Australia is very lucky to have so much coal to sell, because if we didn’t have that coal we would have to more directly compete with other countries, and many of those countries are fast catching up to Australia in their education systems.

I’m not certain that increasing the pay of teachers will improve their performance. Normally someone improves their performance, and then they get paid more money.

”13 per cent of Australian 15-year-olds are at risk of not having the basic skills necessary for work and future citizenship”

This seems accurate, and while there has always been a correlation between education outcomes and the socioeconomic background of the students, there is now a noticeable trend in that male students are more likely to be falling behind. This is irrespective of the socioeconomic background of the students.

To improve overall student performance, the boy’s marls have to be improved.

However in the highly feminist education system, it will only be through a form of performance pay that boy’s marks will be improved. If a teacher is not prepared to improve boy’s marks, that teacher is not paid anymore money.

If they don’t like it, they get a job somewhere else.

Geoff Masters like many educationalist know that
"The factors leading to low achievement are complex. Often they are related to broader social and health issues beyond the control of the education system."

Then in the next breath they perpetrate the a huge non sequitur on us by carrying on about what schools teachers higher salaries and other nostrums etc will do.

My guess in nothing. National research, as PISA tells us without actually agreeing with it ,has not demonstrated schools can actually do anything.
Parents behavior is the key, as Hart and Risely point out. If we could at least raise the awareness of parents abilities and not go on and on about school factors. My personal uninformed view is the the clue to this merry conundrum is what the Americans call the "fourth grade slump" Education in the manner of Mathew 13(5)"Give me a child till seven" and the first 3 are most important

Richard,
The idea that parents are to blame for low student marks could very well be some type of scapegoat.

Boy’s marks have been declining for some years, but girl’s marks have not. In an average coed school, the boys and girls would come from the same parents, and from the same socioeconomic background.

So why the growing difference between boy's and girl's marks?

I would think it has more to do with what is going on inside the school, rather than what is going on outside the school, and this includes the attitude that so many teachers have developed (or been programmed to develop) regards boy students.

HRS asked me a question on how girls and boys can vary. It is easy. Firstly there has beena rise in the the expectations of girls but the expectations of boys has been static so the girls rise could out weighed the general decline. This rise has not happend to boys so you see only the decline.

Generally successfull boys or girls have the same mothers, whether or not there is a relatve change between the sexes. Much more interesting is why children with exactly the same schooling end up so different. Why is there a top and a bottom so vastly different. Why is the differences within school, classes etc greater than the differences between them

Why must HRS think I am blaming parents? My beef is with Geof Masters et al who quite clearly indicated that background is important then ignore it. At least I am not blaming feminists.

There is so much evidence of the importance of background. Betty Hart and Todd risely in their ground breaking work show clearly why. It is a book but Google hart risley 30 million word. When do educationalists point this out. If they were in medicine they would be recommending hospitals (institutions) rather than public health as major way of staying well.

Try cognitive scientists eg Martha Farah www.psych.upenn.edu/~mfarah/

Rand Org research indicates that extra curricular activities are better predictors of outcomes. Mothers level of education is important. get the connection with Hart and Risely. NBER, (the economics think tank)'s famous study of school choice indicates that been given and exercising choice of school makes no difference in Chicago. etc etc

But do parents get a guernsey from educationalists. NO. Does he recommend investment in parents NO. Teachers pay, YES

What is all the fuss about? Keeping jargon-laden educationalists in their useless jobs to invent yet more ways of keeping our young people illiterate and innumerate?

Simply go back to the old style, which worked 30-40 years ago, in the UK at least, and bring back a bit of discipline into the classroom.It's not that hard! And take calculators out of the classroom and out of exams. Teach English GRAMMAR. And teach a second preferably tonal Asian language from age 5 to 15.

The thing about schools is that they were meant to be places where all children would have the opportunity to be educated regardless of their background.

The biggest problem with schools is that they allow children to progress to the next level/grade without having achieved the outcomes required in order to be successful at the next level/grade.

Schools also hold gifted/bright children back by grading them according to their age without taking into consideration their ability and level of intelligence.

Until education becomes something that is designed to benefit individual student and until there is more flexibility within the grades and subjects, so as to cater for different needs, the majority of children will continue to be in an environment where the level presented to them is not appropriate for thier needs.

This set up is a recipe for disaster.

Education - Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
OUr children deserve better

"Simply go back to the old style, which worked 30-40 years ago, in the UK at least, and bring back a bit of discipline into the classroom.It's not that hard! And take calculators out of the classroom and out of exams. Teach English GRAMMAR. And teach a second preferably tonal Asian language from age 5 to 15."

I agree Henry, the world has not changed since 30/40 years ago. Children don't need different skills today than they did back then. Those bloody educationalists have gone and plagued our schools with computers and fandangled thinga-me-bobs. Bring back the cane, drill the crap out of them and watch the well-educated young adolescents come rolling out!

Geoff Masters has managed to write a whole article on getting qualified teachers to all students without mentioning the E-word 'EQUITY'. This might come as a surprise to those who have read the excellent ACER report on funding schools, a report which clearly shows that funding of private schools in particular disproportionately supports wealthy schools. One might assume that Geoff has read the report - he is, after all, CEO of ACER.

We won't get quality teachers in front of all students while ever the system uses public funding to widen the gaps between schools. Kevin Rudd has turned avoiding this issue into an art form. Geoff Masters is using the same easel.

Teachers are not paid well. Teachers have to complete university study, pay back their HECS debt.
In Victoria teachers spend about 10 years on contract before they get a permanent position. During that time they aren't guaranteed summer holiday pay if their contract is awaiting renewal.

Casual Relief Teachers in Victoria are paid $216 per day in New South Wales Casual Relief Teachers are paid $275+ per day. Emergency teachers are very busy in term 3 when colds and flu sweeps through.

When politicians promote performance pay as a way of improving education standards without increasing the amount of money in the wage pool they are promoting competition in the staff room which is more likely to reduce education standards.

When Geoff Masters requests clearer reporting of student performance I hope he isn't promoting the A to E reporting system where the teacher reports on your child's performance in relation to the rest of the his cohorts in the state. In NSW all children in a class in almost any school will have the same grade.

I take it bfg is being subtly ironical? When students tell teachers to f@#$ off with impunity and don't bother working because they'd rather be out partying, then the education system isn't working. Counselling won't stop that! When such students produce children who repeat that behaviour, we end up with an uneducated and ill-behaved population, despite our plethora of jargon-laden educationalists and counsellors.

There is nothing wrong in drilling children in such things as multiplication etc-it works, and it's not painful. It is a rare child that will "creatively" discover the systematics of multiplication. Hand calculators, bfg, are not PCs, they are merely adding machines, albeit these days they can do sine, cosines and a few other things. I can do sums in my head faster than the average modern "check-out chick" can do on her adding machine, and I am supposed to be in my dotage. Nor is there anything wrong in drilling children in spelling, teaching them clear hand-writing and good grammar.Though I appreciate that it is no longer fashinable. Children learn languages easily between 0 and 8 years old. THAT is the time time to teach them their second language. And it is also time to make teaching the respectable and respected profession it once used to be. Australia now lags behind Vietnam, Singapore, Korea, and Japan, and no doubt much of China in education. Time to re-invent the old wheel....

But Australia would rather play cricket or "footie", or get "pissed".

I am curious why educationalists are so resistant to the idea the we could invest a little in parents which may have a better return than the same money in schools. Almost every person I have ever met (I include Henry viii in this) would agree that the behaviour of a child is clearly an outcome of their parenting yet there is no recognition their cognitive development is much the same. It is well known, as pointed out, that learning a language is easier before 8?? but we totally ignore the fact that for more than half that period the learning environment is almost totally controlled by parents. Particularly the mother.Children learn their attitudes, how to walk and talk before 5 yet we go on and on about schools when there nothing to indicate they can actually do anything to change the preordained outcome.

HenryVII thinks it was all good in the olden days but it is not an accident the film The Black Board Jungle is from the 50s?

Careful Richard, you are arguing for improving maternal education. HRS will be annoyed that boys are further sidelined.

It is commonly argued that when you improve women's education levels the family's health improves. When the major care giver is well educated the small child is more likely to be stimulated rather than fobbed off with lies "The Great Wall was built to keep rabbits out of China" or stupid games like what colour is this [blue] ball. Child answers "blue" and adult says "no its not, it's red".

The easiest way to improve parental education standards is to improve the education standards in schools and a generation later you will see the results.

Working against this is the pressure for mothers of small children to work. More and more small children spend the day in creches which are staffed by overworked women not educated enough to get a better job. The creches are increasingly run by a large for profit organisation that provides the bare minimum care legally possible. Our politicians are squealing about paying the prime minister's child care bill, yet the grateful tax payer foots the bill for butler, maid, cook, cleaner, sommelier etc

Billie you make good sense but the problem is if you believe Andrew Leigh's research from ANU published this month the the literacy is in fact decreasing despite rising educational levels of mothers. Do we want to wait a generation when it may not happen? (Similarly kids are getting fatter and fatter even thought mother's educational levels should mean the opposite but I will not go any further)

The reason is quite simple. Educational levels of mothers is not causative it is coincidental, just as SES status is. In other words mother's educational levels themselves do nothing. Mothers have to actually do something that influences their child. It is very simple. Everybody interested in education should be familiar with Betty Hart and Todd Risleys's work but Australia seems to ignore it is.

http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2003/catastrophe.html

Mothers of highly performing children talk to their children much more and speak to them much more positively. The difference is immense but if you hang around in a supermarket and listen to mother's talking or yelling at their kids (as the case may be) you soon you soon get the picture. This sets up the kids for school. "School readiness" I will now shut up. "Thank the gods" they say.

It is rather disapointing that fathers are not being mentioned, but perhaps in a feminist education system, fathers are now null and void.

HRS, your arguments need to become a bit more multi-faceted. Constantly crying about the so called deep feminist bias in the education system is not constructive. I can pretty much read your posts with a blindfold on.

bfg,
If you can read something with a blindfold on, then you must have had a very good education, perhaps even ethereal.

I was referring to some previous posts that mentioned mothers and the educational outcomes of children. Fathers were not mentioned, and I think that this is a sign of the times.

However most things go in circles.

To get more pay, teachers will (or should) have to improve the marks of both boys and girls, however irksome that may be to certain teachers currently in the education system.

I find sweeping comments like 'highly feminist education system', somewhat distressing.