As an atheist I do not really mind that the Chaplains are in schools. The curious thing is that there is actually evidence that religiosity is actually lower in people have attended church schools. A visible symptom is that catholic schools are brimming but the parish churches are almost empty and ARE empty of young people. Incidently I am a son
of a chaplain.
Everone knows, or should know, that the best predictor of success at school is not anything the schools do but what the parents are. PISA< TIMMS etc ad nauseum have shown this. It is plausible that it predicts "values" as well.If this is the case then rating about schools and their failures does not help.

It is always curious that people rave on about values when it really behaviour that matters. Research by National bureau of economic research http://www.nber.org/ (I know it is an economics site but the stuff they do on education is excellent - look the stuff on school choice)indicates that going to a Catholic school in US does not seem to produce less deviant behaviour.

School are important but not for what Kevin wants. If you wish to read why poverty makes such a difference - it affects both the hard wiring and software of the brain. (trifle facile but you will understand)

Poverty, privilege, and brain development:
empirical findings and ethical implicationsMartha J. Farah,et al
http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~mfarah/farah_SES_05.pdf

Seminal works on the probable why = The social world of children learning to talk / c1999. or

Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children /Hart, Betty, 1927.
Do a Google citation search on Hart Risely

The die is cast pretty well before the child is 3 years old and there is not recogition that most of the outcomes for children rest in the hands of parents. A blame should not enter into it

"Consider how the union's curriculum policies have forced a politically correct, cultural-left agenda on schools, redefining the three Rs as the republic, refugees and reconciliation."

Those are REALLY the new "Three Rs"? How interesting, Kevin. No doubt you will provide a link to show that the AEU actually really truly ruly did say that, right?

Kev Donnelly needs to sit in a history classroom.

There he will observe young Australians not only engaged in rigorous class work but also learning important skills such as how to understand the role of processes of causation, change and continuity.

But of significant importance for young Australians is that they will grow up knowing that prostututing themselves to an ideologically driven agenda (driven by media and political masters) is not scholarship or critical thinking. It's just licentious and cheap political whoring.

Hi Rainier,

You argue:

"But of significant importance for young Australians is that they will grow up knowing that prostututing themselves to an ideologically driven agenda (driven by media and political masters) is not scholarship or critical thinking. It's just licentious and cheap political whoring."

Maybe you should deconstruct some of your language - why the psycho-sexual thing about ladies of the night? Very anti-PC.

Kevin

Kev, why do you presume whoring only applies to women?

"Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time … The aim of history, then, is to know the elements of the present by understanding what came into the present from the past. For the present is simply the developing past, the past the undeveloped present … The antiquarian tries to bring back the past for the sake of the present; the historian strives to show the present to itself by revealing its origin from the past. The goal of the antiquarian is the dead past; the goal of the historian is the living present".

Frederick Jackson Turner, 1891

A proper and well balanced article, nice and scholarly, and without the PC. Well done Donnelly.

I note too, that it supports centrist, perhaps slight right assumptions; and im fine with that too. The gobeldeegook that comes out of curricula these days is something to be wary of. It could easily gain its own momentum, and before we know it it has become law or tradition, or something like that.

I wholeheartedly despise hearing about how schools inculcate politicisation in the early years. As we are aware, Mao did this quite well. I am of the opinion that this can wait, and that Labor should not be poking its nose into education in the developing years. Paticularly as it appears as a tool for future Labor entrenchment. In my area, there is a barage of politicians getting about in schools and kiddy propaganda.

I would hesitate to call it political paedophilia, but thats what it amounts too. PC should be stopped.