As this is but one aspect of "indigenous" disadvantage,after more than 200 years of failed policies, why cant the obvious conclusion be drawn: abandon all forms of discrimination and let "aborigines" become Australians.Leslie

Leslie, the Aboriginal leaders don't want that. They want a separate Aboriginal society. I gather from the Aboriginal gent who spoke to the National Press Club yesterday, that they also want to be self funded in due course. There probably are enough so called Aboriginal people out there today to accomplish this, but I suspect that most of them are quite happy just being Australians, having thrown off the yoke of being an Aboriginal the day they graduated.

David

Oh no, not another jaundiced and misleading article from the Queen of Spleen, flogging one of her pet obsessions: that there are simple answers to Aboriginal predicaments, and only she is capable of enunciating them. Helen knows full well that when "Departments of Education blame high failure rates on 'Indigeneity'", this is code for the prevalent circumstances of local Indigenous family life in most remote communities. It is not a reference to the potential capacity of the people concerned.
When she claims that "Indigenous students have the same distribution of intellectual capabilities as non-Indigenous students" she is being disingenuous.
There is a wealth of published evidence showing a very large majority of these remote Aboriginal community children are raised in extreme poverty, often experiencing degrees of FASD, malnutrition and trauma prior to birth, and encountering violence, desertion or severe inattention, emotional neglect, nutritional carelessness, and lack of continuity with good close care by a significant other in the first months, develop very differently on average.
Their brain and emotional development is heavily impacted, and often their physical and intellectual development is very badly affected. On the other hand, the circumstances of local Indigenous family life in most parts of these states cited by Hughes (in parts of Qld, NSW, Victoria and the ACT, where Indigenous students are performing at a better level) are very different. There is usually much better health, housing, intergenerational educational and employment achievements, much more inter-marriage with outside groups, etc.
The Hughes duo are being typically tricky and obtuse, holding stubbornly to a gross oversimplification of the problems, and positioning themselves on a self-defined and self-serving moral high ground based on arrogance and contrariness. A lot of the their exposition is really dishonest.
For example, their statement that "some 20,000 Indigenous students attend so-called 'Indigenous schools' located in bush communities on Indigenous lands" in which allegedly "classes [are] often left to untrained Indigenous Assistant Teachers who could not pass Year 3 NAPLAN tests" is simply not true.
[to be continued below]

[continued]
Apart from the fact that Indigenous Assistant Teachers are not totally untrained, or generally unable to pass year 3 NAPLAN tests, only a very small proportion of these 20,000 students are ever left in such a situation.
As for the accusation that "more than 40 Homeland Learning Centres in the Northern Territory, some in derelict shacks, still do not have qualified teachers for every day of the week": although this is basically true, much of the time there are no students at many of these schools, and the schools in question have less than 300 enrolled students between them, forming a very small proportion of the 20,000 students being discussed, although there would be no way that this could be guessed from the Hughes twins' article unless you had inside knowledge of the situation.
NB most of these remote Indigenous schools are very different to the small isolated homeland school where the Hughes carried out their research in East Arnhem Land .

"There is a wealth of published evidence showing a very large majority of these remote Aboriginal community children are raised in extreme poverty, often experiencing degrees of FASD, malnutrition and trauma prior to birth, and encountering violence, desertion or severe inattention, emotional neglect, nutritional carelessness, and lack of continuity with good close care by a significant other in the first months, develop very differently on average."
So bring them into mainstream Australia. Leslie

Leslie
Isn't that what good education should help to do? You can't just take kids wholus-bolus from their families and homes and wave a magic mainstream wand to make it all work. There are the small matters of law, parental rights, natural justice, lack of appropriate services, and absence of a qualified workforce that is available and willing to provide various services which are obviously needed to support the changes that are required, regardless of where the children are living. It's just not simple or easy.

Excuse my ignorance. Seriously, foreign and haven't been here that long.

It seems to me there are programmes in place for the indigenous population to get a leg up, so to speak. It seems a large part of the problem is the people themselves not taking advantage of apparent opportunities that are there for them. Why?

Professor, while the vested interests you cite smother the rights of children, the horror will go on and on. Daniel , in your privileged position, please do not hide behind " Its just not simple or easy" and help cut the Gordian Knot. Leslie

Review of indigenous literacy and numeracy 2008-2011,

Even more scary is general australian literacy and numeracy.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13794#238595
I have spent a little time and talked to some in the communities (Hermansberg etc) and they are happy. They get paid enough to do exactly what they want, they don't want a leg up, there simple needs are easily met by handouts. Government helps enable the cycle to continue by treating them differently, most reviews critiques welfare as "sit down" money and the policy needs changing, some like Noel Pearson criticise welfare policy directly and decry it destroying the soul of a race. I have no simple answers but what they're doing now isn't working, so how about trying to treat them as equals, see how that goes.

As to the original article, I had to smile at the bit about WA Principals having greater autonomy. If the report in the SHM the other day is correct, NSW teachers are striking because NSW Principals are supposed to get greater autonomy from the Government, at face value it smells of Union malfeasance... what a weird Country we live in, no wonder I emigrated.

Why only try to half the gap, why not go for no gap at all. These moron academics want equality & shout discrimination from every corner yet they constantly single out the indigenous from society. Why single them out ? Why not treat them as equals ?
My experience is that on a basis of percentage indigenous Australians are way more literate than most non indigenous.

The article says, “Western Australia's autonomy for principals has contributed to its improved performance.”

When it appeared in The Australian, the sub-heading was “Queensland and WA are alone in showing principal autonomy will close the gap”.

Yet Victoria has had the most autonomous school system for 40 years, suggesting that autonomy has nothing to do with the issue.

There is a great difference between greater power for principals and school autonomy. The first empowers one individual, who may or may not be any good, to dominate the professional staff of the school through exploitation, favouritism, bullying and intimidation. The second empowers the school community of parents and teachers to work together on meeting the educational needs of the students.

Victorian schools gained curriculum autonomy from the late 1960s. It has, for most of the time since then, respected the professional judgment of teachers within each school.

It gained elected school councils representing parents and teachers guiding each school in 1975.

Local appointment of staff was phased in from the 1980s for principals, from the early 1990s for senior staff and from the mid-1990s for all staff.

Victorian Labor gave schools a mainly per capita funding system and locally controlled budgets in 2005.

That collaborative decision-making process and the significant re-investment in education in this state between 2000 and 2010 explain Victoria’s strong performance in national tests.

We do not need a system in which principals cover up their lack of leadership skills by resorting to the naked exercise of power against the other employees in the school. The best principals knew 30 years ago that they were the first among equals, not petty dictators.

St.G
Your observation is substantially correct. There are several causes. The most-basic one is that since the referendum which recognised Aboriginals they have received "sit down" money which discouraged any useful endeavours and gave them the right and means to consume deleterious amounts of alcohol. The mixed race ones who were fortunate enough to have been removed from the primitive tribal areas have generally done all right, as have those who have been educated by the various Christian missions around the outback. The ones who remain will forever remain, regardless of how much money is spent on trying to educate them. It is a bit akin to the passage in the Bible where Jesus makes the comment in Matthew 26.11 "For ye have the poor always with you"

David

Just to be even handed, I might add that the above comments also apply to a substantial number of non-indigenous welfare recipients too.

David

'Even more scary is general australian literacy and numeracy.'
Posted by individual, Thursday, 28 June 2012 9:44:54 PM

Even more scary is the fact that we do nothing about the task that is set failing learners - the spelling system. Experiment!
2011, Yule, Valerie 'Recent developments which affect spelling. On the possibility of removing the unnecessary difficulties in English spelling, while leaving the basic appearance of English print intact.' English Today, 107, vol 27, No 3. Sept 2011, pp 62-67 http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A839oLF6

To expect indigenous Australian children outback (and in cities) to understand the Norman-French, Germanic, Greek and Latin origins of our spelling is extraordinary.

While there are many disturbing facets to this article, the one I am most concerned about is that judgement of 'success' of the indigenous education policies and practices is being judged by NAPLAN scores.

Anyone who uses NAPLAN scores alone to make policy is lazy, uninformed and politically motivated.

David - "mixed race ones", "fortunate enough to have been removed from the primitive tribal areas" and then quoting from the bible. Sounds to me that you're OK as long as its done the white way.

Have you considered that your white way may not be the right way?