measure, no one will want to teach less gifted students who are incapable of top results.

Disadvantaged students need dedicated and gifted teachers, but how are they to compete on such a criterion? How do you comparatively measure the merit of a variety of great gifts that teachers possess in conveying knowledge, confidence and encouragement to students? What price do you put on the teacher who will go the extra yard and put in that extra time?

I spent years measuring merit for promotion of a great range of skilled and professional classifications and found that careful examination of the views and observations of supervisors was a valuable measure. But here again differing outlooks and, in particular, likes and dislikes can complicate evaluation.

My son is the assistant principal at an international school in Bangkok where merit bonuses have been paid for some years. Untold friction resulted, with the eventual result that a standard bonus of 5 per cent is now paid to all teachers. Teachers there are, however,


on contracts of two or three years' duration because of local conditions and the view is taken that if a teacher's contract is renewed, he or she is deserving of the bonus; this is an easy way out of a thorny problem.

Best of luck, minister.

Brian McGee, Balgowlah

 


Merit-based pay for teachers? Why is anyone suggesting this? How does one assess a teacher's performance? Who does the assessing? At a time when we have enough difficulty getting people into the profession are we now going to create another disincentive?

If we extend this idea, how about merit-based pay for politicians? Can we have a full accounting of their use of funds allowed to them as members of parliament? An assessment of how well they have represented their electorate, which is what they are elected to do?

Any party that wants to introduce such a measure will not get my vote. That is the only method of assessment of politicians allowed to me.

David Ashton, Orange

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How public education failed me with no mention of Mao    
The Wry Side, by Emma Tom (Published in The Australian, 11 October 2006)

I'M one of those Australian students who has slipped through the net. It's not English, maths or Shakespeare I've missed out on while studying at assorted Australian primary schools, high schools and universities.

It's the Mao propaganda.

Not once have I had a teacher or lecturer who has advocated the autonomy of the Hunan Province, the expunging of non-Marxists from the military or the execution of the intelligentsia.

Yet, according to federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, perniciously pinko pedagogues have been busily ramming Maoist dogma down the unquestioning gullet of every other pupil across the nation.

I feel so left out.

Embarrassingly enough, my public high school education means I can still spell diarrhoea sans dictionary, perform long division sans calculator and recite - trippingly on the tongue - Shakespeare sans script. Sceptics may doubt the usefulness of such skills given the wide availability of spellcheckers, calculating devices and people who think Hamlet quoters are complete and utter wankers, but on the whole I've always felt relatively well-rounded.

Now, however, I realise I'm a freak: possibly the only Australian to escape school without having to spend my uniform allowance on a Mao cap, Mao suit and Red Army shoulder bag for carrying my textbooks, all of which would have been copies of Mao's Little Blue Book. Or was it puce?

Once again I must confess my shocking ignorance and critical need for a crash course in chairmanisms.

University has been no better. I'm about to finish a masters degree and it is my grave responsibility to report that Mao has been mentioned only twice.

The first time was in a lecture about the implications of the rise of China on competing Asia-Pacific and East Asia regional organisations, and was part of a brief overview of Chinese economic history.

During this class, there was a lot of chitchat about China's global economic ranking based on GDP (gross domestic product) as opposed to PPP (purchasing

power parity) measures. But I certainly don't remember my lecturer - a high-profile member of the Lowy Institute for International Policy - ever saying anything along the lines of "yay Mao" or "Marxism rocks".  He was far more animated about the fact that, thanks to China's international economic integration, communism was increasingly being seen as a politically correct fig leaf, even within China itself.

Probably not a concept Mao would have been comfortable with in a little book of any hue.

Marxism also made a brief appearance in one of those notorious gender studies classes, but even here, an area where radical indoctrination is supposed to reign supreme, it was only a brief mention in an incredibly dense reading comparing different economic views on the idiosyncratic circulation of commodities. Maybe this particular piece had a left-wing bias. Maybe it didn't. Unfortunately, it was the first industrial-strength academic text I ever encountered at university and I had absolutely no freaking idea what its author was on about.

Perhaps ignorance was my ideological salvation. All I know is that, once again, the academics who taught this course didn't ever turn up wearing Che Guevara singlets or suggest that the great proletarian class violently overthrow the foul running dogs of capitalism.

Apart from anything else, these lecturers didn't have time for a class struggle. They were too busy wrestling with the massive class sizes and massive enrolments of under-Englished foreign students, both of which are commonplace now that Australian universities have been starved of public funds and are obliged to run themselves as enterprises. Not that Bishop or the rest of the Coalition would see these developments as the result of enforcing ideology on education.

As Australian educationalists Jane Caro and Lyndsay Connors pointed out this week, it's depressingly common for people to brand others' opinions as insidious ideologies while insisting their own views are values. Actual evidence to back up such positions is usually seen as an optional extra.

Well, far be it for a lowly, brainwashed student to suggest that Australian politicians lack intellectual rigour, but I reckon a little more research is required before the cold warriors of education do any more screaming about all these alleged reds under the texts.

Emma Tom
11 October 2006

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Myth No 1 – Things were always better in the 'good old days'    Dr Paul Brock

The most constantly recurring issue in our field, maybe since early Greco-Roman history, has been the lament of the aged and the conservative about the ‘decline in literacy standards’ in the young being perpetrated by dreadful, ‘soft, touchy, feely’ contemporary teacher ‘revolutionaries’ accused of lacking the intellectual rigour of their predecessors.
 
To say this is not to deny the absolute legitimacy, indeed the utter imperative, of the ever-recurring concerns throughout history for maintaining and increasing the literacy skills of young people within a world of ever rapidly changing and demanding contexts for textual, oral/aural, visual and what might broadly be called technological, literacies.
 
Our students need to be able to write grammatically, to spell correctly, to read fluently, flexibly and critically, as well as being able to use language imaginatively, creatively and purposefully in a wide variety of contexts.
 
And one does not learn to read merely by osmosis. It demands the informed, skilled and explicit intervention of good teaching - whether this be undertaken by parents, school teachers, or others such as volunteer aid workers in Africa, or those children in Nicaragua who taught their own illiterate parents how to read in Paulo Freire’s famous literacy program.

But it does not matter where you dip into the history of education, you will find thunderous roars of utter conviction that standards are ‘now’ palpably worse than they were a generation ago. The 1990s Jeremiahs hearken back to the 1950s.  It is necessary, however, to apply an informed historical perspective to untrammelled cries of gloom and doom. For example,  if you go back to the newspapers of the so-called ‘good old days’ of the 1950s you will find identical lamentations for contemporary disasters, and calls for a return to the presumed halcyon days of the 1930s.
 
So, let us go back nearly 50 years to those ‘good old days’ and listen to the comments of the Chief Examiner in English for the 1948 Leaving Certificate examination, Professor Waldock, thundering about the students sitting for the Leaving Certificate in 1946: “It is disappointing to find that students imagine they can pass a Leaving Certificate Examination without being able to write a sentence”[i].

Reviewing what he had seen in the 1948 LC Examination he lamented:
 
Examiners again stress the weakness is spelling.  Here are some of the words that seem to confound large numbers of students (nearly 80 words followed including those such as “tragic”, practical”, “clever”, “hungry”, “persuade”, “believe”, “enemies” and “sensitive”).....It was felt too that errors in grammar and syntax are still too common.  It seems that many pupils are conversant with the correct theory of good usage, but from lack of practice or attention continue to commit the old mistakes. ...The examiners...feel that candidates are still very weak in fundamentals - that far too many, for example, do not know what a noun is, let alone an abstract noun[ii].

Professor Waldock’s successor, Professor Alec Mitchell, declared in 1950 that he agreed with the withering criticisms made in the Norwood Report of 1941 on “the serious failure of the British secondary schools to produce literate students” and declared that, without a doubt, the same situation existed in NSW in 1950[iii].
 
Let us not forget that these Leaving Certificate students were the creme de la creme.  In the 1940s and early 1950s, of every 100 students commencing 6th class only fewer than 20 or so completed their Leaving Certificate five years later.  For example, of the 50,000 who enrolled in first year government high schools in 1948, only 16.1% survived to commence their LC year in 1952[iv].  The comparable figure today, of course,

is around 70%, and almost certainly about to climb following the Commonwealth’s latest edict on abolishing dole payments for 16 to 18 year olds.
 
Ah, but how the right wing media pontificators and so many talk-back radio disc jockeys love to hark back to the mythical ‘good old days’ when, they assume, everything was wonderful.
 
This process of lamentation for the present and exhortation for a return to some mythical halcyon past era can be traced continuously back into the 19th century and beyond.  George Elliott, President of prestigious Harvard College, lamented in 1871
 
that bad spelling, incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing, ignorance of the simplest rules of punctuation and almost entire want of familiarity with English literature, are far from rare among young men of eighteen otherwise well prepared for college[v].
 
One of the many modern scholars who have the ‘declining standards’ myth the American Andrew Sledd, has observed that:
 
The discussion of this (declining standards myth) is not timely - it is timeless; for although Newsweek certified our crisis a mere decade ago .... no fewer than five consecutive generations have been condemned for writing worse than their predecessors.  By now our students should hardly put processor to paper; it’s a wonder they can write at all[vi].
 
Another American historian of literacy practices, Harvey Daniels traces this pattern back as far as George Puttenham’s despair about the declining standards of literacy amongst the young of his day in 1586!  Daniels sums up in this way:
 
To conclude: literacy has been declining since it was invented; one of the first ancient Sumerian tablets deciphered by modern scholars immortalised a teacher fretting over the recent drop in (standards of) students’ writing.  It is Sledd’s cryptic conclusion that ‘there will always be a literacy crisis, if for no other reason than because the old never wholly like the young[vii].
 
Academics like myself who have undertaken research into the history of the English curriculum and the social, political, and cultural contexts within which public debate and controversy have been waged - such as Margaret Mathieson, David Shayer, Stephen Ball in the UK and Ken Watson, Alan Luke and David Homer in Australia - all have good stories to tell about literacy policies and practices.

[i] Waldock, A.J, “Leaving Certificate Examination, Examiner’s Report, English - Pass Paper 1946”, The Education Gazette, 1st April, 1947, p. 129.
 
[ii] Waldock, A.J, “Leaving Certificate Examination, Examiner’s Report, English - Pass Paper, 1948, unpaginated,  Private Papers of D.B. Bowra stored in the library of the then Sydney Teachers’ College, later known as Sydney College of Advanced Education - Institute of Education, and now incorporated within the Faculty of Education, University of Sydney.
 
[iii] Board of Secondary School Studies, “Minutes of Meeting”, 28 June, 1951, p. 295.
 
[iv] Wyndham, Harold S., (Chairman), Report of the Committee Appointed to Survey Secondary Education in New South Wales, Government Printer, Sydney, 1957, p. 88.
 
[v] Cited in Daniels, H. Famous Last Words: The American Language Crisis Reconsidered, Southern Illinios UP Carbonale, 1983, p. 51.
 
[vi] Sledd, A., “Essay Readin’ not Riotin’: The Politics of Literacy”, College English, 50, 5, 1988, p. 496.
 
[vii] loc. cit.

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Lament No Longer     Deb McPherson

Buck up Barrie Smillie (letters SMH 27 June) and lament no longer; there's much more literature, life and good news in schools today than you read about in the papers! I started teaching twenty years later than you, in 1973, but in my twenty eight years of teaching in comprehensive high schools across the state I saw students reading widely and closely across the classics and in contemporary literature. They tackled popular culture as well and honed their critical and creative skills on difficult and demanding texts. Their parents took a great interest in their education. If you take a
look at the prescribed texts for the Higher School Certificate, or the Fiction, Film and Other texts list recommended for Years 7-10 on the Board
of Studies website and consider that over 85,000 students completed the Premier's Reading Challenge last year, your spirits should lift - there's
more cause for celebrations and smiles, than laments.

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A to E not as simple as ABC   Dr Jan Turbill

How pleasing to find teachers questioning the Federal Government's push for teachers to report to parents using an A to E scale (The Age, 26/5).

Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop have argued that parents have a right to know in plain English how their child is progressing.  No argument there from teachers.

However, what does an "A" tell the parent, other than the child is doing "well"?  What does an "E" tell, other than the child is not doing "well"?  Plain English means telling in words how children are progressing in all aspects of schooling, what they need to learn and, more important, how parents might support them.  How better to do this than to speak to parents in a parent-teacher interview?

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Beware of Hardline Ideologues      Prof Brian Cambourne

     J. White (Letters 17/05) wrongly assumes that "whole-language vs phonics" debate can be reduced to a simplistic case of "no-phonics vs phonics".
    There are (at least) three positions on phonics: One position is “intensive systematic phonics,” an extremist view that insists that all the major rules of phonics be explicitly taught in a strict order. This is the position taken by some hardliners like Dr Donnelly (Features 13/5/05) and Chris Nugent (Letters 15/5/05) and is the position taken by the author(s) of the Teaching Reading report which was produced by our National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy.
    A second position, "Zero Phonics, forbids the direct teaching of any sound-spelling correspondences. This is also an extremist view. I know of no reputable teacher or scholar who holds this position. Basic Phonics is the position presented in the USA's seminal report Becoming a Nation of Readers:  “… Phonics instruction should aim to teach only the most important and regular of letter-to-sound relationships ..once the basic relationships have been taught, the best way to get children to refine and extend their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences is through repeated opportunities to read. If this position is correct, then much phonics instruction is overly subtle and probably unproductive.”
    While the alphabetic system gives the illusion that reading consists mainly of translating visual signs to their phonetic equivalents there is strong archaeological, evolutionary, neurological, psychological and psycholinguistic evidence which argues that it does not.
    The alphabet did not evolve in order to help readers. Rather this evidence shows that the alphabet evolved to support writing, not reading.  An alphabetic system
like English enables people to make marks on paper (and other surfaces) in a simple and consistent manner so they will always look the same. In essence, alphabets are writers’ “tool kits” for putting words together. From a stock of just 26 basic shapes all the words of the English language can be represented. Moreover these 26 letters have names which define their shape. This means that novice writers can be told to write “d” “o” “double l” (doll) instead of “First do a ball and put a stick on its right hand side, then another ball and then two sticks next to each other.” This is a much more cost-effective way of constructing and transcribing meaning than logographic systems such as Chinese, ancient cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics.
     In essence the invention of the alphabet made writing and transcribing much easier for scribes and with the invention of paper and the printing press made the scribing process more accessible to more people. While this in turn made reading more accessible, it had only a small effect on the reading process.
      Perhaps J. White's observation that "so many of my bright, articulate university students have so much trouble writing their thoughts in well constructed, well spelt, plain English" is because their teachers were also confused about the symbiotic roles that reading and writing play in developing the phonic knowledge and skills which underpin effective reading and writing? Perhaps they were subjected to so much of the mindless, brain-numbing intensive phonics that hardliners want to impose on our K-2 classrooms, that they switched off in later years?