So now I’m told Grammar and Classics have “declined” but not “dropped generally”. I confess to have no idea what this means in your mind. And again, I notice you have avoided my question. Here’s hoping the 11th time is the charm; “did they teach grammar as a separate (compulsory) unit at your school/s, or was it just a smaller part of English generally?”

You should be able to understand an argument in the alternative as far as the (tedious) primary schoolers points go. I noted this wasn’t about primary schoolers, and also noted that even primary school teachers required higher marks than your (incorrect) claim would require (which given we were discussing secondary school teachers, boded poorly for your argument).

Oddly, I can decide for myself what argument I will make and discuss, and I’ve been very clear what’s relevant to it. If you wish to discuss things that are irrelevant to it, you should go elsewhere (though that hasn’t stopped you to date I suppose). Moving on.

The only remaining relevant (or unaddressed) point you raise is in regards to the first of the 6 points I noted you needed to logically prove to have an argument (perhaps one of these months, you will advance past the first and second points).

I guess the first thing to note is your math isn’t even trustworthy (as usual). Go to the inflation calculator, and enter $11,400 for 1975-2010, and you get $68,678. Your insistence on your own special methodology for this is not more accurate than the RBA inflation calculator, which is somehow $7K below your number. Likewise, $9700 in 1974 is equivalent to $67,305 in 2010. Your numbers are just wrong, a child could have shown as much. The 1976 figure you offer comes out at $64,953, showing 1975 was higher than 1974, and significantly lower than 1976 (what we call cherry picking, or what we would call cherry picking if you could do sums properly). I confess not to have bothered to try and work out the month by month inflationary difference.

If it really is so high that there was a $7000 difference in a single year, then clearly a period with this sort of inflationary pressures is a terrible benchmark to use, and faced with believing you or the RBA calculator, it’s an easy choice.

Your use of average male earnings at the time is a flawed figure (almost meaningless in fact). The fact that you used it because it was “how [an AEU] document was constructed” doesn’t give it some special merit (I don’t doubt the teacher’s union used such a flawed figure, intellectual dishonesty like that is quite usual for them). It’s not an intelligent way of comparing things, the whole economy has changed since then. Using a sensible starting point like real wage value, we see there has barely (if at all) been a cut since the (cherry picked) period (selecting some years suggests an increase), and if we factor additional factors like tax there has definitely been an increase. So you’re still unable to even clear the starting hurdle for your argument (i.e. prove that there actually has been a decrease in salary).

You have ignored most of my arguments, and dodged several of my explicit questions. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but if you’re going to reply, you may as well make it relevant.

I notice a slight typo above, which will doubtless confuse you. It should read that the sum in 1975 is higher than both the years before and after it, which is why it's a cherry picked stat. In 1974 the figure is $67K, in 1975 it's $68K, and in 1976 it's down to $64K. So you've taken what is likely the peak salary in the history of Australian teaching, when Whitlam was in government. Ridiculous. Not to mention that tax considerations you've ignored, and the absurd job security that comes with teaching, extremely rare in today's workforce.

You make a lame attempt to reply that you could pick any year and the result would be the same, but clearly you can't... because we went through 1983 and showed how there was an increase to 2003 (which would be even higher taken to 2010), and the other years you use don't use real wage, they use some bogus numbers which (among other things) try to measure salary based only what EVERYONE ELSE is doing. The fact mining wages went up does not create an argument for teacher wages to also go up, it's a ridiculous argument. And the inflation calculator for working out real wages does what such a statistic is supposed to show, what the wage they received back then is worth today.

Of course, this has been repeated over and over to you, and there has been no response at all.

I ask yet again:
One of your main arguments is that teachers have become less skilled since [whatever cherry picked date you are using], so given teachers today are less good at their jobs, why should we even be trying to pay them the same wage that (more skilled) teacher's got in the 70's? I won't hold my breath for an answer...

Riddler,

I see that, having finally got a start on my second priority, “to deal with your claims about teacher salaries” (8.03:14am, 2/3), I have to return to my first, “to correct the untrue things you have said in response to me.”

While you keep going on about my not answering your imperious demands, you are actually ignoring my clear statement about how I will respond to you. If you continue your habit of making false claims about me, I will continue to correct them. If you keep getting basic facts wrong, I will continue to correct them. If you ever develop an acceptable level of honesty, if you are ever able to distinguish between the argument being made and the person making it, if you are ever able to stick at making an actual argument without the personal character assassination, I will be able to discuss the issues you tell us you want to discuss. Given the number of malicious comments you have made, it is unlikely that you will be able to do this. Perhaps you have been “successful” in life by putting other people down, making up stories about them, pretending they have said things they have not said, refusing to back away from claims that you have made even when they are proved to be false and generally acting in a bullying way.

You’re not the first person I have come across who acts as though the way to win a debate is to maliciously undermine the character of anyone who takes a different side, and you won’t be the last. You’re not the first person I have come across who claims to want to discuss an issue but actually wants

Your comments suggest that you believe that petty put-downs and name-calling will help you. They will not.

Comments such as the following do not advance the discussion or even your own point of view:
“I realise you're having trouble keeping up”,
“Answer, or go away, but drop the patronising tone of your writing. I have no problem with arrogance when it is deserved, but you've only embarrassed yourself on this forum.”
“Your posts are just coherent enough to merit a proper response however,”
“your rants are not special enough to require that you inflict them on us in all their unedited glory”
“($11,400 in 1983 on the RBA inflation calculator comes up with a value of $25,470 in 2003… don’t you look foolish)”
“Sure, let's play big boy.”
“You can’t read...”
However, if you wish to waste your time including them go ahead. They will not change what I do and they will not undermine the case that I have made.

Similarly, the issuing of imperious commands does not advance the discussion or even your own point of view:
“Take yourself off, you're only embarrassing yourself now.”
“Either reply properly to what people have said, or take yourself off”
However, if you wish to waste your time including them go ahead. They will not drive me away and they will not undermine the case that I have made.

You have made a number of false claims about education:
“you don’t need an educational degree to work in a private school, so your claim they necessarily do the same training is simply wrong”
“You’re(sic) claim that “A system which pays some teachers more than others because they are better is fine, and is not opposed by the AEU” is simply a lie.”
“Victoria has a small number of teachers who aren’t judged by tenure”
This indicates you do not know much about the subject. It is not that there is no vague half-truth behind what you say here, but that you do not put things with the necessary precision, which is why I spend so much time correcting you.

You have made a number of false claims about me:
“you don't understand causation or logic”
“instead they focus on the statistical claims that were debunked by longweekend days ago”
“$11,400 is the amount he lists as a payment for a sub-division 4 teacher today, assuming his figures are even correct, which is dubious on his past record, is worth $68,678 in 2010 money, yet Chris erroneously claims it is worth $72,755 in today's money. He can't even add correctly.”
“This is another example of a meaningless and dubious statistic... why on earth is the base timeframe from 84-92, when that isn't the period your argument identifies as problematic? It's merely because it suits your argument...”
“The beginning of your lame reply is to claim I misrepresented you in a post I wrote a week ago, in what I assume is a desperate attempt to change the subject.”
“Maybe if you didn't base all your arguments off documents produced by the AEU you wouldn't lose credibility in this fashion...”
“"The number of teachers needed has not fallen. The ability level of those entering teaching has."
Yet the evidence for this claim, of standards radically dropping, has been abandoned by you.”
“I can only assume you type a reply, find it's too long, and then slowly and agonizingly post it, bit by bit, over the days that follow.”
“You based this entirely on the Leigh study, which I pointed out couldn’t be correct (and if it somehow was, it couldn’t help your argument). You have (finally) addressed this, conceding “I misinterpreted it to mean “entry scores”. It is actually a percentile rank of ability”. So you were completely wrong”
“The period of the study that you now concede is useless”
“($11,400 in 1983 on the RBA inflation calculator comes up with a value of $25,470 in 2003… don’t you look foolish)”
“you still don’t know what causation is”
“You can’t read...”
“you’ve consistently provided bad date (sic), or misinterpreted the data presented”