What John Ridd calls setting and what in Victoria is called block timetabling is not in the least hard to do. It is a sensible method for dealing with all sorts of curriculum implementation issues.

I was the timetabler for Hampton Park Secondary College from 2000 to 2004. English and maths classes were timetabled in blocks, so that students at a level could be put into different groups. In maths, there were three groups – mainstream, advanced and developmental.

John Ridd is right about the teacher unions lacking power, which is why pay and conditions have declined so dramatically, but these facts never stop the press regularly adding the word, “powerful”, before the words, “teacher unions”. However, HPSC did have a strong union branch so teaching conditions were the envy of the state.

Teaching conditions and curriculum were integrated. English, maths, all but one year 10 subject and all year 11 and 12 subjects were nine periods a fortnight (five in one week and four in the other). All other subjects were six periods a fortnight (three each week). Teachers taught a maximum of 42 48-minute periods a fortnight, or 16 hours 48 minutes a week, the best conditions in the state. All nine-period subjects and the one year 10 six-period subject were blocked. As the blocks matched across year levels, year 10s could easily do VCE subjects. As all subjects were six or nine periods each and time allowances (deductions from teaching for leadership responsibilities) could also be multiples of three, every teacher could be fully allotted, so timetable efficiency for full time teachers could be 100 per cent.

Other schools (e.g., Edenhope High School in the 1980s) have used vertical modular grouping in which students from different year levels could work together. The whole timetable was blocked at EHS.

There is nothing hard about any of these approaches. They seem not to happen because of a failure of imagination and intelligence in the running of schools.

Nothing will change in education until they acknowledge and deal with the fact that there is bias, victimisation, bullying, manipulation of test scores and documents and discrimination happening in Education.

When a system is corrupted it can only ever lead to no good.

I am not making this up. We have made formal allegation against the NSW Department of Education that we allege are part of a conspiracy to cover up. The evidence we have is alarming. Sadly we know of other people who have been dealt with the same way. The process the system has used to cover up allegations and complaints is unbelievable and it goes all the way to the top.

Education - Keeping them HOnest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our children deserve better

They won the election on rock and roll hype and spin.

Why should we be surprised by the reality of the outcomes?The tax cuts won't materialise,education won't change and work choices will stay in slightly modified state.

We are relying too much on OS students to fund education.We should be providing more funding so we can educate our own doctors and other specialists.

Our biggest worry is that whether Labor can control it's spending and waste,since it traditionally has a poor track record in this field.

Now that Labor has formed government then we need to vigorously take it up to Rudd with his dishonest belief in junk climate science and that this is where we start making changes to build a knowledge economy.

If Kevvy honestly believes in education and seeks to be known as the education prime minister then he needs to fully explain how he approaches this desire for the true achievement of human potential when he obviously promotes more a belief in climate superstition that effectively thwarts the normal scientific method. His education revolution in Australia should start by depoliticising science and opening it up to greater scrutiny and debate.

There needs to be a specific role for investigative science journalism which seems dead and buried and over-run by cheap media bug bunnies. Open public debate should start with the establishment of a dedicated national science channel to address for starters just how humanity collectively can ensure a continued appreciation of the beauty of existence and the fact that all our actions are evolutionary.

Education Revolution decrypted into intelligble language means Education Reaction.
Labor election campaigners used glib promises on the neglect of education with a series of computer calls for school children, trade centres in schools, more money for vocational training—to make it appear that a Rudd government would address the decay of public education. The politicians are terrified, that a side effect of their privatisation ploy is stultifying a broad layer of children and holding them back. These parents are rightfully concerned that their children will suffer. However, Rudd took pains to sidestep any questions about the campaign to run down or wreck the public education system. In reality, the criminal operation to hand over public schools to private profiteers, private schools, or to their cronies in real estate speculating will be stepped up.
Labor proposes, “Skills Australia”, a board of seven representatives, “comprising economic, industry, academic and education expertise” that will coordinate the needs of employers at the local level. Moreover, following on from Howard, Rudd is offering up the disabled and disadvantaged to be included, useful he indicates for sub standard work and pay.

Labor’s “education revolution” reaches right down to pre-school. “Labor’s Plan for Early Childhood” is not aimed at addressing the developmental needs of young children, but at capitalising on a prime investment opportunity. It argues that government investment in early childhood learning brings a “high rate of return” in terms of productivity and labour force participation, and is necessary for developing a “smarter and more adaptable workforce”.

The Labor government has indicated it will continue to fashion its policies subject to the needs of 'big business' including the privatisation process of schools. Nor will there be any disclosures of the computor industy funding to Labor in the recent election.

Unless Prime Minister Rudd overthrows the "counter-revolutionaries" of the teachers unions, the par excellence defenders of the status quo, his 'education revolution' will be the devolution of education.

See:http://kotzabasis1.blogspot.com

Krudd is a fine orator. His true believing bretheren really love his phrasing. Good for them. The poor souls really were in the grips of depression after a decade of the other mobs pragmatically bland spin.

Mostly, kid-kruud will keep up the oratory and continue to mean what he means by saying what he says. He will position himself so as to appear effective yet not really do much. Electorate wont acknowlege this until a second term, at best. krudd is very astute at the grand standing game. Signatures on pieces of paper with no teeth like Kyoto and getting red herring concessions from the Japanese not to introduce 50 humback kills a year in exchange for continuing their existing program. Wily move by the Japanese, conceding a mirage. Australia gets to have its world stage relevence too, which egomaniacal pollies love.

His revolution will be one of spin. Keep it revolving. Give the youngens a poota, give the battlers a concessionally taxed bank account for this and another one for that, lots of nicely couloured bandaids, packaged with beautifully phrased spin and not much substance.

Memories of labour-speak ala Hawke-Keating are resurfacing. Should be entertaining.

Themistocles,

The claim that teacher unions need to be overthrown implies that they have power in the first place. If this is so, please explain why Victorian teachers are paid $31,000 less than in 1975 relative to average earnings, why the secondary pupil-teacher ratio is now 11.9:1, compared with 10.6:1 in 1990 and 10.9:1 back in 1981, why there are still almost 2,000 secondary teachers missing from our schools, why the maximum teaching load has increased to 20 hours from the 18 hours pre-1992, why the class size limit of 25 students is now just a general intention rather than the legal requirement it was pre-1992, why teacher representation on School Councils is now cut if any parent members are employees of DET unlike the pre-1992 non-discriminatory method and why the superannuation contribution has been cut from a notional 21 per cent of salary pre-1988 to 9 per cent today. The teacher unions have been near powerless shells for years, held back by members who won’t take industrial action and by teachers – members and non-members alike – who endorse pathetic EBAs.

As the Hampton Park Secondary College timetabler until the end of 2004, I organised that school with a maximum teaching load of just under 18 hours a week and the capacity for decent time allowances (deductions from teaching for demanding leadership positions). These were the best conditions in the state, the ideal towards which other teachers should have worked in their own schools.

Instead, Victorian teachers foolishly endorsed the 2004 Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, as a direct result of which the teachers at Hampton Park, who intelligently voted against the proposed EBA, were forced to accept higher teaching loads, longer periods, inadequate time allowances and the abolition of their management advisory committee.

Reporters can hardly mention teacher unions without adding the word “powerful”, but this is just another lie. The teacher unions did not stop Labor returning history to the curriculum after the Liberals’ trendy SOSE. They did not stop the rigorous reporting system Labor provides for parents.

And this is "par excellence defenders of the status quo”?

To Chris C.
You distort the real relationships. The unions have been in power, the ALP is the political arm of the trade unions. The teachers union pays into the ALP large contributions knowing full well the ALP will carry through the attacks on teachers. You do not know that? You say incredulous "why there are still almost 2,000 secondary teachers missing from our schools" well the unions went along with that. Yes there has been a major program of school closures and amalgamations in Victoria under Premier Steve Bracks. Bracks in conjunction with the unions has been trying to keep parents and teachers in the dark while it continues the assault begun under previous Labor and Liberal state governments. Most probably 16 primary and secondary schools face closure, with 13 regions discussing mergers. This after all the closures in the last two decades.
In fact the governments rely on the unions doing their filthy work in sabotaging any genuine struggle. Tell us that has not happened for the whole of the last century, yes the full century!

To all you loverly liberal voters. You lost and that dont mean the private schools are going to close, it just means you start relating to your children in a real way, and not leave your childrens learning of life skills to the schools.

Their your kids, so love them, give them your time and communicate with them!

Chris C

Only Sun Kings have absolute power and the teacher unions are not sun kings! But they do have enough power to keep intact the status quo of the postmodernist and PC superstructures that they have built on the edifice of the educational system that prevent the development of curricula founded on reason that would attract people with merit to enter the teaching profession. And because of the up till now mediocre curricula, that are especially extant in government schools, these in turn attract a garden variety of people to enter the profession, and even these in inadequate numbers, and hence a shortage of teachers that in turn generates a higher pupil-teacher ratio, increased teaching loads, and low paid salaries. Since people with mediocre abilities who enter the profession and teach in GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS are “satisfied” with what the unions can get for them salary-and condition-wise in this intellectually “undernourished” sector.

It’s this CONCENTRATED power of the teaching unions in government schools that Rudd has to overthrow if his “education revolution” will have a chance to take off.

http://kotzabasis1.blogspot.com

johncee1945,

Themistocles said that Kevin Rudd would have to overthrow the teacher unions to achieve what he wanted in eduction. I presented a list of examples, most of which are central to unionism, that show teacher unions are powerless and invited Themistocles to explain how such supposedly powerful bodies could accept such a deterioration in the working lives of their members.

I gave the example of the school with the best conditions in Victoria, which lost those conditions because of a vote by the teachers of the state, more than 75 percent of whom voted for a faulty EBA.

I do not see any evidence that the ALP is the political arm of the unions, as it has adopted a minor wind-back of the Liberals’ IR laws, not the major wind-back the unions wanted. In Victoria, the Labor Government has not budged on its poor pay and conditions offer to teachers.

Teachers elect their union leaders, refuse to take industrial action, vote for pathetic pay and conditions deals and spend the following three years complaining about their lot in life. The union is not separate from its members.

The missing secondary teachers have nothing to do with the voluntary school closures and amalgamations of the Bracks Government, which actually increased secondary teacher numbers from a ratio of 12.6:1in 1999 to one of 11.9:1 in 2006. My criticism is that such an increase still leaves the system way short of both the 1981 Liberal Government’s staffing ratio and the 1996 Labor Government’s ratio. The low staffing is due to the current inadequate funding formula for schools. Victorian schools receive most of their funding from vouchers worth about $5,000 per student, the exact amount depending on the year level. This amount cannot fund sufficient teachers in secondary schools.

Teacher unions are powerless because their members are naïve and weak.

Themistocles,

I will respond to you in a separate post.

Talking about chucking "360's"... Why are petrol prices so high again this holiday season?

Rudd gave me and everyone I've spoken to the expectation he'd stop that from happening and that he'd keep petrol prices down, with his "prices Commissioner".

Looks like 'we will have lots of talk, hype and media opportunities, but no change in direction' in that area as well.

A warning of things to come.

Hey Kip

I voted Liberal, had my son educated in a public school in the English liberal traditions, with one exception German instead of latin. Next year he'll complete his double degree of Engineering ( Electrical and Computer) and Applied Science (Mathematics)with a GPA of at least 6. I oversaw his primary and secondary tuition. In spite of some teachers but with the active co-operation of most others I made sure his English comprehension and numeracy skills were such he would be able to attain the intellect necessary to achieve high standard not only academically and socially but also intectually and practically.

Can you say the same of yours or have they been craddled to accept the lower standards on offer with the current state based education systems? Labor systems that have lowered the standards on both literacy and numeracy and have led to the explosion of University courses in 'everthing'.

Oh just in case you think the young man lucky or 'bright' at age 8, when he returned to live with me from his mother, after 6 years in NZ, he was well behind his cohort in both literacy and numeracy. Needless to say at 12 in year 8 he was starting to catch up and at 22 has far excelled many of his peers whose labor voting parents once scorned the way I meddled in his and their kids educations. I see them often and love the situation of the 'turned tables'. Where once they crowed about their kids we never speak of them now. Theirs or mine but we all know...for we've witnessed the results of my 'meddling'.

Themistocles,

I do not see evidence that the teacher unions have had the power to ‘keep intact the status quo of the postmodernist and PC superstructures that they have built on the edifice of the educational system that prevent the development of curricula founded on reason that would attract people with merit to enter the teaching profession’.

You may not be able to give me specific evidence in 350 words, but you could give me some references to something concrete, not just another person saying the same old thing without actual evidence. I have looked at the website you mention, but there is no actual evidence there.

I do not see any concentration of union power in government schools on curriculum. I was a teacher unionist for 33 years, and I cannot remember an occasion when a union branch in school discussed curriculum, though I am sure it must have happened occasionally. The union branch concentrated on the conditions of its members.

Curriculum is determined by state authorities (which may have some small union representation on them, but not always) and by decisions by schools and individual teachers, not by unions. The myth that teacher unions decide curriculum seems to be based on people repeating what other people have said in an infinite circular motion.

The pupil-teacher ratio is not too high because of a shortage of teachers but because of 1) government funding policies that cut the staffing of schools in Victoria (1992 on) and 2) government funding policies that have failed to sufficiently reverse those funding cuts (1999 on).

Kevin Rudd will have no trouble whatsoever from teacher unions in his ‘revolution’. In fact, my reading of the ALP’s national curriculum policy suggests that it will be based on reason. The trendy left does not run modern the ALP.

Chris C

You are right of course about my poverty of concrete evidence. Bur where evidence is lacking logic comes to its rescue. Before I touch on that, I admit that I should have been clearer on the issue. I am not suggesting for a moment that the teachers union determines the curriculum. I do say that the teachers union is defender of the status quo because that is where its strength lies. And this strength, as I assume you know, is CONCENTRATED in government schools, not in private ones.

Now to the rescue of logic. Being ‘a teacher unionist for 33 years’, surely you must know of the professionally incestuous relation that exists for years now between the teachers union, state authorities, industrial tribunals, schools, and individual teachers. It’s this infinite circle of touching hands, to paraphrase you, which determines the overall policies and curricula of mainly government schools. And it’s because of this incestuous relation between all these “loving” bodies that the union often endorses ‘pathetic EBAs,’ as you stated in your first post.

And of course I am aware that the “trendy left” will “not run the modern ALP” made in the image of Kevin 07. But there are many incestuous trends within the ALP and its industrial affiliates and that is where the problem lies

Themistocles,

I do not think the teachers union is a defender of the status quo at all. In my experience, it has spent decades trying to change the status quo.

There are some individuals who move between the union and the curriculum authorities, the universities and the department, but very few. I am aware of only one who ever moved from the teacher union to an industrial tribunal. Most curriculum is decided in schools, often by individual teachers in individual classrooms.

The union endorses pathetic EBAs because teachers are industrially naive and weak. Teachers get to vote on the union-endorsed deals. They can always say no, but they never do.

Secular Education since the election I have seen the light.
I now realise that Religous Teachings divide all people and Nations. We spent far too much money subsidising Religous Schools why should Tax Payers foot the bill so that our Children become brainwashed by religion. Teaching Religion is a waste of time and money. Unfortunately we have too many Policians pushing Religion that s their belief but I do not see any reason why the taxpayer should have to pay for it.