Just for a change, we’re asking a non-rhetorical question. So, ignoring the fact that ScoMoFo is a thug, and ignoring the fact that “Dumbo” Dan Tehan is a thug, is it time for schools to reopen?
Our suspicion is that, at least in Victoria, the answer is “no”. We haven’t thought hard about it, however. So, while we (try to find time to) think some more, we’d be interested in what others have to say.
Very quickly, here are the arguments we see for opening schools in Victoria:
Federal health officials suggest schools are safe.
The NSW study (not yet peer-reviewed) suggests schools are safe.
Childminding.
Year 12 students are getting seriously dicked around.
Here are the arguments we see for keeping schools in Victoria closed:
ScoMoFo is an idiot.
Dumbo Dan makes ScoMoFo look smart.
Daniel Andrews and his Chief Medical Officer are not idiots.
No one has a real sense of what will happen when restrictions ease.
Dan Tehan, the Federal minister for screwing up education, has announced a rescue package for Australia’s universities. This was clearly necessary, since the universities are no longer in a position to fleece international students. The package guarantees funding for the universities, and introduces a range of cheap six-month courses in “areas considered national priorities”.
The government’s package is “unashamedly focused on domestic students”. That was inevitable since:
a) the government, and Tehan in particular, doesn’t give a stuff about international students;*
The Government said prices would be slashed for six-month, remotely delivered diplomas and graduate certificates in nursing, teaching, health, IT and science provided by universities and private tertiary educators.
OK, so ignoring all the other nonsense, we have a few questions about those six-month online teaching diplomas:
And, if so, what does that tell us of the intrinsic worth of those standard 24-month Masters?
To be clear, we have no doubt that six months is plenty sufficient for the initial training of a teacher, and indeed is at least five months too many. We also have no doubt that a diploma-trained teacher has the same chance to be a good teacher as someone who has suffered a Masters. They have a better chance, in fact, since there will have been less time to pervert natural instincts and feelings and techniques with poisonous edu-babble.
But, good or bad, who is going to give these diploma teachers a shot? Then, if the teachers should be and are given a shot, who is going to address the contradiction, the expensive and idiotic orthodoxy of demanding two year post-grad teaching degrees?
*) Or anyone, but international students are near the bottom.
This post is inspired by an article by Tomas Pueyo, which I believe is compelling reading for understanding the growth of and the control of the COVID-19 outbreak:
I have no idea who Pueyo is, I cannot vouch for his data, and commenters are free to argue against his analysis and his conclusions. I do not claim to know what Pueyo’s analysis might imply for how any particular city or country should be responding at any particular time.
I’m not sure where this post, or this blog, might go for the next while. Nothing is as important to society right now as managing COVID-19. Ironically, I’ll probably have plenty of time sitting at home in the next weeks or months, to write on the standard maths ed topics.
I plan to update this post from time to time, with links to articles and reports that, to my amateur eye, seem considered and important. In general the articles will be linked without comment; linking them means I believe they are worth reading, but I am not pretending to be an expert and I am open to counterclaim on anything. Commenters are also welcome to suggest articles; I may then update the post with a link up high. My general intention, however, is to have fewer articles, of high quality.
To be clear, this post is not particularly intended to be a forum for naive mathematical models, and I don’t intend to engage in that. I’ll also try to lay off the snarkiness, at least in the actual post. Commenters can comment as they wish. If, for example, some Liberal clown or some Greens clown says something stupid on social media, feel free to call it out. But the post itself is intended to promote clear-headed analyses. My other posts will continue to be as charmingly snarky as ever.
UPDATE (19/03/20)
Link 1 Here is the link to the original article, by Thomas Pueyo, that inspired this post:
Below are a few more links (and link 2 above has been redirected). The top two come from David Nagayam Nayagam a sciency friend of ours who sends article-links to an email list. David mostly links to technical-clinical articles. If you want to be added to David’s list, you can email David directly.
More links below, from David Nagayam Nayagam. You can still email David directly, if you wish to be added to his email list. (Also, David’s twitter account contains more day to day information, plus howling at Australia’s idiocy.)
Link 8 University College London National Research Group’s tracking for each country
You’re wrong, Morals. It is personal. Many, many people are disgusted by your person. They are disgusted because you’re a sanctimonious, unprincipled, greasy huckstering halfwit who deserves to fry in Hell if only for the sheer loathsome meaninglessness of your government. Fuck you, fuck the mining lizardmen and Murdoch gargoyles who cover for you, and fuck all the dumb fucks who allowed themselves to be conned into voting for you.
Australian is going to the polls today, with that smirking, rightwing clown attempting to be elected Prime Minister. And of course we’ll all be cheering for him to beat Scott Morrison.
The fact that the ignorant, science denying, happy clapping, coal-hugging thug pictured above even has a shot at winning indicates the appalling low level of political discourse. We shouldn’t be surprised, of course, but for some reason we are.
Back in 2014, the Maths Masters wrote a column on then Prime Minster Tony Abbott’s climate denialism, entitled How to be Liberal with the Truth. Our editor rejected the column as a “diatribe”, which was fair enough, and we took the rejection in our stride. Nonetheless, our editor passed the diatribe to the Age‘s op-ed desk which published the column as Tony Abbott is a liar: It’s a mathematical truth. Our diatribe was a hit.
The diatribe ended with a prediction:
But what of Tony? Will he be remembered as a liar? Probably, but probably he’ll be remembered for much more. Eventually, and more likely sooner rather than later, global warming will be undeniable. Truly undeniable.Which means Abbott should go down in history as the Australian Prime Minister, the last Australian Prime Minister, to deny physical reality.
We were wrong then. But, maybe now Australia will finally be done with anti-science idiots.
Update
Geez, Australians are dumb. And Queenslanders are dumber.
Tanya Plibersek, Australian Labor’s Shadow Minister for Education, has just been reaching out to the media. Plibersek has objected to the low ATAR sufficient for school leavers to gain entry to a teaching degree, and she has threatened that if universities don’t raise the entry standards then Labor may impose a cap on student numbers:
We [should] choose our teaching students from amongst the top 30 per cent …
This raises the obvious question: why the top 30 per cent of students? Why not the top 10 per cent? Or the top 1 per cent? If you’re going to dream an impossible dream, you may as well make it a really good one.
Plibersek is angry at the universities, claiming they are over-enrolling and dumbing down their teaching degrees, and of course she is correct. Universities don’t give a damn whether their students learn anything or whether the students have any hope of getting a job at the end, because for decades the Australian government has paid universities to not give a damn. The universities would enrol carrots if they could figure out a way for the carrots to fill in the paperwork.
The corruption of university teaching enrolment, however, has almost nothing to do with the poor quality of school teachers and school teaching. The true culprits are the neoliberal thugs and the left wing loons who, over decades, have destroyed the very notion of education and thus have reduced teaching to a meaningless, hateful and hated profession, so that with rare exceptions the only people who become teachers are those with either little choice or little sense or a masochistically high devotion to civic duty.
If Plibersek wants “teaching to be as well-respected as medicine” then perhaps Labor could stick their neck out and fight for a decent increase in teachers’ wages. Labor could fight for the proper academic control of educational disciplines so that there might be a coherent and deep Australian curriculum for teachers to teach. Labor could fight against teachers’ Sisyphean reporting requirements and against the swamping over-administration of public schools. Labor could promise to stop, entirely, the insane funding of poisonously wealthy private schools. Labor could admit that for decades they have been led by soulless beancounters and clueless education hacks, so as much as anyone they have lost sight of what education is and how a government can demand it.
But no. Plibersek and Labor choose an easy battle, and a stupid, pointless battle.
None of this is to imply that Labor’s opponents are better. Nothing could be worse for education, or anything, than the sadistic, truth-killing Liberal-National psychopaths currently in power.
But we expect better from Labor. Well, no we don’t. But once upon a time we did.
Update (27/02/19)
Tanya Plibersek has announced a new Labor policy, to offer $40,000 grants for “the best and the brightest” to do teaching degrees, and to go on to teach in public schools. Of course Plibersek’s suggestion that this will attract school duxes and university medal winners into teaching is pure fantasy, but it’s a nanostep in the right direction.
The school in question is Richmond West Primary School. It is my daughter’s school and it is a lovely school. So, I have a deep interest in this issue and a strong opinion on it.
There are innumerable reasons to vote against Matthew Guy and his loathsome Liberal and National mates on Saturday, and Guy’s neanderthal stance on Richmond’s safe injecting room should be high on everybody’s list.
