Fear of the dumbing down or perceived dumbing down of the education system is always going to get parents( at least the ones who care) worried. My children have been home schooled in private and public schools. They have largely had good dedicated teachers in both the public and private systems. In Years 11 and 12 they have been confronted with the typical socialist rot but thankfully I was able to warn them of it before they got to it. Just look at the novels that the majority of students have to study in Yr 11 & 12 if you don't believe me.

Kids these days are more confident and dare say better educated then they were 30 years ago when I was at school. My wife homeschooled my kids for a number of years. Just the fact they could read and write gave them a great headstart on many.

Julie Bishop and John Howard will play politics on this issue just as Kevi Rudd and Julian Gillard will. So what.

I see Audrey is making a name for herself in these forums. Good for you! Hopefully, in time, a daily paper will pick you up so that you can write a weekly opinion piece where you can lament, with fellow middle class 'intellectuals', about how horrible life is under the Howard government.

I really have to agree with Country Gal. She has outlined the solution in a sensible and logical manner. I don't think I can put it better. Teachers are not the victims in this debate. They have been just as complacent (and complicit) as the Department of Education in supervising an erosion in teaching standards.

Primary and lower secondary education should be about instilling certain basic skills into students, not about getting them to talk about how they 'feel' and teaching them that we should be accepting of all views, no matter how illogical or abhorent.

Perhaps if students knew how to read, write and add competently, and they were allowed to feel like they were just as worthy as the next person (not some minority which should be either condescended to or alternatively blamed for the mistakes of previous generations) they wouldn't feel disenfranchised from society, and would be able to interact and make a positive contribution to society. This doesn't require bucketloads of money, just a sensible curriculum and sensible teachers.

Uh, gekko, because someone writes here and has written an article bears little relevance. I've written some under my actual name, and write for a newspaper, though not as a columnist... I don't really see what you're getting at there. Should only right wingers be allowed space in the media?
Despite protestations from the Right, I can't help but feel the majority of prominent columnists already hail from the right, regardless of their incessant breast-beating to the contrary.

I'll grant, literacy isn't is accomplished as it once was... though students today have one hell of a lot more to learn that they did 30 odd years ago. Aside from the obvious topics of information technology, what of the advanced mathematics that has been introduced thanks to the use of calculators?

I hear plenty of old timers claiming that students being allowed to use calculators is scandalous, but in practice, it has simply raised the bar. Simple computations are the province of earlier years of high school, and the students that elect to follow the more advanced classes of mathematics study matters such as triggonometry which weren't possible in the past, even with the best slide rule.

Similarly... biology classes. Now subjects such as genetic modification are on the menu. Was that a subject in the 60s?

That being said, there are problems.

Students today have more to learn, and as we keep palming responsibilities off on to the teachers, more time is consumed by the 'life skills' kind of classes. For each new class added, less time is devoted to the fundamentals.

I agree we should keep politics out of it and we do need to look at where the priorities should be.

But that isn't to say teachers have some kind of agenda. Rather, I suspect they are being made scapegoats for a society which regards them more as child caretakers than educators. Not only that, they are being used as a political tool.

Turnrightthenleft, my comment was directed at Audrey's style of reasoning and argument, which is reminiscent of many daily columnists, both left and right. That is, play the man and not the ball. Her response in this thread has been to either idolise those she agrees with, or demonise those she doesn't. I just thought I'd return fire :)

Getting back to the argument, I think it's disingenuous to argue that educational needs have changed. Yes, students need to know how to use computers, etc., but ultimately, if a person can't express their knowledge in the written form, or understand what others have written, they're at a serious disadvantage. I have no problem with anyone being exposed to all sorts of opinions, theories, etc., but I do believe that primary/secondary school is a place for the teaching of basic skills and knowledge, not a place where kids sit around and discuss a feminist or queer reading of Big Brother.

Postmodernism brings some interesting (and perhaps obvious) concepts to the table, but like any analysis 'tool', it can only be used properly if you understand how to use it, and if you understand it's limitations.

I'm sure the average person will be well equipped to handle modern society by being given the ability to 'deconstruct' Big Brother, even though they can't handle their finances or understand the contracts that are put in front of them.

There is a delicious irony in all of this mess. The right has actually gained a lot from the gradual dumbing down of the curriculum. The system has created a poorly educated population, that is less idealistic, more cynical and more self-centred (and therefore more likely to think of their own short term benefit rather than long term community gain). Moreover, for the first time in a long time, the right has more credibility over the issue of education than the left, because it is easy to attack a system that fails to teach and fails to inspire. Well done! :)

'Loads of paid holidays, student free days, public holidays[-] the list goes on. People who actually work for a living dont[sic] feel sorry for you. Its[sic] your job and there are perks[.] deal[sic] with it or find somthing[sic] else,[;] perhaps a building site for a couple of months may give insight into what most have to do to get by while your[sic] on holidays.
'Get a real job' (SCOTTY, Tuesday, 9 January 2007 11:49:26 AM)

Teacher: 40 weeks X average of 50 hours a week = 2,000 hours of work.
Normal employee: 46 Weeks X 38 hours a week = 1,728 hours of work.

'I spent 4 of those years sitting on a student representative body…' (wre, Tuesday, 9 January 2007 11:25:11 AM)

'I sat on a representative group that was neither paid nor sanctioned by the university. We had no political affiliations and were not members of any political party. Unlike the gang that sat at the student council…' (wre, Tuesday, 9 January 2007 12:12:21 PM)

A representative student body used to mean one elected by the students.

'Excellent outcomes were produced in the past with much less funding.' (Johntas, Tuesday, 9 January 2007 11:43:12 AM)

1981 funding provided Victorian secondary schools with a PTR of 10.9:1. Current funding provides those schools with a PTR of 12.0:1. 1975 funding paid a first-year- out 118.8 percent of MAWOTE. That equates to $65,379 as of January last year. A first-year-out was then paid $44,783 - a relative cut of $20,596.

'At some point in the last thirty years or so, school leavers have become less literate, less numerate have less general knowledge than their parents or grandparents…'
(Johntas, Tuesday, 9 January 2007 11:43:12 AM)

'Your boy has just got his HSC, and yet he has no cultural interests. He despises classical music, never reads a serious book, and seldom uses a word beyond the range of a six-year old child. And he has no manners….this generation of teenagers is inferior in almost every respect to the generation of, say, the 1930s. (William F. Broderick, “The Ugly Teenager”, The Age, 7/2/1976)

Runner:
"In Years 11 and 12 they have been confronted with the typical socialist rot but .... Just look at the novels that the majority of students have to study in Yr 11 & 12 if you don't believe me"

When I was in year 11 and 12 at the introduction of the "new" HSC in NSW, I had to study Shakespeare (Othello and King Lear), Austen (Pride and Predjudice & Emma), Arthur Miller (the Crucible), Robert Browning, Gwen Harwood and Ibsen (Dolls House). In HSC Drama, I studied two Australian plays.

With the exception of the Crucible (which was written in response to McCarthyism) and Ibsen (written in response to the plight of women at the turn of the century), I really don't think that any of the above titles could be considered "socialist rot". However, both those two title rank highly in literature critisim. When I was asked to critique the ideas in both, was I having a message rammed down myh throat?

I'm glad that you were able to warn your children before encountering these texts! It would be hideous if they found something within them that they agreed with.

As for SCOTTY's inarticulate rant, I was raised by a teacher, who used to start work at 8am and finish at 7pm. She would also work weekends, public holidays, student free days and school holidays. I'm sure that after all time was considered, she would have had far less time off than the 4 weeks annual leave attributed to every other full time worker. She did not do this work for the pay (which was meagre), or the "perks", but because she loved her job and wanted the best for her students.

Do you think that lessons prepare themselves? That school reports will magically appear without effort? That organising learning materials (from books to computers) just happens? If the "perks" are so good, why are we suffering a teacher shortage?

There are, of course, good teachers and bad teachers. But most teachers I have encountered take their job seriously and with dedication.