Schools releasing student results is very important, as it increases competition between schools, which would eventually improve all schools.

However I have seen attempts by schools to hide the results from their boy students by combining together the marks from the boys and girls. If those marks were separated out, then many mother and fathers would not be sending their sons to that school.

A major cause of concern would be the declining retention rates of boys in schools and also the declining levels of interest boys have in school work. Even if a boy leaves school early and takes up a trade job, most trade work now requires continuous learning, and many jobs require multi-skilling.

To develop a highly skilled workforce, boys will have to be learning and undertaking courses right through their working life, so they would have to have an interest in learning and in education, but the opposite appears to be occurring.

I don’t believe Ms Gillard will have much interest in boy’s education. I have not heard her mention boy's education in the past, and is unlikely to do so in the future.

HRS lets have a reality check here. The parents of many boys are unable to evaluate their son's strengths and weaknesses with unbiased vision. Many boys are considerably less capable than their female siblings. Possession of a penis no longer confers "born to rule" status that middle class boys enjoyed in Australia in the 1930s.

As you so rightly pointed out even tradies have to be able read proficiently, use a spreadsheet, keep records for their accountant as well as the traditional skills of writing up a quote, writing invoices. Then they will have to keep learning to remain abreast of developments in their industry.

Unfortunately individuals who aren't capable of learning are destined to a lifetime of poorly paid manual labour.

The responsibility starts with parents who never say NO, who feed their kids processed rubbish and who their kids stay up late. Teachers face an uphill battle to engage tired, revved up or hungry pupils.

Billie,
Please don’t tell me you are a teacher.

“Many boys are considerably less capable than their female siblings.”

I have heard similar directly from teachers, where they have been allowed to develop a negative attitude towards boy students.

If a company develops a negative attitude towards its employees, the company will eventually get negative results from the employees in return.

Too many teachers have been allowed to develop a negative attitude towards boy students, and eventually they get negative results from the boy students in return.

But if schools were compared in the marks that their boy and girl students were getting, then I am quite certain that many teachers would quickly change their attitudes.

If the teachers were paid performance pay, then I am also quite certain that many teachers would quickly change their attitudes.

That is why most companies now have some type of performance pay system, and basing levels of pay on years in the job went out with the Ark.

Peter West says, "we have lost a lot of ground in grammar. Grammar faded from most schools in the 1970s and it has never regained that ground."

The fading of English grammar in the 1970s has been supplemented by a fading of foreign language studies ever since. We overlook this link at our peril: learning foreign languages at secondary school or as an adult involves learning formal principles of grammar in greater depth and detail than a comprehensive English (literature and language) class can hope to teach.

That is bound to be a reason why West finds that his foreign students are often more grammatically accomplished. (Respectful attitudes seem a far-fetched reason for knowing the names of tenses.) Similarly, teachers of foreign languages often note how the native speakers in their classes fare worse in grammar tests than the Australians who are new to the language.

There is a further reason why the foreign languages drop-off matters: failing language enrolments attack Australia's cultural awareness now and into the future. Sometimes that means we cannot spy on terrorists. Sometimes it means a whale gets shot in our waters. More often, it means we go and invade people for no good reason.

I am so sick of public school teachers winging about their pay, if it pays so good elsewhere please go there so we can replace you with a trained monkey.

Teachers enjoy some of the best conditions of employment in any workforce in this country,including generous sick leave provisions, dispute resolution process and over generous maternity leave of up to seven years.

There hours are fixed and their so called stress full jobs cannot be compared with real jobs like nursing or Police, who work longer and more dangerous jobs withour the generosity of the handouts given to teachers.

Pay them more but do reduce their conditions of service and especially remove the discriminatory act of seniority, as a parent of a school age child I would welcome performance pay/management in our school. This would finally help parents weed out the under performing teachers and those with attendance problems.

Pretty good article. I tend to think as the writer says, the media might be part of the problem. They were once the guardians of language. Now they're it's greatest corrupters.

I agree that boys are badly lagging, especially in literacy. To be able to write, first you have to be able to read. Grammar is only part of the problem and I don't want to open a can of worms that brings in the usual suspects on this.

Peter, trying to get academics, journalists and unions on side to do anything together is like cat herding. They're at cross purposes.

Fundamental changes to education requires fundamental changes to teacher training. Yet they're going to meet kids who know more about digital technology than they do. They're also going to face some very 'remedial' situations where they're not exactly teaching but rather taking some students back to the basics such as subject/verb stuff.

Ditto adult education. It's a mess but not totally irrepairable.

The Rudd "education revolution" is bound to fail unless the Prime Minister is willing and prepared to overthrow the COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY force of the teaching unions that will not allow any changes to the status quo of the educational system, especially the one that is deeply entrenched in government schools.

See for more:http://kotzabasis3.wordpress.com

Yindin,

The attitude you express is just one more reason I am pleased to no longer be a teacher. Please try to understand that the drop in teacher pay has led to a fall in the ability of the people entering teacher training. If you want children to have able and independent-minded teachers, you need to reverse the 30-year pay decline that teachers have suffered.

Victorian male average weekly ordinary time earnings were $1107.30 ($57,777 pa) in November last year (ABS 6302.0, November 2006).

In 1975, a beginning teacher was paid 118.8 percent of MAOTE. That equates to $68,639. A beginning teacher started this year on $46,127 - a relative cut of $22,512 or 32.8 per cent.

In 1975, after seven years a teacher reached the top of the scale and was paid 166.6 per cent. That would be $96,256 at the start of this year, compared with an actual $57,775 - a relative cut of $38,481 or 40 per cent.

The new top level for most teachers, which now takes eleven years to reach, paid $65,414 – a relative cut of $30,842 or 32 per cent.

In 1975, a senior teacher was paid 189.8 per cent. That would be $109,660 for the highest paid leading teacher today, who was actually paid $78,675 at the start of this year – a relative cut of $30,985 or 28.3 per cent.

The school day is fixed. Teachers’ hours are not. Teachers spend evenings, weekends and holidays on schoolwork. Their conditions are in Victoria worse now than they were 20 years ago. Staffing in secondary schools is worse now than it was way back in 1981.

Performance pay was tried in the 1890s and abandoned as a failure. It was tried again in the 1990s and abandoned as a failure. It proved to be a device for bullying and exploitation by principals.

Society will not get better results from schooling until it lifts teacher pay and returns the stolen conditions to attract and retain the best people in the classroom.

In this country to solve the problem of literacy and numeracy, we have allowed to develop, is going to require some thinking ‘outside the square’. That is something most of the academics and professionals involved in education are just not trained to do. It is an impossibility for bureaucrats and politicians.

I’d suggest the following for consideration.

Ensure the emphasis for admission to any University Degree Course to be based on an assessment of the achievements of year 12 students in the following subjects only:

English, Maths B, Maths C, Physics, Chemistry and Latin. (Or French or German.)

That emphasis would ensure a number of things:

1. Matriculation requires a very high standard.
2. Matriculation would be limited to students who have been trained to think and who can communicate more than capably.
3. As the emphasis in recent years has been for everyone to graduate University, because of the first requirement, we would see the emphasis, automatically throughout all levels of education up to Year 10, change to be on teaching students to ensure they can meet the requirements of matriculation. That automatically would translate into emphasis on arithmetic skill, reading and comprehension skills and a skilling in an ability to learn to think. An ability to communicate effectively would be a natural result of these. The greatest benefit would accrue to those who eventually decided not to matriculate, either through limited intellectual ability or a desire to follow other career paths. They would at least leave the existing formal education system highly skilled in arithmetic, reading, writing, comprehension and communication. They’d also be able to continue to apply those skills and develop intellect outside the formal higher education system and in their desired area of expertise.

Too simple eh?

No! I don’t have a degree, but I do know through my reading, my intellect would challenge a great many of today’s graduates.

To those of you grizzling about teachers pay.

KISS

Simply limit cirriculums.

Under the guise of an "education revolution" that 'hints' at redressing education standards, without the double talk, it is in reality an agenda to facilliate further cuts to funding whilst blaming individual schools and teachers for the deteriorating state of the school system. It also seeks to narrow the education curriculum and run government schools along corporate lines and privatise the public education system in favor of the profiteers. The government also wants to cut teacher time, use more contract casual teachers, use tapes and computors wherever possible. Since the mid 1980's Education budgets have been systematically cut in all Australian states, including NSW. Rudds Labor government in the recent election sought to make mileage over the disgraceful state of the public education system. A wretched condition Labor and Liberal governments precisely created. Now a milion parents are expecting the Labor leaders to redress these problems and they will see their hopes misplaced and dashed.

Ms Julia Gillard has a "whole" of approach to a Education Revolution. The plan I believe goes farther and beyond the boundries you set Peter West although yes, you make many valid points.

Ten more Red Roses says that "If" education is to work and innovation is to be mobilised than it is the our cultural view of education that needs expanding. It is about how we inter-connect education to stimulate a "whole" society that is and will be the Revolution.

Once upon a time in Australia, Australian's were seen as broad minded, Engaging as a nation and people good to talk and "applied" about things real. Down to Earth we might say. "Aussie Aussie Aussie" meant something telling about fairness, about sticking ya neck out and not being afraid to stand on shared moral ground. Our greatest credit as a young nation was expressed in the image we appreciate of our sport-person-ships.

By contrast, we are also a national bunch of baggers. We are many bullies, and we can be quite gutless when it comes to standing up for others, or getting involved in sharing our politics in the "reality" of everyday life. We many, gang up on people...be it within the community, at school or the workpace. Many discriminate against outsiders or those who think differently... just because they can. Some even bother to phoo-hoo an idea just because it is a new idea,

As consumers, regarding the economic things, we are gizmo gadget savy. We have made war about meaningful issues around health, crime, the value of developing real business enterprise connectivity and politics. For this reason we suffer a decline in areas moral. Areas that matter, especially in our politic's.

This education revolution will unleash energy dead, idle or repressed throughout the system (community, business and government) I hope. Education means learning together to listen to one-and-other, discuss, share and exchange our knowledge. The revolution is the unity approach toward life. Aim healthy - Aussie attitude. A renewal in our individual thinking - need I say more?

http://www.miacat.com
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On the whole an excellent article. At last it is actually dawning that parents and extra curricular activities such as libraries, are the key. The work of Hart and Risley and others however has really not penetrated. Australia spends very little on early childhood. Perhaps Finland's schools are post hoc ergo proctor hoc. Just say it is not their schools but the expectations of the society on parents and the programs in the community that count. Could it be the very different attitude? In Australian we hope that a good private school will sort the kids out and give them discipline (preferably in a uniform).

I am always disturbed by school comparisons as from the point of view of chosing a school it is useless. Schools change, teaching staff change and anyway school factors are almost insignificant besides other factors. Over the lifetime at school a child has the average teacher. Parents have no idea of how your child will react to the environment over twelve years. Perhaps parents are better investing directly in their children so they can actually thrive in any school?

Why is it that some kids start on the same day in the same class and have the same teachers throughout their school life but have such different result? Why is it that differences within schools are much greater than between schools?

Another question is, and I am not picking on Catholic Schools but it a good metaphor. Why if Catholic schools are full their churches are empty? If schools were able to do what we claim they should, why the lack of effectiveness in Catholic School primary aim of "instilling Catholic virtues"?

Comparative data.

The really important comparison is not between schools. Schools enrol widely different spectrums of ability and performance and so the crucial issue is "value added" This must be extremely difficult to assess, school against school. It seems to me that the vital issue is comparison within an individual student's year by year performance. Has the student moved a 12 month's increment of learning and ability over the last school year? If your kid has moved from the 45th percentile to the 48th percentile over the last 12 months that is a cause for rejoicing. But for this kind of comparison we would need much more reliable and valid assessments of ability. A lot more work needs to be done to establish such measures of performance. How on earth people make comparisons across different language communities and cultures amazes me.

I find it interesting that the author should comment on the grammar of trainee teachers, yet it would seem he can't use a full stop properly.

"I think this would be a laudable move. But as a university academic I mark many theses. And it is very common for masters and even doctoral thesis applicants to have difficulty with all of the tasks Labor wants emphasised."

In addition, words like "but" and "and" only really feature in imprecise "pulp" novels at the beginning of sentences.

I agree that many teachers lack skill in the fundamentals of grammar. I've worked with colleagues, senior management and lecturers who lack these skills.

Here, it would seem, is another example. Was it ironic I wonder?