As someone who recently emerged from the purgatory that is the New South Welsh HSC, I can do naught but agree with Dr Donnelly. For me, I have very few complaints about my education until the tentacles of the Board of Studies began to influence it. This occured not only in my finals two years - as its pervasive influence was felt earlier due to the necessity on training students in answering questions in a particular way - but also in the influence it had on some of my teachers, or some of the curriculi with which we had to deal. Fortunately, my education was largely a traditional one: traditional disciplines, rote learning, and drilling the basics until etched permanently into our hearts and minds.

Next to every single complaint I do have stems from one of three problems: political correctness (I know it's unfashionable to use this word but there is no other term), teaching methods based around motherhood statements like "facilitating individual learning", and so-called 'Critical Theory'. For me, it took two years of pedantic marking by my senior English teacher and then rote learning in my own time to undo the damage of having an English teacher not give marks for spelling and punctuation earlier. For a strong student, to have a gap in one's knowledge as large as how to properly spell the English language is a problem in any book. I learnt more about spelling English through Latin and Greek than through English.

The crisis is most deep in the education of boys, and the trend, at least in Sydney's non-selective schools, is very clear: schools with strict discipline, traditional methods, male teachers and mandated sport do better. Not only are politically correct doctrines simply incompatible with good education, their very existence is demoralising, especially for a boy. To have to read the turgid, meaningless prose mandated by the BOS was simply oppressive. These are problems not caused by a lack of money, but rather a mode of educating to which girls respond better than boys, though girls' response to it is still relatively poor.

Now, tutoring students of my Alma Mater who are learning under teachers and curriculi far more influenced by the BOS, I can see a futher weakening in what I would denote areas of concern. Basic problems with addition and multiplication hold backs students with the nous to grapple with complex maths (which, fortunately, still exists in the 4 unit course in NSW). A lack of exposure to the masters of English - especially Australian English - has lead not only to poor spelling and grammar, but also a disconnection from the traditions of European thought and art... and all this to study Aboriginal hip-hop, chocolate bar wrappers, and teen magazines and reflect them through the lense of defunct Theory.

This is not conservative ideology, nor is this "teacher-bashing". Young teachers will admit that they are not ready for teaching because they cannot discipline their students and use methods which are just common sense, and many of those with the experience feel constrained and hindered by "innovative" curriculi. This is a simple recognition of the influence of ideology and petty fashion on education, and how it has caused enormous gaps for all students, with the worst results amongst boys and weaker students irrespective of sex.

To many it seems that Dr Donnelly's articles simple harp on about his pet hate, and it seems that my responses to his articles can be accused of the same offence. To those, know that there are real, tangible results of these changes, I and they are results to which I can testify, and to which most teachers would testify. The simple fact is that there is a crisis in education, a crisis which reveals itself more in the education of boys than of girls due to the nature of the cause of the crisis. Simply put, the experiment with education has to be wound back where it has caused problems, and a failure to do anything will be a failure of the current generation.

"Young teachers will admit that they are not ready for teaching because they cannot discipline their students and use methods which are just common sense"

Which methods would those be? Corporal punishment? Here we go again ...

I was fortunate to be one of those teachers (I don't teach now) who had the benefit of being a student DURING the abolition of corporal punishment. I can tell you it was a huge relief to know that they "couldn't hit us now". As a teacher I found it a doddle, once I'd learned the various "tricks" - in fact I gave a few seminars on behaviour management shortly before I got my new job.

I hope sincerely that you are not referring to corporal punishment as a method which is "common sense", because it's not.

Well Laurie,I know one ex teacher[being myself] and many others who used to teach in the western suburbs of Sydney in the 1980's.At some schools behaviour was really feral then and from what I have gleened since ,they cannot get normal humans to teach in some of those schools now.A school principal back in 1996 in the last two years of her internment had to have a security guard escort her to and from her car at a primary school in Sydney's west.We don't hear about this feral activity since Govts cover it up by penalising the dobbers.

I've known teachers to have every second Monday off because they were too hung over to attend work.Many now just use all their sick leave and when that runs out,go out on workers comp because of stress.Public servants have three times the rate of claims in workers comp as compared to private enterprise,and it is the private system that generates the taxes for our NSW State Govt to exist.Is it any wonder that NSW has the lowest growth rates in Australia!

Workers Comp is indemnified by the NSW Govt and currently it is $3 billion in the red.Private enterprise is now footing the bill in the form of increased premiums.When a claim is made your premium increases over three yrs to equal the amount of the payout.Is it any wonder that many businesses in NSW are going into liquidation?

It is time to make the Public Service in all it's forms,more accountable.

As a Govt HS teacher of 14 years, I can only agree with Kevin Donnelly.
Why is it my students have not been taught how to read and spell? Why don't my High School students know basic mathematics?
When academics at the top end of education adopt a "wholistic" approach, we may be able to move away from purely left wing feminist revisionism which dominates teacher training.
Until then I guess I'll have to somehow manage my classroom where students know more about butterfly gardens than times tables ...