Dear Andrew,

Well done. You are leading our thinking about this immensely significant issue. It is ludicrous to suggest that teachers should not be rewarded for high merit.

Politically let's not pretend that this has much to do with teacher performance.

It is about Bishop bashing State Labor Governments and unions by linking Federal funds to the forced offering of AWAs to State school teachers.

This approach has failed in Universities and would bomb in schools.

If you want to improve State schools stop giving money to wealthy private schools.

Quite a good idea Andrew. Good article.

It teachers have pay rises on merit, then private schools should be funded on the merit of need. Some clearly don't need funding.

If private school funding is abolished, it could be replaced by many more scholarships where students are placed on merit.

I mean, it is only fair that if teachers are rewarded on merit, so should private schools and students subsidised in the private system.

If you can't just give pay rises to all teachers, then why just give all private schools money without a criteria of need or merit in performance?

Paying teachers based on performance would see the union movement become even more irrelevant. What a terrible world this would be if people were paid on performance. I suppose the unions could turn their attention more to GW fear mongering and strengthening their support for Labour in the upcoming election. It is good to see Mr Rudd is going to fund Private schools just like the libs. Where is this man different from Mr Howard?

Can you imagine the additional bureaucracy needed to implement a merit based pay system for workforces of 100,000 Victorian government school teachers or 200,000 NSW government school teachers.

Will the bureaucracy to eke out these merit based pay increases be funded? NO! So its going to be a crude calculation of merit based on student results, or teachers will have to produce reports and submissions to demonstrate their worthiness to receive a pay rise.

NEWSFLASH teachers are paid to teach our children not spend their time planning and justifying a pay rise.

There are so many teachers in each state that any mechanism that state governments can implement to reduce teachers salaries will have a big impact on recurrent expenditure. As the states can't raise their own taxes the teacher salaries are ultimately paid by the federal taxes.

As a "client" of the education system, I am well aware that there is a need to improve the rewards for talent, and discourage laziness or "coasting" in the more parasitical. I also recognize that teachers in the public school system are generally underpaid.

But there are also those who quite frankly don't deserve to be fed, let alone given salaries and job security.

So while I recognize there is a problem, I am far from convinced that there is a future in a two-tier system, where the talent gets rewarded with well-deserved merit payments, but where the parasites and underperformers continue to be paid while continuing to fail to educate our children.

If you give the teachers a choice, the good ones will embrace performance-related pay, but the poor ones will cling like limpets to their existing featherbedding.

If merit is to be rewarded, failure must be punished.

The compromise proposed here would raise the overall cost, but will not weed out the dross.

The answer lies with the teachers themselves, not the government. If they were to allow their hangers-on to be fired, (and they know who they are, don't they?), there would be room for merit incentives.

But there isn't a politician alive who would dare to stand on a platform that advocated such, they would be eaten alive.

Pericles you will be pleased to know that Jeff Kennett cleaned out the Victorian public service in 1992 and the Labor government has maintained the system of employing public servants on contract devised by the Liberals. In this environment I can't see how a public servant or teacher in Victoria can remain on the public payroll unless they are competent or a serious brown noser.

The teachers union in Victoria is complaining that 40% of state school teachers are employed under contract, so clearly if you are no good you won't be rehired. Its tough for the contract teachers who have to reapply for their jobs every Christmas.

As the so-called merit pay bandwagon gains momentum on its downhill trip to the valley of despair, I am glad that put in my resignation from teaching two weeks ago. It seems that no idea, no matter how bad, will fail to get a run in the much-experimented-upon education “systems” of Australia. I am aghast that anyone can continue to advocate giving more power of any sort to principals.

Victoria under the last Liberal government had performance bonuses for leading teachers. The aim was to break the power of teachers to resist government attacks on their profession. It was a bribe for compliance with the system. Leading teachers would sign plans and the principal would reward them for achieving the imposed goals. I refused to sign such an unprofessional scheme. My principal told me that she would have great difficulty in rolling over my leading teacher position at the end of my tenure if I did not agree and then abolished the position so that I could not even apply for it.

I had seen the writing on the wall before this and applied for eight leading teacher positions in other schools. I was shortlisted and interviewed for all eight positions. In the first five cases, the school appointed the internal applicant. I was offered the remaining three positions, and I accepted the first of these offers. I turned down the last two offers, even though they were closer to home and would not have required me to move house, for the old-fashioned reason that I had given my word.

In 2001, one acting principal persuaded the staff to accept a curriculum structure which could not be staffed because she said no one would have to teach more than 20 periods a week. As the timetabler, I showed it could not be staffed but my advice was rejected. The next acting principal could see that my figures were accurate, and on the third last day of the school year, the staff agreed to change the curriculum structure and increase their teaching loads to 21 periods.

I have held senior positions in teaching - senior teacher, advanced skills teacher 3, leading teacher and acting vice principal - for 23 years, so I was used to exercising leadership and to being valued in my roles in various schools.

I worked over the holidays to implement the revised curriculum and conditions package. I saved the school four teachers, or $208,000 in teacher costs, money that it did not have. I thought this was something to be recognised, but I was misguided. I had been right, and the school administration had been wrong - this is not allowed!

At the start of the new school year, one week into his time in the school, yet another acting principal accused me of costing the school $75,000 and purported to dismiss me from my position as timetabler. I was replaced by an assistant principal, two assistant timetablers and a consultant - yes, four people to do what had been one person's job. I had the support of my colleagues, who clearly recognised the victimisation of the person who had saved the school from yet another administration-caused disaster, and I took the principal to the Merit Protection Board, which, having considered my 151 pages of evidence, ordered my re-instatement.

Principals are not really that good and they should have less power - not more. Combine the Howard government's Work Choices for Employers with “merit” pay and principal power and you will see an explosion in bullying, intimidation, scapegoating and blameshifting in Victorian schools.

None of it will apply to me. The administration got me at the end of my five-year tenure, as legally it could, and, having had more than enough of this dreadful “system”, I am now financially able to be free of it. But the madness will apply to those teachers still stuck in one of the competing fiefdoms, who will be punished for speaking up for their profession if the states are not strong enough to resist the politricks of John Howard and Julie Bishop.

I experienced a few Chris C types in my time as principal. Total commitment to themselves and union rules and little commitment to the advancement of students and their performance. There are teachers who believe schools are really there for the wellbeing of teachers first and children second. It is very hard to lead a school effectively if too many members of the staff are off this type.

It is true that there are principals who have been poorly chosen. However, the majority to good people committed to students getting the best possible deal and with staff having the working atmosphere within which they can best express their talents and be rewarded appropiately.

Ideally principals should have the power to hire and fire and be given the resurces to reward strong performing teachers. Schools in more challenging areas should receive a greater level of funding. AWA's should be the norm as they give the greatest opportunity for flexible working arrangements.

Bishop is positioning for a fight over linking education funding to the forced offering of AWAs in schools. I doubt she cares whether AWAs improve performance or not.

Performance pay is always budget limited so being a good teacher may not always mean you will get paid more.

If you pay Mary more than John, Mary may perform better but John is likely to get worse.

You need a pool of possible replacement teachers before you can start hiring and firing willy nilly. There isn't one and there isn't likely to be.

You can have AWAs but this will mean reductions in current conditions, and future loss of bargaining power for all teachers. Strength in Unity is not just a slogan.

Spend more on public schools and give less to the well heeled private schools. Latham was not completely bonkers!

westernred and saintfletcher: Withdrawing funding from private schools misses two points.

The first is that people who send their kids to private school are just as entitled to public funding (if not more so, since many pay more taxes) as anyone else. Attending a private school (and many aren't that wealthy) has nothing to do with it.

The second is that if you withdrew that funding, and people then put their kids into the public system (quite possibly because they could no longer afford the private), the public system would at best be right where it is now, and at worst, probably spread even more thinly.

Private schools may be an easy target, but having a go at them doesn't necessarily achieve much.

That doesn't make sense. I am not suggesting you cut the funding to the local fee paying school which is within the price range of the average mum and dad, rather to the elite schools . Giving money to elite schools is welfare for millionaires.

Elite schools could increase their fees, cut their programmes, or drop their fees and programmes to a level which would attract public funding. Our State schools may also benefit from the additional funds which wealthy parents contribute if their kids had to slum it with the proles.

Sniggid,

From your evidence-free assumption about me, it appears that you either think personal attack is a substitute for argument or did not understand my post, so let me put it more simply for you.

An acting principal told the staff that they would have to teach only 20 periods a week. As the most-experienced administrator in the school (having been a school timetabler, a daily organiser, a senior school co-ordinator, a level co-ordinator, a subject co-ordinator and an acting vice principal, as well as having held the most senior promotion positions in teaching for 23 years), I showed that it was mathematically impossible to staff the school with such a low teaching load. My unarguable facts were ignored.

A second acting principal realised that I was right, and the school accepted my advice to increase - repeat, increase - teaching loads and change the curriculum structure. This saved - repeat, saved - the school $208,000 - repeat, $208,000. It did this in the last week of the school year, making it impossible to have a timetable ready before the end of the year. I worked over the holidays to implement the changed arrangements.

A third acting principal, in his first week in the school, decided to make me the scapegoat for what was a monumental error by the school administration and purported to dismiss me from my position as timetabler.

I took him to the Merit Protection Board. I won.

I have never had any trouble providing leadership in a school of all types of people. I guess that is why I was one of the youngest teachers ever promoted to senior teacher in Victoria and why I have been given so many leadership positions.

The principals of Victoria showed in the Kennett era that they were unworthy of being given power. They sold out their profession for more pay, more power, access to bonuses and a complicated rort of the state superannuation scheme that exempted them from superannuation cuts imposed on non-principals. There is no way such people should have the power to hire and fire.

Sniggid,

Your post actually supports my argument because it shows that you, a former principal, were willing to make and then post false denigrating assumptions about me, a highly experienced senior teacher with very solid HSC results who had in fact saved his school from disaster. Anyone reading your post would understand why teachers committed to their professional responsibilities do not want principals with power over their pay.

It is astounding that inflation is permitted to devalue real wages, but any employee who wants to regain the loss has to trade off something for productivity gains. Over the long term average wages have risen, but not in teaching.

Teachers in the public sector have suffered a dramatic drop in pay over the last thirty years while helping to create the prosperity that the whole nation enjoys. In 1975, a beginning Victorian teacher was paid 118.8 percent of male average ordinary time earnings. That equated to $65,379 as of January last year. A beginning teacher was in fact paid $44,783 then - a relative cut of $20,596!

After seven years a teacher reached the top of the scale and was paid 166.6 per cent of the average. That would have been $91,684 a year ago, compared with an actual rate of $56,072 - a relative cut of $35,612. The new top level, which takes eleven years to reach, was only $63,202 - a relative cut of $28,482. A Senior Teacher in 1975 was paid 189.8 per cent of the average. That would be $104,452 for the equivalent Leading Teacher, who actually got $76,383 - a relative cut of $28,069.

These pay cuts are huge. Over a similar span of time, working conditions have also deteriorated. Victoria has about 2,000 fewer secondary teachers than it would have had under either the 1992 or the 1981 staffing levels. The current secondary pupil-teacher ratio is 12.0:1, compared with 10.8:1 (1992) and 10.9:1 (1981).

The federal government's proposal is basically to give back some of this decline in pay to just some teachers in return for “flexibility”. Some are fooled by this. I'm not.

westernred: Are you saying that welfare is unacceptable for one group of people but not another? Actually, I reject the idea that it's welfare for the rich at all. If they pay 2X in tax and get X back from the government, that doesn't seem like they're getting welfare to me. Just who exactly is carrying these rich people?

Also, you're assuming that the so-called elite schools only service people on huge incomes. That's simply not true. A lot of people put themselves through real sacrifices (such as basically putting all their money into three things -- basic living costs, the mortgage and their kids' educations -- whilst denying themselves holidays, fancy cars, etc.). Yes, it may be expensive to send your kids to private school, but it's actually well within the reach of most people in this country (including a lot of immigrants), but it requires financial discipline and sacrifice. Most people want to drink, smoke or gamble their money away, eat out, and max out their credit cards for useless crap. That's why they can't afford private school.

The children of my family have traditionally received their secondary school education from private schools.
Our position is that there should be no state aid to non government schools.
Its not acceptable to fund private schools when the state system has inadequate facilities and insufficient staff.
Its obscene for the government to provide more funds per capita to students at non government schools especially elite schools like Geelong Grammar.

In Victoria 40% of teachers are on contract and many teachers are not paid during school holidays and rely on Centrelink payments to live. I don't know the figures I just used to see them putting in their centrelink forms every fortnight.

Shorbe: Let's not talk about the exceptions, the demographic of parents at elite schools is not overwhelmed by the working poor struggling to find the $20 k for annual school fees. They have the option of cheaper private schools, it is their choice, but I don't have to subsidise it.

If you have paid your taxes and the Government then gives you money for school fees how is that not welfare ? While how much tax they pay is not relevant I don't see how we would know that they have paid twice as much as they are getting back. It certainly wouldn't be your Puritan battlers

Such ridiculous rhetoric they throw around about elite private schools - today's Herald Sun editorial is a pearler. Supposedly the subsidies will help the "aspirational" (Clear that word from the dictionary! NOW!) working class to at least have a chance at rubbing shoulders with the blazered toffs at St Megabucks'.

It's a ridiculous argument - those schools DO NOT WANT YOU THERE if you are not the right type. Principals at some of those schools have stated quite unambiguously that they are aiming at a particular market share and will not lower their fees (with the generous government subsidies shelled out to them) if you aimed a gun at their collective heads.

Dad's a brickie (even if he's earning over $100 000)? Forget it.

Dad's a lawyer (and preferably an old boy)? Come on in!

And with regards to teachers' merit pay? Dead in the water. Don't even try to pursue it. It's deader than school vouchers. Been done, doesn't work.

My own experience, my own observations and the comments of colleagues in several schools convince me that principals should not be permitted to determine hiring, firing or teacher pay. There is need for a study on why the wrong people get promoted. It may have something to do with the qualities needed to get a job being quite different from the qualities needed to actually do it.

Nor do I see any merit in the idea that some teachers would choose performance pay while others stay where they are. Given the decline in teacher pay and conditions over decades, this proposal would simply reward some teachers with the return of some of the pay cuts all teachers have suffered.

It is also the case that teachers can work in dysfunctional schools in which their individual efforts will make no headway in the chaos that surrounds them. They will be putting in the time and effort, but good results will elude them for reasons outside their control. For example, the disaster of the open classroom that died through its failure in the 1970s is being recycled in Victoria, even though Ken Rowe from ACER has pointed out there are 500,000 studies which show students learn better when they are actually taught.

The government has an obligation to ensure that all schools provide a decent education to all children. Performance pay for some teachers will not achieve this.

My experience is that schools in which teachers have the greatest say work much more effectively than those in which the principal acts as a dictator. It is also my experience that etchers were able to be more effective as teachers before the current accountability and review processes were introduced. Teachers used to concentrate on doing their job. Now they have to devote effort to showing that they are doing the job, which actually detracts from the job itself.

The success of the IPA in having business jargon imposed on schools is an extraordinary story. Performance pay is just another business fad being pushed onto schools by people who know nothing about teaching.

westernred: Many of the APS schools (which I suppose would be considered the elite schools in Melbourne) do draw their students from a wide range of backgrounds. Look at Haileybury College. It has its original campus in Brighton (a very wealthy suburb), but it also has a campus in Springvale (a pretty working class suburb with a high immigrant population) and draws students from surrounding areas. Likewise, Mentone Grammar (which is in the AGS) draws many students from Beaumaris (a wealthy suburb) but also draws plenty from places such as Springvale or even Cranbourne (which is a long way away). I would suggest that part of the reason inner city elite schools don't draw people from such suburbs is because of travelling times (which could be up to a couple of hours in one direction), although many still draw students from the northern and western suburbs.

I don't consider the government taxing you and then giving it back to you to be welfare. Welfare is when they give you someone else's money.

petal: That's ridiculous. By your own argument, none of these private schools would have kids who were the children or grandchildren of Vietnamese boat people or Greek peasants (who had come to this country and been successful) because they weren't part of the blue blood and had names that didn't sound like Baillieu. Get over your own class envy for just a second.

In The Age today http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/rudds-alp-is-selling-out-public-schools/2007/03/21/1174153156079.html Kenneth Davidson writes about Rudd's education policy. In part he says

"According to a study by University of Canberra educationalist and former federal education bureaucrat, Professor Louise Watson, average annual education spending per student in 2004 on non-government schools was $9000 in primary schools and $12,000 in secondary, compared with $8000 primary and $10,500 secondary for government schools. It would cost an extra $2.1 billion a year to bring recurrent government funding up to non-government standard. No comparable study has been done since. Why? The answer may be that Watson believes the funding differential has widened since."

"According to the OECD's 2004 Program of International Student Assessment, "the gross effect of school resourcing, which includes an assessment of how the socio-economic background of students and schools reinforces the distribution of the quality and quantity of school resources, is sizeable in many countries, most notably in Australia …"

And dicking around with the pay scales of government school teachers isn't going to pump any more money into education. but will have the effect of encouraging experienced teachers to carefully consider working in the private system, thus reinforcing the belief in areas like Beaumaris, that state schools are child minding centres for delinquents.

Senior managers like carrot and stick motivation because they end up with more carrots themselves. Those at the delivery end pay for grander and grander remuneration packages for senior managers devoid of leadership skills.

The quality of management is the problem and what is the bet the same incompetent and self-serving senior managers will be there to implement any merit based system when it is introduced?

"...thus reinforcing the belief in areas like Beaumaris, that state schools are child minding centres for delinquents."

Billie: My experiences working (both daily and on contract) in dozens of different schools (predominantly state) in Victoria are that state schools ARE child minding centres for delinquents.

Once we take the selective schools out of the mix, as well as those in more affluent suburbs (both of which function as de facto private schools that people don't want to pay for), we are left with what might politely be described as war zones.

A large part of the growth in the independent sector is precisely because of this (and despite the burden of fees), not because of teachers' pay. Teachers in both sectors don't do it for the pay (because any extra pay from the private sector is basically for time spent on extra-curricular activities). People don't become teachers to get rich, especially if they're qualified in something like the sciences, IT or even languages.

The largest problem in the state system is a lack of accountability all round. That's why people are moving their kids out of that system, and why there's a massive attrition rate amongst new teachers -- sometimes to escape the staff, but usually to escape the students and parents.

I currently work mainly for an excellent private school, but to get full time employment in this sector would require a massive time commitment, although perhaps no more or less than being mid-management elsewhere. As for the public sector, I'm done with that, and from what I've seen, I'll never send my kids through it or recommend that anyone else does. Nothing has turned me further from the left and their policies and ideologies than working as a teacher in the state system. I'm going overseas later this year, and upon my return, I'll either look for a full time job at a private school or leave the profession.

Shorbe the initial discussion was about whether teachers should participate in merit pay negotiations, and I have [tried] to make the cynical observation that the merit pay approach will save governments a lot of money in forgone pay rises.

As a product of the elite private school system I can see that the conditions offered to teachers are just good enough to lure teachers from the state system. I can attest that just because you pay big fees there is no guarantee that you are getting good teachers.

Having taught at brand new outer suburban schools and at elite private schools, I know where I would prefer to teach and where I would prefer my kids to go. The problems with any brand new outer suburban school are not with the facilities its sometimes more with the timetabling structure and the fact that the oldest age cohort have been the oldest all the way through school, for 6 years of high school. The teachers can be inexperienced and energetic enough to be able to survive jungle like conditions. Its up to the school deputy principal to instil discipline for the sake of less robust staff and to permit students to learn in a calm, safe, fear free environment.

Its my feeling that our education system is only as strong as our government schools. The private schools only have to aim to be a little bit better that the government school to attract students. Once the government school system is broken then private schools can let their standards slip. Hasn't there been a rise in proportions of students attending private schools in the USA?

Any way Shorbe have a nice time teaching overseas, presumably not the UK, the home of "work refusers".

If I have upset you Chris C its just because your argument reminds me of the sort of experiemce I had with a succession of union reps.

What I have found is that when it all boils down the responsibility for what is going on in a school rests with the principal. The buck stops at the principal's door. I have had many teachers and others say that "you can't trust the principal with hiring and firing". Then I have the same people coming in to my office with statements such as "something or other is going wrong", "What are you going to do about it?" In other words as principal you have the ultimate responsibility, but some who are on your staff don't want you to have any authority over them.

Well, you can't have it both ways. If the principal has the ultimate resonsibility then he or she needs to have the authority to hire and fire and reward those who do an outstanding job, as happens in the private sector. Naturally there will be checks and balances and someone who abuses their power will be accountable. Will it be a perfect system? No. Will it be superior to the current system? Absolutely.

In the end it comes down to common sense. As a parent or a student one needs to be able to approach the principal in order to sort out a problem. As a teacher or other member of staff one needs to be able to approach the principal to sort out a problem or find the resouces to permit some initiative to have the chance of succeeding. There has to be a principal, and that person, whoever he or she is has to be in a position to deliver, and that includes being competent to hire, fire or reward those who do an outstanding job.

Select the principal on the basis that they can cut the mustard and have the capacity to do the job, the complete job, and then give them the power to do it well and be accountable for the result.

Having worked for 15 years in a state education department, the word merit has quite a different meaning to that related to good performance, but seems apt on far too many occassions.
MERIT
Mates
Elevated
Regardless of
Intelligence or
Talent

Sniggid,

I am not upset because my argument reminds you of the sort of experience you have had with a succession of union reps, though that may be the explanation for your words. I am upset because you made assumptions about me which were not based on any evidence in anything I have said.

The pope is the servant of the servants of God. Leadership means service, not self-aggrandisement and arrogance. Principals appointed in recent years generally don't understand this. They need to see themselves as first among equals, but they tend to think they have a level of wisdom and intelligence which is invisible to those who have to work under their control.

The principal is ultimately responsible within the school, but a skilled principal will have the intelligence, insight, honesty and humanity to work with the teachers in the school, to lead by example, to be able to persuade, to listen. These qualities have become rarer since 1992 - for reasons which are obvious to any teacher in Victoria.

I was assisted in my Merit Protection Board hearing by an AEU official, but so was the acting principal. His AEU official argued that I should have been dismissed completely, suggesting that this union in fact supports bullying by principals in schools. Imagine that: the AEU arguing in favour of sacking one of its members because another of its members needed a scapegoat.

Following my re-instatement as timetabler, I was able to present a proposal that integrated a coherent curriculum structure with the best set of teaching conditions in the state of Victoria (basically a maximum teaching load of 21 48-minute periods). This proposal got 71 per cent of the staff vote, and not one person spoke up for what we had had, not even one person from those who had advocated it the year before.

You can argue that the MPB provided the checks and balance in my case, but none of this would have happened in the first place if leadership incompetence had not been evident at the beginning.

The debate between Chris C and Sniggid highlights the real problem in education and that is the curse of 'provider capture'. In respect of the performance of teachers, and the hiring and firing thereof, in neither case does the community, the payers, get a look in.

In a system in which communty governance is the model (in NZ, to some extent in Vic, and to a lesser in SA) it should be the role of the governing body to hire and fire the principal based on performance, and the principal's job then, in consultation with the governing body, to hire and fire staff - based on performance. After all schools are not activity centres for teachers, they are learning places for our kids, and the teachers worthy of suppport, encouragement, recognition and performance pay, are those that positively, and measurably, impact on the learning achievements of those kids.

It is time for the communtiy to have the big voice in education, not the providers (who should have a significant voice) nor the AEU which should be muted.

billie: I found the British system even more terrifying than our own! I'm off to Japan to teach English. In terms of money, I could probably earn (and save) more by being here and just getting a(ny) full time job, given the cost of living there, but I'm going for other reasons.

Anyway...

I'm in favour of privatising the education system. I'm (fairly) aware of the positives and negatives of such a proposal, as unpopular as that might be.

"...the conditions offered to teachers are just good enough to lure teachers from the state system. I can attest that just because you pay big fees there is no guarantee that you are getting good teachers."

The conditions aren't just about pay and/or facilities. It's been a breath of fresh air this year to be what I'm qualified for -- a teacher -- not a crowd controller. Private schools have to weed out the bad teachers (and students) or they lose clients. Not so with the state system.

"The teachers can be inexperienced and energetic enough to be able to survive jungle like conditions. Its up to the school deputy principal to instil discipline for the sake of less robust staff and to permit students to learn in a calm, safe, fear free environment."

My experiences at all sorts of state schools, not just outer suburban schools, are that for some reason, the discipline simply isn't there. Ultimately, short of killing someone, the 20% of hardcore trouble makers can do pretty much as they like. Not so in the private system.

"The private schools only have to aim to be a little bit better that the government school to attract students. Once the government school system is broken then private schools can let their standards slip. Hasn't there been a rise in proportions of students attending private schools in the USA?"

Not sure about the U.S. I disagree with everything else though. Private schools have to compete with each other also, even if they're going for a niche market (such as kids with behavioural issues, gifted musicians, etc.).

shorbe I know people who have just returned from teaching in Japan where they saved more money than they would have in Australia. Have fun!

Two Americans wrote a book about rowing and steering, and before you could blink the concept of “provider capture' had poisoned government services throughout Australia. Its purpose is to undermine the professional expertise of teachers in the public mind.

In the lead-up to and in the years immediately following the 1992 Victorian election, the media were full of the “provider capture” campaign to cut spending on children in government schools by denigrating teachers as a pampered and privileged elite:
'…teacher unions have “captured” the operation of education services in regard to staffing and working conditions so that the education system has become unduly teacher-driven.' (Institute of Public Affairs, Schooling Victorians, 1992)
'There is extensive over-staffing of teachers, inefficient work practices and “union” capture of education expenditure.' (IPA, Schooling Victorians, 1992)
'The schools are simply a racket and a rort for teachers who use it as a fully salaried system of outdoor relief.' (Peter Ryan, “Teachers fail to get the point”, The Age, 1/8/1992)
'The perks and privileges of this cosseted profession were absolutely sacrosanct.” (“A lesson in anarchy.” (Herald Sun (editorial), 19/11/1992)
'Schools…appear to be run more for the benefit and convenience of their employees than for their users.' (Claude Forell, “A reckoning unions had to have”, The Age, 25/11/1992)
'The emergency teacher system…had not existed before 1980…' (Don Hayward, quoted in Denis Muller, “Schools already feel bite of education cuts”, The Age, 1/3/1993) [As a school daily organiser, I knew this was untrue because I had employed emergency teachers without restriction way back in 1978.]
'…considerable over-staffing and restrictive work practices…' (Des Moore, “Why government needs to be rolled back”, The Age, 5/7/1993)
'…cosy deals with teacher unions…wasteful school work practices...' (Alan Stockdale, “Education's future depends on savings”, The Age, 22/9/1993)
'… a cosy bracket of work practices...' (Don Hayward, quoted in Felicity Dargan, “100 schools to go”, Herald Sun, 30/9/1993)

The long-term teacher pay cuts, teaching load increases, secondary teacher number cuts, busywork increases, collegiate judgement declines in schools - all prove that there is no “provider capture”, but you just can't keep a good slogan down.

Thanks for the quotes.

Billie,

There are a lot more quotes. There are more on the comments section of the thread “The long march back to reason”:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5080
They show clearly what a disgraceful job was done on Victorian teachers by the nasty types who used to run the state.

18 per cent, not 40 per cent, of Victorian government school teachers (six out of ten of those under 25) are on contracts (“Call to curb contract plague”, AEU News, February 2007).

Over the last 15 years education has seen the rise in power of those who know nothing and the decline in power of those with expertise.

We can devise a pay system that gives more to the best teachers, but test results, student surveys and the favouritism and victimisation by principals are not ways to do it.

Victoria has a leading teacher category. Teachers promoted to it receive higher pay, but they have to take on administrative duties, and it is totally in the power of the principal as to how many there will be in a school and whether or not they will be used up and spat out. When the system was introduced, the previous government promised to fund schools to allow 30 per cent of positions to be promotion and to require a minimum of 25 per cent. Once the system was in, that particularly bad government dumped its promise. The current voucher system for funding Victorian schools does not provide the money needed for sufficient promotion positions.

Three steps are needed:
1. The re-creation of an advanced skills teacher category, with rigorous criteria and promotion to it by a panel of teachers internal and external to the school (perhaps from VIT), but with no quota;
2. The creation of a leading teacher (classroom) category, with a set number of positions in each school determined by the DoE and with a requirement to maintain a full teaching load, not go into administration.
3. The return of the requirement dumped by the previous government that members of the principal class actually teach.

"We can devise a pay system that gives more to the best teachers, but test results, student surveys and the favouritism and victimisation by principals are not ways to do it." - Chris C
Can't see it happening given the recruitment solution.

When the Victorian Education department shifted responsibilty for hiring teaching staff to the individual schools

did every school get additional administrative staff,
did the teachers involved in interviewing get a reduction in load
each school became responsible for its hiring choices
each school became responsible for paying its casual relief teachers directly

The ministry of education could have reduced the staffing office numbers and saved staff.
Instead of copying the existing TAFE staff recuitment website the ministry devised its own system. A system that is really harsh waste of upload traffic, difficult for secondary school teachers to use, difficult for schools to use. The online recruitment system is hated by all but the design committee that specified it. The system used to advertise all vacancies for positions longer than 4 weeks. The requirement now is only those positions available for longer than 2 terms need to be advertised.

This makes it hard for a prospective teacher to know where there are vacancies. So more than ever its up to the candidate to visit every school in the area you want to work in. Imagine doorknocking all the schools in Melbourne metro or even southern metro.

Casual conversation with young teachers indicates that its quite hard to get a position. At least one metropolitan university sends out a glossy book to each school with a one page profile on each of its graduates that schools use to contact likely candidates.

Billie,

I agree that it is unlikely that society will improve the teacher pay system. One reason is the increased weakness of teacher unions, which really mean the increased weakness of teachers to take a stand on anything.

I don't have figures on the categories of employment in the DoE, but there have been a huge cut to the numbers of central personnel and the total abolition of staff in school support centres (which no longer exist), and the cut has not been matched by an increase in school administrative staff. Teachers involved in interview panels get no reduction in their loads. In fact, they may have to give up their spare periods and even after-school and holiday-time to conduct the interviews. Schools are responsible for their own hiring choices - with precisely zero improvement in student learning. Schools are responsible for paying their casual relief teachers directly, with some exceptions. The DoE has saved a fortune on staff costs. In the days of Henry Bolte, about half the state budget went on education. Today it is below 30 per cent. Victorian schools are basically financed on a voucher system, and the principal can then spend the money any way he or she likes. There are very few rules left. Until 2005, the maximum teaching load in my school was 21 periods, while in other schools it was 24 periods. One school will have an adequate number of leading teacher positions, while another will not. A school may be funded for ESL teachers, but the principal doesn't have to use the money to deliver an ESL program.

I have served on panels and looked at applications done under the web-based system. Their presentation is very poor.

The basic problem is that the previous government destroyed the idea of an education system and replaced it with an inefficient chaos of competing small businesses. This reconceptualisation of schooling was so deeply embedded in the subconscious of public life that the current government has so far not understood what has been done.

shorbe - ahhh, so we'll be seeing the same schools lowering their fees to make them more "inclusive", then, thanks to government subsidies? That was my original point.

Do you really think they are going to do that?

Also, too bad if your child is not A-grade academic material, even if you have the money and your child is a hard worker - they still won't let you in.

petal: In the majority of cases, people aren't being subsidised to send their kids to private schools because they're paying into the system (via tax) more than they get out. In order to prove this, all we would have to do is stop taxing people equal to the current educational budget. You know as well as I do that most of the people sending their kids to government schools are not paying their fair share of this funding.

Also, you're arguing that private schools are homogenous in the objectives of their outcomes. By analogy, there would be no restaurants but five star restaurants offering a particular cuisine. Obviously that's not the case though. I'm sure there's a market for parents of C grade students whose parents would be happy to get them up to C+ or B, or who might even place other outcomes over academic results. For example, there are plenty of independent schools that don't achieve results greater than government schools, but parents send their kids there for a religious education.

Finally, many of these schools don't cost an arm and a leg in fees. Once again, the market place is not homogenous. Further to this, it's possible to afford private school fees if one does not lead an extravagent lifestyle. The bottom line is that a lot of people out there want to have their cake (a consumer lifestyle) and eat it too (free education at someone else's expense).