This is by far the most positive and far reaching article posted in a long time on the problem of providing an efficient teaching and learning environment in the nation's schools.
Blanket pay rises merely serve to reward those who regard the profession of teaching as a sinecure and the System is carrying far too much unproductive "dead wood" . Let's encourage the best with promotion based on performance, not promise - a common failing!
The Rudd Government would do very well indeed to heed most of the recommendations in this insightful analysis, as a lighthouse statement of goals in forging a new direction for "moving forward" our antiquated education systems.
There's a strong underlying commitment and enthusiam showing through in Simon's attitude that deserves widespread support and emulation.
Despee

I am sorry but research has consistantly showed the the quality of parenting is by far the biggest influence on school outcomes. School factors are actually quite small not withstanding the the mckinsey Report. I am also afraid also that this focus on schools rather than more important influences is simply a manifestation of the "consumer culture". Just take for example the seeming trivial but important factor of smoking while pregnant. If the 40% of teenage mothers who now smoke stopped, after a few years there would be a measurable increase in Austalia's average intelligence!

There are other influences much greater than this. the number of word spoken by mothers and the way there are spoken has a greater influence, whether children use a public library or not, in fact extracurricular is more important than curricular.

Ever since the seminal definitive? Coleman Report in the 1960s which showed that about 10% of the difference in outcomes could be attributed to schools educationalists have been brawling about whether this amount is underestimated or not but whatever the amount it is not large. Nor seemingly do any programs, at schools anywhere have a long term effect that is large enough to really get excited about.

Where is Chris C when you need him?

The author doesn't want to focus on pay rates, young teachers want to be part of a respected brand. McKinsey, an impartial group of management consultants, say that good teachers are the key differentiator between good and bad teaching outcomes. Yeah, I remember a similiar finding for ICT practitioners to justify large differentials in pay scales before the work was all sent offshore.

Simon recommends
" educational leaders must create enough opportunity, challenge and value for quality talent to stay.

This is just one example of the shift necessary to change culture and re-brand education as a career of choice. Similar tactics could be applied in the areas of:

early recruitment strategies - Gap years, cadetships and internships;
promotion procedures - promoting leaders not non-leavers;
professional development opportunities;
physical workplace environment;
new incentive and rewards structures;
structures for innovation and collaboration; and
executive leadership mentoring and development."

Now I seem to remember about 30 years ago the education department used to recruit talented students from high school, pay their tuition fees and a living allowance while they trained to be teachers. I can't imagine individual schools like "Lowbotham HIgh" or even Geelong Grammar have the resources to pay for recruits univeristy education.

While teachers pay is low, job security is zilch, and HECS debt has to be paid off any teacher lurching from 6 month contract to 6 month contract must re-evaluate their job opportunities regularly and is likely to be lost to the profession.

Here I am, Billie.

I support most of what you say.

I cannot argue with ‘the attraction, development and retention of a new generation of quality teachers and educational leaders’, but most of the article is vague generalities; e.g., “new brand for education’, ‘employer brand’, ‘building new school cultures’.

To say ‘Teacher pay has held the focus of the debate for too long and has produced no improvement in the situation’ ignores the fact, that while the subject of debate, it has not been the subject of improvement (until the recent Victorian deal, which provides a real increase to most teachers, but still leaves those at the top some $27,000 behind their 1975 relative pay). If teacher pay jumped only to the $94,202 it was in 1979, you might see an improvement in the talent going into and staying in teaching. It would also help if Victorian secondary schools were as well staffed as they were then, which would give the average school another five teachers.

There is ‘an absence of collaborative and innovative workplace environments’. I had more say as a first-year out teacher in 1974 than I did as a highly experienced leading teacher with 28 years in leadership positions in 2004, such was the growth in the principal as the big boss instead of the principal as the first among equals over that time – for no improvement in student learning. Innovation is a false god – most turns out to be unsuccessful and is discarded, though the failure of the open classroom in the 1970s has not stopped it been recycled under the Leading Schools Fund this century.

A ‘new incentive and rewards structure’ sounds like performance pay, abandoned as a failure in both the 1890s and the 1990s.

The Victorian system has been ‘allowing principals to choose their own staff’ for about fifteen years. It has created a huge workload in schools and has had no effect on student learning. It denies the economies of scale in a large organisation by making 1,600 schools do 1,600 times what needs to be done only once.

Hi billie,

Any chance you could e-mail me sometime, or phone me? You will find my contact details on my home page.

Hi Simon,
Obviously something needs to be done and some of your ideas seem to be very relevant for this period in time with the difficulties that exist now. Salary is always significant; teachers generally feel they are underpaid.

I suggest that many teachers leave the profession because of the higher percentage of administrative duties that they are now required to perform; this gives less time and energy, and frustrates the goal of helping students with their development - academic and otherwise.

So this needs to be remedied, and when the teachers have time to concentrate on working with the students, it should be a more collaborative association than an authoritarian one.
When collaborating as equals in the human sense, and sharing information to spark interest and encourage research, we create an environment that can be mutually inspiring.

When as teachers we are happy with the environment, we might see more point in staying and "fighting" for better conditions, rather than opting out.