I think of education initiatives as a WWI battle. First you shell your own lines for a few weeks. Then force the survivors out to charge against machine gun nests. After that you bayonet the wounded. The generals then sit about in Paris complaining about how the men let them down.
So it is with the Education Revolution – but this time the generals have a plan to fix the men. Clearly the men actually waging the war aren’t good enough.
Well that the message coming out today on school teachers.
Under the new Gillard Government proposal, teaching degrees will have to introduce an improved admissions process and aspiring teachers will need to pass a national literacy and numeracy test.
Mr Bowen said the Government wanted to see comprehensive standards for teaching courses, to ensure all new teachers had the skills and experience they needed before entering the classroom.
“We want to improve the quality of our university teaching graduates and make sure they are meeting the standards we would expect of teachers in the Australian school system,” Mr Bowen said.
“We want to ensure that every single teaching graduate has the required skills to be effective teachers and positive role models, regardless of which subject or at what level they teach.”
Really love that idea – have experience before you enter the classroom.
“We are focussed on raising the quality of teaching at every stage of a teacher’s career. Our plan will make sure that only those people who have high levels of literacy and numeracy, a dedication for teaching and a great classroom practice will graduate and enter our schools.
That sounds very Orwellian. You will only graduate if you have “a dedication for teaching”. I am always very suspicious of any grading scheme that deviates from the student getting 50 per cent in an objective examination process. Mind you the “high levels of literacy and numeracy” mean that PE will never be taught again – that must be an improvement already.
Now we can quibble whether or not the yoof of today are misedumacated better or worse than their parents. But let’s say they not. Also the kind of people becoming teachers today are not the best and brightest as they might have been a generation or three ago. In fact many of the women who would have become teachers yesteryear are now lawyers, investment bankers, and the like. So does the decline in the relative ability of teachers explain the decline in education outcomes. Maybe – but I suspect this is one area where correlation and causation is being confused.
Rather than blame the teachers, why not blame the education regulators? All those people who don’t ever stand in front of a classroom yet pontificate on what is taught and how it is taught. I saw a great graphic from the US and I suspect the numbers would be similar for Australia.
Having the federal government and university education faculties “working” together to “improve” teacher training is something that leaves me very cold.
I suspect there would be a similar graph for the medical profession with patients, doctors, nurses and administration staff.
John Mc
11 Mar 13 at 9:07 pm
That graphich would show that there are less students per teacher per classroom from ’50 to ’09 yet what has happened to standards? Peter Garrett would be very interested.
Andrew
11 Mar 13 at 9:12 pm
In 1950 most of the teachers were men. Admin staff too.
It was called ‘male dominated’ back then.
No-one calls it ‘female dominated’ now, of course.
Amfortas
11 Mar 13 at 9:24 pm
If we let governments fund schooling, then governments have to be held accountable for how taxpayer’s money is being spent. That means they have to tell universities what teacher training is to look like.
Personally I would prefer Garrett and Bowen got out of he way, gave me back my money and let me choose how I want my kids educated.
When those boofheads get in the way, my school can’t respond to my needs, it will have to respond to the demands of their paying customer – the boofheads.
(PS. Changing Garrett with Pyne will not make much difference ?)
Johno
11 Mar 13 at 9:35 pm
Barzun’s comment on the change in the US from 1945 to 1980.
Poor Old Rafe
11 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
If young people receive a poor education and then train to be teachers, they will then think low standards of education are normal. They also may not know grammar and it is difficult to teach it if you have no firm grasp of the subject. However a better way to raise the standard is for schools to choose their own teachers. You also need to remove unfair dismissal laws from schools so they can remove the dead wood. The best private schools often nurture the best undergraduates and have a job ready once they graduate. They then have them teach with a senior teacher to mentor them. They also have a great curriculum and learning framework and rich experiences for the children. Typical of government to think simply about a complex issue.
helgab
11 Mar 13 at 9:40 pm
That would upset the Feminista.
stackja
11 Mar 13 at 9:50 pm
That graph could be of public hospitals with ‘students’ = patients, ‘teachers’ = doctors and nurses with ‘Admin’ = Admin.
Funny……
JamesK
11 Mar 13 at 9:59 pm
The problem has little to do with the training and education of the educators. It is not a lack or money or resources. It is the sheer lack of abject accountability. With no consequences riding on objective results, how can you expect any reasonable outcomes? Teachers should be as accountable as any other professional. Their bosses should be able to hire and fire, reward and reprimand as required.
big dumb fu
11 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
Your views on World War One battles are very stereotypical, Sinc. You need to read a little more broadly. John Terraine, Paddy Griffith and Gary Sheffield.
I’m all for raising the standards for people entering teaching training. The tertiary entrance score should be at least ten percent higher, if not more, and the marking within-course should be nothing short of brutal. Anyone not making a B average at the end of the first year should be thrown out without right of appeal. Teaching admin should be recruited from teachers who’ve spent at least ten years in the job, spend no more than two years in admin, then rotate back out to the classroom, not to enter admin for another five years at least. Affiliation with any political party to be punished with automatic sacking and striking of one’s degree.
perturbed
11 Mar 13 at 10:43 pm
You need to reverse the social engineering foundation as the first step – and this started during the early 1970′s. Whether this is achievable is another matter, but in a society that boasts of its egalitarianism, I’d rather try rowing upstream without a paddle.
Louis Hissink
11 Mar 13 at 10:44 pm
Yes, I know. But it makes a great metaphor.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Mar 13 at 10:49 pm
What passes for leaning is horrid. My daughter is taught aboriginal history by making up their own dreamtime myths.
Vouchers. Every parent gets issued a slip for each child that buys them one years public eduction. Corporate schools are set up when, where, teach whatever they like. Schools can request a top-up of the slip. Sack the entire education departments.
laterite
11 Mar 13 at 10:59 pm
Still have to get the States on board…NSW Board of Education told me I didn’t have the capability or skills or quals to teach physics, maths or chemistry. That’s despite having an engineering degree, from UNSW…..
L
11 Mar 13 at 11:16 pm
Privatise education.
The entire thing.
It will go a long way toward fixing State budgets!
NoFixedAddress
11 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
@L
‘education’ administrators could not start a place of learning if their lives depended upon it!
The pieces of paper they hand out, and control, are not worth wiping your arse upon.
One only has to look at the current fuckwit dancing ministers in the current government which includes the prime fuckwit
NoFixedAddress
11 Mar 13 at 11:33 pm
Privatise education.
The entire thing.
It will go a long way toward fixing State budgets!
Really?
The research shows the opposite.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 11:03 am
But if they spend more time teaching teachers to better read and write…and teach, when will they have time for all the important stuff like socialist dogma, relativist history and ethics, gia worship and so on?
Oh and when do the ‘administrators’ get to learn to better read, write and teach?
Luke
12 Mar 13 at 11:05 am
Numbers, a quick googling of the author to which you link shows multiple similar headings of “Public Schools advocate”.
Surely an advocate wouldn’t be publishing research with which he disagreed, would he?
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 11:17 am
Show me one peice of credible long term research showing privatisation works.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 11:21 am
More about the author of your research,
.
RTWT.
Typical far left teacher really.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 11:22 am
And covered quite nicely warts n all in the negotiation scenes with Teachers Unions in the recent TV remake of House of Cards.
(Kevin Spacey is fantastic as always).
Derp
12 Mar 13 at 11:26 am
Will you accept credible long term research showing public education is a failure instead?
Steve of Ferny Hills
12 Mar 13 at 11:26 am
You’re reading this.
Thank a teacher.
You’re reading it in English.
Thank a soldier.
Show me your long term research about the “failure” of public education.
Should be fun.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 11:58 am
Including teacher accreditation.
Ellen of Tasmania
12 Mar 13 at 12:02 pm
Ha!
Gab
12 Mar 13 at 12:10 pm
@Gab
And do tell, what part of that indicates that the solution is privatisation. That is thrown around glibly as a “solution” without a scintilla of evidence.
Try approaching the issue from the point of view of educational research – which has never shown any correlation between privatisation and standards – instead of seeing it as a political problem.
Ideology has no place in schooling.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 12:21 pm
Teaching is a female dominated profession. Females make great teachers.
Problem number one is the planned social engineering progressively embodied in our public education system since the 1970s as Louis Hissink pointed out. Accountability is only effective at the margins in the presence of a militant labour force.
When we allowed ourselves to tolerate the socialist meme that “The State is the only legitimate provider of primary schooling” we also saddled private education providers with the job of mounting defensive arguments to justify their proper role.
Reality for me is that the State is a highly untrustworthy education provider and should be kept as far as possible from the control levers of our education system, except as a provider of funding and infrastructure to ensure universal access. Anything else is bound to end in tears which is about where we are right now.
Tapdog
12 Mar 13 at 12:24 pm
Unintentionally funny …
Matt
12 Mar 13 at 12:28 pm
I have absolutely no problem with that.
To facilitate “providing of funding and infrastructure to ensure universal access” all public funding should be withdrawn from
privatesubsidised schools.Either that, or private schools should accept their fair share of students with disabilities.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 12:30 pm
You almost put your finger on it, Numbers. Missed it by that much.
Steve of Ferny Hills
12 Mar 13 at 12:31 pm
And the joke’s on you.
It’s a recurring theme here – the evil socialist teachers indoctrinating our yoof….
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 12:32 pm
Education vouchers given directly to parents would encourage exactly that.
Steve of Ferny Hills
12 Mar 13 at 12:34 pm
Oohh, the irony, it burns…………
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 12:35 pm
Had to smile the other day. My daughter, in Yr 8 this year, found one of my old Yr 8 maths workbooks from 1980. Her comment? “Gee, the work you did was a lot harder back then than what we do now.”
Cynicmonster
12 Mar 13 at 12:35 pm
Ellen has it. Accreditation is a major driver of the rot because it has become a means of measuring compliance with John Dewey’s and Lev Vygotsky’s and Uncle Karl’s human development theory.
The teacher evals for existing teachers and the licensing requirements for new teachers are geared towards behavioral assessments, not knowledge assessments. a/k/a tests. They are usually called performance or formative assessments now to obscure what is going on. They are compliance mechanisms to coerce teachers into pushing the sociocultural, human interaction approach. Or find a new livelihood.
Sinc-it would break your heart to read how UNESCO and thus all the accreditors now define literacy.
Since Australian and New Zealand education are also now grounded in Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, it is excellent leverage that I was able to find his 1977 admission that the whole theory was grounded in Soviet psychologist Leontiev’s for a transforming experiment. Using the unsuspecting social systems of the West. That’s Oz and the US and UK and Canada. No wonder nothing makes sense and everything keeps getting worse and more expensive.
Robin
12 Mar 13 at 12:37 pm
Hasn’t worked in New Hampshire.
An extract –
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 12:38 pm
@Robin
You must have an eccentric idea of “education”.
Care to define it for me?
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 12:40 pm
Here we go again…
Skuter
12 Mar 13 at 12:58 pm
My mum taught me to read before I went to school, I think to stop me following her round all day asking her annoying questions.
I taught myself to write, again before I went to school, with one of my dad’s flat carpentry pencils (which I loved) and a piece of sheet metal. I remember laboriously spelling out my first word, which was ‘cat’, and then realising I could do ‘rat’ as well, and then ‘mat’.
Would anyone care to open the homeschooling can of worms?
Philippa Martyr
12 Mar 13 at 1:03 pm
Research hasn’t shown that Governments owning bricks and mortar and running schools has done any good either.
Rococo Liberal
12 Mar 13 at 1:11 pm
Why? Every kid educated at privately subsidised schools, wherein the private sector chips in money to help the State meet its obligations, frees up State money to educated non-subsidised students.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:12 pm
In fact James Bartholemew pointed out in his wonderful book ‘The Welfare State We’re in’ that literacy and numercay in the UK are now at lower levels that they were before compulsory education was enacted.
Rococo Liberal
12 Mar 13 at 1:13 pm
Well sure! But in Numbers Land we have to prove definitevely that the alternative is better before we change anything, no matter how badly it has failed! On fire? Can you PROVE that a bucket of water would help? Buckets of water have been proven to be a drowning hazard, and are no help at all in case of snakebite, so why should we believe they’ll help in case of fire?
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:17 pm
From the article that YOU link:
So for the ‘most needy’ there was no difference, but for those who weren’t ‘needy’ there was a marked improvement? Looks like a pretty good case for vouchers there, overall students get a better education and those already at the bottom are no worse off.
This, coupled with the FACT that you could rip the education department apart and save a bucket, plus parents get far more control over what their kids are taught means this study is a GREAT argument for vouchers.
Talk about a massive own goal.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 1:19 pm
Wow, numbers. A blatantly partisan site quotes a blatantly partisan book and STILL can’t prove there were no benefits to the voucher system?
You are scratchin’, boy.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:19 pm
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:21 pm
Also, private schools receive funding because education is compulsory. In fact, I’d wager (and win) that parents who send their kids to private schools are the ones paying the most tax in the first place.
A voucher system, coupled with greater school autonomy and the right to hire/fire/promote/dictate pay of teachers is a much better system.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 1:22 pm
Curses, pipped.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:23 pm
And THEN they pay even more for their kid’s education, saving the government about 50% of the cost of COMPULSORY education.
They also volunteer more time and money for their schools.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 1:24 pm
FFS, grampa syphilis spudpeeler’s back spreading his own (not so) unique brand of marxist manure all over the place.
No thanks.
Rabz
12 Mar 13 at 1:25 pm
Yep. I get to pay the school fees for my kids *and* pay tax to provide for the education system too. The more I’ve thought about it over the years the more I like the voucher system. We have something almost akin to it now, but I’d go further by making all public schools independent and funded by vouchers from the state (and topped up if necessary).
Oh and my kids could read and write before they went to school.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 1:38 pm
Let’s analyse that, shall we –
“The students who experienced gains in reading were those who entered the program from schools that were not in need of improvement”
So they were achieving in the first place…
“those who entered the program in the upper two-thirds of the test score distribution”
They were already doing well…
“The groups that did not experience improvement in reading (or math) were boys, and secondary students”
That’s a fair slice of the population. Boys – about 50%; “secondary students” is everybody.
Hardly a ringing endorsement for vouchers.
In summary, their use showed improvements in less than half of the successful students, and none of those at the lower end of the achievement spectrum.
And the kicker, in a discussion about literacy and numeracy –
Before you wax lyrical about literacy and numeracy, Rococo Liberal, perhaps you should learn to spell.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 2:13 pm
FWIW – here’s that extract in its entirety, for the benefit of the cherry-pickers – Ffrom Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch, November, 2011
Her book provides as much detail behind that summary as anyone could want. Here’s a sample
P. 129
“By 2009. studies hy different authors came to similar conclusions
about vouchers, suggesting an emerging consensus. Cecelia
E. House of Princeton University and Lisa Barrow of the Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago published a review of all the existing
studies of vouchers in Milwaukee. Cleveland. and the District of
Columbia. They found that there were “relatively small achievement
gains for students offered educational vouchers. most of which are
not statistically different from zero.”
……………
“In 2009. the same research learn released another study that
found no major differences between students in voucher schools
and those in regular public schools. The research group included
the strongly pro-voucher Jay P. Greene of the University of Arkansas
and John Witte, who was considered a critic of vouchers. The
researchers found “no overall statistically significant differences
between MPCP [voucher] and MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after
they were carefully matched to each other.” Perhaps there would be
different outcome’s in the future. but this was not the panacea that
voucher supporters had promised and hoped for.
…..
The first evaluation [of the Washington, D.C. voucher program] in 2008
reported that in the first two years of the program (2004 and 2005).
there was no statistically significant difference in test scores of reading
The third-year evaluation of the voucher program (released in 20(9) found that there was “a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores. but not math test scores.” The reading scores represented a gain of more than three months of learning”
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 2:23 pm
Goodness numbers, do you ever read what you write?
I know you are a socialist and can’t see things outside the childish “that’s not fair”, but this is plain ridiculous.
You are basically saying that if students are already doing well then we shouldn’t look at improving them and their improvements mean nothing because, well just because!
Ever considered that students at the bottom are at the bottom for a reason and NO system will make it better for them? The facts still remain, you posted a link from a biased website presenting a biased study and it STILL told us that vouchers showed a NET improvement.
Let’s look at the facts shall we? Vouchers, gave an overall improvement in students reading, almost certainly cost the state less, gave parents more freedom of choice and more say over how their kids were taught, and you are against this why? Because “only some students got an improvement, for others it’s exactly the same. Excuse me while I stop wearing my seat belt, afterall it only saves SOME peoples lives, I’ve never had an accident so why should I wear one.”
Goodness, you leftards are retarded.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 2:28 pm
Correct, correct, and correct.
When I do pick-up, I note the large number of Dads in high-vis and blue collar work clothes. This doesn’t fit the narrative of the anti-private school noisemakers.
GP
12 Mar 13 at 2:34 pm
@MattR, don’t bother with common sense, as you said,
They just don’t/won’t understand.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 2:36 pm
Speaking as someone who lurks a fair bit here, however, it is good to watch people take their arguments apart.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 2:42 pm
Having worked with what you call “the students at the bottom” for over 40 years, I can assure you that life can be made better for them.
To advocate anything else is a denial of any form of moral commitment to equity.
But I guess that’s not a problem for Glibertarians.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 2:45 pm
Which is entirely not the point here. The point is whether or not vouchers provide better outcomes, you linked to a study that said the answer to this was ‘yes’ despite the ideological inclinations of the people who did the study and the person writing the summary.
Again, you are saying “vouchers are good for people who care about education, but indifferent for those who don’t, therefore I don’t support it. “You are saying that good students should be allowed to access to a better system simply because the same system doesn’t help improve those at the bottom even though it doesn’t leave them worse off either. This is an utterly absurd and idiotic postition to take.
Education standards have been slowly dropping, while costs have been steadily rising, for decades (since the left made education their own I might add) and you are against one thing that has shown to increase standards. Clearly standards aren’t what you care about.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 3:06 pm
Fioxed
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 3:07 pm
Nobody that I see here is in any way advocating that life should not be made better for these kids.
I am interested to know, when you talk about disabilities, are you talking about mental or physical.
The reason that I ask is because if you are talking about mental disabilities, what exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you want equality of outcomes with kids with no disability?
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 3:09 pm
Yeah well, nice platitude.
I learned to read before school. I thank my mother and the “Big Book of Tell Me Why” she got me at young age.
Derp
12 Mar 13 at 3:17 pm
If you’re talking about equality of outcomes, then it is of course immoral to advocate for equality. I find it utterly offensive and reprehensible that society should strive for such a goal. If there is anything that will increase achievement at the top of the ability distribution and leave the bottom unchanged, then sign me up for that. Not doing something along those lines for the purposes of promoting equality reveals you to be a cretinous individual, numbers.
Equality of opportunity is another matter and indeed, the foundation of a meritocratic society in which I am a firm believer. But to deny that innate ability exists, or worse to try and level it is insane.
Skuter
12 Mar 13 at 3:24 pm
My comment was not to denigrate teachers.
Far from it.
There are good, bad and indifferent ones. They aren’t any more worthy of sacred cow status than most other professions.
Glib(ertarian) platitudes are easy to fling about if all you’re wanting is applause from the choir.
Derp
12 Mar 13 at 3:29 pm
Skuter, you stole my thunder somewhat, however I was waiting for Bob to respond and confirm my suspicions before lambasting him further.
Thank you though, because you have written what I was thinking in a far more succinct and eloquent manner than I am capable of (I must blame my teachers for that!)
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 3:29 pm
Absolutely. I am 100% in favour of every kid getting an opportunity to have as good an education as they are willing to take on. What I’m not in favour of is attempting equality of outcome. That helps nobody.
You can’t make kids or parents give a shit though and if they aren’t engaged then simply throwing more money at it isn’t going to fix the problem.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 3:34 pm
Spuds
You say you’ve worked with kids at the bottom rung which presumeably means the bottom 5 to 10%.
You could stick them in Melbourne or Sydney Grammar and they still won’t have a clue about quadratic equations and trigonometry.
I’m not suggesting the shouldn’t be helped, but we should also consider the limits.
JC
12 Mar 13 at 3:42 pm
Reminds me of the year I spent in an Australian Primary school (was educated overseas, privately, for most of it thank goodness). We had a game we’d play where the teacher would say two numbers and we had to answer with the multiple. The person who answered first with the right answer won and went up a rank (there was a board).
This lasted until I was on top for a few months straight (dropped to second a couple of times but went straight back up). Then the principle decided someone being good at something wasn’t ‘fair’ so changed the system making it impossible for me to get to the top (basically reset/randomised the board every week and you could only go up one or two spots at a time). That way nobody “lost” but it sure took the fun out of doing times tables.
Funny how socialists always forget that when you go for equality of outcomes you are actually punishing people for being good at something, which results in everyone being equally bad.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 3:44 pm
Providing additional support and resources for those who need them to succeed is a precise definition of “equality of opportunity”. Giving all individuals the best opportunity to be independent saves a fortune over the lifetime of each individual.
Nowhere have I denied that innate ability exists. Assisting those in need helps everyone, including those with innate ability.
The best measure of the quality of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable. This principle also applies to a meritocracy.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 3:44 pm
Mark Lopez..2008..” The Little Black School book”
” The key to positive assessment in assignments and exams is to determine what your educators think they want ( officially ) , as well as what they need ( psychologically ) and then appear to provide the former while actually providing both, with covert emphasis on the latter”
Steve of Glasshouse
12 Mar 13 at 3:48 pm
Right, with that statement Numbers you have removed all doubt, you ARE a mendacious charlatan.
Private schools were the first to EVER educate students with disabilities. The state came very late to that one because they regarded them as ineducable and in fact are trying to go back to the future on that one too.
I am typing this slowly for you Numbers because maybe you can’t read fast … students with disabilities in parent-funded schools are only funded at 25% of what it costs to educate the average child in a government school. Did you know that? I can tell you that the Senate Inquiry into the Education of Students with Disabilities received many submissions from the non-government school sector who wanted like-for-like funding so they could educate children with disabilities -=– did that happen — a big effing NO.
So don’t peddle your bullshit here in an effort to denigrate the sector which has always educated students with disabilities.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 3:56 pm
Reminds me eerily of a conversation I had with an eminent doctor in Townsville in the late eighties.
This bloke was the chairman of the board of directors of a society for what in those days were called “crippled children”.
I was tasked with opening a new Special School which would provide educational programmes for all the residents of the nursing home run by this society, The residents were predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders with severe and multiple impairments.
He was reluctant to provide the staff support necessary to get these kids dressed and transported daily the 7 km to attend the new school.
In discussion, he described them as “unreceptive to education”. When I asked him what he meant by “education”, it became obvious that he understood the term applied only to a classical education, similar to what he’d received in the English public school system. He believed that anyone who couldn’t succeed in trigonometry and algebra was in this “unreceptive “cohort.
The fact that many of these kids could be taught basic independence so that they could care for themselves and therefore enjoy a reasonable quality of life cut no ice.
Reading some of the remarks above, I wonder whether we’ve learnt anything since those days.
BTW, all those children ended up attending the new school….
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 3:58 pm
Here ya go this is what horse manure looks like when its dressed in words that mean SFA.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 3:58 pm
Do you even read your own comments? You just said that you didn’t support a measure that would provide better outcomes for the top students but wouldn’t leave the ones at the bottom any worse off. You basically said you disagreed with a measure that would provide a net improvement in school results simply because it was an ‘unequal’ outcome.
Besides, your definition of “equality opportunity” is wrong in a typical leftists fashion and you simply confirm what people are saying. By your definition someone doesn’t have an equal “opportunity” if they are a lower standard student unless they have additional resources. That’s not equality of opportunity, that’s marxism and almost certainly implies wanting equality in results.
If you have 100 people, and 100 cakes, tell them one each and only 50 take one, your definition of opportunity says it wasn’t fair, mine says they had the chance they didn’t take it. Just as your definition of equality in education assumes that unless people who are behind get more resources they aren’t getting the same opportunity. This is pure nonsense.
You can lead a horse to water, you know the rest…
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 3:59 pm
\
Funny that that’s exactly what the head of a national tax-payer funded disability-specific organisation said about the ‘education’ of students with severe disabilities — this person said “oh they aren’t educated at school” and that was in 2010. And did I say it was a taxpayer funded disability-specific organisation?
I still have the email discussion.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 4:04 pm
Bullshit spuds, you idiot.
Strict meritocracy is something we don’t practice. It means if people are at the bottom or fall there we shouldn’t help them in the same way we shouldn’t assist people moving to the top.
Your definition is the bullshit version concocted by leftwingers in an attempt to destroy language.
Go away spuds. You’re useless.
JC
12 Mar 13 at 4:06 pm
Sorry I know there is another thread for this but Numbers is like all those on the left who think that ‘equal” means ‘identical’
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 4:08 pm
Quite certain the spudnuts has told this tale before – with variation to suit the current topic. It’s amazing the experiences of the raving Vet, sprouted here and always always conveniently devised to suit his “argument” du jour.
Gab
12 Mar 13 at 4:11 pm
You do realize with this statement you are more less supporting 100% private schooling, right?
It would only be in the private sphere that you would end up with service differentiation rather than one sized boot fits all.
Typical of leftist dunderheads you seem to think that when private schooling is discussed it means the elite schools. The private market would help segment students to better fit their abilities.
You meathead spuds.
JC
12 Mar 13 at 4:13 pm
so don’t peddle your bullshit here in an effort to denigrate the sector which has always educated students with disabilities.
It’s not bullshit.
When I started teaching at the State School for Spastic Children in New Farm in 1971, there were two institutions in site. One was the state school were I worked, the other was the Harold Crawford centre which catered for children with IQs measured (on a test not standardised on the Cerebral Palsied population) below a certain point.
I have no doubt this is the “which has always educated students with disabilites” to which you refer. It was well-intentioned, but was hardly an “education”. These children did not receive an education. Essentially they were “minded”.
This discrimination on the basis of an artificial and invalid testing resume was a characteristic of that period, and it came to an end through the introduction of human rights legislation by the much-maligned Whitlam government.
We still have a way to go. As a special school principal in a provincial city with many private schools, I was often confronted by parents enrolling their disabled son or daughter in my school, after a refusal from one of these private schools.
The fact that the parents could pay the fees made no difference. They were simply told “we don’t cater for these children”. These parents were often grieving and bitter.
There was never an answer to the “why” question.
These parents were denied choice. Isn’t the mantra of the current Coalition about “choice?”
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 4:21 pm
Good heavens. Another robber baron demanding I give money under threat to a bunch of bludging lowlife leeches. A meritocracy benefits from the underperformers failing miserably and horribly in two ways. The visible horror of the failed spurs the competent to greater achievement and the starvation of the failed removes the drain which they are. This is why meritocracies survive and sovialist scum grow occasionally; but only where thorough and brutal weeding has temporarily ceased.
WhaleHunt Fun
12 Mar 13 at 4:27 pm
This is what happens when the government decides to create a welfare society. It drowns out private charity and other services (such as private provision of disabled schooling for profit).
Thank you for pointing out yet another government failure (that you conveniently blame the private sector/market for like a good lefty) that I can use when debating leftist economic illiterates in the future. It is much appreciated.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 4:29 pm
Sinclair-you say “I am always very suspicious of any grading scheme that deviates from the student getting 50 per cent in an objective examination process”.
I have some bad news for you-you no longer need 50% in a public/indpendent school to get a C (which is technically a pass). Not at my kids school anyways-it’s 45% and 60% is a B.
Its a disgrace.
kraka
12 Mar 13 at 4:29 pm
The why is because the schools.cannot get govt funding to pay the additional expense and the soviet scum which passes.for.Labor refuses to allow private schools to price disabled education appropriately highly.
WhaleHunt Fun
12 Mar 13 at 4:30 pm
@MattR
I did not say I wouldn’t support vouchers because they would provide better outcomes for the top cohort of students.
I don’t support vouchers because nowhere have they worked in any measurable fashion.
The best long term research has been done in Chile, where it has been used since 1980.
Abstract –
The Effectiveness of Public, Catholic, and Non-Religious Private Schools in Chile’s Voucher System – first published: 01 Jul 2010
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 4:31 pm
Given that Labor enthuses about the abortion of imperfect foetuses, the average impaired can expect death from the Lefties. Only a few escapees of the Labour version of “care” will make it to term and be born. So it’s the few you failed to kill that you are complaining the private schools don`’t cater for. Noice.
WhaleHunt Fun
12 Mar 13 at 4:34 pm
State schooling is a crime becaue it creates employment for leftwing idiots who attemot to spreaad the cancor that is socialism.
WhaleHunt Fun
12 Mar 13 at 4:38 pm
Spuds
How would ou reach the conclusion from our extract that vouchers don’t work, you imbecile.
The study says that both public and private schools went on a voucher system in the 1980 reforms and that there is no huge difference.
The study isn’t offering an opinion on vouchers you idiot.
You really are fucking stupid.
No kidding , do you even fucking understand what the fuck you’re reading.
Get of here.
JC
12 Mar 13 at 4:41 pm
You haven’t answered my question from above — did you know that students with disabilities in non-governments schools are not funded like-for-like as a child with the same level of disability in a government school?
Or does your envious prejudice just ignore that possibility.
I know families whose children with disabilities are educated in non-government schools but have to pay for their own aide because their child does not receive the appropriate funding — now that’s really paying for choice isn’t it?
You are such an insufferable know-it-all Numbers
no actually but I do know about those schools and you would say that nothing would have been better? is that how you look at it?.
Human rights indeed? — and what do you think has changed for students with disabilities eh? where are the great leaps forward there?
My experience is that students with disabilities and most especially in governments schools suffer terrible discrimination often from teachers who’d prefer they would just disapper.
And just by the way back in 1971 when you were teaching at the State School for Spastic Children in New Farm, were there any children with below a certain IQ measurement catered for? big effing NO I’ll bet. But I do understand it was back-in-the-day.
BTW have you read the education section of Shut Out? that would give you a big clue about how people with disabilities and their families feel about choice.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 4:41 pm
On the issue of choice, a voucher system would see an exit from the government sector the like of which would make Numbers’ head explode.
But Numbers you will no doubt be consoled that those parents who vote Green will always educate their children in government schools. Whew that’s a relief
One of the parents in our non-government school owned a research company undertook a survey. Which showed that Labor-voting parents of children who did not have the money said that if they had the money would choose a non-government school, the only cohort that did not change their mind no matter what were Greens voters.
The Greens of course would close all non-government schools down in a heartbeat. When I tell the Greens the story of the Bishop of Goulburn it does bring them up short but only until reality fades to Green again.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 4:51 pm
Goodness, again do you even read the studies you actually link? That is a study that compares results of various schools within the system, not whether or not vouchers work or don’t. Ie, the public schools, private and catholic school’s ALL use the voucher system. *faceplam*
If you are a principle of a school it’s no wonder education here is going down the toilet…
Now, shall we look at Chilean education compared to other parts of South America? How about the Chilean economy compared to the rest of South America?
(Hint: Chile is one of the richest per capita, safetest, freest and most educated countries in South America).
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 4:51 pm
My initial dealings with the private system and the conversations I’ve had with parents who have kids with learning difficulties is that the private system seems to cater pretty well for them. In each case the school proposed a specific plan for the child and the response has been immediately positive. Compare that to the public primary school that these kids were in previously, where they were considered to hard to deal with.
In every single case the parents have been very impressed with the response of the private school in question. So you have to raise the question: why would a private school go out of its way to assist a kid with problems? Because they have an incentive to do so.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 4:54 pm
It’s game over, numbers, game over!
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 4:54 pm
JC, it’s actually quite funny. He links to a study that he THINKS proves his point, when in fact all it does is show little or no difference between public and private within the same system.
Essentially, it’s a massive endorsement of the voucher system.
Gotta love left wing own goals.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 5:03 pm
@Whalehunt Fun
That is simply untrue. The picture is much more complicated. Some private schools receive more per student than the state, some less. See the following (from Government Funding for Students With Disabilities in NSW Private Schools
A Submission to the Inquiry into the Provision of Education to Students With a Disability or Special Needs by the NSW Legislative Council – May 2010)
Whether the additional funding available for private schools which enrol the average proportion of students with disabilities for all private schools (3.5%) is greater or less than that available in government schools depends on their government funding ratio. High SES schools with the average proportion of enrolments of students with disabilities and funded at their SES rate, or who are low funding maintained, will receive less than that available in government schools. In contrast, low SES schools funded at their SES rate will receive more than is available in government schools as will high SES schools who are high funding maintained. However, very few high SES schools will have enrolments of students with disabilities around the average of all private schools or higher.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 5:23 pm
@ Wreckage
It’s game over, numbers, game over!
Not really – see response to Whalehunt Fun
And shouting makes no difference….
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 5:25 pm
@MattR
The link is an abstract. The whole study provides comparisons. These comparisons show no significant benefit from vouchers. Subscribe to the research like I do – I’m tired of spoon feeding nincompoops who are interested only in ideology – not facts.
Where did you go to school? You should ask for your money back. They didn’t teach you to spell.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 5:30 pm
Another article on the Chilean experience.
Note the abstract refers to the fact that parents had a choice between voucher schools and public schools.
Note also the significant finding - We use this differential impact to measure the effects of unrestricted choice on educational outcomes. Using panel data for about 150 municipalities, we find no evidence that choice improved average educational outcomes as measured by test scores, repetition rates, and years of schooling.
In 1981, Chile introduced nationwide school choice by providing vouchers to any student wishing to attend private school. As a result, more than 1000 private schools entered the market, and the private enrollment rate increased by 20 percentage points, with greater impacts in larger, more urban, and wealthier communities. We use this differential impact to measure the effects of unrestricted choice on educational outcomes. Using panel data for about 150 municipalities, we find no evidence that choice improved average educational outcomes as measured by test scores, repetition rates, and years of schooling. However, we find evidence that the voucher program led to increased sorting, as the “best” public school students left for the private sector.
The “sorting” was collateral damage.
The oversimplifications and depth of ignorance displayed by some posting on this thread is breathtaking.
Source – the effects of generalized school choice on achievement and stratification: Evidence from Chile’s voucher program
Chang-Tai Hsieha & Miguel Urquiolab
University of California, Berkeley, United States
& Columbia University, United States
Journal of Public Economics
Volume 90, Issues 8–9, September 2006, Pages 1477–1503
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 5:40 pm
Compared to what? Pretty much the entire system is a voucher system (covers over 90% of students) and there is no doubt that Chile’s economy has grown substantially over the last 3 decades (with a better, more productive and higher educted workers). The education system has clearly improved over there in the last few decades.
It shows nothing of the sort and you know it. You are making things up and lashing out when your BS gets well and truly called out.
Is it dark in the coal mine down there Mr Pot? Chile’s education system improves over 30 years, you CLAIM this has nothing to do with voucher systems (even though the study couldn’t possibly come to this conclusion), ignore the other benefits such as lower costs, increased competition, better general economic outcomes and more, then say it’s ME who is ignoring ‘facts and reality’ right-o buddy, keep teaching the retards, at least you are smarter than THEM.
And lol, you point out a spelling error, this makes you any less of a joke of a ‘teacher’ how?
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 5:49 pm
How about general productivity? How about people actually being able to read better or apply critical thinking? How do you know the tests weren’t made harder? How do you know people aren’t leaving school earlier to specialise in a field that will earn them a living?
Chile’s economy has grown at a huge pace since the 70s and 80s. Who says the results have to be based only on test scores and time in school? This study is completely bogus. It compares Chile, with Chile then comes to it’s own conclusions.
Choice is a positive in and of itself, as it cost.
Who says this sorting didn’t result in a stronger economy, more productive workers/businesses and a better result overall? General evidence would suggest this is what has happened in chile.
You are right the depth of ignorance and ideological grasping really is ridiculous. Although it’s not coming from where you think it is.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 6:00 pm
@MattR
Nothing you have provided proves that vouchers work.
If you are so sure of their efficacy, provide evidence.
If you can’t – sit down, the dog is pissing on your swag…
In the meantime, here are another couple of studies.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 6:07 pm
An obscure study in the third world country validates numbers arguement?
Mussolini got the trains to run on time but did that make Italy a world leader in logistics?
Every country can boast at least one claim to fame in the area of good governance. Sometimes it good policy, sometimes good luck, most times it’s a fluke that failed to get strangled at the first committee meeting.
Splatacrobat
12 Mar 13 at 6:07 pm
More research.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 6:10 pm
Well actually he didn’t, he only got the train to his own inauguration to run on time.
According to some of the logic applied here; now that I have corrected you, my opinion on all things trains reigns supreme.
Derp
12 Mar 13 at 6:11 pm
We remembered it as the “principal” aint ya pal.
Derp
12 Mar 13 at 6:13 pm
What funding formula in any state or territory can you name gives more money to any student in a non-government school than a non-government school. Where is the funding formula that delivers that. The SES is a far better system that the Resource Index that was previously used because it can’t be rorted so easily by any sly bursar.
Numbers FFS stop telling lies. No student in any private school in any state or territory receives more money than any student in a state government school. NOT ONE.
You are such a liar. W
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 6:28 pm
@ Tintarella di Luna
Better take it up with the NSW Legislative Council. The findings are theirs. Note finding 1.
I guess you understand the meaning of “incorrect”.
from Government Funding for Students With Disabilities in NSW Private Schools
A Submission to the Inquiry into the Provision of Education to Students With a Disability or Special Needs by the NSW Legislative Council – May 2010)
Key Findings -
1. The claim by private school organisations that students with disabilities in private schools are funded far less than those in government schools is incorrect.
2. On average in NSW, private schools have a significant funding advantage over
government schools in funding for students with disabilities. Additional funding for students with disabilities in NSW private schools is 26 – 38% higher per student than that available to NSW government schools.
3. On average, the additional funding for students with disabilities in NSW Catholic
schools is 23% higher per student than in government schools. The additional funding for students with disabilities in NSW Independent schools is nearly 80% higher than in government schools.
4. Additional funding for students with disabilities varies greatly between individual
schools. Many private schools receive much higher levels of additional funding than government schools. Some receive less.
5. Private schools with very low enrolments of students with disabilities in comparison with government schools receive very high additional funding for these students which is between two and six times that provided in government schools.
6. The current system of government funding of private schools contains perverse
incentives for private schools to limit their enrolment of students with disabilities. The lower the enrolment ratio of these students, the greater is the additional funding available for them or to be diverted to other students.
7. Students with disabilities in the most highly resourced NSW private schools receive the highest additional per capita funding from the NSW Government while those in the most disadvantaged private schools receive the lowest level of additional funding.
8. The costs of educating students with disabilities in government schools should be removed from the calculation of average government school costs used as the basis of government funding for private schools to eliminate the potential for double-dipping.
9. Additional funding for students with disabilities should be the same for each student, irrespective of the sector in which they are enrolled.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 6:42 pm
Nothing you have provided proves that they don’t provide better overall outcomes for both education and the economy as a whole. In fact, the first study you provided showed a clear improvement, it just wasn’t the improvement that your narrow ideology approved of.
You want evidence that vouchers work?
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Impacts_of_School_Vouchers_FINAL.pdf
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf
http://www.uaedreform.org/SCDP/Milwaukee_Eval/Report_24.pdf
You cherry pick Chile, which has a universal system, but ignore another South American country.
http://blogs.worldbank.org/education/how-do-school-vouchers-help-improve-education-systems
You can go back to your hole now troll.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 7:35 pm
Splatacrobat, the thing is, he cherry picks it as well. Colombia shows that vouchers actually provide much better results as to numerous other studies.
This doesn’t even take into account the far lower administrative costs and ideological interference that vouchers result in.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 7:48 pm
I didn’t know links needed to await moderation, maybe this will work:
One study
Another study.
A link to a study
Vouchers work, despite what left wing ideologues would have you believe.
MattR
12 Mar 13 at 7:52 pm
Um Numbers you are a mendacious munchkin aren’t you? This kind of thing is what gives people on here the irrits.
Here you are quoting a SUBMISSION to the NSW Upper House Inquiry into the education of students with disabilities as if they are the findings and recommendations of the Inquiry and that submission was from well-know opponent to the funding of non-government schools Trevor Cobbold.
You really shouldn’t do that, that’s just not right nor honest is it?
There were in fact 31 recommendations of that useless Inquiry back in 2009 and it produced manifestly inadequate piece of doggrel that did not incorporate very significant research which clearly pointed to the education system diagnosing the mainstream thus creating more children with “disabilities”.
It’s like all the other inquiries on the topic, nothing happens, because children with disabilities don’t matter to the policy-makers, dontcha know?.
And as you well know it’s not just about funding, it’s about a mindset change in teacher training and a mindset change by your teaching colleagues and by the bureaucracy who are really into seeming but not much doing. Universal design for learning would be revolutionary but out of the realm of contemplation by a system ossified in the 19th century.
But don’t side track me. Where are the answers to the questions I’ve put to you Numbers? Come on surely you’ve got some research you can quote?
Where is your claim that ANY student in a non-government school gets one cent more than a student in a government school.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 8:00 pm
Numbers you really should not try to debate education with Tintarella she has made it her life’s work to see that children all children get a good education, but especially children with a disability.
You can try to present your information to promote your argument any way you like, but she has read everything their is and will recognise your misinformation for what is, my advice to you is don’t fuck with her on this subject she will cut you down
felicity
12 Mar 13 at 8:52 pm
@ Tintarella di Luna
Fraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. The submission I quoted is not the one you refer to. Irrespective of whether it’s a submission or some other form of documentation, the figures are verifiable and stand up to scrutiny.
The situation is no different here in Queensland.
I work as a parent advocate, and have taken a couple of cases to HREOC in which parents have brought complaints against private schools for discrimination on the grounds of disability.
In each case, the parents were successful, but the discrimination continued because the schools apologised and then withdrew the offer of enrolment.
The funding anomalies are amongst the main reasons why the recommendations of the Gonski review need rapid implementation.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 9:12 pm
It’s cheap Tuesday at Dominos numbers. I’ve got a voucher for you if you just fuck off for the rest of the night?
Splatacrobat
12 Mar 13 at 9:19 pm
Yes it is Numbers, its report was handed down in 2010 by the NSW Upper House and the submission you quoted from was the one from Save our Schools. You should be careful who you try to snow.
I think I might have your number though Numbers – you haven’t answered my questions
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 9:27 pm
@ MattR
From your first link (which is not research, but advocacy by an organisation whose bread and butter is supporting any or all forms of privatisation*) –
* Charter of the Brown Center on Education Policy – with the intent to create public awareness of the differences among districts in their support of school choice, provide a framework for efforts to improve choice and competition, and recognize leaders among school districts in the design and implementation of choice and competition systems.
So they found no impact on college enrolments except amongst African-American students. What a surprise. These are black kids whose parents have been funded from elementary school to send them to schools whose enrolments are predominantly middle class whites.
Your second link is about as competent as your reasoning – it doesn’t work.
Your third link is a blog.
Sorry, I don’t count opinion as fact or research.
The bottom line is – vouchers are held up as the solution to everything that ails education. There is no conclusive long term evidential study showing they make any difference. They are a political fad pushed by Objectivists, and have nothing to do with education.
There are three things that make a difference to results in schools -
1. School leadership
2. Teacher quality
3. Parental engagement
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 9:32 pm
@ Tinterella di Luna
It’s not. The one I quoted has nine recommendations. The one you quoted has thirty one.
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 9:34 pm
Gonski ignores the role of parents in their children’s education, from what I’ve read.
Parents are the driving force of a child’s success in life, in education and all aspects.
Zillions of dollars will never make produce loving involved parents getting their kids to do their homework and try their best.
It starts at home, like it always has.
candy
12 Mar 13 at 9:36 pm
Is numbers now assigned to the Cat to make sure there are no troublesome disclosures?
I have an eccentric view of education? I may have a rather encyclopaedic collection of the people in charge’s views of education, K-12 and higher ed, but that does not make them my eccentricities. It just means I am thorough at tracking down what is driving all these changes in recent decades.
Internationally the biggest influencers are UNESCO and OECD. Australia was greatly influenced by basically adopting the Coalition of Essential Schools template about 2002. If you have not read the Core Skills document released in 2008 and then the 2012 follow-up, please do. You will notice the knowledge is what is missing.
And the international 21st century skills and new assessments movement is being run from Australia. It is called ATC 21S. Pearson, Intel, MS, and Cisco are also partners.
That’s why there is actually so much consistency in what is going on country to country. And Australia, like the UK and Scotland, actually got explicit language driving the Global Citizenship and fulfill Agenda 21 aspirations initiatives. In the other countries these same obligations are coming in through the assessments and less threatening term “Global Competence.”
All of them add up to changes many teachers are not happy with because they prefer to teach content. The changes Sinc wrote this post about, which are almost verbatim what is happening in US, are to make sure teachers in the future are comfortable with the behavioral science primacy in the purpose of school.
Robin
12 Mar 13 at 9:37 pm
@Candy
Absolutely.
Unfortunately, “loving involved parents” are not guaranteed.
That’s why teachers are vital.
I touch the future – I teach….
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 9:39 pm
Yes, you certainly are touched and wasn’t it on another thread where you said you were retired from teaching?
Gab
12 Mar 13 at 9:41 pm
“That’s why teachers are vital.
I touch the future – I teach….”
Until they’re 12 or so and they’re smoking pot and goofing off, etc and no teacher no matter how good will ever (most probably) reach them, because they lack the really vital thing (caring stable home life).
candy
12 Mar 13 at 9:45 pm
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 2:13 pm
1735099
12 Mar 13 at 11:21 am
Steve of Ferny Hills
12 Mar 13 at 9:52 pm
Bingo. One of the best predictors of a childs educational achievement is the involvement of their parents in their schooling. There are plenty of parents out there with little schooling themselves who nonetheless understand the value of a good education. Those would be the parents busting their arses to send their kids to “magnet” public schools or sacrificing much to put them through the private system. There are many, many of them out there.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 9:52 pm
Numbers now I absolutely know you are full of it! What you have quoted are the 9 key findings of the submission by the Save our Schools mob here it is so everyone can see what a mendacious troll you are.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 9:53 pm
Agreed. Parents involving themselves is very important. Also on the private schooling, it really does annoy me when lefties seem to think that Private school kids are from rich families. I can tell you now, many of us aren’t. If I were sent to a public school, my parents probably could have actually afforded to go overseas for holiday for nice holiday around Europe. The same thing applies to health insurance. It is not just for rich people. Many middle and working class people take it out.
Andrew
12 Mar 13 at 10:07 pm
Well FMD here is Numbers pandering to the lowest common denominator and of course the law makers all don’t trust families so they have to make so many rules because they effing-well know best. Give me a break
The majority of children are loved and cared for by their parents who want them to have a good education which will inspire them to want to keep learning all their lives. Education isn’t a sausage machine just listen to Sir Ken Robinson
Unfortunately teachers are no longer allowed to simply look at the learning needs of the student. They no longer provide the students with the tools to learn, no nowadays teachers are pre-programmed to use the blunt instruments of the social engineers tinkering with half-truths, untruths and bullshit.
Instead of inspiring children to learn the education experience is deadened by a crammed curriculum which leaves little time for teachers to teach and children to learn. A sad situation all ’round really.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:09 pm
Exquisitely astute as usual candy
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:13 pm
Thats like unis Tintarella. It happend because there are just way too many saying how it should be done in ivory Towers with comfortable quasi administrative jobs and not enough listening to the people that stand day after day trying to teach the tripe they think should be taught. They really need to go back to the drawing board and revise some 1940s 50s 60s curriculums because after the 70s Im sure half of the curriculum designers had smoked too much of something and went nuts.
Unfortunately the internet and computers have hastened the production of pure garbage in curriculum.
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:18 pm
Aliice it started with the human rights movement and spiralled downward from there.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:21 pm
Pretty sure that’s illegal, numbers. Hands off, you perv.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 10:25 pm
No Tintarella – I am frimly of the opinion the corruption and ownward spiral in school curriculums had more to do with the peace and love and drugs generation – who decided that little children were free souls instead of parrots and therefore they shouldnt be “restrained” or “hindered” and should let it all hang out in class looking at pretty picture books, being taught whole language and not being made to recite their timestables, get taught long division by hand, do comprehension readings to the class, use guidelines to learn to write (guidelines gone).
What human rights movement had to do with it Tintarella. No it was definitely the hippies, which is fine if they were all teaching art.
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:27 pm
So now, numbers is saying that a system that provided no significant improvement is worse than our system, which has produced marked and consistent decline.
Face it mate. What we have is crap. Change is needed, and 99.99% of the time giving people more choice is the right thing to do and works better. Without any more information, I can tell you that giving parents choices, and schools autonomy, and ending the obsession with nationwide standardised everything, will halt the decline at the very least.
Because centralised, unresponsive and authoritarian systems are shit at everything. It’s just a fact. Very, very occasionally they are necessary; but they are never very good at what they do.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 10:32 pm
Very tired. Ive got to get up tomorrow and teach some kids the Production possibilities frontier but they better have read something before I get there because I dont tough the future. I am just the bearer of the whip.
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:33 pm
No, they are shit at teaching art. What is within is always within; what must be taught is technique. Now, some hippies do teach technique. But the stereotypical “it comes from your SOUL” bollocks is… well… bollocks.
wreckage
12 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
Now Aliice remember what I said about human rights?
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:35 pm
Wreckage – maths definitely doesnt come from your soul. Neither does grammar. Art – I am OK with that coming from the soul. It doesnt have to be realistic as in design but technique matters and is important, I agree, to many great artists and their appreciative audience.
Technique doesnt come from the soul (Hard work) but the inspiration for an artwork does. To say it doesnt really isnt true.
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
Metaphorical whip Tinta!
The kids have a human right in my classes. The right to good grades if they work at it. Thats the only right worth worrying about isnt it?
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:42 pm
Let’s see, in Prep I learned that Japanese people are evil because they kill and eat whales, and also in the lead up to Christmas I got comparative theology, with questions about Eid.
In grade 1 I got Earth Hour and lectured about turning off the lights.
In 5 years at a State School I never attended anything that celebrated christmas – beach themed break ups, multicultural fetes that focussed on costume and food, plenty of those. Easter time was about rabbits and eggs. Nothing about sacrifice.
Then there were the activity pages about Aboriginal dreaming and how white man invaded the country to the detriment of everyone. Couched in soft, pc tones for grade 4 kids to absorb.
nilk
12 Mar 13 at 10:42 pm
Aliice that’s when everything became unhinged because it was against a person’s human rights to be expected to behave in a civilised manner, it was not for the hippies to have any regard for courage, honour, restraint,discipline and courage – they were simply quaint values that were passe when there could be free lurve — everything was justified because it was human right. People think being able to drink 4 litres of Coca Cola a day is a human right.
The human rights movement then got into the hands of the pot-heads and now look where we are. Where black cant be called black because it’s raaaaacist, where you can call someone a fraud because it’s raaaaacist, because you can’t criticise a religion because it’s raaaaacist.
It does all come back to the human rights movement moving from being the right of the smallest minority of all “me’ a single person being usurped by a collective to which one can identify like say “gays” or a racial group — this guy explains it very well I think.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:45 pm
Nilk, I have had the same experience. We had Rice Day to make us feel terrible about how the Africans are starving and we don’t eat lunches. The English texts from Year 7 to Year 12 are all left wing in some form. Indoctrinated about Refugees, forced to watch Rabbit Proof Fence, Earth Hour, must be nice to the Aboriginals, conservatives are evil, capitalism is evil, etc.
This is one of my favourites topics. I could go on for hours. Amazingly, I have only just started the most socialist education institution, University.
Andrew
12 Mar 13 at 10:47 pm
You’re reading this.
Thank a teacher.
I’ll thank a private school teacher, thank you very much – not the brainwashed, mind-raped, hopelessly indoctrinated troglodytes the universities are squirting out of their nethers into the mouth of the public system right now. And as for the selective public high schools, they are private schools in all but name.
perturbed
12 Mar 13 at 10:47 pm
Tintarella
I take your point but the backlash against traditional mmethods prior to the onslaught of the kids as free sprit style of teaching is now showing in poor results in numeracay and literacy.
Kids really dont mind a bit of regimen.
As for the coke drinkers – you reminded me of something I saw in the street once…a mother filling a very small toddlers bottle with coke.
I was shocked by that. That is a case for toddlers rights.
Aliice
12 Mar 13 at 10:52 pm
did she then put the teat on it — cause that’s what I saw one day while at a local RSL — and then little wonder the Greens want a free dental scheme – the
‘snot my fault!
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 10:57 pm
Agreed. Parents involving themselves is very important. Also on the private schooling, it really does annoy me when lefties seem to think that Private school kids are from rich families. I can tell you now, many of us aren’t. If I were sent to a public school, my parents probably could have actually afforded to go overseas for holiday for nice holiday around Europe. The same thing applies to health insurance. It is not just for rich people. Many middle and working class people take it out.
Very well said. The key to improving the standard of education in Australia is convincing more of those middle class families that careful selection of a private school is worth the effort and money. Well, that and moving the state funding to a more transparent and student-empowering voucher system.
It’s most definitely not trying to throw more money at the unionised race-to-mediocrity public system in the name of ‘equity’ and then living in hope that things will get better. (Unless we’re willing to do a complete overhaul and move to something like the Swiss or maybe Finnish systems. But that’s not going to happen because Australian teachers are not going to tolerate extremely high entrance standards or exceptional performance levels demanded of these teachers. Not even for substantially more money.)
In short, the key to improving the quality of education is the libertarian approach as the base with vouchers, devolution of power to the principles or school board, market based pay levels and professional accountability for teachers. Then built up with conservative values in the form of family involvement, ethical or religious guidance, sportsmanship, sense of duty, cultural pride and pursuit of excellence. Basically it’s not somewhere you want any socialism, in any form!
John Mc
12 Mar 13 at 11:01 pm
Heh. Andrew, my response the the Earth Hour rubbish from my girl was to point out how large the world is, then think of a village over in Africa.
Right, got that.
Next, let’s look at turning off all our stuff. And I do mean all our stuff. No tv, no fridge, no aircon, nothing. For one measly hour.
Got that.
So how’s that going to help the environment? What will that do to help the village in Africa?
Sure, she was 7 or 8 at the time, and yes it upset her, but it had to be said.
Like with the bit about the Japanese being evil because they kill and eat whales. I know I’ve probably told this to some here before, but it riles me up like little else. It came from the art teacher, because the kids were learning about Japanese culture.
6year olds.
I’ve got to puncture my girl’s rosy view of teachers because at the age of 6 they are filling her head with vile anti-whaling narrative? They can sod off.
What about Norwegians? What about eskimos? They kill and eat whales too, but you never hear anything about them.
It can be heartbreaking to have to shut down the pathways the teachers are driving through the kids’ heads.
I’ve heard of one youngster telling another that he found being called annoying “offensive”.
I find children not being able to work out their differences naturally offensive.
I enjoyed going to school as a child.
I’d hate going today.
nilk
12 Mar 13 at 11:29 pm
Good for you nilk — can’t trust the social engineers with our children lest the brainwashing set in. I started teaching mine early and running interference. On the way to school in the car I would tell my son about verbs and nouns and adverbs etc.. because I knew the teachers weren’t teaching them those things.
He came home one day with a booklet about rights and how I wasn’t supposed to smack him (which I’d never done, anyway) I then took the book and threw it in the bin. I then composed and elegant note to Mr Jones telling him exactly what I’d done with that booklet and asked if I could make an appointment to meet him as I wanted to interview him about his fitness to be my child’s teacher. It was an interesting discussion and Mr Jones didn’t ever insult my intelligence again for the during of my son’s attendance at the school.
Tintarella di Luna
12 Mar 13 at 11:40 pm
Fond memories of our daughter correcting a teacher about pronunciation ( antip o dees not anti poads ), and skewering her about the aboriginal habitation of Australia. ( 40 000 years and they came here from Indonesia ). She was in a composite grade 3/4 class at the time. We left that school the next year. The teacher in question was promoted above her ability due to her heritage..nuff said.
Steve of Glasshouse
13 Mar 13 at 8:04 am
You also get multiple Aboriginals given special access into university who aren’t really up to standard. We support a merit based society yet we let people in based on race who have an inferior understanding of English
Andrew
13 Mar 13 at 8:38 am
Thank you numbers for showing us how blinded you are by your ideology. I provide 3 links that clearly show the benefits (the third link is actually citing research and it’s results you moron), I provide the ‘evidence’ that you ask for and all you do is say “nuh uh, not true!” You even acknowledge that one provides a benefit for the lower part of society but that isn’t even good enough for you!
So you have one peice of research that shows benefits for the top, one that shows benefits for the bottom, another that shows benefits for all and you simply fob them off as a ‘fad’ because it doesn’t fit your warped little ideology.
And what is the reason for better schooling? That’s right, more productive members of society and a stronger economy. Of which vouchers provide. I have provided research that shows they have a benefit, so you fob off and change the subject. How typical of a leftist who is wrong.
Vouchers are a system of funding designed to give parents more choice (they do), reduce funding costs (they do), provide better overall outcomes (research shows that they do, but you ignored it because it doesn’t fit your world view), give parents more control over their childrens schooling (it does). Vouchers are about the funding, it is clearly a much better system and the evidence PROVES this. Even if the results are the same (the research you provide actually shows it being the same) the funding and administrative efficiency gains alone are a strong enough argument for them.
You are against them purely because of your ideology, no other reason.
MattR
13 Mar 13 at 8:47 am
Also number, if you weren’t so damn lazy you would see that the blog I linked to actually links to another page here, that clearly sources the research paper they used at the bottom.
And because you are too lazy to use google, here is the world bank research of vouchers vs non-vouchers in colombian schools.
Feel free to simply ignore the evidence you asked for PrinciPAL Genius. Lol…
MattR
13 Mar 13 at 8:57 am
MattR his silence speaks volumes
Tintarella di Luna
13 Mar 13 at 9:06 am
With respect, Numbers, ‘equity’ is not a word I think you should throw around. It is a word with a much deeper meaning than you could possibly understand, a word of such ancient force and importance that it makes me laugh to see a lefty use it. The word you really meant to use was that other standby of the leftist “equality.”
For years now we have seen the whiny kids from the schoolyard grow up with the same insecurities, the same need to bully others because they thought they were bullied, the same need to whinge about ‘fairness.’ In fact the the leftists’ catchprase should be “it isn’t fair!’ said in a weasly tone and an upward inflection.
I’ll tell you what equity means, it means the use of common sense to balance the strict letter of the law or logic. The most important word that is allied to equity is ‘trust.’ Equity is only a moral question in the second degree. SO one can’t really have a moral committment to it, just a committment. Common sense tells us it is right to ensure that children of lesser ability are not forced too far beyond their capabilities. That doesn’t mean we ignore them or give them a shoddier education, just a different one.
So don’t try moral philosophy or jurisoprudence, Numbers, you don’t have the training.
Rococo Liberal
13 Mar 13 at 9:07 am
You haven’t posted any evidence. You’ve posted a couple of dodgy puff pieces which at best indicate any benefits are on the margins, and barely statistically significant, and even then, with a cohort of students for whom vouchers have allowed enrolments in schools catering for students from higher SES situations.
There is no evidence in anything you cited for all the other assumptions made (saving public money, removal of ideological bias, and better managed schools).
In fact, if you read the abstract from the World Bank article, you’ll note that there is a cost to vouchers over and above what schooling would cost under normal situations. –
And you’re claiming vouchers save money – another unfounded assumption.
Some of us work for a living.
And I’m gratified that through sheer perseverance, I’ve taught you to spell principal.
1735099
13 Mar 13 at 1:46 pm
@ Rococo Liberal
What breathtaking arrogance you demonstrate. My understanding of “equity” goes beyond “training”. Forty years of experience in many different communities, working with the full range of abilities and backgrounds, has provided me with life experience that trumps “training”.
I’ve always worked with groups disadvantaged by disability, race, poverty or geography. I take enormous pleasure in seeing many of these people overcome these barriers through sheer guts and determination. What I find even more gratifying is seeing those who seek to manipulate, vilify and look down on these people getting their comeuppance. That is what makes disability advocacy so enjoyable.
Two years in the army (an institution that comprehends equity more deeply than the superficialities demonstrated on this site) also helps, as does time spent observing what happens to the concept when all power emanates from the barrel of a rifle or field piece.
FWIW, my definition of equity derives from a Christian social justice mindset –
Equity derives from a concept of social justice. It represents a belief that there are some things which people should have, that there are basic needs that should be fulfilled, that burdens and rewards should not be spread too divergently across the community, and that policy should be directed with impartiality, fairness and justice towards these ends.” (Falk et al. 1993, p. 2)
By the way, I’m wondering what jurisoprudence (sic) – whatever that is, has to do with it. What passes for justice often diverges from morality.
1735099
13 Mar 13 at 2:05 pm
Two years in the army (an institution that comprehends equity more deeply than the superficialities demonstrated on this site)
You’re an idiot. What is it with you Vietnam throwbacks? Honestly.
The self-absorbed generation isn’t X,Y or Z. Well, if it is they will wear the consequences of their bad decisions. Your lot really is the generation that got the free ride.
FWIW, my definition of equity derives from a Christian social justice mindset –
‘Communism’ and ‘socialism’ really have become dirty words these days. No one wants to be called them.
John Mc
13 Mar 13 at 7:03 pm
“social justice”
=> Code words of the Left to justify their stupid ideas that don’t work and cost taxpayers billions with little to show for it. (Its not logically based, backed by analysis of the root causes. Its emotional based. Its about making themselves feel better. ie: It must be good if it makes one feel good.)
PM Gillard is a well known practitioner of such a paradigm. Every time she blows a billion, she is satisfying her “sense of social justice”. eg: A billion to improve Reading! (Last I checked, one doesn’t need that amount. One just needs a parent or guardian to be involved with a child.)
…Which kind of explains why the Govt she leads (words used very loosely), has not a single coherent strategic plan for this Nation’s future.
Her “Education Revolution” has been nothing more than a flop. Essentially a grand announcement with billions spent, resulting in little to show for it.
Throwing money and technology at education doesn’t improve it. Gillard’s “Education Revolution” and “free laptops” initiatives have clearly demonstrated this in practice.
What is Gillard’s solution? “Plan B” AKA: Gonski. (Which itself is unfunded because she blew the money on pursuing “social justice” in other areas!)
ie: Spend more money!
This isn’t incompetence. This is a blind devolution to an ideology. Its putting what one believes in, over what is actually happening.
Its no wonder she can’t do anything without screwing it up!
Asian_guy
14 Mar 13 at 10:58 am