Education ‘reform’
Education - - Posted on August, 28 at 1:30 pm by Ken L
Our prime minister must have spent so much time in opposition nodding in agreement with Howard’s mob that his neck got sore. Fresh from making life even harder for the poor sods on welfare, the government has now announced a package of education measures that could have been lifted straight from a Howard Government cabinet submission - one rejected because it was too extreme.
Our old favourite, performance-based pay for teachers, is back in all its glory. I can’t be bothered revisiting all the reasons why this is a bad idea. In summary, there’s no doubt that incentive schemes (let’s call the bloody things what they are and not pretend they are some terrific innovation for the 21st century) motivate considerable numbers of workers. What they are motivated to actually do depends on the way the scheme is designed, and the overwhelming tendency is to link them to things that can be measured. That’s the way administrators like Rudd think.
Whether, however, the teaching outcomes that the community wants can be reduced to quantifiable outcomes is a moot point. Nevertheless, if we want to move towards a Japanese or South Korean style of education where the path to success consists of knowing the approved answers to endless standard tests, incentive schemes may well have a role to play.
The big question in my mind is the long-term effect that these schemes have on the employment relationship. Nobody knows, because nobody has ever conducted any pertinent research. The culture that we now see in big business, where performance-based pay has been fashionable amongst executives for some years, does not provide grounds for optimism. Anyone who thinks service standards to the customer have improved in recent years, put your hand up. Anyone? Anyone?
The main point of my post, however, is to seek enlightenment, because there is something in this whole education reform discussion that escapes me. I’ve raised it on Andrew Leigh’s blog and not got a response. I’ve mentioned it here with the same result. I’m referring to proposals like this:
Investing in disadvantaged school communities
The Rudd Government will pursue a National Partnership with the States and Territories to address underachieving schools.
These measures will be designed to suit the needs of local schools and could include measures to help:
* attract high performing principals and teachers to underperforming schools;
The idea of ‘attracting’ the best teachers to underperforming schools sounds great if you say it quickly, until you realise that it can be re-formulated as ‘taking the best teachers away from high performing schools’. If, as seems likely, we have a limited number of ‘high performing principals and teachers’, then the parents and students of the schools where they are currently contributing to the school’s quality are unlikely to sit back and watch their staff get moved to other schools while in return they get under-performing principals and teachers. On the contrary, they’ll create mayhem.
Everybody concentrates on the alleged wonderful things that will happen once we know who the best teachers are. Hardly anybody has bothered to consider the other side of the coin: what do you do with the duds? Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should persuade the senior staff of (say) James Ruse* to disperse to under-performing high schools? James Ruse parents, students and alumni would tear down the Department of Education brick by brick and throttle the managers if any such change was implemented - yet that seems to be precisely what Rudd is proposing.
The subliminal message being peddled by the government is that somehow or other, their changes will improve the quality of teaching across the board. Incentives will cause all teachers to lift their game and students will be the beneficiaries. Anybody who believes that should send their kids to be educated by the fairies at the bottom of the garden.
* James Ruse is the public high school that consistently has the highest number of year 12 students in the Higher School Certificate top 100 of any school in the state.
Posted in Education |
August 28th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Haven’t made up my mind about any of this, so I’m not defending or attacking it (the policy). But on your point about the limited number of high performing teachers, doesn’t the policy at least address that idea by trying to get more and better people to train as teachers in the first place? At the moment, low pay must be a disincentive for many to even consider profession. Regardless, if indeed there is a finite number of high performers (obvious), surely we do need to create more of them. So how do we do it?
August 28th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I think a big part of the problem here is that teachers are so poorly paid that the only people who tend to want to be career teachers are people who can’t get careers anywhere else.
This has been playing out for decades.
If our society truly values teachers, that rot needs to be undone: Across the board pay increases, to bring teacher salaries up to a standard that other professions valued by society enjoy.
Once that happens, measures to ensure accountability commensurate with what we expect from other professionals valued by society would appear to be a natural progression (e.g., we drum-out doctors who are harmful to patients, and the high compensation doctors earn ensure that there are usually other better ones to take their place afterwards. We should similarly drum-out teachers who are actively harmful to students — but only if we know that other teachers will fill the gap, which isn’t likely to happen at the woeful pay rates they currently earn)
So it’s probably going to take just as many years to undo the rot as what it’s taken for the rot to become embedded in the first place. But the first step seems to me to involve quite large pay increases without necessarily presuming any expectation that that, by itself, will lead to any improvement.
Which is the problem with the ALP’s policy proposal: It’s all centered on pay and not much else. Turns the whole thing into a zero-sum game because it doesn’t stimulate the creation of new teaching professionals.
It never ceases to amaze me that parents would entrust their own flesh and blood for 8 hours per day to someone who is earning less than a truck driver in a coal mine. If we don’t value teachers highly enough to pay them real money, why do we delude ourselves into thinking that we value them enough to expect their performance to improve?
(I’m not a teacher, nor am I related to any teachers, nor have I even been personally acquainted with any teachers since I left high school nearly 20 years ago. But I still think the position they occupy in our society should mean that they earn near double what they’re earning now)
August 28th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Tim in any profession there will be varying levels of performance, however it’s evaluated, so there will always be high performers and not-so-high performers. Surely it’s general standards that are important.
The report (downloadable here) on which Rudd is basing his proposals, having affirmed that our education outcomes are pretty good, identifies the main problem as follows:
This is not a problem of across-the-board teaching standards; it’s a limited social problem. Yet the report goes on to conclude:
I’m afraid I don’t see why it is ‘clear’ at all, or why we should be copying what they do in the USA or Great Britain in the mistaken belief that it makes us ‘world class’.
The report seems to be suggesting that a universal reform to the payment of teachers will somehow fix the particular problems of disadvntaged schools. The only way in which that could work would be for all teachers to be really good as a minimum, so even the lowest performers do an acceptable job. For that to happen, we need to make it a much more prestigious and highly rewarded career to which the best and brightest will be attracted. That will require much more than tinkering with incentive schemes.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
My brother who is a general assistant-handymam gardener at primary schools earns a lot less than a teacher,and teachers earn less than coal miners.With a flexible attitude,he sometimes works in the gardens with the more troubled kids,and no distinct rate of pay changes,for doing the whole system a favour,well and truly needed.Sometimes the garden is the only thing kids can relate to.My brother is feeling the meanness of the qualified in the same work place,where his qualifications aren’ t’ modally, teaching.Taking an intelligent approach to most matters of dispute,it cannot be said the teachers take an intelligent approach to him sometimes,and he defends his reasoning,by reasoning,and his dignity by dignity.Getting older,isnt always a case for talking oneself into perpetually being rolled over by others.And this state government is really now pressed for creative solutions across all its so called responsibilities.Thus a person who was a secretary of a local amateur theatre company putting on successful plays\\\’Les Miserables\\
August 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
This letter got stuffed up from the first second..is the bug bugging!?Please remove it as evidence.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Send got turned into second,please evaluate.
August 28th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I’m sick of debating the merits of policies like this, I thought we did that and decided to kick the bastards out. We have (had?) a world class education system, the bureaucrats can sort this shit out, and I have faith that they can, what we (and by that I mean society, as well as me, who is leaving my comfy APS job to do my DipEd next year) need is actually very simple…
Moolah, dosh, cash, beans, some serious Doh’ Re’ me
Its not that complicated folks….
Our PUBLIC schools (because they are the ones WE should be paying for) need money. Better pay for teachers, more money for textbooks, more counsellors and support staff, cash incentives for people to go Bush, and an infrastructure a fund so that the local primary school doesn’t have to have a fucking lamington drive just to pay for some as simple as a fucking coat of paint!!
I think if I hear another announcement about performance pay or report cards or some other shit its gonna do my head in, I only want to hear one thing, DOLLARS!!! And if you don’t have them than stop bullshitting us.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Gillard is on to a winner here. The only way to improve education is to smash the AEU and to get the state out of micromanaging schools. Provide money, yes. But then get out of the way. But smashing the AEU must be our first priority. We did it with the BLF, and Gillard is probably the only one with the balls to do it to the AEU.
I told you she would prove to be Australia’s Thatcher. As a fellow working class oik, I have her whole motivation and shtick down pat. She has rejected the childishness of both the socialist and Luvvie left, in favour of the interests of working class children.
Pretty soon, y’all wil be saying, “we are all Gillardites now.”
Mark my words, Luvvies, The Lady will not be for turning!
Trust me Luvvies, you ain’t seen nothing yet. She will make Keating look like Eva Cox!
You Go Girl!
August 28th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Carl’s talking sense in my experience. Some cakehole burned down my daughter’s high school library six years ago. Now, six years later, my son is going to the same school and the newly built library still features empty shelves.
They converted half of the space to a naughty corner where they keep kids who misbehave in class. According to the rule book those naughty kids are closely supervised while they catch up on their work and learn the error of their ways. In fact they maintain the few library books available because there’s insufficient staff to get them doing anything else.
I don’t see anything in these proposals that’s going to alter that.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Ken L
James Ruse is subject to exactly the same teacher selection process as any other state school. They are no better or worse than anywhere else.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Oh I see, so there’s no relationship between teachers and learning outcomes after all. I trust JG you convey your insights to the appropriate authorities and we can stop this nonsense in its tracks.
Maybe Kevin can get some consultants to design an organisational culture change program next, that’s what top management usually does if KPIs don’t work.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Ken
Ah,psssstt. I’ll let you in on a little secret. James Ruse creams off the top 0.01% of 6th graders, most of whom then also spend 4 to 6 hours in private tutoring outside the school. The school’s value-added in below the 50th percentile. Catharine Deveny could be their teacher and they’d still top the HSC.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Sounds sensible to me. So the way to fix underperforming schools is not to change the teachers, but to replace the students. An effective, low-cost solution.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
No. The way is to kick out the braindead socialists like Maree O’Halloran, the state bureaucrats, and the twits in university “Education” departments.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
#12, why I didn’t I think of that,get rid of all the under performing on the place and replace ‘em with the top 0.01% of the average.Very sage,in fact if all schools and viable business did that,me and the dogs for a start would cut down the work load by 99.09%. Brilliant.
Just asking #12, what and how does James Ruse explain to 99.09% of parents that their kids are duds.Or are you their PR manager..
August 28th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
#12, Oh, you mean they sift through all of the world,and even Australia, creaming (poor choice,however) off these kiddies?.No bloody wonder the kiddies need private tutoring, too busy creaming. What stupid posts at#12 and #14.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Sssshhh Lang, next thing you’ll be asking what innovative technique James Ruse uses to ‘cream off’ all these top students. It’s a secret, otherwise all schools would copy it. But definitely, absolutely, nothing to do with the teachers … because they are members of the Teachers’ Union, which must be smashed before we can fix education.
BTW can anyone tell me what we have done to deserve JG inflicting his bullshit on us? He seems to be copying and pasting the same comments all over the blogosphere. Did LP finally get tired of his moronic one-note-Johnny ‘luvvie’ tripe and ban him, or what?
August 28th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Ah, hullo. The creaming mechanism is called the NSW Selective High Schools test.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Has Gillard or Rudd nuanced themselves in all possible computer foul ups!?That was the last education scoring game for them,and some troubles emerged.Me,I have mine,somehow I am logged on,and all that ,but pressing start,gets nowhere,while microsoft websearch does!? Its like trying to understand a billygoat!?So am I going to get used to the Mozilla not helping,or even some other ISP!Talk about Socialists!These computer stuff ups,and automatic writing and resentencing is like 1984,the novel.Thankfully Greenfield here is a constant personality,one I cannot understand much.So with the American Georgian buffoons wanting a showdown with Russia,which side will the ALP turds jump re uranium sales to Russia.I dont want to penalise Russia,I just dont want any uranium sold!?Moral dilemmas everywhere,and the world population don’t deserve them!So Greenfield can blow his stack now as a moment of insight into education,when I say I am not entirely fond of Israeli Generals,two passport American Jews ,and VP hopefuls with the son having the same name.How do all these clown Zionists,even Vlad Putin has been influenced by them when young,get away with all this money conniving,hidden behind confrontation!?
August 28th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
# Ah,hullo.My daughter used that as an opening when she was about thirteen, can’t you piss off and impart your annoyance somewhere else,around here we discuss and learn from others, scrap a bit,but don’t come up with gaucherie impolitic rubbish that you inflict.Could you inflict somewhere else, no, and I guess lack of advantage in real life can be trussed up via these mediums.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Piss off Greenfield, you’re not welcome.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Thanks Ken, was a bit,well more than annoyed at the crow like attitude of Greenfield. Also very diplomatic on your part.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Walang problema
August 28th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Salamat..:0
August 29th, 2008 at 12:39 am
“Anybody who believes that should send their kids to be educated by the fairies at the bottom of the garden.”
Yea or we can trust your exquisite foresight that offers nothing more than more of the same. Really, for a self described progressive you sure are “stuck on stupid”! Tell me Mr. Lovell, if somebody was willing to offer you twice the sum for doing the same job what would be your reaction? Common sense and human nature are a lot more predictable and reliable than more bad theories. I say give it a go, worst case scenario we end up worse off, like where we started! Change is always a bit ruffled from the get go but that doesn’t mean we should avoid change for the sake of avoiding ruffling alone. Especially when the current argument has been being waged for the past 40 years and all the while the situation is getting worse. What is apparent, a socialist education system, in a democracy especially, does not work so get over it! Or would you prefer to continue living in the garden!
August 29th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Damn. Did I just miss one of these rare, warm “Hallmark” moments at RTS?
August 29th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Can\\\’t they think of anything new. How about we look at the conditions the teacher teach in. What about more non teaching staff in schools to help teacher do there job.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I would think ‘about time I got what I’m worth’
although I have no idea what the employer would get out of it, since as you say I’d still be doing the same job. But if you mean teachers’ salaries should be increased by a lot, I agree with you. That is not, however, what the government is proposing to do.
Hehe I bet you loved Howard and his ‘common sense pub test’. Fortunately we don’t have to choose between your false alternatives; we can also examine something called evidence, which this government (mendaciously, as it turns out) told us would be the basis for its policies.
BTW you can call me Ken, we’re all very informal here.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Ken, you appear to have told Greenfield to piss off for being right, at least about one thing. James Ruse is a selective high school. They will obviously thus get better median test results than comprehensive schools, who are also required to educate less academically gifted students.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
No Sean, I told him to piss off for directing obnoxious, offensive gibes at other commenters, which I have deleted. If he thinks this is a Catallaxy thread where there’s a contest to find the most tediously moronic personal abuse, he can think again.
Of course James Ruse is a selective high school and that accounts in part for its results. However it is unlikely that its teachers are ‘no better or worse than anywhere else’. And if teachers truly have no impact on learning outcomes because they are all explicable by the students’ innate capabilities, then Rudd’s whole program is pointless anyway - something I agree with, but not for those reasons.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Oh, sorry then.
[You should leave some evidence of such malfeasance for those who've been out bush all week].
August 29th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Greenfield is right to point out that a lefty like Gillard is being a control freak here. She has the gospel according to the left that education is the panacea for all ills and come hell or high water she’s going to give it to these underpriveleged and ignorant tikes. Obviously they need computers like all good middle class kids and somehow AWAs for teachers is the next logical conclusion. Makes you wonder when she’ll get around to the rest of the public service with that brilliant idea now doesn’t it? The fly in her ointment is basically that pay for outcomes means any half intelligent teacher would opt for the Claytons privates, where high RE prices and tight zoning naturally screen the raw material they have to work with. With a one size fits all pay regime now (excluding service increments), teachers queue now for the cushy schools as a way of securing higher non-wage remuneration. Short of some modest altruism, that largely leaves the new chums to the remote areas and hard to staff metro schools, until they can earn enough brownie points to make the sensible transition. How to change this without blowing the budget is the perennial problem. Well it probably makes sense to freeze current wages for teachers in high demand schools and putting any future increases (both nominal and real) into the hard spots(including curriculum shortages like maths and science). After all this is exactly what the mining sector has to do in remote areas.
Overriding all this is the recognition that school is compulsory for good reason and if the parents don’t understand that then welcome to handout controls if they don’t. That immediately leads to the problem that the public sector is the educator of last resort, whereas the privates can piss off the troublemakers and that’s what so many of we paternalistic and maternalistic types like Gillard(well she would be if she had kids)understand and are prepared to pay for. There is a further problem that increasingly the public sector is asked to take on the added burden of those with handicaps and disabilities, without adequate support and resourcing and that really sours the whole brew. We all need to understand that 2 or 3 perpetual troublemakers in a class of 25 or so can spoil the educational outcomes of the majority and that has larger and long term social consequences. The answer is Borstal schools of last resort run by blokes with corporal punishment and strict disciplinary regimes. Three strikes in the mainstream warm fuzzy sheila schools and you’re into the Borstal schools sonny Jim, until such time as you’ve proven with a full years behaviour and results you can go back to the school of your choice. Failing that lefties, your public sector will largely be abandoned by those of us who bring up our kids precisely that way. Gillard and the Rudd Govt only half get it and until they fully get it, the results speak for themselves, albeit they’re a credit to the perseverance and diligence of many teachers at the public coal-face.
August 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
What utter horse’s bollocks, Obs. There were kids obviously headed for a career at HM pleasure when all of us went to school, didn’t stop you or me getting qualified to do something. The new lust for private schooling is driven by this generalised over-protectiveness we see everywhere now, combined with simple social climbing pretentiousness.
All of this stuff about post-modern teachers, or the sudden never-before-heard-of scourge of difficult kids, etc etc is just an excuse to spend public money on luxuries for the rich.
Jebus, imagine if this proposal to encourage cheating in exams had been proposed by the teachers’ union instead of PLC! The general secretary would be drowned in a pond!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/phone-a-friend-in-exams/2008/08/19/1218911717490.html
August 29th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Sean, I’m not talking about the occasional disruptive kid offending middle class sensibilities in middle class schools, although they’ll get the odd rotten apple despite reasonable parenting. It’s the serious social misfits in tough area schools that set the tone for the whole class and school and they thumb their noses at the usual ‘behavioural contract’ rubbish and all the well meaning continual talking to. Basically flogging them with feathers. These ringleaders need to be removed and dealt with seriously in order to set the tone for the rest of the group in order for them to progress. We treat child thugs with kid gloves and the real villains know it and act accordingly. If they don’t have reasonable discipline and rules at home they need to get it quickly from the most readily available authority and that’s at school. We’re doing a great disservice to the many by our lack of community will in that regard, nowhere more obvious in the pussy footing about with aboriginal children nowadays. The Rudd Govt are admitting the need to get them to school for a start but they have to know how to deal with them appropriately when they get there. That’s the obvious shortcoming and we see the results in the dysfunctional adults the current system is producing. It won’t be solved by more highly qualified and highly paid teachers, with one arm tied behind their backs. Untie it for some tough love in schools of last resort.
August 30th, 2008 at 10:47 am
There has been vast improvements in the understanding of pedagogy and learning in the last 15 years but little change to practice in most schools. The ways to improve student outcomes and to provide a more meaningful education are generally known and agreed upon by educationalists but not widely implemented. There are a many reasons for this: a history of anti-intellectualism in the school system, a “sweated” and low capacity workforce (all those low entry scores to teaching courses have borne fruit), a profession that attracts conservative and authoritarian personalities, lack of leadership from education departments, consistent underinvestment in human and other capital, a conservative method of appointing school leaders, festished outdated schooling structures (timetable, discipline based subjects, seperation from the community) and a lack of informed discussion in the community,
August 31st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
“teachers queue now for the cushy schools as a way of securing higher non-wage remuneration. Short of some modest altruism, that largely leaves the new chums to the remote areas and hard to staff metro schools, until they can earn enough brownie points to make the sensible transition.”
What a load of horsesh*t!
Plenty of teachers remain in remote & more disadvantaged schools because they love the kids, know their families and are respected for their ability to deal w/ the local issues & needs.
Glib discussion of “teacher quality” & wanting to get the “best & the brightest” into these schools is INSULTING.
As Ken aptly notes, teacher quality varies…depending on whether an educator is assigned classes that are appropriate for their skills…access to appropriate learning tools & resources that are adequately maintained…support of & relationship w/ ancillary & admin. staff…opportunities to link w/ other agencies & support services….whether or not they have the time to facilitate learning & find time to deal w/ students on an individual basis rather than being swamped by inappropriate class sizes…&/or being weighed down by preparing students for certain useless written standardized tests that contribute to “growth” in children about nil…and seem to be a lazy politicians approach to managing schools.
Joel Klein’s system seems to be a “time & motion” obsessive & cheapos way of keeping educators dancing like puppets to drive kids into a cattleyard of learning, pretending they can magically improve the cognitive ability & language capabilities of students because everyone is dancing faster & trying to look productive in the demoralising chaos.
Perhaps I’ve read the situation incorrectly.
I can’t say I disagree w/ putting pressure on parents in some areas…& some schools do need more specific funding…& opportunities for “motivated” educators who are pulling more than their fair share of the load…
but any government who spends their valuable time promoting the ideologies of the Bloombergs & the Murdochs…the royalty of NY…and the Gates Foundation & Bertelsmann…w/out taking into account the demoralising effect that those highly competitive, profiteering MANAGEMENT & MARKETING STYLES will have on the many exhausted, altruistic teachers across Australia…well, that’s a government that better be prepared for a fight.
And that’s a government that is obviously not as wide-thinking as we had hoped. When I see Andrew Bolt creaming his pants over the prospect of supporting Julia Gillard & Kevin Rudd in a campaign to CRUSH teacher unions…I can only think:
BRING…IT…ON
My wife can barely think tonight because she’s spent many days & nights…and many hours this weekend (per usual) on her laptop designing ways to improve the learning outcomes of her students. When she heard Rudd’s glib comments the other day her face went pale, her eyes lit w/ anger & she felt betrayed. She’s been an acting HOD for over a year and yet she still doesn’t receive equal sick pay. But she rarely gripes.
Nor does she know I’m writing this. But I’ve had this “knock teachers & the standard of Australian public school education” in order to DIVERT ATTENTION & prove “I’m a hard, tough politician” up to here (hand held above forehead shaking w/ barely contained rage).
My wife has supported the Bligh reforms w/ excitement…and I liked what I was hearing…& she has deep respect for Anna. She listened to Bligh as she attended a science experience day recently. She came home bubbling w/ excitement…”the school kids had a wonderfully motivating & interactive day”… she was enthused.
Teachers have to scrape for “satisfaction” sometimes…plenty of FULL ON, emotionally draining days…but that day my wife was thrilled.
I see her pick herself up from the DRAINING days time & time again…shake my head & feel pride swell in my chest…& it always starts w/ talking animatedly about some student(s)…or a new project…or some work unit that she feels will challenge students’ minds.
Thanks for the kick in the head Federal Labor.
N’