Great piece - so sad but so true! No wonder so many beginning teachers get frustrated and burnt out and leave the profession so early (or move to a non-government school).

It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to deal with as the educrats and teacher academics continue on their way, oblivious to the damage they are causing.

Good work Robert. Paperwork and fads continue to bedevil modern education. Sadly, as Kevin says, no-one wants to deal with these matters. The National Curriculum is a solution in search of a problem and nonsensical fads like Quality Teaching are generated by the spin doctors in Education Departments across the nation. You can see it happening: an 'expert' from the UK or USA comes to sleepy Oz with an idea that will 'transform education'. The local Education Department, anxious to give its Minister something to announce, goes into overdrive. Glossy publications are printed; seminars scheduled; thoughtful papers produced by the ever helpful academics in our university education faculties.

All this activity happens at the expense of well planned courses of study, well structured lessons, active teaching (not faciliating) and careful responses to those students who have trouble keeping up. Teaching, though personally draining and operationally challenging, is not a conceptually difficult activity. If governments, educrats and academics would stop trying to 'transform' it, we might get better results.

Is state run compulsory mass education a viable proposition?

Isn't the sort of equine fertiliser Robert Clements describes inevitable in any state run system?

The statement that the AEU is opposed to merit-based pay is false. The AEU, like all those who know what a profession is and who understand teaching, are opposed to performance bonus systems, because they allow favourtism, encourage bullying by school principals, concentrate the money on the schools in which teaching is easiest, work against the collegiate nature of teaching, devalue subjects that cannot be easily turned into a number via a test and, as US evidence says, do not work to improve educational achievement.

The Victorian advanced skills teacher system was brought in as a result of union advocacy in the 1990s. It rewarded teachers with higher skills, though the reward at the first level was too small, the reward at the higher levels meant reducing the teacher’s classroom time and the salary at the highest level, which the AEU and the government had agreed would be the same as the second level of vice principal salary, was reduced by the Victorian IRC.

There has never been a system that adequately rewards the best classroom teachers and keeps them in the classroom, though one was first proposed to my knowledge in the 1979 Green Paper. We may one day get one, but it won’t be via performance pay and it will be with the support of the AEU.

Robert Clements,
The situation you describe & lament was borne by leftist Labor & just about everyone who calls themselves a teacher is a vehement Labor supporter.
Would you agree that in order to get out of this mess you should really advise all teachers not to vote for Labor from now on ?
You can't say this won't work because it hasn't been done yet. I'm sure it would work.

Dreadful writing. Does nothing for the cause of teachers.

A tortuously excruciating read with some good points made.

On another thread I wrote: "Education in Australia is run by educrats in the thrall of whatever new wave pedagogy or organizational structure is flavour of the month. They hitch a ride on such stars and teachers are left to pick up the pieces in the super-nova that follows, by which time the clowns are onto the next big thing. There is no accountability at the leadership levels of education for catastrophic failure and the public perception is that the teachers, who had no say in it, are at fault."

Until the public entrusts schools and experienced, successful teachers with educating children, rather than the educratic class of failed ex-teachers, forget TIMMS and PISA rankings.

perception is that the teachers, who had no say in it, are at fault."
Luciferase,
You mean those people who strike when they want more pay & even better conditions but don't call strikes when it comes to changing the policies they blame to be the cause & don't agree with? those who stand up when it is about themselves but do nothing when a better educational standard should be argued for ? Those who only go to remote communities because of the high allowances & preferential promotion upon returning to the urban centres ?
Yes of course they had no say in it because they're not interested in having a say because it would mean putting in an effort rather than just checking the bank account every fortnight.

A couple of points, Indy:

Teachers nurses and police have barely gone on strike for the last three decades while their real incomes have fallen significantly. Being a conservative lot, when they do strike for better conditions, it's usually for a good reason.

Principles and policies laid down by governments and implemented by their bureaucrats (who are the ones advising governments on the suitability of the principles and policies) is something everyone can try to influence, even you, Indy, but good luck breaking in. Do you see nurses striking to stop stupid reforms, or police? Why then should teachers, even if it is these servants at the interface with the public who face the its wrath when things go pear-shaped.

How would you view soldiers striking to stop being sent to Afghanistan under Australian Gov't policy, Indy? should soldiers have a major influence in the Gov't decision to send them there? It's akin to what you think teachers should have the right nay, the duty, to do.

Perhaps you're the kind of guy who goes off at the check-out chick because the supermarket has a policy against the use of plastic bags? The chicks should strike until they get what YOU want, right?

In reference to Chris C's defence of the AEU's approach to merit-based pay:
The AEU has a legitimate role in developing a career path for teachers, one that is designed to keep experienced teachers in the classroom. Whether pay scheduling is called merit-based or performance bonus is irrelevent. The real question is why has the AEU stopped being the watchdog for teachers in classroom based career development?
I don't buy the standard AEU strawman argument that it is impossible to develop a pay incentive scheme for teachers. The Victorian experiment never went beyond Victoria, and was not properly worked out.
If the AEU is waiting around for a policy to appear somewhere which they will support, who exactly is going to develop it?
The AEU position is defeatist and half-hearted. The AEU's pursuit of egalitarianism is ultimately unfair and has led to the situation teachers now face. Teachers really do depend on the AEU to pick up the ball and develop policies that will work in their favour.

Luciferase,
No point dragging up arguments about grown-up soldiers. I'm talking about teachers who have more impact on kids' mentalities than any other apart from pop groups of course.
None of those you mention have anything to do with education. Only parents & teachers do.
It is my view teachers more than any other group need to pull up their socks.

The National Curriculum was brought in in the UK several years ago in much the same way as is happening in Australia - standards being set by bureaucrats who are not currently working in teaching. This was done in conjnction with performance ratings for schools based on basic qualifications - Standard Assessment Tests at 7 and 11 and 5 core exam pass rates for 16 year olds. The result has been nominally higher ratings for schools who follow the narrower strictures of the National Curriculum, and other schools who value well rounded educational aims above this have suffered from being branded 'failing' and had new management structures imposed on the 'Academy' model. This allows private companies to sponsor schools and reduces protection for teachers under collective bargaining as the schools are no longer part of the local authority structure. Longer hours for teachers and pressure to teach from cheaper commercially sponsored material are the result.

UK union law does not allow taking industrial action over anything except pay and conditions. Hence we are prevented from defending educational standards through the unions - even class size agreements have been allowed to lapse. Recently a lot of action has been taken across public service unions over erosion of pension rights - this is part of the new austerity cuts to pay for subsidising bank bailouts.

The net outcome is political manipulation of the curriculum and vetting of staff based on their compliance. Also 'standards' have certainly declined under the 'pass as many as you can or get a budget cut' mentality - new NVQ school qualifications are docile tick box style pap and devoid of analytic content. Just what we want for the new generation?

Resist the Nastyonal Curriculum if you care about teaching! Teachers must be trusted to be professional without interference like this - they certainly have trouble being professional with it.

Indy,

teacher lobby groups do try to influence educational direction. For example, a couple years back over in WA a bolshy teacher group calling itself PLATO (an acronym for something to do with outcomes based education) fought strongly against the stupidity of certain reforms. They were marginalized and didn't win. The ensuing fiasco is still playing out over there, with the educrats who drove the changes tactically retreating while receiving promotions and medals. The same people are still in charge of the blood-bank over there ready to hitch a ride on the next big thing, their CVs stuffed with rewrites of educational history, while teachers and universities are still picking up the pieces.

Teachers can do no more than lobby, just as you or any other group can. The educrats are in the thrall of other interest groups (eg ACER), keen to sell them the next new-wave of educational elixir, and have no regard for the opinions of teachers at all. In Finland, teachers rule and the results are to be seen in PISA and TIMMs rankings.