Frank Gol,

I am sorry, but I can out-fact Gradgrind. I know facts are troublesome to those who enjoy their unconsidered teacher-bashing, but they are useful in persuading the open-minded. Having given a list of the damaging things done to education, I now produce a list of improvements, with the responsibility for each indicated.

Commencing the devolution of power to representative School Councils (Liberals).
Employing an extra 13,000 teachers between 1973 and 1978 (Liberals). [It was partly in response to the commitment to their profession that so many teachers displayed in those days, but it is still an achievement, and it does show that Liberals have not always been destructive.]
Improving the primary PTR from 22.6:1 in 1974 to 18.1:1 in 1981 (Liberals).
Improving the secondary PTR from 14.1:1 in 1974 to 10.9:1 in 1981 (Liberals).
Further devolving power to School Councils (Labor).
Limiting high school teaching loads to 18 hours (Labor).
Limiting high school classes to 25 students (Labor).
Setting a minimum time allowance pool of 90 minutes per teacher (Labor).
Improving the primary PTR from 18.1 in 1981 to 15.8 in 1992 (Labor)
Improving the secondary PTR from 10.9 in 1981 to 10.8:1 in 1992 (Labor).
Improving VCE marking (Liberals).
Setting up the Victorian Institute of Teaching (Labor).
Restoring teacher representation to principal selection panels (Labor).
Providing VCAL as an alternative to VCE (Labor).
Dumping SOSE and restoring history and geography as traditional disciplines within the humanities (Labor).
Instituting a high-standard reporting system across the state that provides parents with specific information on much their children have progressed each year (Labor).
Employing an extra 5,193 teachers between 1999 and 2006 (Labor).
Improving the primary pupil-teacher ratio from 17.2:1 in 1999 to 16.1 in 2006 (Labor)
Improving the secondary pupil-teacher ratio from 12.6:1 in 1999 to 12.0:1 in 2006 (Labor).
Staffing primary schools to allow a maximum class size of 21 pupils in prep to grade 2 (Labor).
Investing $1.4 billion in capital spending on schools (Labor).
Committing to rebuild every school in the state, with a down-payment of $1.9 Billion in the next four years (Labor).

Oh goody labor decides to spend money

hang on it must be april 1st.

You are all still morons and i am only just a normal bloke with morals that can see what labor and liberals have done.
Which brings me to the question why did i join the army to get injured and get screwed by labor and liberal party's and i say party's as it is these that are running what is soon to be know as The Country That used to be Called Australia as they are selling of everything.

Why defend this country, why did our anzacs fight and die for this place when the people only care about to pathetic, ignorant party's that have almost sold the whole of australia.

What a crime an you morrons cant even solve the education crissis.

No wonder this country is screwed

I should add two other damaging changes to my list:
A ministerial order purporting to ban teachers from speaking out about education (Liberals).
The addition of a second member of the principals’ club to principal selection panels (Labor).

I should also add two other significant improvements:
Introducing a school-based component to HSC assessment (Liberals).
Lifting the ban on teachers speaking out on education (Labor).

I left the “:1” out of some of the PTRs. Below is how they should read, re-grouped by primary then secondary, so that you can see the progress at each level (and the intervening period of darkness from 1992 to 1999):
Improving the primary PTR from 22.6:1 in 1974 to 18.1:1 in 1981 (Liberals).
Improving the primary PTR from 18.1:1 in 1981 to 15.8:1 in 1992 (Labor).
[The Liberals worsened it to 17.2:1 by 1999.]
Improving the primary PTR from 17.2:1 in 1999 to 16.1:1 in 2006 (Labor).
Improving the secondary PTR from 14.1:1 in 1974 to 10.9:1 in 1981 (Liberals).
Improving the secondary PTR from 10.9:1 in 1981 to 10.8:1 in 1992 (Labor).
[The Liberals worsened it to 12.6:1 by 1999.]
Improving the secondary PTR from 12.6:1 in 1999 to 12.0:1 in 2006 (Labor).

There are criticisms to be made of our education systems; e.g., the large numbers of students who do not achieve adequate skills for life in a modern society. But these criticisms have to be based on facts. The teachers I know are, in the main, hard-working and dedicated people, who apply standards in both student behaviour and academic achievement.

Tapp,

Dancing across this forum throwing abuse will not get people to engage with any argument you may have. I can see no reason for supplying my email address to someone who dismisses the facts and ideas I present as “BLAH BLAH BLAH”. If you want to contribute to the discussion of the topic, please do so.

I am a normal bloke and my ranting may be so.

As not being an academic one would have to ask re the ranting that go on here.

I have asked on how you would fix the school problem and of which has just been ignored.

I have said that if you wish to fix it and help please email me, but that is entirely up to you.

You can pass backwards and forwards on who has done what but this will not satify what has to be done.

For instance more teachers
Fixing up the schools
equipment

those are the types of things needed not political grandstanding.
I do get angree as i can see the frustration with the kids and principals at trying to achieve and steal from peter to pay paul.

Now if you realy have some solutions email and i wont give you any bull.
I dont what crap i want to fix and maintain, I know this will cost but the thing is it is our childrens future and their childrens that we should look at.
So i am after those who are feed up, and if you where just like me it looks like parliament question time, I am after answers not spin.

Email:swulrich@bigpond.net.au

And also you may understand a bit more if you emailed.
To get angry at the state of affairs is good at least this gets a reply, you may not like it but it works.

Fixing the problems in education requires a clear understanding of what they are and what the ideal is. The basic problem is that the system is misdirected and under-resourced.

1. Use vertical modular grouping in schools. It is ridiculous to promote students to more demanding levels when they haven’t learnt the easier work. It is equally ridiculous to make students repeat a whole level because they have problems in one subject.

2. Enforce existing marking criteria for VCE, which are rigorous, but which are ignored in the handing out of “Satisfactory” to anyone who basically meets the attendance requirements.

3.Enforce a high standard of behaviour in government schools so that teachers can get on with teaching and the long-suffering majority of students can get on with learning.

4. Rebuild the technical side of education. This does not mean the re-creation of separate technical schools as once existed in Victoria.

5. Support teachers as teachers, not facilitators. Teachers need both subject expertise and skill in imparting knowledge. Abandon the recycled 1970s open classroom enquiry-based project learning that has just resurfaced in Victoria despite being dumped as a complete failure 30 years ago. According to Dr Ken Rowe of ACER, there are 500,000 studies that show students do better with direct instruction.

6. Encourage able, independent-minded men and women with integrity to go into teaching. That means dropping the performance review claptrap and all the other business-sourced mantras from schools, returning the running of schools to the democratically expressed collegiate judgment of the teaching professionals, returning class sizes and teaching loads to what they were 20 years ago, restoring salaries to the levels that applied when I began teaching (that’s a 30 per cent increase).

7. Use economies of scale. Re-establish education as a system, not supposedly competing small businesses under the direction of supposedly entrepreneurial principals, which makes every school re-invent the wheel, with many of them square.

8. Choose the best people to be principals rather than the ones most compliant with the fad of the month.

9. Rebuild schools as sustainable, solid, permanent buildings, not rabbit-warrens of portables.

ChrisC

well done now this is what i am going on about

Due to this being about what has been going on about education this is great finally true info on how to fix the problem.

If anyone would like to help out more

Email: swulrich@bigpond.net.au