“in fact teachers salaries in Finland in 2003 were three quarters of Australian salaries and less than half the OECD average”

Interesting, and it only supports my belief that teachers asking for more money will not improve student marks.

In terms of teachers getting more “respect”, I think that teachers have a long way to go in that area, particularly when there are teachers who believe that anything Australian is inferior, and they spend every cent they are given of taxpayer’s money on imports.

In terms of P&C’s, teachers often rule the roost, and any parent who goes to a P&C is putting their children at risk. If a parent says one word that a teacher doesn’t like, then that teacher (or school teachers) can easily take it out on their son or daughter attending the school.

Many schools are also attracting feminists, and a feminist teacher cannot be trusted with anyone’s son or daughter. If a teacher says they are feminist, best for a parent to have their son or daughter immediately removed from that class.

If well managed, of course league tables will improve schools. In fact, they are carried out in the wonderful land of Finland.

Finnish schools are measured for performance, and after years of doing this, Finnish schools now have only a 5% difference between them, regardless of the socio/economic background of the students attending the school.

The excuses of "bad parents" or "bad district" etc are rather thin excuses.

"Bad attitude" of the teacher is the number one factor in student performance.

Des,

You are right about the importance of early childhood education. I recommend anyone genuinely interested in educational reform, as opposed to the mantras or league tables, performance pay and all the other irrelevant nonsense that clogs public discourse, take a very careful look at the work the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is doing on the early childhood area. (I do not know if it is on the departmental website yet.) If done well, this has the potential to transform educational achievement in this state.

The important point about “autonomy” is that it has to be the autonomy of the individual teacher to make professional judgements about individual students and the autonomy of the teachers as a whole in each school to make judgements about the educational program, of the school. Unfortunately, “autonomy’ is often used to disguise the empowerment of principals and the disempowerment of teachers in a market-based “system”, an idea which has proved a dismal failure in the last 15 years in this state and which is being slowly reversed – just as WA foolishly copies it.

Indeed, some of the lessons now forgotten were learnt more than 30 years ago. I taught in a disadvantaged high school with principals who knew how to work with their teachers (all of whom were centrally appointed and none of whom had access to performance pay or even had to endure performance reviews), with real curriculum autonomy and no strategic plan or accountability regimen, with better staffing - and thus smaller classes, lower teaching loads and extensive remedial programs - than most schools have today and with the additional funds of the Commonwealth Disadvantaged Schools program. The current eduction decision-makers ought to look up the evaluation reports in the archives.

I discussed this thread with a former colleague his comment: We live in an education world where experts and others march around in circles, revisiting education and schooling cemeteries, noting in passing on each circuit whatever is on the many headstones; some few warriors taking up the cudgel for a round or two for a particular methodology, a smaller number actually changing their respective allegiances but overall to limited impact. Moments of glory only.
I note that a partly funded 'independent' school teacher is having some success and publicity (other such schools have shown interest) with teaching adolescent girls and boys manners and politeness - all very nice, boys opening doors, eating the right way etc. Reads like 1895 St Peters. So what can one expect but that schooling as ranking and dividing is also re-visited on the circuit and in the cemetery."
he is right, much of the debate is about old wine in new bottles; rather ironic since education is supposed to be about learning yet it seems that we have learnt very little from past successes and failures.

vanna,

Andrew Leigh has done work that shows the substantial decline in relative teacher pay over the past three decades has been accompanied by a decline in entry scores for teacher training, suggesting that lower pay leads to a decline in the ability of those entering teaching, which in turn suggests that the restoration of teacher pay to the levels of, say, the 1970s, would lead to an increase in the ability those entering teaching and thus in educational achievement.

It is unlikely that you know what teachers spend their money on. You would have to follow them around 24/7 and have access to their credit cards and cheque book statements. If they buy imports, that is the modern economy. Protectionism would make Australia an economic backwater.

You talk about P&Cs as if they had a significant formal say in running schools. This may be the case in some states. In Victoria, it is not. Victorian schools are run in general terms by largely elected school councils of parents, teachers, community members and, in secondary schools, students, and have been for more than 30 years. Parents form the majority on the school council, which appoints the principal and determines the school’s policies.

In 33years, I never saw a teacher punish a student for the actions of a parent.

I think you have misunderstood something in your statement about Finland. Five per cent of the difference between students is explained by the school they attend. That is not the same as saying that schools vary by only five percent. The statistical data is very clear: the biggest factor in student performance is what the student brings to school, not what the school does, not what the teacher does.

Finland does not have league tables. Perhaps you are confusing this with its participation in PISA tests.

Chris C
There is only a 5% difference in average marks between schools in Finland, and disciplinary issues are almost non-existent. Their university system is also quite different to Australia's, with their system more like a mentoring system, as opposed to our university system that has become like a mass production assembly line.

The other significant aspect of Finland’s education system is that primary school students don’t start grade 1 until they are 7, and then only for ½ a day.

This is contrary to our system that takes the child as young as possible and installs them in a day care centre, followed by pre-school, followed by primary school, followed by secondary school. The children are very much a product of the state under our system, with very little time for unorganized play, and very little time to simply be themselves.

While teachers like to point the finger at parents, who are the children most likely to be disadvantaged, and what type of families do they come from?

Not the family type that has increased over 10 fold in the last few decades, and now, not only does this family type have the highest rates of child poverty, but also the highest rates of child neglect, child abuse, run away children, underage smoking, underage drinking, underage sex, teenage pregnancy and teenage involvement in crime.

If teachers believe that children are being disadvantaged by their parents (or parent), then why don’t teachers say something about the family type most likely to disadvantage a child.

I think that because the education system is so feminist, any teacher that says something about single parent families will find themselves on the dole line faster than they can say “give me an increase in pay”.

For P&C's, I would not recommend any parent belongs to one or attend any meetings. If a teacher in the school has children attending the school, then that teacher can go to a P&C, but often these teachers are quite militant, and the P&C meetings are often overrun by teachers.

I've got it now - vanna/HRS/Timkins/Timithy's ex-wife is a teacher, who was educated at an Australian university.

That would explain his entire woeful posting history, under his various aliases.