In part, this may be a response to the incapacity of the press pack to focus on anything much else other than the narrative, or “distractions”, demonstrated in spades on Saturday.

In Perth, Julia Gillard has just announced further education policy initiatives at Challis Primary School – principally, the expansion of NAPLAN testing to an online diagnostic tool for teachers and students, clearer pathways for trades training, the introduction of an Australian Baccalaureate for high-achieving secondary students, and financial rewards for both improved schools and teachers ($75-100 000 for primary and secondary schools, and $8 000 a year for teachers, to be introduced from 2013 when the budget returns to surplus).

Gillard took questions not from the travelling media, but from teachers, early childhood educators and children and parents.

The quality of the interchange was impressive, but ABC News 24 interrupted its coverage, which it wouldn’t have been doing had the question period been full of the usual journo stuff about polls.

Meanwhile, yesterday at Carindale shopping centre in the Brisbane marginal seat of Bonner, accompanied by local MP Kerry Rea, Kevin Rudd took a similar tack, highlighting the concrete benefits of the BER to local businesses and schools, something Labor candidates are doing all round the country. Gillard’s visits to regional Queensland centres have also been preceded by local announcements, ensuring favourable headlines and front pages in local print media, and coverage on local tv news. Labor’s communications and marginal seat strategy, then, has been reframed to short-circuit the circus while the Coalition continues to play a risk averse strategy.

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!

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)…

Dennis Atkins:

It’s an agenda that will have those working families nodding around the kitchen tables. And it’s got the added advantage of a big stink with the education establishment, particularly teacher unions and some state governments.

Maybe so. I wonder if those same “working families” will be nodding vigorously when it’s their local school that gets closed down. Whatever you think about the ideological agenda behind this (and I’m just repulsed by the demonisation of teachers), there’s an enormous number of ways this could turn into a political negative for the Rudd government. But, in the short term, he’s got the media coverage he wants, and got something that could be portrayed as a positive back on the front pages.

Update: Blogospheric reaction at Road to Surfdom, Public Opinion and Blogocracy.

Update: More from Sam Clifford at Public Polity, while on the other side of the blogosphere, Andrew Norton and Jason Soon are Julia Gillard’s new biggest fans.