Kevin,

Without doubt you explore and discuss the "intended curriculum, the implemented" (albeit quite poorly) but then by inference you clearly suggest that this is what is being achieved and thus implicate teachers as part of your conspiratorial theory of Leftist totalitarianism is schools and classrooms across the nation.

Here are some particularly salient examples - written by your own hand of course: (Chapter 4-Education and the Culture Wars )

You declared;

“Teachers who have been taught in tertiary faculties steeped in political correctness have had, and are having, a significant impact on schools”.

Question: Which universities are you referring to here..? I’m sure the teachers you refer to would like to know they have been identified as leftist ideologues who are messing with the minds of their unsuspecting students year after year.

And;

“In the hands of left-wing teachers, such objectives provide ammunition to present boys and men as misogynist and to indoctrinate girls with the latest feminist tract about gender inequality”

But here is by far the biggest porky of them all -

“Across Australian schools, in areas like multiculturalism, the environment and peace studies, students are indoctrinated and teachers define their role as new-age, class warriors.”

Don’t you read your own copy?

Hi Rainier,

For further evidence of the cultural-left's long march through the education system, you will have to wait for the second book, 'Dumbing Down', to be pubished early next year by Hardie Grant. Also, don't confuse my criticism of education academics with classroom teachers.

Kevin

Kevin,

I'll look forward to reading it somewhere,sometime. I hope you address what is in essense -teaching students about decency and fairness in civil society, be it by either the Left or Right.

And I hope in this new publication you have the courage to declare from the outset what you stand for and why. Another didactic antithetical polemic against your imaginery comic-book Lefties will bore me to tears.

Sniggid,

My central point was that OBE is not essentially a left-wing idea. In Victoria at least it was the work of the Right.

Your statement that, 'The Teachers Union over a number of years during the Cain and Kerner[sic] Governments had implemented teacher / student ratios that were far more generious[sic] than anything similar in the other states' is wrong. Victoria had long had a better ratio than other states. In 1981, under the Thompson Liberal Government, the Victorian secondary pupil-teacher ratio was 10.9:1. In 1992, under the Labor Government, it was 10.8:1 - an improvement of less than one percent. This improvement fades away when the inclusion of student welfare co-ordinator positions is taken into account. For most of the Labor years, it was actually worse than it had been under the Thompson Liberals.

Nor was that Labor Government generous with pay, despite the lies you still read in the press. The January 1982 pay for a senior teacher was $24,456, or $49,499 in January 1992 dollars. The actual pay for those teachers in January 1992 was $39,975. That is a real pay cut of $9,524.

You are half-correct in saying that 'the Kennett Government were really targeting the Unions.' I say 'half' because it really dressed up its attack on teachers as an attack on unions for public consumption: it sounded better that way. The current Labor Government has improved primary teacher numbers after the Kennett cuts, but secondary teachers are still suffering. The current secondary PTR is 12.0:1: we are still more than 2,000 secondary teachers short of what we need thanks to the Kennett

Hey, Kevin,

Remember my earlier 3 questions?

”(1) It's good to know that you have at some time been a teacher, as it lends you some credibility. But you need to put your experience on a timeline that all of us can read. When were you last in a classroom or a school common room? The 18 years of experience could have ended 18 years ago. And what curricula and syllabi were within your brief?

”(2) To which publisher should I write, to request a free review copy of your eagerly awaited book?

”(3) Have you not appealed to your own authority in paragraph I quoted above [see my post of 3 November]? Is this sufficient for your argument, otherwise lacking the evidence which may be available in your as-yet unpublished book?”

re (1): I gather you taught English. Which years did you teach?

re (2) Your Publisher is Hardy Grant. Thank you, but

re (3) No answer yet, and I’m waiting with bated breath. Especially as you appear to have again appealed to your own authority, in your most recent post.

Are you hoping that restating a leaden opinion will transmute it into a golden fact?

Hi Sir Ivor,

How about we start by you posting a complete and full CV of your qualifications and experience in schools and education.

Best wishes,
Kevin