[W]ho are the education academics in Australia who specialise in mathematics teaching and who advocate for explicit teaching, times tables etc.?
Ashman has a decently large following, but the replies to his question were tellingly non-existent. The only specific people suggested were the very non-Australian Jim Milgram, a hard core Stanford mathematician who took time off to wallop Jo Boaler, and Stephen Norton, a Griffith University education academic who appears solid and thoughtful, and barely visible. Anyone else?
The time for submissions to ACARA’s review has ended. Which means it’s now time for machinations and clandestine transactions. One hopes that our Glorious Mathematical Leaders know who they are dealing with and how to deal with them.* In the main, we’ll get back to posting on other topics.** Still, there are ACARA irritants remaining, things left unwritten, and when we’re sufficiently irritated we’ll post on it.
One constant irritant has the been the “it’s all there” defenses of ACARA’s draft. Yes, so it goes, there is an increased emphasis on inquiry/modelling/whatever, but not at the expense of basic skills.
“We absolutely have to focus on problem solving [but there should also be] an equal focus on building fluency”.
So, it’s not “strategies/efficiency/skills/content” versus “problem solving/reasoning/exploring/thinking”:
“Great Maths teachers do both!”
See? The problem isn’t with the ACARA draft curriculum. The problem is that you’re not a great maths teacher.
We haven’t paid much attention to this, since there have been much smellier fish to fry. Still, it is worth some attention.
In April, Alan Tudge launched a Review into Initial Teacher Education, and in June a Discussion Paper was released, with an invitation for submissions. Today (midnight?) is the cut-off for submissions.*
We wrote on Tudge’s launching of the Review and, prior to that, on Tudge’s speech on general educational issues. We gave both a “meh” review. In particular in regard to ITE, we couldn’t get that excited, since reforming ITE can have no great effect while teachers are released into the current moribund, admin-bloated, directionless, culture-free educational system. Training a Jack Brabham and then throwing him into a Morris Minor is not gonna win you a lot of races.
Still, there are things worth saying, and so it is probably worth saying them for the Review. We’ll submit something.
The Discussion Paper for the Review seems well-written, although it is largely concerned with formal detail of little interest to us (and perhaps of questionable importance). Responses to the discussion paper are then intended to be guided by questions appearing at the end of each section. Again, most of these questions do not concern us, but a few seem suitable for the anchoring of criticisms. The following are the questions to which we intend to reply, followed by an indication of how we might reply:
What can be done to attract more high-achievers and career changers to the profession?
(Um, make the job not suck? Have a coherent curriculum, which assumes and encourages a culture of learning, and get rid of the endemic Little Hitlerism.)
What features of the current ITE system may prevent high-quality mid- to late-career professionals transitioning to teaching?
(Everything. It is all pointless. For everyone. One learns to teach by teaching, and the rest is trivial.)
What are the main reasons ITE students leave an ITE course before completion?
(Perhaps a distaste for insanity.)
Are the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers fit for purpose in identifying the key skills and knowledge pre-service teachers need to be ready for the classroom?
(The Professional Standards are not fit for wrapping yesterday’s garbage.)
How can ITE providers best support teachers in their ongoing professional learning?
(By staying as far away as possible.)
Do the current HALT (Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers) arrangements support the education ecosystem, particularly in relation to ensuring quality mentoring and supervision of ITE students?
(Of course not. “Highly accomplished” doesn’t mean highly accomplished, it means playing the game and playing it safe. Genuinely highly accomplished teachers take risks and make errors and put noses out of joint; these teachers, who are the true leaders, will seldom if ever be recognised by any such system.)
Does ACER’s Literacy and Numeracy Test Suck Balls?**
(Yes.)
*) Notably there is no ACARAesque sheep-herding survey, and submissions can simply be written as text, or uploaded as a Word/PDF file.
**) The Discussion paper mentions ACER’s test, but somehow failed to question its worth. We’ve corrected their oversight.
The most encouraging part of Tudge’s speech was the promised scrutiny of teacher training and, in particular, of the pointless, ridiculous and actively destructive 2-year Masters that is currently required. Now, about a week ago, Tudge’s office issued a media release, announcing a review into initial teacher education. The media release was accompanied by a Tudge-fed puff piece in the Australian Financial Review (paywalled). What follows is our annotation of Tudge’s media release, followed by a quick discussion of the AFR report.
Initial teacher education review launched
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has today launched a review of initial teacher education, a key element of the government’s ambition to lift Australian school standards.
A key element? Well, that is depressing.
Last month, the Minister outlined a new target to return Australia to the top group of education nations globally by 2030, noting that our school standards have steadily slipped over the last two decades.
The review of initial teacher education courses is the most critical element towards lifting standards,
No, it is not.
noting that the quality of teaching is the most important in-school factor influencing student achievement.
Yes, it is. Initial teacher training, however, has, and can have, almost no bearing on the quality of teaching. Pretty much all ITE can do is get in the way and screw people up and piss people off.
The review will address two key questions: how to attract and select high-quality candidates into the teaching profession,
You need a review to tell you to have the job pay more and not be so burdened with government-imposed garbage?
and how to prepare them to become effective teachers.
You can’t. Give it up. Teachers learn by teaching and reflecting and teaching, and that’s pretty much it. KKK.
Since 2006, the number of top students choosing to study education has declined by a third, and many teachers are still graduating from their courses insufficiently prepared to teach in a classroom.
What does this mean? No one is prepared for their first class.
The review will be conducted by a panel chaired by former Department of Education and Training Secretary Lisa Paul AO PSM, supported by:
Malcolm Elliott – President of the Australian Primary Principals Association
Derek Scott – 2019 Australian School Principal of the Year
Bill Louden AM – Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Western Australia
We do not know these people, but some form of reverse Groucho applies. Anybody who has risen to prominence in the current educational system is almost certainly unqualified to review the current educational system.
The first public discussion paper will be released by June, followed by a period of public consultation. The review will be completed in six months.
This is Sirens of Titan. Is there any evidence that at any time, in any place, “public consultation” has had any effect whatsoever?
Minister Tudge said Australia’s teachers are some of the most dedicated and hard-working in the world and the review would help grow and support the workforce.
One of the main aspects of being an adult is learning to judge people on what they do, rather than on what they say. If only we had more adults.
“Particularly over the last year, we have seen how important our teachers are to Australian kids and we want to provide them with the best platform to produce better student outcomes,” Minister Tudge said.
“We used to consistently be in the top group of education nations and I am confident we can get there again.
If you are, you’re a fool.
“The recommendations of this review will help ensure we attract high-quality, motivated candidates into teaching and develop them into teachers with the skills our students need.
No it won’t, and no it won’t.
“We want the finest students choosing to be teachers and we also want to make it easier for accomplished mid- and late-career individuals to transition into the profession, bringing their extensive skills and knowledge into our school classrooms.
This seems to be hinting at having at least some prospective teachers avoid the idiot Masters. Of course, all prospective teachers should be permitted to avoid the idiot Masters.
The review builds on the reforms the government has already made to improve ITE, including assessing and accrediting ITE courses and testing graduates’ literacy and numeracy before they can enter a classroom to teach.
Meaning ACER’s grotesque and pointless literacy and numeracy test? That’s an example of the brilliance to be expected from this review? Lord spare us.
The media release is not great, although it is standard to oversell the importance of such a review, and to avoid declaring the pre-determined conclusions. More forthright is the accompanying puff by AFR education editor, Julie Hare (paywalled). Hare’s Tudge-fed piece, titled Alan Tudge’s 10-year plan to get schools back to basics, is both encouraging and deeply discouraging.
The encouraging aspect of Hare’s piece is Tudge’s explicit questioning of value the 2-years Masters:
“People just used to have to do a nine-month diploma of education. And that was when our education standards were much higher. In the UK, it’s a nine-month diploma and their education standards are going up, not down. So if others can do it, and we have done it in the past, I can’t see why we can’t do it in the future.”
One discouraging aspect is Tudge’s genuflecting to “technology”, pretending that Khan Academy or some such nonsense is going to help. That “quality of teaching” thing sure lasted a long time. And, much more discouraging, it is pretty clear that Tudge, and Hare, have absolutely no clue what “basics” means.
Hare’s report goes on and on and on and on about Australia’s PISA scores. It is a theorem, if someone rabbits on about “basics” and PISA (and/or NAPLAN) then they have no clue about the meaning of either “basics” or PISA, or both.
Overall, we’ll give Tudge another C+ for this one. Tudge tries, but he is just a C kind of student.
UPDATE (27/04/21)
Tudge is about to give a speech at The Age Schools Summit, whatever the Hell that is, and has given early access to his speech, at least to The Age. It seems clear that Tudge thinks it’s all about “the quality of teachers”, nothing about funding and, incredibly, nothing about Australia’s education system being intrinsically and fundamentally fucked. If Tudge clearly doesn’t realise the idiocy is entrenched in ACARA and State authorities, administered by the high-profile clowns that he’s about to pal around with, then fuck him. He’s useless.
UPDATE (27/04/21)
Below is Tudge’s press conference from April 15, announcing the ITE review. The discussion is more wide-ranging than the media release, and is more encouraging. Tudge says some of the same dumb things, but he also says some smart things, starting around 6:00. (Lisa Paul, who will head the review, says some really dumb things, starting around 10:30).
Most people will be aware that Australia’s rollout of coronavirus vaccines is being threatened by a dangerous clot. But it’s not just Greg Hunt. As well as the Health Minister there are a number of other problems, including a second, worrying clot.
Of course, ScoMoFo and his team of incompetent goons have screwed up Australia’s vaccination program, and of course they’re too busy image-managing and blame-shifting to work to fix it up. But there is also a serious question about the AstraZeneca vaccine and the prevalence of dangerous blood-clotting.
In brief, is the AstraZeneca vaccine sufficiently safe to warrant its use? How likely is the vaccine to protect a person, and protect them from what? What are the dangers of the vaccine, how likely are the dangers to eventuate, and how dangerous are the dangers?
We’re open-minded on the question, we haven’t looked hard for trustworthy answers, and we’d appreciate it if anyone can point us to reasonable and reliable evidence. We’ll happily work to digest any good-faith analyses, and will look to write about it in future posts. It would not surprise us if we ended up being convinced that the AstraZeneca vaccine, although not without significant risks, is worth the risks. But, as it stands, we’re not convinced.
One thing that does absolutely nothing to convince us that the AstraZeneca vaccine is sufficiently safe is pronouncements from ScoMoFo and GregHunt that the vaccine is sufficiently safe. Declarations from these self-interested con men, on anything, are worthless. We are also not at all comforted by government apparatchik’s chanting “no proven link”, as if some formal proof of a link rather than statistical evidence is the critical issue right now. All these people may be telling the truth, but they are so heavily invested in manipulation and crowd management that it is impossible to tell.
We look forward to reading, and writing upon, whatever non-crazy material is thrown our way.
Jacob Howland is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Tulsa. For the last couple of years Howland has been watching the demise of his university, and the perversion of other American universities from the same anti-academic forces. (Of course, Australian universities are entirely immune from such anti-academic perversions.) This has come together in Howland’s article,
The Campus as Factory: corporatist progressivism and the crisis of American education.
What follows is Minister Tudge’s speech,* with our brief thoughts – critical and supportive – interlaced. At the end, we give a quick summary of our thoughts.
My argument today is that we are not yet living up to this aspiration of a world class education system set out in [the Alice Springs Mparntwe] Declaration where every child is reaching their potential. In fact, based on international benchmarks, we have moved further away from it over the last twenty years.
I want to take you through the evidence of this and outline where I believe we need to focus to lift school standards and realise the aspiration of that Declaration. There are many great reforms already in place, but more will need to be done.
We should set ourselves a new goal of being back amongst the world’s best within a decade.
We will only achieve this if we work together. The Australian Government does not run schools, and no state or sector can achieve this goal alone. My approach will always be to work collaboratively with those who share the ambition of a world-class education system that provides opportunities for every student.
I have spent two decades involved in schools policy in some form – from working with Dr Brendan Nelson when he was Education Minister, to assisting with some of the toughest schooling challenges in remote communities as Noel Pearson’s Deputy Director, to being a founder of Teach for Australia, and then in parliament, as a member of the Parliamentary Education Committee and as the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary looking after indigenous affairs.
We know very little about it, but our understanding is that Teach for Australia is a very good thing. (EDIT 13/03/21: And maybe not. See the comments below.)
Noel Pearson’s work on education seems worth evaluating and difficult to evaluate, and we won’t attempt it here. We have not much liked anything we have read by Pearson, and he may be a fool. But, at least Pearson doesn’t suffer other fools, and he’s put his heart and soul into trying something different. We’re open-minded.
I have learnt that there is no silver bullet in education. However, I have also learnt that there is good evidence of what works, and that if we are focused, amazing things can be achieved. This is about our children and our nation’s future so what can be more important!
Where I want to start the discussion today, however, is on school funding. I have watched or been involved in the funding debate for many years and I am pleased that the school funding wars are now over.
Yes. We lost.
Funding for schools has increased by 38% in real per capita terms over the last decade. The School Resourcing Standard model for funding schools has been agreed by the Commonwealth with all State and Territory governments.
Since 2013, the Australian Government’s school funding has increased in nominal terms by 80% to a record $23.4 billion, and we have committed a further 40% increase to reach $32.8 billion by 2029. From 2013 to 2029, government schools funding will increase the most by 193%, catholic schools by 109% and independent schools by 161%.
The federal funding is locked in and agreed through to the end of the decade. The states and territories will need to live up to their side of the bargain also, but with record funding to all schools, our focus is now on how to use the money not how much schools should get or the distribution between the sectors.
Tudge really is an asshole. The federal funding of private schools is obscene.
I mentioned at the outset that over the last two decades, international benchmarks suggest we are moving away from the ministerial aspiration of a world class education system. Our standards have dropped in both absolute terms and relative to other countries.
Consider the evidence, as provided by the most authoritative international assessments: the OECD’s PISA tests of 15 year olds.
Since 2000, Australia’s performance in reading has declined by 26 points, or the equivalent of nine months of schooling.
In maths, we have fallen 33 points since 2003, or by 14 months of schooling.
Tudge is, of course, unaware that PISA’s testing of mathematics is garbage. No one should pay any attention whatsoever to PISA.
In science, we have fallen 24 points since 2006, or by 11 months of schooling.
This decline has been consistent across different groups of students. Our top students are less likely to score in the highest achievement bands and our lower performing students are more likely to have fallen below the proficient standard. The problem is not a growing divide in student results; it is a decline in performance across the board.
As our student results have fallen, we have dropped behind more and more countries.
In the early 2000s, we ranked 4th internationally in reading, 8th in science, and 11th in maths. By 2018, we had fallen to 16th in reading, 17th in science and 29th in maths.
We are being significantly outcompeted in our neighbourhood. For example, Australian students are now, on average, about one and a half years behind Singaporean students when it comes to reading and science, and three years behind on maths.
But it is not just the Asian tigers that have leapt ahead of us. The UK, Canada and New Zealand – all countries we used to outperform in education – are now ahead of us on all three assessment domains.
If this was our economy, this decline would be a national topic of conversation. Perhaps the lack of attention is because the decline has been gradual rather than sudden. But when viewed over a twenty-year period, it is profound – and it will have consequences for our long-term productivity and competitiveness if we cannot lift our education performance.
Two other international tests do not show quite the decline as PISA. TIMMS (which covers mathematics and science) and PIRLS (which covers reading literacy) have shown slight upticks recently. Our performance in TIMSS in 2019, especially in Year 8, was promising and perhaps an early indicator of a turnaround. I hope this is the case.
A false hope. TIMSS is an excellent international test of Year 4 and Year 8 mathematics (and science), and our education overlords should really, really really be paying attention to what it tests and Australia’s (woeful) performance. But “Australia” did not improve in 2019: all of the improvement indicated by the Year 8 TIMSS results was in New South Wales.
There is no consensus as to why our performance has declined over the last twenty years.
It is certainly not because of a decline in funding. As outlined, our funding has gone up considerably in real per capita terms while at the same time our standards have declined.
Nor is it class sizes which have steadily declined over the past few decades and are now considerably smaller than other countries that significantly outperform us. Moreover, many of our schools are now brand new, with facilities that older generations look at with envy.
But these things don’t have as much of an impact as what happens inside the classroom. The quality of the teaching, the rigour of the curriculum and the discipline in the classroom matter most.
Tudge is correct, and this is hugely important. The blowing of money on polo fields and technological snake oil hasn’t helped, and Tudge ignores the massive and insane administrative-accountability burden that has been placed upon teachers. Nonetheless, he is correct. KKK.
So how do we get Australia back to being amongst the best in the world?
The first step has been done; state and territory ministers, along with the former federal minister, have agreed the ambition to be world class.
Whoa. Big first step. Let’s all be sure to catch our breath.
But we should go further.
Really? That first step was just so helpful, maybe that’s enough.
We should set ourselves a 2030 target to be again amongst the top group of nations across the three major domains of reading, maths and science. We used to consistently be in the top group, which means we can get there again.
Fine. By what measure of success? PISA results? TIMSS results?
I will be taking this to the next Education Ministers Meeting in April.
Such a target would then become a guiding principle and place urgency to the task.
Ten years is a reasonable, while ambitious, timeframe to again be amongst the top nations. By achieving the goal, we would be living up to the aspiration of giving Australian students the opportunity to achieve their best.
We have many building blocks already in place to achieve the target.
For example, there are already great initiatives in place across a variety of areas and I commend the state education ministers and Minister Tehan and Birmingham for these. This includes accreditation of initial teacher education courses, the Year 1 phonics check, the national unique student identifier, a new education evidence institute, and many more reforms.
Great to see phonics noted. The teaching of reading in primary schools is arguably worse and more damaging than the teaching of arithmetic.
I will continue to work with the state and territory ministers to implement these initiatives. They will make a considerable impact.
I will also prioritise new reform areas in the months ahead to accelerate our progress.
Building on our progress to date, my focus and the Government’s focus will be on three areas: quality teaching, particularly initial teacher education, curriculum and assessment. In addition, I will be leading a continued focus on indigenous students, particularly those in remote communities, whose level of educational attainment remains catastrophically poor.
Let me start with quality teaching.
We have tens of thousands of passionate teachers who transform our children’s lives, giving them skills that they seem to magically acquire. After parents, they are frequently the most important person in a child’s life, and in some cases, the most important person.
Quality teaching is by far the most important in-school factor in determining student performance. If we get this right, we will achieve our goal.
Tudge is correct.
Consider: a student with a teacher in the top 10% of effectiveness achieves in a half a year what a student with a teacher in the bottom 10 percent achieves in a year. That is, a good teacher has twice the impact of a poorer teacher on student learning.
What does this even mean? How does one begin to quantify “effectiveness” and “achievement” and “impact”? This numerology suggests that Tudge has no clue how to evaluate the quality of a teacher or their teaching.
Most of the challenge of quality teaching lies with the states and the non-government education authorities who employ the teachers and run the schools. They manage the issues associated with salaries, conditions, hiring, and firing. There is still much work to do on this front to better reward the brilliant teachers and to more easily let go the ones who are better suited in alternative careers.
The federal government’s main leverage over quality teaching is its funding of universities to deliver Initial Teacher Education courses, and through the provision of high-quality teacher professional development.
All teacher professional development is pointless and a waste of everybody’s time, as a matter of fact and, pretty much, of necessity. Teachers learn by teaching, then reflecting, then teaching again, and that’s pretty much it. KKK.
Our Initial Teacher Education courses play two central roles – selecting the future teacher workforce and then training that workforce.
Top-performing education systems set high standards for who becomes a teacher. They know and apply Michael Barber’s maxim that, ‘the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers’.
Finland, for example, rigorously assesses potential teachers through standard school leaver exams, additional tests of critical thinking, and mock teaching activities. Only one in 10 applicants make the grade. Singapore has a similar level of selectiveness.
Once selected, top-performing systems ensure that teachers are rigorously trained, equipped with the skills, confidence and knowledge to be highly effective from day one in the classroom. The best ITE courses are focused on practical capabilities, essential content knowledge, and proven pedagogical strategies rather than fads. For example, primary teachers in Singapore are rigorously trained in systematic and explicit teaching of grammar – a key to great literacy teaching.
This is sounding better. We’re not convinced that Finland is the great role model it is sometimes presented as, but at least Tudge is saying the right words. The noting of teaching grammar, which is currently non-existent in primary schools, is particularly good to see.
In Australia, we have made real inroads into the task of raising standards in the selection and training of our teachers in the last few years.
No we haven’t.
Guided by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) recommendations, every initial teacher education course must now be assessed and accredited. This is a big breakthrough that over time will be fundamental to improving student outcomes.
We very much doubt it. Before reading Tudge’s speech we had not heard of the TEMAG report or the Government response. To us, it appears to be very much the standard swill.
Further, every teaching student now sits a test before graduation to ensure they have personal literacy and numeracy skills that are in the top 30 per cent of the adult population. If they do not pass the test, they cannot enter the classroom to teach.
ACER’s literacy and numeracy test is pointless and evil. We haven’t yet written on this obscenity, but it is on the list.
In addition, we have invested in Teach for Australia, a proven model that I helped found, that supports an accelerated pathway into the classroom for top graduates from non-teaching faculties.
We have made good progress, but there is still room for improvement.
We are still not consistently attracting the best students into teaching.
So you’re gonna offer teachers more money and make the job less shithouse? Or, is that suggestion too weirdly free market for you?
Moreover, some teachers are still graduating from their courses insufficiently prepared to teach in a classroom either because there has been too much focus on theory at the expense of practice, or because evidence-based teaching methods are not taught. I hear this consistently from school principals and graduates alike.
The OECD data backs this up: teachers in Australia feel less well prepared than the OECD average across curriculum content, pedagogy, managing student behaviour and monitoring student development.
La Trobe University has recently offered a short course in teaching phonics to existing teachers. A thousand teachers have signed up already. It is great that they offer this course and teachers are keen to learn, but it is an indictment on some education faculties that they were not taught this in the first place given how clear the evidence is.
The next evolution of reforms is needed, to build from the TEMAG reforms. I will soon be launching a review to help shape such reforms. This review will investigate where there is still further work to do to ensure that all ITE courses are high-quality and adequately prepare our teachers to be effective from day one.
This has been talked about for almost two decades now, going back to the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy in 2005, so l will be impatient with education faculties that are not implementing evidence-based practices. It is the kids that miss out!
This is very good to read, but the weak point is the term “evidence-based”. What counts as evidence, and who will evaluate the evidence? Think of the craziest education idea, and you’ll be able find “evidence” to back it, and an education “authority” claiming to be convinced by that evidence.
Further, for many of the changes that a sane person would make, is any evidence required or helpful? Does anyone need evidence, for example, that if kids aren’t sitting still and paying attention to a teacher then they’ll learn bugger all? Sure, Tudge needs “evidence” for political reasons, but to appreciate the major educational and cultural changes required, all one needs is a sense of history, a pair of eyes and a brain.
I will also be looking for mechanisms to enable school principals and expert teachers to have a greater input over the content and delivery of teacher education courses in a similar way that practitioners and employers are in medicine and law.
We need to find additional pathways to attract outstanding students to teaching, including talented mid-career professionals.
This is very good. Intended or otherwise, it is more viewing teaching as vocational rather than professional.
Twenty years ago, when our standards were higher, a person could be trained to become a teacher through a one-year Diploma. Now it takes a minimum of a two year Masters. It would be a rare mid-career person who could afford to take two years off work. Shorter pathways are required.
For everyone. The push from a 1-Year Graduate Diploma to a 2-year Masters was monumentally stupid: needless, costly torture to trainee teachers, and almost certainly lowering teaching standards.
We need a system that recognises that many professionals have deep expertise and relevant experience that would make them highly impactful teachers. I would love to see more engineers and accountants, for example, using their mathematical expertise to help us address our critical shortage of maths teachers.
In the end, the quality of teaching is the most important factor in student outcomes. It is my most important priority when it comes to schooling.
That Tudge listed this as his first and most important priority is very good.
My second area of focus will be on the Australian Curriculum, which is currently under review by ACARA.
Tudge is presumably unaware that ACARA is run by clowns.
This is an opportunity for us to take a step change improvement and put us on the pathway to again being amongst the top nations.
The Alice Springs Declaration sets the objective of ‘promoting [a] world-class curriculum’. It is the right objective: without a world-class curriculum, we will not achieve world-class learning outcomes.
The curriculum sets the standard for the student outcomes we expect – and so our curriculum must reflect our aspiration to be among the best in the world again.
This can be done by benchmarking our curriculum standards against top performing countries like Singapore and using this analysis to set our expectations for student learning.
As with “evidence-based”, benchmarking is easily gamed and is effectively pointless, except for political purposes.
Education Ministers have given ACARA the job of refining, updating and decluttering the content across the current curriculum. By the start of next year, we will have a more streamlined, coherent, focused Australian Curriculum available to be implemented in our schools.
Signs are that this updating of the Curriculum will make things even worse. We hope to write on this in the next day or so.
We will not bridge the three-year gap between us and Singapore overnight, but my hope would be that our revised national curriculum will put us on a pathway over the next decade that will see Australia rise to the top tier of global reading, maths and science standards.
Within the national curriculum content, I would like to see greater focus put towards the fundamentals of reading, mathematics and civics and citizenship. These are the building blocks which underpin other content areas and set individuals up for a greater contribution in our society and democracy.
Yes! Finally, the three Rs! Reading, mathematics and … civics.
Jesus H. Christ. A proper classroom culture (not ScoMoFo’s fucking “Australian values” bullshit) is critical, coming before the three Rs. But it’s not a goddam area of learning, it’s the way you create a medium for learning.
Tudge’s push for “fundamentals” is very welcome, but he really screwed up the dismount.
I will have more to say on these content areas in the months ahead including how we can use technology better (particularly in maths teaching) to make up for teacher shortages in particular areas.
He means Mathletics, or some other brand of dog shit. Inevitably, this will be monumentally stupid and monumentally damaging.
We will need a renewed push in reading where too many are transitioning to secondary school without the fundamental reading skills.
Good.
We need to improve the knowledge that young people have of our society and our democracy.
Start with Peter Dutton and your other goon mates, you turd.
My third priority area will be assessment.
John Hattie’s research tells us that effective assessment and feedback influences student achievement as much as prior cognitive ability – that’s a significant effect that should make us sit up and pay attention. It’s clear that assessment empowers teachers – putting student data at their fingertips to personalise learning plans and address areas of weakness.
Our uninformed understanding is that Hattie is a bit of an idiot. But, good assessment is good.
This is why our national annual assessment of student progress – NAPLAN – is so important.
We must protect NAPLAN, and not give in to those who call for less accountability and less information for teachers and parents.
At the same time, we will continue to refine the NAPLAN tests to ensure they are optimised to provide the information that schools, teachers, parents and policymakers need to lift school standards. The shift to online assessment will be completed in 2022, which will help deliver results faster. This year, we will assess other opportunities to adjust the tests or their implementation.
A national, lower-year testing scheme for arithmetic and spelling-grammar and comprehension would be valuable and worth the effort. We cannot see how the idiocy of NAPLAN could ever morph into that.
NAPLAN assessments must be supported by a range of other assessments. Great teachers use formative assessment on a daily or weekly basis to assess student learning and identify where more instruction and support is required.
We will do more to embed formative assessment in every classroom in the country. The Online Formative Assessment trial, initiated under the National Schools Reform Agreement, is being developed now.
This trial has great potential to increase the effectiveness of classroom teaching by making robust assessment quick and easy for teachers to regularly complete. It is critical that this trial delivers on its great promise, and I will be monitoring its progress closely and supporting its implementation.
I will also be looking into how we can develop a repository of proven assessment tools that teachers and parents can use, in classrooms and at home, to see how children are performing.
It’s not clear what this all means, but it sounds bad. Good teachers will always have their own methods, of varying degrees of formality, of assessing their students, suitable to the topic and the students. Perhaps Tudge is proposing to offer assistance for this, but it sounds more declarative and needlessly micromanaging.
Finally, I will continue the Government’s priority on indigenous students, particularly those in remote areas. This has been a long term commitment of mine, as it has been for many Australians. There are no simple solutions, but I do think we can do more. I particularly want to see a greater focus on the early years so that kids don’t start school from behind.
And you know, whatever the intention it’ll change almost nothing.
School education is a topic that every person has experience with, a view on, and every Australian should have an interest in. We have all been through the schooling system and many of us have children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren still in the system.
Overall, our school system works well. But as a whole we can do better to ensure that we deliver on our ultimate goal of ensuring that every child reaches their potential.
I am optimistic that we can lift Australian school standards to put us among the world’s best education systems again. And, more importantly, I am confident that we know what it will take to achieve this goal.
We will see.
*) We cut out a statement Tudge gave on sexual assault in schools, as well as the opening, boilerplaterish part of his speech.
SUMMARY
OK, does anybody else have whiplash?
After reading Tudge’s speech, we wrote to our teacher-friend and graded it a D+, maybe a C–. After reflecting and writing and reflecting, we’re probably willing to raise that to a C+ or B–. Although containing a number of genuine idiocies, the speech is focused upon flagging genuine problems with Australian education, and suggests some plausible approaches to at least alleviate those problems. As such, we cannot see that Tudge’s proposals will end up causing much harm, and they may even do some good.
But not much good. At best, Tudge will be relying upon the evidence and the experts to implement changes. But, as we have queried above, which evidence and which experts?
The reality is, Tudge will be relying upon half-wits at ACER and ACARA and the like, along with God knows which academic nitwits. And what is the alternative? Who can you think of in Australia, who has both the educational clout and proper sense-knowledge-intelligence to make a decent go of Tudge’s proposals? Is there a single person?
Tudge’s speech is good in sum, but Tudge doesn’t understand the depth or the fundamental sources of the problem. To go properly into that is another, long, post. We’ll just make one note: any proposal for education reform that doesn’t begin with a blanket ban of computers in the primary classroom is not a serious proposal.
Porter is also a sadistically destructive asshole. As Minister for Social Services, he brought in the Turnbull Government’s psychopathic Robodebt scheme. It was evil, and obviously evil, from the start, bringing needless misery to thousands of the most vulnerable and powerless, and prompting God knows how many suicides. And it took four years of the fucking obvious, four years of senate reviews and legal challenges to get rid of the fucking thing. Without an apology. What a cunt leprous schlong.*
No one knows now – except Porter – and we’re extremely unlikely to find out. What would a review, any review, accomplish? What would it tell us other than, perhaps, something questionable happened 30+ years ago, when the guy was a teenager, merely a trainee sadist. Which we already know.
Why bother? Why not focus on Porter’s much more recent and much more provable awfulness? We know what Christian Porter is, and his disgusting colleagues know what he is. It has been, and still is, up to Morrison and his fellow thugs whether Porter should be in charge of the country’s law. And it’s now up to them if they want a show trial or a cover up. But no one else needs it. No one with an ounce of humanity can believe that Porter should be responsible for a dog, let alone a country.
And what if Morrison and his thugs don’t want an inquiry? Then so be it. Porter can stay, as a dead, festering lizard hanging around the neck of Morrison’s revolting, thoroughly evil government. And if that’s not enough to hang the whole fucking lot of them, then we’re fucked anyway.
Leave the loathsome cunt leprous schlong alone.*
*) We do our best to keep sanctimonious twats happy.
