Simon

Shall I go stand in the naughty corner?

Do you know why there is no national curriculum in the USA? The argument about size of population won't do - after all, you're the one arguing about efficency. Now the US is by most standards the most efficient nation on earth. And the mobility argument doesn't hold up - the US is a highly mobile society.

My children moved during childhood and weren't baffled - nor were their teachers.

The argument about varying University and trade entry standards won't work. Why would universities positively seek to recruit year 12 students from other ststes?

Your argument about skills shortages and early exits from the workforce is without empirical substance. Shortages are caused by failure of human resources planning - nothing to do with variety in tertiary training.

Now tell me again Simon: how exactly will a single uniform education "make the Australian workforce more flexible and competitive in a tough and uncompromising global economy"?

I wouldn't rely on Kevin Rudd or Julie Bishop to introduce a national curriculum - that daydream has been dreamed in Australia for more than 40 years.

Now think about why the USA has hundreds of education systems. Until then, come on into the silly corner.

Dear Mr Townsend,
Have another look at your remark:

"The [curriculum related]resources that are wasted ... is shameful and while we hear bleating from the unions about resources, they hypocritically support six (or eight) diffrent curriculum efforts in this country at the expense of improvements elsewhere."

Your remark focuses on the inconsistencies of one body of stakeholders in the curriculum reform process. Principals, parents, administrators and employers all are groups considering and proposing positions regarding a national curriculuum.

For example, the Australian article excerpt below suggests the current intent of the APPA, based on its current policy. But the APPA does not represent all primary school principals, nor would its hypothetically successful campaign necessarily meet your concerns, or those of the community at large. However beneficial their reforms appear, they represent the views of only one group of stakeholders.

Given the complexity of the political problem, I wonder how it helps for you to diminish the concerns of the teachers unions by picturing them "bleating about resources". How does that language help you achieve your aim?

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"Primary schools 'swamped' by cluttered curricula
By Justine Ferrari

March 27, 2007 02:00am

Article from: The Australian

"PRIMARY schools are swamped by a cluttered curriculum that places equal importance on issues traditionally taught by parents, such as awareness of dog attacks and nutrition, rather than the core skills of literacy and numeracy.

"The Australian Primary Principals Association, representing more than 7000 government and non-government primary schools, will today release a position paper calling for a charter to redefine the role of primary schools and cull the curriculum to focus on education rather than social welfare

It’s good to hear that the late Garth Boomer had a change of heart in the 80’s, but it doesn’t exonerate him and the rest of the left, for the damage they caused during the years before and after his epiphany, and the credit you appear to give him, along with the adulation heaped on his memory, to this day, is undeserved.
The ideas on which Garth Boomer , Dale Spender ( who, with Boomer wrote a little book called ‘The Spitting Image’, and others of the Left made, for themselves, prodigious reputations, were full-on Marxist ideas, replete with the jargon …schools as sites of political struggle….children were not be made to jump through middle class hoops…. ‘rebellious illiteracy’ was fine if it was the child’s choice.
It was all about the curriculum ‘guru’ himself ( or herself)…never about the children, and providing for them the benefit of being fully literate and numerate…the benefit that Boomer et al themselves had enjoyed.
They called…in the 70’s… for the teaching of English grammar to be banished from the curriculum of Australian schools…and so it was.
Consequently, the children of a whole generation were deprived of the fundamental knowledge they needed , in order to be fully literate in their own language…. and to this day, that situation has not been fully rectified.
The Left wrought enormous damage on Australia, and one of their most prominent and revered ‘gurus’ should not be given credit for finally admitting they had been wrong…with the justification ‘to learn is to move on’.
The matter on which he and the Left were wrong was too important, and too many lives were damaged….and there were many of their contemporaries who knew those ideas were wrong at the time, but were ridiculed, howled down, and had to watch while the ‘gurus’ went on their destructive way…..it is those who were ignored back then, and the Federal Coalition government that has tried to change things over recent years and now, who deserve the credit….they were resisted by Labor State governments at every turn.

real, there's just one word for your ignornat diatribe against Garth Boomer - but I won't be able to use it here. Mr Boomer was never one to hide behind a cowardly nom-de-plume. He was one of the most intelligent and sensitive of men - and a great educational thinker.

Go slander a living person.