Its hardly surprising that literacy rates are flatlining when the prof. in charge of educating teachers at Sydney Uni believes teaching teachers how to teach children to read isn't a necessary part of an education degree. You need to know how children learn, but not how to impart the most fundamental skill necessary for learning - literacy. Add to that the growing cohort of dumbed down teachers, most of whom wouldn't have been admitted to any degree course in years gone by, and the only surprising thing about the NAPLAN results is that they don't show a downward trajectory.

Well here's (possibly) an interesting reflection on literacy in this country: There is no way I'm going to read an article that's 6 pages long - I simply can't accept that it would be worth the time!

Peter Garrett would make an excellent microphone stand or a lamp post.

Isn't this interesting. One of the very few good things Gillard, & Garrett have done, & professionals, so called, hate it.

There is no way of knowing how kids, schools, & particularly teachers are doing, unless you have outside set tests, the same for all students.

Teachers hate them, as there are only so many times you can blame the students for lousy results. When lousy results continue for years you know it's the school & it's teachers at fault.

Blame it on google, I say.

I can remember a day when every class room had a shelf with encilipidas on it ( no idea how to spell that),so even the teachers refer to google.

It's a changing world, and with bullying getting out of control for many schools, I can see a day without schools.

Cause let's face it, many of them these days are simply glorified child care centers. This is evident when one witnesses the kaos caused by student free days.

What a strange post, rehctub.

Blame it on google....", indeed.

What you fail to understand is that children derive their literacy and learning habits from home just as much as what is reinforced during school hours.

I might add that if you had chosen to employ google to look up "encyclopedia" or "chaos", you would have found the correct spelling in any of the online dictionaries. Like everything, if one can be bothered to seek out answers, one can usually find them.

This is the type of thing we should be teaching our kids - independent, self-directed learning, not just sitting back, teaching to test and expecting children to merely regurgitate facts that have been crammed into them.