Culture war or slanging match? - Part A
Except that it was published in a national newspaper, there would be good reason to disregard Donnelly's article "Cannon fodder of the culture wars" because he, like many of those who comment on but do not practise teaching, reverts to "name calling" in the absence of an argument.

The name calling begins in the first paragraph. Australia's English teachers are the leaders of the "politically correct" army. "Politically correct" is a name you call when you couldn't be bothered analysing the flaws in the current doctrine; in this case of English teaching. It actually means nothing; since every politician believes they are politically correct otherwise they would not stand.

Donnelly's assertion that we are being doctrinally invaded from beyond our shores smacks of the "Yellow Peril" paranoia. Fortunately, it has no substance. The average English teacher is not only greatly resistant to American propaganda, but is usually too busy to bother to entertain it anyway. Whether such an assertion has any grounding in truth is probably fairly irrelevant to Donnelly, as it is to those who he lauds.

Regardless of whether Sawyer is right or wrong, a democracy is the place where people have the right to elect stupid leaders, but, more importantly, others have the right to criticise that election and teachers have a duty to promote a critical analysis of the reasons for the election. Donnelly's assertion that democracy is about silently accepting a mandate reflects a rather hollow understanding of democracy; one that suits tin-pot dictators who care little how the mandate was accomplished. The cry that "you should accept the umpire's decision" has a kind of popular resonance but has nothing to do with what is valuable in a democracy

Culture war or slanging match? Part B
The name-calling continues with "elites who seek to control Australia's cultural agenda". Once again, if you don't have an argument about how teachers actually work in the classroom, simply label them as something which you think most people will dislike.

In fact, teachers use things like the "children overboard" propaganda not because it has overt political bias in any direction but because it is wonderful "grist for the mill" - a perfect example to students of how a tin-pot dictator might manipulate the public service and the media to convince people of a particular point of view, regardless of its truth. As teachers, we would hardly pass up such a wonderful resource, complete with scads of commentary from left and right. Our motive for examining the affair is nothing to do with a cultural agenda and all to with being good teachers.

One wonders, from the final paragraphs, whether Donnelly ever intended his article to be anything more than an elaborate form of sledging. In a sorry attempt to discredit literary criticism (now euphemistically labelled "social-critical literacy") Donnelly uses an extreme, completely fictional example. Are we really meant to believe that this is representative of the average English classroom? And what is the data that is the evidence to prove that reading and writing are no longer central to English teaching?

I guess that even "the drover's dog" could take any piece of mindless "edubabble" and cite it as evidence that we are out of touch with reality. It is considerably harder to make a decent analysis of what is working and not working in English classroom and what is needed to improve reading and writing, something we do every day.

Regardless of who wins elections and how conservative the electorate may become, the imperative remains to teach students to view the world critically so that democracy can continue to survive. Donnelly would like us to be silent, but thankfully we will not be silenced and we will encourage our students to voice their criticism

i was glad to hear someone was interested in taking this crap out of the teaching system, but i don't think you'll ever get the power to do it. we need to make these educationalists who are responsible for this mess, and sue the pants off'em for souring the very vital learning experience for this generation, by forcing them into donning political bias.
yeah!