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The Forum > Article Comments > Cane toad solutions don't work, especially not in education > Comments

Cane toad solutions don't work, especially not in education : Comments

By Phil Cullen, published 16/8/2010

Did Julia Gillard really buy NAPLAN from a US lawyer?

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Dear Mr. Cullen

You talk too far above my head. But I will vote informal.

Just because they keep saying that vote is compulsory.

No, it isn’t.

Voting cannot be free and compulsory.

They can take this donkey, me, to water but cannot make him drink
Posted by skeptic, Monday, 16 August 2010 10:20:55 AM
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Informal?

Wow.

I hope you are in a marginal Labor Electorate so we get a change from incompetence and policy on the run.

What is the Coalition's Education Policy? You don't seem to have considered it at all. You clearly haven't enunciated any.

And in the Senate you'll vote for Greens/Labor?
Posted by keith, Monday, 16 August 2010 10:40:09 AM
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When I calculated the time spent in finding the polling booth, parking, waiting, and what else I could be doing, I was able to determine that I'll happily pay the $100 fine for not voting.

There's no talent to vote for amongst the major two parties, and the minors send all their preferences along to the major two. So the only "protest" vote that actually shows as a protest vote, is to not vote at all.

Where's Gough?...I liked his style, I'd vote for him again. He must be in his 90's by now, but he's still aharper than most of these fools.
Posted by MindlessCruelty, Monday, 16 August 2010 10:41:58 AM
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A shame the comments focus on the voting and not the content of Cullens article.

I agree with Cullen, having sent 3 boys to school for 35 student years so far, with one year more to go.

At least in Qld, where 'education' has always been a casualty of politics, and 'book learning' is sneered at by all politicians and most senior Education Queensland officials alike, I have seen absolutely nothing of any value change within EQ schools during our long prison-term with them.

'Go private' I hear some say (Shadown MInister for instance) but 'no thanks'.

Why throw good money after bad?

Gillard has proved herself to be a total goose within her DEEWR responsibilities, concentrating more on supporting employers in the building industry and denouncing a poorly organised and run AEU, in the hope of proving herself to be 'tough'.

The 'Education Revolution' is a complete farce, although as Cullen points out here, it is also a major danger to Australia's poorly run education system now too.

I blame parents for the state of the schools, even above politicians.

It is the parents who fuss about 'school reports' in Kindie, are worried if their child cannot 'cut out' along dotted lines by age 3, are mortified if by the end of Prep (in Qld) their 'kiddies' are not able to write a 2000 word essay on 'deconstruction'.

Why would they be able to, when the teachers they have are barely literate/numerate, and the school principals have no idea how to organise a prayer group (actually, in Qld, far too many are very good at that, but no good at all at anything to do with.... 'book learning')?
Posted by The Blue Cross, Monday, 16 August 2010 11:17:24 AM
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TBCs part 2....

That Oirish author, the fellow who wrote 'Angela's Ashes', also wrote 'Teacher Man', describing his time in one of these 'high skill' US public schools, where he taught (with great success) students how to write their own sick notes... what inventiveness!

He also said, in an interview about the book, that it was up to parents to storm public schools with demands for quality, and to demand of the politicians that wasteful idiocy, such as Ed Qld is very good at, is done away with.

Sadly, if Qld dumped all the incompetents within EQ, there would only be a handful of classroom teachers dotted around the state, no school principals, and not a single policy wonk in Mary Street or in the regional offices.

The Indigenous educator, Dr. Chris Sarra, had the right idea in Cherbourg when he took it over.

He asked his staff what their part in the lack of value felt by the students and parents in that town, of their school, was... seems that was too much for some of them and they took off the next day.

I think we need to ask our school principals why the schools THEY run, are so poorly run.

And ask the teachers in those schools, what part they have played in the failure of the school.

Naturally, we need to extend that to parents and politicians too.... and eventually, the students.

Maybe, teaching 'bad' students how to write a good 'sick note' is at least an inventive and intelligent way of teaching them some form of literacy, and is the best we can manage, for some... but when even that cannot be done, there really is something wrong.
Posted by The Blue Cross, Monday, 16 August 2010 11:25:27 AM
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Good one Phil - love the cane toad solution crack.

The thing one has to remember about Gillard,Rudd,Abbott et al is one word - SHALLOW. As any mariner knows,the shallows are the places to avoid.
Posted by Manorina, Monday, 16 August 2010 2:50:40 PM
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