Ian,

The current categories of teachers in Victoria do not mean what you think they mean.

The 1978 Green Paper discussed rewarding the best teachers while keeping them in the classroom. Nothing happened. In 1992, senior teachers were dumped and replaced with three levels of advanced skills teacher. Level 1 pay was trivial, and 2 and 3 were administrative positions. In 1995, ASTs were dumped and leading teachers introduced, again as administrative positions.

In 2000, the category of experienced teacher with responsibility was introduced, supposedly to reward the best classroom teachers. It was another lie. Teachers in my school who had been getting allowances for extra responsibilities had their allowances taken away but not the responsibilities. One showed me his pay slip half-way through the year: he got one cent in back pay as a result of his ETWR “promotion”. Because Victorian schools are funded on a voucher system, the school with the most experienced teachers will have less money for allowances, so pay increments granted for expertise become replacements for what in other schools will be allowances for extra responsibilities.

In 2004, the label “graduate” replaced “beginning”, the label “accomplished” replaced “experienced” and the label “expert” replaced “ETWR”. Nothing real changed. My “expert” teacher responsibility was to ring up the fire brigade to check the extinguishers. Another “expert” teacher’s responsibility was asbestos.

Education is not the only field in which the public is routinely deceived, but the amount of deception I see is huge. Every “career restructure” I experienced in my 33 years was a fraud. Performance pay, which we have already experienced in Victoria in the dreadful Liberal years, will be another fraud to cover up the failure of governments to pay teachers as well as a far poorer society could afford to pay them more than 30 years ago.

In essence, teachers, despite the militant label, are industrially weak and naïve, and will continue to get done over by more powerful forces unless they join and be active in their unions.

Teachers should be paid in accordance with ability and performance.We are not going to get good Maths,English or Science Teachers if we don't pay for talent.One size does not fit all.In any school community teachers and pupils know who are putting in the hard yards and who has the talent.Language does not always mirror intellect,but it is a good general guide.Just ask George Bush.

It wasn't so long ago that there were classes of 60 children and more.Now we have all these school counselors,ESL teachers,teachers aids etc and still the standards have fallen because we have forgotten about the art of discipline, especially for those of average ability who really need it.

Pay fewer more to improve standards and the results will be truely astounding.

Sir Vivor
I have heard your response from quite a few other teachers I have talked to regards the decline in student performance, particularly with boys.

It seems to come from some type of handbook. Mention a decline in student marks, and the automatic response is to say that a school is not about learning, but about social interaction, and the school is actually some type of child minding centre, where students do not have to learn anything, but socially interact.

In the case of boys, there is now quite a lot of evidence to show that boys are becoming less interested in the education process (I think the official mindspeak term used by the education departments is “disengagement’), and more boys are dropping out of the education system at a younger age.

So schools have failed to improve student marks in 30 years, and also failed to make students interested in the education process.

I think it is a failure by schools on all fronts.

But now teachers want more money, so that they can continue to produce a system of failure.

HRS says:
"Mention a decline in student marks, and the automatic response is to say that a school is not about learning, but about social interaction, and the school is actually some type of child minding centre, where students do not have to learn anything, but socially interact."

HRS has missed my point as well as Ian Keese's

If HRS read my comment carefully, he/she might agree that I did not argue the idea quoted above.

My opinion is that all schools are about learning, and social interaction is one of the learning areas.

"Free schools", the archtype of which was AS Neill's Summerhill, have gone entirely out of vogue. I don't know if there are any left in Australia.

I would say such schools were extremely biased toward social interaction. Even so, I would give the benefit of the doubt to the teachers who worked there and assume that they were committed to conveying their particular expertise to their students, in the best way they could. And that they saw the core of their jobs much as do other able teachers, in more conventional schools.

The job of a school and its teachers is to provide students with valuable subject content in a safe and supportive environment, and to help students do their best to gain both scholastic and social competencies.

I have explained in my previous comment what I expected, in part, of the schools where my children were educated. If I wanted them to do especially well on achievement tests, I would have sent them to a coaching academy.

An afterthought - perhaps the tax deductions available to tutoring businesses ought to be geared to the standardised test results of their clients' children.

Sir Vivor,

I forgive you for thinking that schools are mostly centres for social interaction, similar to a coffee shop or public park, but it is rather a poor indictment of the education system when so many tutoring centers are springing up like mushrooms throughout so many towns.

These tutoring centers seem to be a major growth industry, perhaps one of the few growth industries left in many towns.

The public now has to pay out large amounts of tax money to run the schools, and then pay out large amounts of money to send their children to tutoring centers, because they don’t learn much in the schools.

Its probably all the fault of “bad parents”, which is a teacher's mindspeak term for mothers and fathers

Author’s reply to comments: Must state categorically to HRS that constant repetition about “Falling standards” does not make it true. In reading, mathematical and scientific literacy Australia ranks in the top five of 30 industrialised countries (OECD, Education at A Glance, 2003). Yes, students who may have left school at 15 some years ago now stay on, and there are more social problems, which make teaching more challenging, but that is a different story. Despite Kevin Donnelly and co there was no golden past (see Stuart McIntyre http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21275638-25132,00.html or my article “Crisis: What Crisis” at http://demed.wordpress.com/

The one thing that I am suggesting is that, subject to clearly specified criteria, it should be possible for teacher’s salaries to continue to rise after the present 9-10 year plateau Such a plateau only exists in four other OECD countries apart from us: Denmark, NZ, England and Scotland. In Korea salary after 15 years is about the same as in Australia at the same time but after that can rise by another 75% to come close to $A100,000. As Chris C points out this must be a REAL increase, not a smoke and mirrors trick as part of a zero-sum game by Treasury, and could only come out by a coalition of teachers, parents and community members putting pressure on a Government.

I have not replied specifically to Sir Vivor, because I feel we are on a similar wavelength.