The Gonski Report

[sptrawler]

Well what is wrong with Australia's education sytem?
30 years ago we were seen as the creme de la creme of educational institutes.
Is the demise due to:
dumber kids?
lack of funding?
lack of discipline?
lack of standards?
lack of accountability?
lack of testing of what has been learnt?
lack of accountabilty for teachers who have under performing students?
Too many non core subjects?
Too many feel good subjects?
Too many multiple choice exams?
Too many school excursions the teachers are interested in?
Too many student free days
Or maybe just a lack of interest?
http://www.happychild.com.au/articles/a-quick-guide-to-the-gonksi-review-of-funding-for-schooling

What do you think? Has teaching just become a job, where the faulty ones will be fixed up under warranty?

 

[Ijustnewit]

I would say most of the above. With an emphasis on Pupil Free Days , Feel Good Subjects and Projects , Too many hours spent outside classrooms , Teachers that are no more than students themselves.
How many times I see whole school groups out at learning to swim classes , now I'm not saying they shouldn't include some sort of water safety in the curriculum however how many times a week do they have to swimming ?
The time it would take to load the kids on and off the bus and drive to the local pool , have an hour or so swimming and then waiting for them to change ect. Valuable subject time is lost whilst the teachers hand the kids over to the instructor while they go off and have a coffee and check their mobiles. Now Garrett wants every school child to be able to swim 50 meters , again how much other subject matter will be lost to this project ?
How many times I see school groups out in town or at the shopping centres with clip board in hand wandering around , again while the teachers are somewhere in the background with a coffee and their phone again. What are they studying ?
How many times I see school groups out at museums or art galleries , again handed over to some guide and the teachers again are just wandering around chatting.
So overall I would say there is too much time spent on efforts getting the kids out of that classroom and out and about all in the name of education.
So far since they have gone back to school last week , I have seen or heard in the news the following .
A day out to walk for a charity
Days spent on preparation for an Eisteddfod competition
More swimming lessons
A visiting politician , so the school involved came to a halt on that day
And the Victorian Teachers out on strike already after several months off
Also I would add in my day that teachers where to be respected and also feared , they were not your trying to be your best friend and act cool and trendy .

 

[burglar]

... Too many hours spent outside classrooms ...

I wanna go back to school!

 

[Knobby22]

I wanna go back to school!

I wanna be a teacher

 

[drsmith]

Labor always has the answers, but only to the questions that matters to itself.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3433856.htm

 

[sptrawler]

Labor always has the answers, but only to the questions that matters to itself.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3433856.htm

Absolutely Doc, untill they make teachers and the curiculum focus on core academic subjects the standard will continue to fall.
There hasn't been a huge evolutionary step change in human intelligence in the last 30 years.

However, now we think children can achieve the same academic levels with less tuition time.
30 years ago, all these warm feel good subjects weren't in the curiculum, swimming lessons were carried out in school holidays.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/national/16161554/adult-literacy-maths-shock/

What I can't understand is why we have to keep spending millions of dollars to identify the obvious.
Maybe a strong teachers union has something to do with it.

 

[McLovin]

lack of funding?

Stop giving the wealthiest private schools handouts. I say that as someone who went to one and who will send my kids (when I have them) to one. The money could really be better spent paying for kids from less well off backgrounds. Every year when I get my school's annual report in the mail I shake my head at the subsidy.

Take a look at the accounts and tell me if they need a government handout.

http://www.cranbrook.nsw.edu.au/docs/AnnualReport2011_FA_website.pdf

They make around $26k in fees/child before the government chips in.

 

[burglar]

... 30 years ago, all these warm feel good subjects weren't in the curiculum, ...

I studied Latin and old maths ... it stood me in good stead!

 

[sptrawler]

I studied Latin and old maths ... it stood me in good stead!

Would that be like learning your times tables and mental arithmetic a time when you weren't allowed to use calculators in an exam.

Nowadays, it's what's an exam, what's a times table?
At the checkout it's, the checkout say's $x it must be right.
It was funny at our local supermarket last year, we had a power failure, all the young girls were removed from the checkouts and older staff installed.
They were the only ones who could cope with manual process of adding up.

 

[sptrawler]

Stop giving the wealthiest private schools handouts. I say that as someone who went to one and who will send my kids (when I have them) to one. The money could really be better spent paying for kids from less well off backgrounds. Every year when I get my school's annual report in the mail I shake my head at the subsidy.

Take a look at the accounts and tell me if they need a government handout.

http://www.cranbrook.nsw.edu.au/docs/AnnualReport2011_FA_website.pdf

They make around $26k in fees/child before the government chips in.

McLovin, in my opinion it has nothing to do with funding.

If you are adding feel good subjects to the curiculum and at the same time removing available time, with out of school activities and student free days.

You have to pick up the slack somewhere, either reduce holiday time or add years to school time.

The only other option is to get back to basics and work out what you really need to teach in the given time.

More money doesn't buy more time, it just costs more for the same outcome.IMO

 

[Country Lad]

It is interesting that the basics of improving education outcomes in schools is actually proven and it is a bit like going back many years and taking the bureaucracy and union intransigence out of the system and appointing headteachers/principals who are good people managers and giving them autonomy to manage the business of schooling.

This includes appointing the teachers and getting rid of those who do not perform. Currently it is a long and drawn out process to cull the teachers not performing and then they pop up somewhere else in the system.

Funding is only a small part of the problem. As has been proven at a number of schools it is teacher quality, teacher performance and the teacher/student engagement that counts. That was certainly the case many decades ago when I went to school and the student achievements were higher than these days. These factors may not be the whole answer but it is certainly better than just throwing money at the problem.

For anybody who wants to argue this is not a large part of the answer should firstly watch the 4 Corners program Revolution in the Classroom aired a year ago and then say why this is not a good approach to try.

Unfortunately, it is easier for governments and bureaucrats to write such policies on class sizes, curriculum, student contact times, swimming abilities etc, rather than teacher performance and guidelines for identifying excellent performance and different levels of compensation commensurate with that performance. After all that happens everywhere else.

The extended interviews with the 3 Principal involved in the 4 Corners program are also interesting.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_weeks_288p.mp4
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_mcconville_288p.mp4
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_proctor_288p.mp4

Cheers
Country Lad

 

[sptrawler]

It is interesting that the basics of improving education outcomes in schools is actually proven and it is a bit like going back many years and taking the bureaucracy and union intransigence out of the system and appointing headteachers/principals who are good people managers and giving them autonomy to manage the business of schooling.

This includes appointing the teachers and getting rid of those who do not perform. Currently it is a long and drawn out process to cull the teachers not performing and then they pop up somewhere else in the system.

Funding is only a small part of the problem. As has been proven at a number of schools it is teacher quality, teacher performance and the teacher/student engagement that counts. That was certainly the case many decades ago when I went to school and the student achievements were higher than these days. These factors may not be the whole answer but it is certainly better than just throwing money at the problem.

For anybody who wants to argue this is not a large part of the answer should firstly watch the 4 Corners program Revolution in the Classroom aired a year ago and then say why this is not a good approach to try.

Unfortunately, it is easier for governments and bureaucrats to write such policies on class sizes, curriculum, student contact times, swimming abilities etc, rather than teacher performance and guidelines for identifying excellent performance and different levels of compensation commensurate with that performance. After all that happens everywhere else.

The extended interviews with the 3 Principal involved in the 4 Corners program are also interesting.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_weeks_288p.mp4
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_mcconville_288p.mp4
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120206_proctor_288p.mp4

Cheers
Country Lad

Good point.

 

[albaby]

Stop giving the wealthiest private schools handouts. I say that as someone who went to one and who will send my kids (when I have them) to one. The money could really be better spent paying for kids from less well off backgrounds. Every year when I get my school's annual report in the mail I shake my head at the subsidy.

Take a look at the accounts and tell me if they need a government handout.

http://www.cranbrook.nsw.edu.au/docs/AnnualReport2011_FA_website.pdf

They make around $26k in fees/child before the government chips in.

Same position Mclovin,although I'm thinking of my grandkids,I was horrified at the $s that went to mine just for the BER.Al

 

[Julia]

Same position Mclovin,although I'm thinking of my grandkids,I was horrified at the $s that went to mine just for the BER.Al

Did the private schools at least have some choice about how their BER funds were spent?

 

[sptrawler]

Another example of a failing system, maths should be a compulsory subject.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/dropping-maths-doesnt-add-up-says-ridout-20130226-2f46o.html

 

[Calliope]

Well what is wrong with Australia's education sytem?
30 years ago we were seen as the creme de la creme of educational institutes.
Is the demise due to:
dumber kids?
lack of funding?
lack of discipline?
lack of standards?
lack of accountability?
lack of testing of what has been learnt?
lack of accountabilty for teachers who have under performing students?
Too many non core subjects?
Too many feel good subjects?
Too many multiple choice exams?
Too many school excursions the teachers are interested in?
Too many student free days
Or maybe just a lack of interest?
http://www.happychild.com.au/articles/a-quick-guide-to-the-gonksi-review-of-funding-for-schooling

What do you think? Has teaching just become a job, where the faulty ones will be fixed up under warranty?

Yes, all these, but the main one ( which is not talked about because of the strength of the teachers' unions) is the low quality of the teachers i.e. dumber teachers. Teaching and Education have very low university entrance scores (ATARs), so the vacancies tend to be filled by those who don't score high enough to qualify for the more demanding courses.

Take Ballarat University for example. There are only seven other university courses that allow a lower Australian tertiary admission rank than Ballarat University's education course.

The unions, of course, oppose grading the teachers.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/data-point/teacher-entry-ranking-tumbles-20130117-2cwb5.html#ixzz2M45QtQQI

 

[medicowallet]

I see 2 massive problems:

1. Teachers are paid too much.

25 hours per week for anything down to 40 weeks per year.

If the funds were directed appropriately, then it would ease cost pressures.

2. The need for a national curriculum
This would allow set standards to be met at a set age (whilst allowing flavour)
This would save money in duplicated systems.


MW

 

[gav]

I think another factor that deserves mentioning is that parents need to also take take responsibility. (When I was a kid, I was too scared NOT to do my school work because my parents will kick my ass! : )

Not sure if anyone has read Gladwell's "Outliers". He quotes a study which shows the results of tests from school kids from different income backgrounds. The tests are taken at the start of the school year, end of school year, and after holidays. The overall results are what one would expect (low income perform the worst, high income the best).

However, during the school year all kids increased test results at about the same rate, regardless of family income. But the test results showed that over the holiday period, the knowledge of the low income kids regressed, middle income kids stayed the same, and the high income kids improved significantly. Basically the study concluded that it didn't matter what school the kids went to, it was their home environment that had the biggest impact on kids results.

 

[chops_a_must]

I see 2 massive problems:

1. Teachers are paid too much.

25 hours per week for anything down to 40 weeks per year.

If the funds were directed appropriately, then it would ease cost pressures.

2. The need for a national curriculum
This would allow set standards to be met at a set age (whilst allowing flavour)
This would save money in duplicated systems.


MW

I'm not sure teachers are paid too much.

But they are paid more than their peers in similar industries.

Having worked with both, there's no doubt nurses work much harder than teachers, and are paid much less, for instance.

The biggest problem is the drop out and attrition soon after getting into the classroom.

We simply can't train and keep enough teachers.

And we're heading for a crunch - just like we are with nurses, higher ed and many other professions that are underpaid relative to education qualifications.

 

[Julia]

I think another factor that deserves mentioning is that parents need to also take take responsibility. (When I was a kid, I was too scared NOT to do my school work because my parents will kick my ass! : )

Sure. Opposed to that are the many families where education is just not valued. It's very difficult for teachers, however good they are, to make headway with kids whose home life is based on a welfare entitlement mentality, and no expectation that anyone in the family will ever actually get a job.

Basically the study concluded that it didn't matter what school the kids went to, it was their home environment that had the biggest impact on kids results.

It's hard to see this changing.