A bit of a shoutout to all the teachers out there on the intertubes - we love youse all!
Today is World Teachers’ Day. I’m sure there are very few of us who don’t remember teachers who made significant differences in our lives. It might be a neat way to celebrate to tell some of those stories on this post - you never know, your favourite chalkies might even be reading.
That might also be a useful corrective to the constant attacks in the political realm teachers have to confront - not to mention working conditions which are far from ideal, and having all sorts of social problems heaped on them to solve when no one else will apparently take responsibility. In Mark’s post the other day, discussing “Wicked Problems” in public policy, he mentioned Judith Brett’s consideration of this theme in her article in the current edition of The Monthly. Brett referred to education as one domain where a whole set of inter-related issues meet which make neat objectives like “better schools” almost impossible to achieve through magical policy transformations pollies of all stripes are in the habit of promising. In practice, whatever you think about the schools policy stuff announced by Julia Gillard recently (and I don’t think much of it), you should be able to agree that teachers are only one part of the educational policy mix. But - perhaps because unions are also a convenient can to kick for both conservative and “Third Way” style pols - they tend to get blamed for everything. I’m sure anyone who’s worked in the education game will agree that it’s a really demanding job, and one that takes a degree of commitment beyond most vocations. Let’s recognise that!
This time last year, we were all feverishly anticipating the calling of the federal election, which was less than a fortnight away. Now, courtesy of the quarterly Newspoll geographical and demographic analysis we can track where and with whom the Rudd government has been travelling well and less well from January to September 2008 and compare the poll numbers with the election result in November 2007.
Possum has all the spiffy graphs.
As The Poll Bludger notes, there are two really interesting trends in the aggregate poll. First, the Rudd honeymoon is still very much alive for the 18-34 demographic (and it will be intriguing to see some good data on how Turnbull’s elevation shifts this - if at all - down the track.) Secondly, Labor is still doing poorly in the West, and has gone a fair way backward in South Australia. (Incidentally, the data supports the point Kim made here the other day about Labor trending upwards in Queensland federally while Anna Bligh’s state regime goes into a slump - albeit a slump which is still of election winning dimensions even if it’s not a Beattie style landslide. And federal Labor hasn’t been hurt in New South Wales by the implosion of the Iemma government.)
A lot of folks are attributing Labor’s performance in South Australia to the Murray-Darling basin issue. Again, it’s worth noting that Labor still has a primary lead of 3 points over the Coalition, but it is no doubt significant to see eight points knocked off its lead so quickly in the last quarter, after having been stable at 49% more or less since the election. I’d be interested to hear from South Australian LP-ers about what they think is going on.
If it is the Murray-Darling, this might say something interesting about the Rudd government’s ability to deal with relatively intractable problems through its preferred mode of governance. Continue reading ‘The state of Rudd Nation’
Although the AEU has been dismissed as one of the dreaded teachers’ unions by Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, some others have actually been looking at the evidence in the evidence-free policy of the Kevin Rudd “education revolution” narrative. And that’s some clever people who’ve actually been reading an evidence based report.
Ross Gittins:
Because the Rudd Government promised to leave the funding formula unreformed during the next funding quadrennium ending in 2012, McMorrow projects that whereas another four years will see annual grants to the private schools increase by 3 per cent in real terms, real grants to public schools will fall by 2 per cent.
All this will occur while Rudd is pressing schools to publish far more information about their performance and encouraging parents to “walk with their feet” if they don’t like what’s revealed.
The state education bureaucracies and their unions have their own reasons for continuing to resist federal pressure to publish performance indicators. But Rudd is giving them a valid argument that his competition is biased against them.
Continue reading ‘(Private) education revolution?’
The MSM is full of reports and commentaries praising Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard for taking on the teacher unions with their proposals for “a new national system of school transparency” based on publication of information and ranking of the performances of schools and those who work in them.
This proposal, and the prospect of a Federal Labor Government beating up on TEH TEACHER UNIONS, has attracted praise from Peter Hartcher, Michelle Grattan, the Opposition Organ and Terry Sweetman.
However, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has a different view. Its Improving School Leadership study finds that the kind of public reporting and ranking of school performance proposed by the Rudd government does not, on the evidence, improve school performances and may even be counterproductive.
Continue reading ‘OECD in league with communist teacher unions’
Club Troppo’s Don Arthur and I started a correspondence by email about some of the issues I raised in my post the other day about neo-liberalism and thinktanks, and the very rapid Blairisation of the Rudd/Gillard agenda (which has certainly become even more evident in the interim with the latest instalment in the “education revolution” and the momentum that some liberal and libertarian bloggers are correct to assume is building up towards vouchers in all forms of education). I don’t want to try to represent Don’s side of the discussion, but I did want to talk about a few things that I put to him, and thank him for the very stimulating opportunity to clarify my thoughts.
One argument that’s often raised by liberals in denying that talk of neoliberalism makes sense is the claim that the state is still large as a percentage of GDP, that Howard did redistribution, and so on. That’s a point that Andrew Norton often makes, in claiming that there’s a degree of social democratic consensus still embodied in the governing practices of the Australian state. John Quiggin has made the same, or a very similar point, from a different political position. There’s some truth in this, but only some. No, Margaret Thatcher didn’t succeed in rolling back the state very far. But expecting her to is to make a false assumption - that the ideological objective only has meaning insofar as it achieves its ostensible aims. What she was actually doing was building up a stronger state in some areas to contain the damage from its withdrawal from some areas. You need a strong state to attack the weak, basically.
Continue reading ‘On the futility of arguing about Hayek, or what’s in a name?’
Kevin Rudd’s address to the National Press Club yesterday (you can read it here) was notable as much for what he didn’t say as for what he did. I’d be very surprised indeed if the expectation that he would spell out a “narrative” wasn’t created by Labor types themselves. It’s not the sort of thing that journos just make up. But with his tick a box recital of what the government had done on education, he’s signalling that he’s not going to play that particular game - pragmatism rather than oratory is his weapon of choice. But like a lot of what Rudd has announced as PM, there’s very little detail to back up his various initiatives in the latest “chapter” of the “education revolution”. That’s ok, though, apparently for a usually sceptical media, because he’s representing himself as taking on the teachers’ unions.
As Bismarck commented on this thread, it’s an old trick. As old as Bill Clinton actually - who first trialled it in Arkansas when he wanted to demonstrate that he wasn’t a “traditional” Democrat. And, as we all know, Arkansas now has a school system that’s the envy of the world (ahem)…
Continue reading ‘Forget political narratives, here’s a media narrative’
The Age: Equality in education is a dying concept (Kenneth Davidson)
The imputation is clear. The Rudd Government education “revolution” involves continuing with the unfair funding arrangements of the Howard government. Why? This can be explained by a simple political calculus, which suggests that the Government has more votes to lose than to gain by a level funding playing field as operates in most OECD countries. This is where private schools receive public funding only on the condition that their total spending per student is no higher than for government school students.
It is not to denigrate government schools to point out that they educate most of the “at risk” students. It is irrefutable that each dollar spent on these schools will generate a much bigger pay-off in economic and social terms than a dollar spent on non-government schools, which are already better resourced than government schools.
Combine this failure to ensure a more level playing field with the fiasco enveloping the plan to give all school kids a computer and the current government’s education policies are looking more shambolic every day. I knew that this centrist government was never going to sort out everything on my progressive wishlist, but I thought they’d do better than this.
Recent comments
Mindy, ATTN FDB, Mindy, Pavlov's Cat, Lefty E, Nabakov [...]
kymbos, kymbos, BH, David Irving (no relation), Pavlov's Cat, Helen [...]
Lloyd Morcom, Chris (a different one), sublime cowgirl, Darin, Paul Burns, Kingsley [...]
sublime cowgirl, Fine, steveh, wizofaus, grace pettigrew, wbb [...]
Paul Burns, Baraholka, Paul Burns, Adrien, joe2, Paul Burns [...]
Ambigulous, suz, Colin, un ami des beaux arts, adrian, suz [...]
Legal Eagle, Michael Sutcliffe, Mark, Tyro Rex, Adrien, Posey [...]
Bilko, Paul Burns, Dave Bath, Bilko, Nabakov, Adrien [...]
Paul Burns, Darlene, Darlene, via collins, MikeM, glen [...]
Leon, Derek, Down and Out of Sài Gòn, tigtog, Bingo Bango Boingo, Mark [...]
rosieblue, Lefty E, wankaroo, What me banal?, FDB, Eye'm A Love Man, Ooh Baby, Eye'm A Love Man [...]
RobWindt, Pappinbarra Fox, Ai! Que Dolor!, Patrick B, peter jones, Paul Burns [...]