Anyone interested in educational reform should be paying attention to Victoria’s Education State process (http://educationstate.education.vic.gov.au/).

Teach for Australia copies the US program and places unqualified student teachers in full charge of classes. Unlike other student teachers, they are not required to have a qualified teacher present in every lesson. TFA pretend teachers are restricted to disadvantaged children. Middle class children are still legally entitled to fully qualified teachers. Can anyone imagine the medical registration authority allowing the equivalent with pretend doctors? Can anyone imagine doctors mentoring pretend doctors as many teachers do with the pretend teachers of TfA?

AITSL as just another quango. It has no connection with classroom reality, being totally appointed by the federal government, on the advice of the various state governments. In essence, it is a body representing the employers of teachers, thus creating a massive conflict of interest, and it will come to be regarded with contempt by teachers.

State registration authorities, such as the Victorian Institute of Teaching and the Western Australian College of Teaching, used to be connected with classroom reality because teachers had directly elected representatives on their governing bodies. The Victorian Coalition government removed those elected teachers. The new Labor government will be returning them.

The solution to AITSL is not a separately elected federal body. The solution is a federal body drawn in large measure from the existing elected members of the state and territory registration authorities. Then we might have some faith in any criteria they draw up.

As I said in an unpublished letter to The Australian:
‘Charter schools seem to be a solution in search of a problem (“Charter system could be the key to energising underperforming schools”, 5-6/9). Victorian government schools already have most of the autonomy of private schools. They have had curriculum autonomy since the late 1960s, elected parent-majority school councils since 1975, more powerful school councils since 1983, locally selected principals since 1987, locally selected senior staff since 1992, locally selected teachers since 1995 and mostly per capita funding and local budgetary control since 2005.

‘What schools need is not private management but the resources they had three decades ago. Lindsay Thompson left Victoria with a secondary pupil-teacher ratio of 10.9:1 in 1981 and a properly staffed education department to support schools. Secondary students would have another 2,578 teachers if their schools were still that well staffed. Charter schools’ “greater freedom in employment practices” tells us that they are meant not to restore those missing staff but to increase the exploitation of teachers.

‘The new Victorian government seems to understand that a system, with its economics of scale, can support schools better than a marketplace, in which students in failing schools are abandoned while their schools slowly fade and die.’

Susan Ledger seems to be another left wing academic who advocates the stupid idea that children should not be subject to examinations.

This is totally opposed by the community. All responsible parents want to know how well their children are progressing.

But examinations do not sit well with Socialist ideology for two reasons.

The first, is that examinations will uncover the inconvenient truth that some races and cultures are smarter than others.

The second is, that those left wing teachers who advocate no examinations, are the worst teachers we have.

People like Susan who advocate "no exams" usually have just one solution to the fact that public schools today are producing pupils who may be racially tolerant and concerned about homosexual, transgender, bisexual and queer interests, they just can[t read, write, spell, or do sums. To fix this, people like Susan use the same solution, every time. More public money must be spent on education.

They think up some new catchy slogan such as "No Child Will Be Left Behind", or "Closing the Gap" to get more public funds. The result of "Closing The Gap" in the Northern Territory meant that two thirds of the NT education budget was spent on aboriginal children, which resulted in aboriginal children having a 90% failure rate in NAPLAN testing.

Susan's solution to that inconvenient truth is to ban the NAPLAN tests.

Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

It is just amazing how socialists think. Reality must conform to ideology. If the facts get in the way of ideology, just ban the facts.

Dear Chris, thank you for highlighting some very pertinent points. Shame your letter to the editor was unpublished!
Sue

Dear Lego,
thank you for your interpretation of my article, it is always nice to get a critical opinion about ones thoughts.
On reflection: Am I a socialist? possibly. Am I an idealist? probably. Am I against exams? No. Am I calling for more money for education? No.
I am simply stating that we need to base our policy decisions and public spending on evidence and facts; and the fact is - the American model for teacher education reform has proven to be inefficient and ineffectual nationally and internationally.
Am I a realist? Yes.

Thank you, Sue. It is a great mystery to me why we keep importing failed ideas from the US and the UK, when our education system outperforms theirs. I guess all you can do is keep on putting the facts out there and not worry too much about the sloganeering you face.

Being an American in the International overseas educational system, I cringe when I see what is happening 'back home'. I hope Australia can address educational reform using the reflective practice of experienced educators and backed by neuroscience and educational research rather than politicians!

As I said above, anyone interested in educational reform should be paying attention to Victoria’s Education State process (http://educationstate.education.vic.gov.au/).

Today is the best day for Victorian education in perhaps 30 years. The government has announced results from the Education State Consultation. I know there are plenty of cynics in schools – I was one of them – but we actually have a government here that is serious and knows what it is doing. Despite this, the media has totally ignored the whole Education State process. A new one on early childhood has began and the media is totally ignoring that too.

A flurry of announcements today has provided a wider set of targets than the usual literacy and numeracy and $747 million in extra spending to meet them, and done so without the teacher-bashing that was once a prerequisite for being an education minister here and still is a prerequisite in some jurisdictions:

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/education-state-ambitious-targets-for-schools-to-prepare-kids-for-work-and-life

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/education-state-largest-ever-funding-boost-to-schools-for-kids-who-need-extra-help

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/education-state-more-confidence-for-every-parent-and-the-best-chance-for-every-child

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/education-state-more-help-for-struggling-students

http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/education-state-big-boost-for-kids-in-regional-victoria

Victoria is on the way to being a world leader in education.

Thanks for your feedback Chris - if we stop the debates we be passive recipients of bad practice!
Sue

Chris, thank you for the Victorian updates. I agree that Victoria is contributing a lot to the education arena and we in the west are certainly looking your way. Football in the west however is leading the way at the moment!

Sue,

There’s nothing I can do about the footy I’m afraid, but I can promote Victorian education.