I've no doubt that overall, the calibre of teaching staff is falling. But the issue is much more complex than pay or status.

There has been a push in recent times to pass more responsibility on to teachers. I happen to know two teacher who are required to spend around half an hour every day discussing things like feelings and relationships with their students.

Where once parents where expected to handle these issues, now it is fobbed off onto the teachers.

Where it used to be a simple case of teach them math, english, science, history etc, the curriculum has been broadened. Ultimately, every time you add a new subject, there is less time spent on core subjects - and the performance of students in each individual subject is bound to fall as less time is being spent teaching it.

Add to this a deficit of male teachers. Why you ask?
Male teachers are getting more and more cautious about teaching, because if they are accused of some kind of sexual impropriety, regardless of whether they are guilty or not, they know that that black mark will never go away, so ultimately any aggreived student has the power to ruin the teacher's career. There is really no easy solution to this problem.

So why would you enter a risky low paid profession when you can aim higher?

*grins* We've been at odds lately TRTL but you are right on the money there.

On the pay issue, though, my view - admittedly not a well researched one - is that there are some teachers out there who are really brilliant, committed, professional teachers who are far, far underpaid for what they do. But there are also many many teachers out there who are utter crap, little more than time-serving baby sitters, who in reality are not worth what they are paid now.

The real dilemma is how to provide more pay to (a) reward the great teachers and (b) attract more great teachers, without giving an undeserved windfall to the passengers.

The only ways I can see are (1) more effective performance assessment tools to allow the best teachers to shine, and to prevent the crappy ones from hiding, and (2) a change to the structure of the profession, with more grades (similar to the public service) so that a good teacher can compete on merit for higher status and better paid jobs within teaching.

Problem is, the unions will never accept option (1) and option (2) seems a bit artificial.

Then of course the problem gets worse, because the good teachers know they can do better, so they move out of teaching. The crap teachers accumulate in the system, because they are very comfortable thank you very much.

Looking forward to reading what better ideas are out there. There must be better options than these - buggered if I can think of them though.

Anth

The problem with this issue is that teacher’s job should be more needs defined. A teacher in Primary school does not need to have the same higher level of accuracy than the teacher in high school. I believe that for a teacher to become a High School teacher they should have the highest of marks. For the Primary Years they really don’t need the higher marks but they certainly need good marks and to be nurturing and patient as they are dealing with the little ones at the most influential, vulnerable and sensitive years of their life.

Teachers have to deal with children’s feelings because children these days are being born more and more sensitive and emotional and are often having their feelings hurt and are suffering worry, anxiety and distress. It’s creating a lot of mental health issues and problems.

There is alot of bullying and jostling going on in the playground that is being left unchecked. And often teachers don’t realise that their moods seriously impacts on their student’s day. My son tells him that whether he has a good day at school totally depends on what mood his teacher is in. He is 8 years old.

I realise it is not always the teachers fault and that they are human; the system neglects them as much as they neglect the students so it really is a lot to ask. I know that isn’t always easy to cope. But the Labor Government is totally neglecting the public school system, its not good enough to just have some Selective Schools and focus on them. The neglect of the system is damaging to children and their mental health.

Of course our Politicians only care about their own and their own are usually in Private Schools.

People should stand up and rebel against the neglect of Public Schools. Every should be a good school as we want well educated and respectful people in society.

I see what you mean Anth... there has to be some way of rewarding the better teachers...

I'd like to see some system where the principal of the particular school is involved in the decisions relating to how much renumeration teachers receive, and of course, a proper review process to weed out favouritism.

The reason why I'd advocate a system such as this, is that not all students are equal, so we can't judge teachers purely on what grades the students receive.

If some kind of federal or state government process was created wherein teachers were solely rewarded for how high their students score, this would create a system where teachers are left jostling to teach the bright kids, and the underachievers are neglected.

Indeed - the skills of the teacher need to be rewarded, but any proposal needs to take into account the needs of students who can't quite make the grade, and the teachers who diligently keep trying to help them.

Of course, there would be problems with a principal-based system. But I think they'd be more easily ironed out than the issues associated with a 'one size fits all' policy. Plus, at least, it would be locally based, and the principals would hopefully know which teachers worked hard, and which ones didn't.

There are still issues with Principals making the descision TRTL - namely that they have very very limited budgets.

My mother is a teacher, and was fairly recently on a five-year contract which made her the most senior teacher in the school, and obliged her to coodinate curriuculum etc etc. All good. As part of her contract, she had to have a performance review each year, with a series of bonuses available for good or excellent or outstanding work. On each of the five years my Mum was told that she should be given "outstanding", but that the school did not have the money to provide her with that bonus - so she got a written 'unofficial' rank of "outstanding", but her official record says only "good", and her pay packet said only "good".

She recently decided that the extra stress was not worth the extra pittance, and refused a new contract - because what was the point?

Schools never have enough money to cover all their costs, they are constantly fundraising for even basic items - if all the teachers in my Mum's school were on performance bonuses, where on earth would they get the money to even give her a 'good' score bonus?

All true, Laurie, but that's not quite what I'm suggesting. Let's imagine for a moment that there were, say, 7 grades of high school teacher, from a level 1 graduate, fresh out of university, to a level 7 teacher who represents true excellence. Each level could receive an appropriate remuneration (*not* bonuses, we're talking base salary here)

The system, across a *state*, would then budget for a certain number of level 7 teachers, a certain number of level 6, etc etc etc. Then the Department works out what the allowance for each individual school is. So a school of excellence might be entitled to more high-level teachers, or alternatively a school where there is great need might be entitled to the better teachers. Resource allocation decisions could be made.

Then, at the school level, the Principal knows their entitlement: Ok, I am entitled to 0 level 7s, 3 level 6s, 8 level 5s etc etc etc. They might even be able to choose between fewer, higher teachers or more, lower teachers.

When a vacancy occurs at any level, it is advertised and filled on merit by teachers who are at the level below. So a level 3 at a particular school becomes vacant, level 2 teachers from the region are entitled to apply, and the best move up to higher status and better pay. Lower level teachers are either new to the game and thus inexperienced, but with potential to move up; or they've reached the level of their competence and are paid as such.

This sort of system works in fields as diverse as journalism and the Air Force. Why not teaching?

Anth

Anth, from what I understand of the current Victorian system at any rate, that sort of system is already happening (with the extra contracts like my Mum had as 'over and aboves', although as far as I know, there are only four 'grades'. I'm not sure if creating more will help necessarily, at least, not without significantly higher budgets allocated to education. But thats not to say its a bad idea! I think it has potential, but getting more $$ into education "for those damn teachers and their bloody unions" is unlikely to be politically palatable, I would think?

For what its worth, I think that to some extent, the fact that many people actively choose teaching over other courses they could do shows that the right people are choosing the job. Sure, there are some who throught it would be a "good fallback" job, or "eh, at least the holidays are good" position, but most of the teachers who taught me (not so long ago), and who I'm familiar with through my family have been very dedicated, and have kept with the profession due to a genuine passion for it, rather than the conditions, good or bad

Other avenues might differ, but I'm not sure the Dip. Ed. necessarily attracts people who lack aptitude since they all had to get into harder courses (including higher degrees) before the Dip. Ed.

I think it's also a little misleading to talk about cut off scores for courses anyway. My understanding of them is that they're largely to do with supply and demand, ie. that there are limited places that are allocated to the highest ranked people who apply for them. If this is correct, then it is essentially a popularity contest between courses, based on beliefs (prestige, earning capacity, etc.) held by the applicants. In this respect, certain courses attracting the apt may become a self-fulfilling prophecy that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the difficulty of the courses or the requirement of apt applicants.

Anyhow, my own experiences within education have led me to the following observations:

1) Primary school teachers are not necessarily very good at mathematics,
2) Most high school teachers are good at their own areas, but not in others,
3) A lot of the job is learnt on the job,
4) Below the last couple of years of school, it's probably reasonably easy for any intelligent person to teach almost any subject,
5) A lot of the classroom process is less about teaching and more about baby-sitting and dealing with bad behaviour.

I'm ambivalent about the profession. I have a rapport with many of my students and a lot of them do learn, which is really fulfilling. On the other hand, my friend works night shift in a supermarket, doesn't put up with rudeness, doesn't have to pretend he's something else (ie. not a baby-sitter/crowd controller), and earns the same as I do. I know now what teaching is and isn't, and at the end of this year, it won't be for me. Maybe the profession will have lost something, maybe it won't have.

I read the article with a lot of interest - I have a law degree (first class hons - no less) and have been thinking of entering teaching. Teachers play such a significant role in our children's lives. My own life was turned around by a very excellent teacher in highschool.

So I made enquiries about being a teacher. In WA, you are required to do a rural posting as a first year teacher in order to qualify for permanency. With a young family, a high mortgage, etc relocation to the bush is not an option for me. I was very disheartened to be told that there was no way around this.

It made me wonder whether this inflexible requirement puts off other post-grad aspirant teachers.

Many teachers cannot spell, communicate clearly or think for themselves. They conform to the latest fads. It is obvious that fewer people of high ability and integrity join the profession.

I have 28 years experience of school leadership positions in Victoria (including two periods as an acting vice principal). I started teaching in 1974 with higher pay than beginning teachers get in today's much wealthier society, when school principals respected the professional judgement of their staffs, when we had the freedom to exercise our skill in the interest of actual teaching, when the whole concept of performance pay would have been rightly laughed at, when we were not bogged down in jargonistic madness.

Teachers have suffered a dramatic drop in pay over the last thirty years while helping to create the prosperity that the whole nation enjoys. In 1975, a beginning teacher was paid 118.8 percent of male average ordinary time earnings. That equates to $65,379 as of January this year. A beginning teacher is now paid $44,783 - a relative cut of $20,596!

After seven years a teacher reached the top of the scale and was paid 166.6 per cent of the average. That would be $91,684 today, compared with an actual rate of $56,072 - a relative cut of $35,612. The new top level, which takes eleven years to reach, is only $63,202 - a relative cut of $28,482. A Senior Teacher in 1975 was paid 189.8 per cent of the average. That would be $104,452 for the equivalent Leading Teacher today, who actually gets $76,383 - a relative cut of $28,069.

Teachers' unions have been ineffective in protecting their members because too many teachers are unwilling to act with solidarity with their colleagues in the profession. When the committed teachers take industrial action to support their profession and the children they teach, there a plenty of others sitting back in schools ready to take the benefits at no cost to themselves. Thus the conditions which used to protect us have gone, and the resultant exploitation certainly discourages independent-minded people from remaining in teaching.

Pay rates are not the only factor in discouraging people of ability from joining the teaching profession. Political attacks have played their part too. Until the Liberals won power in 1992, progression through the ordinary pay scale was efficiently automatic, though promotion required demonstration of merit (in different ways at different times).

Once the Liberals ruled the state, however, they devised laughably inefficient so-called performance-based procedures as command and control devices to put teachers under the thumb and advance conformists and careerists. These included more power for compliant principals, phoney career restructures, annual reviews, performance plans, performance bonuses, limited tenure promotion and short-term contracts. Education moved beyond satire.

Teachers were also subject to a factless campaign of abuse in the press and on talkback radio. Anyone with ability aspiring to be a teacher would have been discouraged by the toxic environment created by the government of the time and its cheerleaders.

Getting rid of the Liberals in 1999 allowed the Labor government to stop the rot in lots of ways: e.g., classes of 21 in prep to grade 2, the return of history after the Liberals' abomination of SOSE, a reporting system which dropped vague terms like 'beginning', 'consolidating' and 'established' and which now explicitly states the level a child is achieving (a year 8 student achieving grade 6 standard will have that clearly reported to parents).

But we are still waiting for the decent conditions of the 1980s to return to secondary schools; i.e., a maximum teaching load of 18 hours, a maximum of 25 students in a class, a minimum time allowance pool for organisational duties of an hour and a half per teacher. We are also still waiting for the secondary pupil-teacher ratio of 10.9:1 provided by the Thompson Liberal government in 1981 to come back. (That was before the Liberals became complete teacher-bashers.)

When decent conditions return, more able people will be willing to commit themselves to the profession of teaching.