Ian K,
I suppose you have seen the latest news regards teaching methods: -

“The study found students' results could be improved by swapping teachers from the bottom 25 per cent of performance with those in the top 25 per cent. A teacher in the top 25 per cent achieved in three-quarters of a year what a teacher in the bottom 25 per cent did in a full year. A teacher in the top 10per cent achieved in half a year what a teacher in the bottom 10per cent did in one year.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21765738-13881,00.html

So a quality teacher can half the time it takes a student to learn something, and there is no mention at all of “bad parents”, or “immature boys”, or “social change”, or “bureaucratic interference”, or all the other reasons or excuses that teachers normally come up with.

It definitely appears that teaching methods far outweigh all other factors when determining student outcomes.

I would also suspect that quality teachers work no longer than other teachers, and possibly have less stress (and probably their students have less stress also).

I would agree that identifying the methods that quality teachers use, and then passing those methods onto other teachers would be of benefit to all.

HRS

You triumphal ejaculation (and that of Julie Bishop) over a limited study publicised in today's paper may be a wee bit premature. The author, Andrew Leigh, an economist with no particular expertise in education, admits himself that the study has not been peer-reviewed - which puts it well down the credibility ladder. (http://andrewleigh.com/?p=1464#comments)

The research took a limited area of educational achievement in a limited number of primary school year levels. The author concedes that his study has less applicability to secondary schools where students experience lots of different teachers in the course of a semester.

Moreover a quick reading of the report itself suggests that the media treatments distort many of the findings and make claims that were not tested in the research.

One other reaction is that he has confused the causality lines. What he measured and found effective was merely teacher years of experience rather than some notion of high performance upon which salary policy decisions could be made. If this is the case, we might as well stick with the traditional system of rewarding teachers by years of experience (and save taxpayer funding of inconsequential research).

In short this report that got you frothing at the mouth says what most people simply know intuitively - that better teachers get better results from students. That leaves lots of policy questions unanswered e.g. How can we get and retain more ‘better’ teachers?

I think you need to read more widely in the research HRS. One limited report is not an adequate basis on which to make policy decisions about teacher performance.

Frankgol,
I think it would be common sense that the a “top 10%” teacher would be able to half the time it takes to teach a student something, compared to a “bottom 10%” teacher.

So it is a process of identifying what a “top 10%” teacher does, and then getting other teachers to do similar. And of course it is a process that is continuous and doesn’t stop (or it can stop if a teacher doesn’t want performance pay).

But I’ll tell you a true story. When one of my children started high school, I phoned up the school and asked if they teach the students study skills. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of them, so I enrolled the child in a course of effective study skill with a local tutor. She went for 1 hour each week for a year, at $60 an hour.

At the end of the year, I asked her if she though the study skills she had learnt were of benefit, and the answer was “yes”.

I also asked her if any teacher in grade 8 had told her of those study skills, and the answer was “no”.

The tutor knew how to teach effective study skills, but not the teachers at the school. So I had to pay out all that money for something that the teachers at the school should have been telling her as a part of her basic education.

Ian,

It is a fact of life that in a forum such as this discussion will wander from issues raised in the original article. When the discussion is on education, you can usually guarantee that the critics of teachers will arrive to ensure that their low opinion of the profession is known. I would like to return to your initial point, but I need to respond to two critics first.

HRS,

Thanks for the reference. Table 1 gives the average working week for all employees as 38.51 hours (including overtime), while Table 5 gives that for all males with dependant children as 47.56 hours. I do not know how you calculated the 49-hour figure.

If the community paid teachers at the rate you paid the tutor, they would earn $120,000, almost double what they earn now.

Communicat,

My impression of teacher education under both Labor and Liberal Governments over the past 37 years is that what the teacher learns in school is more useful than what is learnt in the education faculty. This is the nature of the job.

Your summation of political responsibility for problems in education is one-sided. It was the Victorian Liberal Government that brought in SOSE, instead of history. It is the Labor Government which has dumped SOSE and restored history as a traditional academic discipline. Technical schools were never dismantled in Victoria. They were renamed secondary colleges, but they retained their distinctive ethos. There is no “politically correct” view of history or narrow Australian focus on it forced on our schools.

I am sure that the $5,000 holiday bonus will attract some teachers to summer schools to improve their knowledge. I fear that the selection within schools will be done by principals who will simply favour the more compliant members of staff rather than those who speak up for the profession.

If society wants to attract the sort of able and independent-minded people who came into teaching 30 years ago, it will undo the pay cuts and the worsening of conditions and restore collegiate professional judgment in the running of schools.

Frankgol, I think you have been too harsh on HRS - I do not usually agree with him, but from his number of comments I believe that he is genuinely interested in what will improve the education students achieve.

It is obvious that having the best teachers will make a significant difference in the results of students, but paying them more will have zero effect on this. However if money is provided for them to stay in the classroom and assist others through mentoring it will be money well spent.

It is probably not rocket science, but a student is also disadvantaged by being with a new, inexperienced teacher (on the average, that is - some teachers begin brilliant) and this also came out of Andrew Leigh’s study. Here is another job for the quality teacher

Nor would I dismiss Andrew Leigh by saying he is an economist. Over the last few years he has made a great contribution to raising the level of debate in Australia on a variety of issues (check his website www.andrewleigh.com) and in his article he has used the intricate mathematics of economics to grapple with some of the complex issues of teacher influence on student results.

Of course, how politicians will use or abuse this for their own ends is another matter.

To Chris – I find your comment about returning to History fascinating – I am just working on an article on the shortcomings of SOSE-like courses, In NSW the Labor Premier, Bob Carr brought in four years of compulsory history in the Junior Secondary curriculum – two years of world history and two of Australian history since Federation (with the earlier period covered in primary school.

Ian Keese

Chris C,
As I said originally, you have to combine the data from tables 5, 6 and 7. Also Table 5 has 11% unemployed, so that % has to be excluded to find the average work hours.

If you are trying to find the avg hours worked in the country, then I think you will find that some people can’t find enough work, while other people elect to work only a few hours each week. So a reliable average can only be determined for groups of people who work close to their preferred hours of employment, which you will find in that paper.

In regards to tutors teaching study skills. Tutors probably became tutors because they have a high level of teaching skills (and can charge fees accordingly). But the teachers at the high school of my daughter were not teaching the students what the tutor was teaching. So the teachers certainly don’t get the same amount of money as the tutor.

Also because the students at the high school were not being taught effective study and learning skills, the teachers at the high school would probably have more trouble teaching the students any type of subject material.

So this is now very much the point. If teachers at a school improve their teaching methods, then the students would gain, the teachers would find it easier to teach, (and there wouldn’t be a need for tutors).

But until then, the teachers get less money from the tax payer, and any extra money a taxpayer may have for their children’s education can go to tutors.

Frankgol
I just regard your language as being profane. Have you thought of a summer school to help improve your self-expression.