According to an article in the Fin Review today, this is part of a rebranding exercise where Gillard wants to focus on her “signature issues”.

That aside, it’s actually potentially a real “education revolution”, but as as is now customary in this campaign, discussion of the policy merits has been absent.

Anyone interested in having that discussion could do worse than starting by reading an interesting article in Inside Story by Dahle Suggett – ‘Are autonomous schools the answer?’.

Update: Another article published today at The Drum by Bronwyn Hinz reflects on Julia Gillard’s policy announcement in light of the Kennett experience in Victoria.

This is the “Let Julia Be Julia” strategy, which will be familiar to the West Wing fans among Labor strategists, although it’s worth remembering that the original derivation of the phrase is said to be “Let Nixon Be Nixon”.

Under most circumstances, I’d welcome this change in tack, but I’m disheartened to read it’s going to be actualised through a campaign for “Principal Power” – the school autonomy agenda.

More teacher union bashing – that’s who the PM says she’s not afraid of a fight with.

This actually is the authentic Gillard. She’s much enamoured of the ‘market design’ agenda of the wonkish New Labour types at Per Capita and elsewhere, and her education revolution has always been a mildly liberal ones in terms of a belief in equality of opportunity, rather than addressing the causes of social exclusion, and one that looks to neo-liberal solutions.

At this stage, I think Tony Abbott has this election in the bag. It will be won or lost in Queensland and NSW seats. Gillard, in my view, doesn’t need to further alienate Labor’s progressive base, but that’s what we might see occurring.

It is, as I said last night, a very interesting campaign, but not an inspiring one.

Ever since Bill Clinton discovered this tactic in Arkansas, the reflex move for New Labour, Labor, Democrat, [insert name of local centre-left party here] pollies is to do the wedge between parents and teachers thing. I’m not sure that it’s ever been done before in the guise of having parents act as strikebreakers, but this is apparently what Julia Gillard is contemplating, as the AEU asks its members to boycott the administration of national tests.

The teachers’ concern revolves around the misleading data on the MySchool website, and the misleading uses it could be put to.

Julia Gillard’s concern is votes.

Incidentally: The Law Institute of Victoria points out that parents administering tests could be at legal risk.

Yet the influence of the Howard-era battles remains – and its most significant legacy might be the fact that history is embedded in the national curriculum at all. This is a major shift from its folding into SOSE (Studies of Society and Environment) at P-10 levels in many states.

In an interesting piece for Crikey today, Tony Taylor looks at the reception and implementation of the history curriculum:

The shameful moments came when, uncertain how to tackle a curriculum that was being hyped as traditionalist?—?and while Tony Abbott was pictured crouched in earnest conversation with an Aboriginal elder?—?some Opposition MPs started to count mentions of Aborigines in the curriculum. Should there be a quota on references to Aborigines? Give me a break! How would I feel, I asked myself, if I were an indigenous Australian and yet again in the newspapers I read that my culture’s presence in the nation’s schools was unwelcome?

When both sides of Australian politics acknowledge, with sincerity and generosity, the value and contribution of our indigenous heritage, the country will have truly grown up. Until then, we wait, but not with bated breath.

There were other knee-jerk reactions, too. Gallipoli watchers were at work. Wilful misreaders were prominent. Conspiracy theorists abounded. SOSE educators, a vanishing breed, said the curriculum was too narrow. Conservative commentators, a stubborn sort, said, variously, it was too broad, too stodgy, too socialist and a bit too Asian. More generally though, the new history draft was well received.

But, as Taylor argued, there’s always a potential gap between policy text and pedagogical practice. He goes on to discuss the absence of expertise in history at secondary and primary schools, and crucially for the future of the curriculum, in university Education Faculties.

The whole thing is worth a read.

NB: Previous LP discussion of the draft national curriculum is here.

I doubt that Kevin Rudd ever expected the ‘whacking’ in the polls he trumpeted. Rather, this was part of the rhetorical structure of the weekend of apologies – convincing the public that he’d already taken his medicine, and that they should think again about the government’s virtues (which he, and Ministers, have used the sorry-fest to remind everyone of) and think harder about the Coalition. A very similar line has been working wonders for Gordon Brown of late.

In other words, rather than offering the proverbial commentary on the polls, Rudd’s remarks are part of a set piece of political manoeuvring aiming to draw a line in the sand, and to establish a contrast between the government’s new policy announcements (the national curriculum and health) and the opposition’s negativity. That’s potentially quite an effective play when everything we’ve seen of of Abbott et al over the last few weeks has been pure opposition.

Incidentally, I’d repeat the point I’ve made a number of times before – among all sorts of other influences, commentary on the polls has an underlying and perhaps unexamined premise that a Liberal majority is the natural state of affairs. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain the narrative of trouble and crisis when Labor is still comfortably ahead. It’s as if the Coalition ever overtaking Labor spells doom and destruction for the Rudd government. It would not. It’s worth underlining the fact that governments are often behind in the polls, and come back to win elections. John Howard frequently appeared headed for defeat in each electoral cycle after his first win.

Trevor Cook provides a useful reminder another point of comparison – to the Rudd opposition of the late Howard years.

Speaking of which, those who talked about Howard’s comments and policy changes around the time of the Aston by-election in 2001 were making the better comparison than the chorus of ‘Beattie reborn!’ songsters. The difference, of course, is that Howard appeared headed for a genuine whacking in early 2001, while Rudd is sitting pretty.

While we’re talking polls, I’d also recommend a squizzy at Possum’s fascinating tables on the Essential Research questions about the assessment of leaders’ attributes.

I’ve been teaching at tertiary level for over a decade, I’ve taught Education students, and I’ve got family and friends who are or have been teachers. I don’t think I’d feel at all confident about going into a classroom after six weeks with a PhD as well as a few other degrees! – I’d be very well aware that I know little about child psychology and development, or classroom and behaviour management, let alone bearing the very weighty responsibilities for students’ well being and health and safety. I doubt all that could be taught in six weeks, and I doubt that you can learn it effectively through some sort of apprenticeship model, no matter how many ‘guides’ and ‘mentors’ you have.

University faculties, to my certain knowledge, already have great difficulty placing students on prac because of the additional workload on their classroom teachers, and stories about the difficulties involved are legion from teachers, academic supervisors and education students.

I believe there’s been no evaluation of the Victorian programme yet, and it’s not hard to see this as a simplistic twist on the movie fantasy of idealistic teacher saves poor kids’ lives script. The reality is that, no matter how idealistic, beginning graduate teachers have a high propensity to leave the profession in their initial years, because they’re already not adequately supported. Similarly, what disadvantaged schools need is stability, experience and professional skills in the workforce, and the fact that’s hard to secure is probably the real justification for Anna Bligh’s consideration of this policy.

How this all meshes in with Bligh’s overall goal of more rigorous teacher registration and qualifications is also a question still to be answered.

As well as insulting the professionalism of teachers, this also cynically cheapens the idealism of those who might be attracted to the programme in the cause of saving Bligh’s electoral skin. It’s particularly depressing because her earlier contribution to school education in Queensland, though susceptible to a range of legitimate criticisms, was the outstanding contribution she’d made as a Minister.

GOD has cured at least one state school student of attention deficit disorder and another of asthma, according to interviews with chaplains employed in 2850 schools under a $165 million federal government program.

The Lord has also made it stop raining at a state school assembly in Queensland and performed other miracles to bring state school children to Jesus.

One chaplain was able to “fix the head” of a disruptive student by placing his hands upon the boy’s head, and praying for him.

These and other miraculous claims are included in a book about the national school chaplaincy program, which was introduced by the Howard government in October 2006.

The committee’s finding is that in view of the relatively tiny number of submissions received, from the hundreds of thousands of students who are said to be affected, there can be no basis for arguing that universities are under the control of the Left and that this is reflected in course content and teaching style. If there is a Left conspiracy to influence the direction of the nation’s affairs and its social and economic priorities through the process of subverting a generation of undergraduates this is not yet evident.

It must be said that the committee processes of the Senate are not at all suited to the kind of inquiry that might have been imagined by its instigators. That is probably less important to them than the fact that the inquiry was held at all. On the other hand it might be argued that as even the most intensive specialist research would be unlikely to reach any conclusion as to the incidence of biased teaching, this inquiry has been as useful as any.

Elsewhere: John Quiggin and Terry Flew.

An investigation by the Victorian Education Department has cleared the principal who allowed artist Bill Henson to scout St Kilda Park Primary School for talent of any wrongdoing.

The State Government is also refusing to ban Henson from future playground visits.

The question that needs to be asked now is why John Brumby was so quick to issue the now apparently customary and/or compulsory loud condemn, before he had even initiated an investigation. Either Brumby was insincere and joining the populist outrage crew because, hey, that’s what all pollies apparently do, or his judgement on matters pertaining to schools sucks when it comes to the results of a professional investigation and assessment of the circumstances. Either way, it’s a bad look. And either way, it raises the question of prejudging an inquiry Brumby himself called for. Not a particularly distinguished chapter in the story of Victorian governance and politics, I’d suggest.

Related posts: The extensive archive of posts on Henson and discussion on LP can be accessed here.

History classes should start with the history of the Jews, then move on to the Greeks and Romans, then the history of Britain, Mr Abbott said.

None of this seems to me to be particularly informed comment, or worthy of the importance the history warriors themselves supposedly place on the issue. It’s clearly absurd to teach Australian history as if it doesn’t have a global context.

Stuart Macintyre’s views are outlined in this interview.

What surprises me, though, is that no one has picked up on the fact that Macintyre’s justification draws heavily on Anna Clark’s work in her book History’s Children: History Wars in the Classroom. Clark interviewed a large number of both Australian and Canadian school students on what they liked and disliked and would like to see in the teaching of national history. A world history context was a theme brought up by the students again and again. Some of Clark’s research is highlighted in this article in Overland.