Better pay for everyone benefits everyone.

'Teaching standards and quality in the classroom' is not a newly-discovered principle. Education Queensland rigorously critique teachers before offering permanency. Queensland teachers are registered with the Qld College of Teachers, chaired by a lawyer. Independent schools can and do employ unregistered teachers. Ongoing Professional development is expected by the College.

Both "good" and "bad" teachers leave the classroom. Consistent with other professions, many teachers seek to increase their income potential: mostly men. Theorists contend that those teachers that move into policy and managerial positions are refugees from the classroom, unable to cope with student behaviour and workload.

It is highly predictable that a corporate executive would fully embrace Workchoices. Of course his agenda is to maximise profit for stakeholders. Unfortunately, Workchoices has always been part and parcel of teaching. It just didn't have a name. Salaried professionals are expected to work the hours needed to competently manage their workload, although salaried teachers are paid for only five hours per day. Contract teachers do not experience leave loading, holiday pay, sick leave. 'Workchoices' is already imposed on them.

How is an executive body to measure the 'quality' of teachers? I teach two year 10 classes: one an extension class, the second consisting of many special needs students. Will I be judged as a 'quality' teacher based on the performance of my students in class one or two? It will be an easy buck earned if all my classes are the same as classroom one. Will schools, in their marketing of 'quality' teaching, reject special needs students in future?

Contrary to the claims attacking teachers academic accreditation, most secondary school teachers: possess two degrees; spend, on average, four to five years at university; chose teaching although their professional qualifications gave them the choice of working in other potentially higher paid professions.

For those who professes not to 'think a great deal of [teaching] as a profession', I would suggest that you blame the Dr Geoff Newcombe's of Education, who were 'too good' for the classroom, wrangled their way into management, and expect classroom teachers to implement their decisions.

Don't keep them ,open up the entire profession.Have a constant movement between the private enterprise system and teaching.After 10yrs a teacher should do something entirely different for a few years and then can elect to come back.

Encourage older professionals from private enterprise to teach and we will finally get some balance into the system.

There are too many teachers who never left the protected environs of school and as a result teenagers are ill prepared for the competitive reality that faces them.

Gees your a d!ckhe@d Ajay

Because I disagreed with you in another post, you trail me in this post.

Do you honestly think 'other professionals' can just step into teaching without professional training. You're dreaming.

Liz, when I was 16 years of age, after 7 days training, I became a Cadet Under Officer.
This made me a platoon commander in the school cadets. I would take a platoon of 29, 14 year old recruits, & with the assistance of a 15 year old sargent, train them, among other things, in the maintenance, safty, & use of an army rifle.
I, & my sargent, would then take them to the rifle range, & teach them to shoot the bl@@dy things, & to hit the target with them.
Every year there would be at least a thousand of us doing this, year after year, with no problems.
Now, if a thousand 16 year old boys, can safely teach 29 2Nd year high school boys, to safely shoot dangerous weapons, with only 7 days training, just how much training should you require to be able to teach 25 of them to add up.
After 15 years in our p&c, I've seen a lot of teachers, good & bad, & I have one bit of advice. Stop taking your self so seriously, you'll live longer.

What is quality teaching?
The answer is obvious, it is whatever the teacher says it is.
Maybe teachers should be paid less and that money given to the students so they will bring about positive learning.

"Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position."
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)