Good analysis. There is a roundup of views on the curriculum issue athttp://honesthistory.net.au/wp/minister-pyne-and-the-curriculum-again/

Thank you for your comments David and the link to Honest History. There is certainly a wealth of information on your website. While I think (hope?) this review will all turn out to be much ado about nothing my real concern is the total lack of vision on education by the Coalition and its obsessions with distractions. I did not agree with all aspects of the Gillard/Garrett push on education (see some earlier contributions to Online Opinion) but there was a genuine commitment to
improvement.

Ian
If you wish to receive email updates you can sign up at http://honesthistory.net.au/mailer/ HH noted the line in the Min's comments about needing to have curriculum settled by 2015. There is a subtext of our history being a single line from Magna Carta to Queen Victoria to Anzac to Bob Menzies ('Western Civilisation'). HH preference is 'Not only Anzac but lots of other strands as well'.

In at least foundational basic literacy teaching throughout Australia, Chris Pyne and his new appointees have all the justification in the world to issue a number of exceptionally clear or distinctly 'autocratic' directives to the likes of the current ACARA and one of its its former leaders, Prof Barry McGaw. McGaws leadership period both before ACARA (as head of his NCB) and well into the first few years of ACARA's existence, was not less than profoundly incapable of producing even a workable basic literacy curriculum Australian primary teachers to follow. The proof of this is embarrassingly simple to find:

If you have a PDF file maker on your computer, examine any primary English curriculum document produced by the NCB or ACARA since 2008, and then go looking for KEY words and concepts such as test,correct spelling, vowel, consonant, syllable, alphabet, year level spelling
list and many more. When you discover to your horror that all utterly vital words such as these are either missing or diminished to points of extinction, then you simply must conclude that Australian literacy curricula have been made patently ludicrous and incompetent by the likes of ACARA and the NCB.

Give Pyne and his mates a go in at least basic literacy education. With a bit of luck, they'll do Australian basic literacy teaching a huge favor, sack the lot of them and start from scratch. Simply nothing could be more incompetent than the methods of the 'status quo' lot. Over the last three decades this 'lot' has produced 9.5 million students and workers with problems in basic reading and spelling skills. Pyne should have zero tolerance for failure like this.

there is general agreement of falling and failing educational standards. It is the fault of the mindless fools who have followed the wrong path for the last 60 years. It has gone bad and they should take the blame or perhaps have the blame sheeted home to them.
Asia shows the way with rote learning. It is not as much fun and demands discipline but that is what is needed. It can never happen with the current crop of educators that's for sure!

Dear Ian,

So, << On January 20 Minister Pyne was given 750 words in the Fairfax Media to justify his Government’s review of the Australian Curriculum.>> Oh, wow, really?

I guess that means the conservatives have “failed another test” according to you and the media left?

Great, now what are you going to say to the majority of Australians who voted for them?

Ah, yes, I forgot. The majority of Australians are ready to vote for a change of government in 2016?

You can put your money where your mouth is or consider a quiet exit to retirement.

My advice would be the latter before you compromise your pension

Ian, on OLO to make any constructive criticism of the Liberal politicians, upsets their beloved followers.
Their response will make a Banshee sound like a Dove.

The 'comments' section of On Line Opinion certainly demonstrates that for some people the education system has failed. Why is it so often that by about the sixth comment discussion degenerates into name calling, characterising people as 'left' or 'right' and observations based on hearsay rather than evidence. A good education system should produce a citizenry capable of informed debate.

Ian

Agree heartily

What hypocrites the author of this bit of nonsense and his sycophants are.

The recent OECD PISA tests showed Australian school children falling well behind in maths, science and reading.

The blame for this lies squarely on the useless shoulders of left wing progressive educators who sought to duplicate their English counterparts so aptly described by Melanie Phillips:

"Today’s uproar is because the doctrine of equality of outcomes is the sacred shibboleth of the left. Anyone who wants to understand Britain’s education disaster only has to listen to the asinine knee-jerk reactions from teachers and Labour and LibDem politicians all baying for Gove’s [or Pyne’s] blood because he wants to raise education standards. Thus the left sets its face against Gove’s [or Pyne’s] determination to give children a good education and positive life prospects – in which cause parents are cheering him on –and instead lines up in defence of lousy education, mass ignorance and entrenched social disadvantage. Well done, comrades!"

Part 2:

"The farce of worthless public examinations has arisen from the farce that education has become. The education world believes with every fibre of its being that tailoring education differently to meet different pupil aptitudes is to crush the self-esteem of the less academic. The result of that piece of idiocy – which would be laughed out of court in say Germany or Switzerland – is that not only academic children are short-changed but the non-academic who need high quality vocational education.

Britain’s educationists were also zealots for ‘child-centred education’, which held that what a child brought to the classroom was as valuable, if not more so, than anything a teacher could deliver.

Education thus stopped being concerned with the transmission of knowledge. Teachers stopped teaching and turned instead into ‘facilitators’ of pupil learning. The tried and tested structured reading schemes were abandoned because — horrors! — some children were faster than others at mastering these, and children were told to guess or memorise words instead, leaving them functionally illiterate. Creativity was fetishised over knowledge. The essay, which taught children how to think, was replaced by stories which allowed them instead to make things up.

Children were thus abandoned to ignorance and unreason. It was an approach whose wickedness was exceeded only by its imbecility.”

I bet everyone of the anti-Pyne commentators on this thread approve whole-heartedly of the propaganda about global warming currently being foisted on pupils in schools today.

Schools have become training grounds for left ideology; it's a simple as that; and like the wretched ABC, education has ceased to work in Australia's favour.

The blame for this lies squarely on the useless shoulders of left wing progressive educators
cohenite,
The frustrating part is that they themselves were indoctrinated by their own nonsense & now remain too stupid to comprehend it all. If only there were a chance of making them realise how progressive they are in their regress.

TO Cohenite,

I agree that declining PISA results (and those in other international tests) are a sign for concern (looked at here http://austcolled.com.au/article/pisa-results-2003-2012 and the reasons are complex but I would make two points relevant to the current discussion:
1. The decline is relatively recent -in 2003 we were in the second group in the world so we have to look to events over the last ten years to explain this decline
2 The effects of the new Australian Curriculum will not be apparent for over 10 years.
I would like Minister Pyne to be focusing on concrete issues, such as undoing Labor's disastrous policy of funding University places in education for students with basically mediocre entry scores, and for whom no teaching positions will be available when they finish.

And as one of Ian's 'sycophants' let me make just one point: Honest History's main beef is with the assumption implicit and often explicit in Minister Pyne's remarks on education, especially the history curriculum, that there is a single, received view of Australian history in which Western Civilisation bulks large, along with a romanticised view of our past military adventures. We (Australians) are far more diverse than this and much better than this. Also the Minister's views on the content of the history curriculum are demonstrably false as has been amply evidenced during and since the election by various Factcheckers. Search honesthistory.net.au under 'Pyne'. (Another of HH's priorities is basing opinions on evidence, something the Min seems a bit weak on.)

"1.The decline is relatively recent -in 2003 we were in the second group in the world so we have to look to events over the last ten years to explain this decline"

That would be the period of the Rudd/Gillard governments with their political offshoots at a state level.

You have not addressed the issues raised by Melanie Phillips to do with teaching methodology as well as the removal of competition and the notion of failure or more to the point, consequences in schools.

As an ostensible digression but to my mind an issue to the very point perhaps you would like to comment on the recent events surrounding the dismissal of Stephen Krix:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/student-that-punched-a-teacher-who-was-subsequently-fired-for-putting-him-in-a-headlock-feels-no-remorse/story-fni0cx12-1226804394173

Ian K,

"Minister Pyne fails another test", could you get any more childish.

Whilst you have openly admitted that the curriculum is not perfect, you have decided that a politician in making a statement to the press has failed a "test" in that he was not sufficiently specific to meet the criteria that so far remains only in your imagination.

Either you have an alarmingly over inflated opinion of yourself and your expectations, or as many feeble left whingers have done before, simply trying to set up a straw man to criticise the education minister for daring to review the school curriculum.

Under Labor, Australia's education has gone backwards, in spite of the much vaunted national curriculum and the money they have thrown at it.

The reality is that the teachers' union is probably at the heart of the problem, prohibiting the rewarding of teacher competence, and guaranteeing the advancement of incompetent teachers based on seniority alone.

In response to Shadow Minister
'Under Labor, Australia's education has gone backwards, in spite of the much vaunted national curriculum and the money they have thrown at it.'

and in response to Cohenite
To author's comment"The decline is relatively recent -in 2003 we were in the second group in the world so we have to look to events over the last ten years to explain this decline"
Cohenite responded:
That would be the period of the Rudd/Gillard governments with their political offshoots at a state level.

Just two facts:
1.Students undertake the PISA tests at Year 9, therefore results represent the culmination of 9 years of schooling. The better results in 2003 were those of students who began school under Keating.
2. Do not take fact 1 too seriously as curriculum and teaching has been, and remains primarily a matter for State Governments. Federal Ministers on both sides actually have minimal impact on what happens in schools apart from tinkering with how much federal money goes to each system.

Ian,

I was simply determining your political persuasion. It is clearly well left of centre. I notice that you did not challenge that under labor education has gone backwards.

You also did not reply to my main point which was that the real root of the problem is the teachers' union. The feeble straw man point, I assume you accept as a figment of your imagination.

I think it is unfortunate that the elephant in the room, the impact of the growing private school sector (fed by federal government largesse) is having on overall student performance. As public/private ratios have worsened in this country so has our position in the international rankings. This is the big experiment that has been so detrimental and one that hardly ever gets discussed.

shocking all those taxpayers who pay twice for schooling subsiding those in the public system. now that is the 'élephant 'in the room.

SR,

The private sector is the only reason that Australia has not fallen further behind.

The average cost per public student to state and federal governments was about $15 500 p.a. whereas the private /independent students got about $8500. The private and independent schools vastly out performed the public schools, and for this get the envy and vitriol from the left.

In typical illogical fashion, the left whingers concept of improving Australian outcomes is by crippling the best performers.

To SteelRedux,

Privatisation by itself is not necessarily the problem, but it has certainly had unintended consequences. It is a complex issue - and too complex for ideologues whether of the left or right.

It is worth an OnLine piece

My daughter started primary school in 1995 when the SA gov't introduced the basic skills test. Through the first 3 years her reports were all reasonable yet when 8 yo shortly after I gained custody she did the year 3 basic skills test she finished bottom in every facet of that test and was placed in the Special Needs class. This I believe was primarily caused by missing months of school every term and getting no support at home from her mother as in fact the school reported. Mr Pyne is exactly right regarding getting parents more involved in their children's education. Without that test I would not have known how badly off my daughter was. Two years later she was in the top 10% in the school. A further 2 years on she was on a list for a class for Gifted and talented children. At 21 yo she completed a 4 year Psychology degree with first class honours and won the university medal. Now 23 she is already more than halfway through a PHD in Forensic psychology. Mr Pyne deserves a huge pat on the back. High time parents were more involved.

To eyeinthesky;

As a former secondary teacher myself I realise how much can be achieved when parents and teachers work together and your experience, and its great outcome, highlights this. I would certainly support any educational leader, including Mr Pyne, who stresses this.
Thanks for sharing your experience.