Progressive Educator

From Blog to Website

2008-02-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

As from today, all new materials will be posted by the Progressive Educator, South Australia, team at their website: http://www.progressiveeducators.com.au/index.php .

We hope the new format will be easier to access and navigate.

Stop the demands of the private school lobby!

2008-02-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

A little over a week ago, Association of Independent Schools of South Australia Executive Director Gary Le Duff was given a spectacular front page ride into the arms of readers of the Murdoch daily monopoly, the aptly named Advertiser (see, appropriately, far right).

Le Duff was demanding that the private school and Catholic Education sectors get an even bigger handout from the state Government – on top of the $100 million they already get now, and in addition to the huge handouts from the federal Government.

For the record, non-government schools…..err, can’t really call them that these days – independent schools……….no, that doesn’t fit either……ummm…publicly- subsidized- but- closed- to- the- public- schools, get funding from the state Government under the following categories (these figures are for a so-called low-fee religious school in a country town):

Per capita primary 88,449.74
Per capita secondary 68,140.12
Needs entitlement 58,095.23
Interest subsidy 9,948.64
Index of rurality 10,720.55
School card primary 75,663.03
School card secondary 58,700.44
Special needs 15,332.75
Aboriginality 1,338.79
Fee remissions[1] 16,341.23

Total 402,730.52

This same school received the bulk of its taxpayer funding from the federal Government, as follows:

Federal funding

Est. general recurrent primary 786,654.00
Est. general recurrent secondary 569,472.80

Total 1,356,126.80

Grand total 1,758,857.30

(NB - these figures do not include other grants or assistance, such as the Premier’s Reading Challenge, the federal chaplaincy project, and the funding approved for capital works in 2005. The latter amount of $206,192.00 was for the construction of four general learning areas, a music/drama room, and a music tutorial area.)

The fee remissions are slightly higher than in some comparable Category C schools: XX Christian School, with 196.5 FTEs claimed $1,556.31 (or $7.92 per student), and metro YY College with 607 FTEs claimed $24,589.66 (or $40.51 per student). This one, by contrast, claimed $16,341.23 (or $65.90 per student).

It is on top of these combined state-federal funds that Le Duff preposterously proposes that the state Government now pick upall or part of the tab for private school capital works projects.

Le Duff is obviously worried that the fallout from the sub-prime crisis in the US, together with Kevin07’s crusade against inflation (fought through the agency of interest rate rises) will drive some of the working and middle class parents who have scrimped and saved to put their children into private schools, to return to the public education sector.

The Le Duff bluff also comes as private school fees rose by around 7 per cent on last year’s levels, and as a promised tax rebate on private school fees disappeared along with its sponsor, the reactionary and anti-public sector Howard Liberal Government.

Le Duff can sense a swing back to the public school system and is worried that the reckless plans for expansion that have characterized schools in the private sector might not be able to be paid for, or would need to be paid for through additional steep rises in fees.

And to further contextualize the issue, a report commissioned by the Howard Government into the so-called “socio-economic status” (SES) funding model that it has used to increase funding to the private sector shows that at the federal level, private schools have been overpaid more than $2 billion from a funding formula already rigged in favour of the wealthiest and most exclusive schools.

The outgoing Howard Government kept the report secret, but shamefully and to no-one’s great surprise, so did the incoming Rudd education “revolutionaries”!

They refused FOI applications to release the report, which has now been leaked to the media.

This Government foolishly went to the polls late last year with the promise that it would maintain Howard’s funding of the privates, and that “no school would get less than it does now”.

The main findings of the report were:

Cost of maintaining the existing SES system would be $26.5 billion over the next four-year cycle.
-Grants to half the private schools in the country are not assessed according to the SES formula.
-Over the last 4 years $2 billion in payments to schools which had their funding maintained at higher levels than they would get if the federal funding formula was strictly applied.
-60 per cent of mainstream Catholic schools and 25 per cent of independent schools are funded above what would be their SES entitlement
-At least half will continue to receive $2.7 billion in overpayments over the next four years.
-Some will be overpaid by as much as $23 million each in the next funding cycle
-Inequity lies in the guarantee from the inception of the SES formula in2001 that no school will receive less money than it did the previous year.
-Transitional arrangements made for Catholic schools to preserve their funding entitlements at 2000 levels, even if they qualified for less, when they joined the SES funding system in 2001havecontinued at artificially inflated levels for eight years, despite their transitional nature.
-Rejection of private school lobby's argument that the extra funding helps keep a lid on the fees parents pay. Points out that fees have continued to rise significantly.
-42 per cent of Funding Maintained schools (87) increased their fees by more than 40 per cent during the period 2000 to 2004 compared to 24 per cent of SES-funded schools (164).
-Number of Funding Maintained schools with annual fees below $2500 fell by 24 per cent (48) compared to a fall of 10 per cent (67) for SES-funded schools."
-Private schools identified as receiving an already too-generous share of government funding are exploiting a loophole to claim even more money from taxpayers - by calling new schools ‘campuses’ of an over-generously funded ‘parent’ school rather than new schools

Given the above, and Le Duff would have been a poor spokesperson for the private school lobby had he not known of the above, at least in broad outline, it makes even more reprehensible his demands for “more…more…more…” from the state Government.

Indeed the whole issue of the inequitable SES funding model, and of the rorting it has allowed, requires nothing less than a new version of the Whitlam-era Schools Commission, that is, a national enquiry into the scandalous running down of public education and the corrupt promotion of a tax-payer funded private alternative.

Such a commission should have the power to make Rudd’s superficial “Education Revolution” a genuinely transformative sweep of the whole field of public and private schooling, one that ensures that a free, secular and compulsory system of the highest quality is available to all, that schools catering to the particular needs of minority ethnic or religious communities are funded by the government, and regulated and registered for curriculum and learning accountability, but that parents who seek to place their offspring in exclusive elite schools for reasons of simple snobbery do so entirely at their own cost.

We don’t set up alternative systems of roads for the exclusive use of the drivers of luxury imported cars, and should the same ever come into existence, we would be outraged if a single cent of public money was expended on them.

The same principle should be brought to education.

[1] This is designed to help schools to offset some of the loss of income arising from remissions given for economic hardship and as sibling concessions in a school year. In addition, income loss arising from written off unpaid fees/bad debts associated with the difficult economic circumstances of some families may also be claimed. School Card students are removed from this criterion, so the remissions only apply to non-School Card holders.

Stand and Deliver! Publicly Funded Private Schools to Share Facilities

2008-01-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

Public Schools around the country should immediately begin to make contact with their local private schools and begin to make an assessment of the private school facilities that must be made available to public school students.

Ten years of the Howard Coalition Government and its outrageously private school biased funding formula has clearly generated an embarrassment of riches for private schools. Well, at least it seems the newly elected Rudd Labor Government and Minister Julia Gillard are embarrassed and are attempting redress the gluttonous private schools’ plunder.

Announced on Sunday 20 January, the Federal Government's $62.5 million Local Schools Working Together Program aims to encourage the creation of first-class shared facilities between government and non-government schools.

Undoubtedly the first class facilities already exist in private schools and the funds allocated by the Federal Government could be well spent in the transport of public school students to access the private school facilities.

The powerful private school lobby group South Australian Association of Independent Schools Executive Director Gary LeDuff stated in the Sunday Mail that "In principle I support the idea, but we would need to work through the complexities of the source of funds. In the independent schools sector, on average 85 per cent of funds for capital works comes from the parents. No state government funding is available for capital works.”

“How do you then share that sort of facility when the rest of the community may not be contributing a fair amount of the costs?"

While LeDuff omits that the funding formula established by the former Federal Government and maintained by the Rudd Government has been siphoning more public funding into private schools than they know what to do with, he goes onto hint at a backlash from private schools required to engage in the programme.

As for fairness, “the rest of the community” – the two thirds of Australian families who send their children to public schools have already contributed a “fair amount of the cost” through taxes paid to federal and state governments. The “rest of the community” have also paid the cost because students in public schools have gone without while private school facilities have flourished. Hard to put a dollar value on that!

This Rudd Labor Government initiative is useful in the short term to begin to address the inequities of funding but the Government is fully aware of the growing tide of public antagonism toward a funding formula that is exacerbating a growing cultural and educational divide between the haves and have nots.

The Rudd Government should immediately invest a small fraction of the budget surplus - a sum of $2.9 billion annually – into public schools across the nation to ensure all schools meet the MCEETYA determined National Resource Standard. Then it should develop an equitable and fair mechanism for the allocation of funds to public and private schools.

Now that would be a fiscally responsible, interest rate neutral, nation building education revolution.

In the meanwhile call your local private school and carry out your own audit. Oh and tell the kids to pack their bathers!

On Pearson's "Teach for Australia"

2008-01-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

The newsletter of the Noel Person Fan Club (aka the Australian), front pages a proposal for a scheme designed by Pearson to attract teachers to schools in Aboriginal communities.

Pearson proposes something called Teach for Australia, to be modeled on similar schemes in the US and Britain.

Under the scheme, existing teachers will be given tax-free incentives to spend four years in Aboriginal communities where they will mentor “associate teachers”. The latter are university graduates who are selected because they are outstanding academically and have leadership skills - but not teaching qualifications.

Both Teaching for America and Teaching First in Britain are flawed models.

They take predominantly white and bright yuppies (see British Teach First appointees - right) and place them in schools that are poor, black, Hispanic - generally hard to staff.

With no qualifications to teach, and relying on raw idealistic enthusiasm alone, they are expected to teach for two years - and complete basic teacher certification and/or business management courses.

Why the business management courses?

Because the funding for the two schemes comes largely from the private sector - both corporate financiers and private foundations.

Those who do not get burnt out in the whiteboard jungle (and the burn out rate is as high as 30%), are then fast-tracked into employment with the corporate sponsors.

The Teach First website explains: “Teach First supporters consistently identify communication skills as being the greatest weakness of the graduates they hire. As a result of a rigorous recruitment process and their time in the classroom, Teach First participants demonstrate strong communication skills, as well as planning, organisation and creativity. In addition, they have all excelled academically. The results show that they are making an (sic!) significant impact in England schools. What could they achieve in your business?”

Or as Wessex Scene Online puts it: “Teach First hopes to demonstrate to applicants how the skills they gain while teaching will enhance their careers in the long-term, as well as offering fast-track recruitment from the sponsors of the project.”

As they now operate (Teach for America has been going for 17 years), selection for the scheme is both a matter of selection (academic achievement) and self-selection (desire to be fast-tracked into employment with Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Deloitte etc). The altruism of empathy with the poor and the marginalised has been replaced with a commitment to self and the profit margin. Just what we want in remote Aboriginal schools!

But can’t these “teachers” improve things during their two-year stint in the ghetto?

The Australian repeats claims of “evidence from the Britain and the US…that the associate teachers produced comparable results or slightly better in reading and maths.”

But the study that produced evidence for this was flawed since many teachers in hard to staff schools are not credentialed (registered in our terms) anyway. Matched against properly credentialed professional teachers, they were shown not to do as well.

And then there is the specifically Australian problem of cross-cultural understandings. The Little Children Are Sacred Report was quite clear that non-Aboriginal teachers should have thorough induction in Aboriginal cultural studies and should develop cultural sensitivities in respect of Aboriginal children that they teach.

Indeed, many of the children in Aboriginal communities use English as a second language and require education that is bilingual and bicultural.

Just parachuting a future stockbroker into a remote Aboriginal school armed with an Accelerated Literacy (ie English literacy for urban residents) program is doing these students a grave disservice.

The merit of Pearson’s proposal is that it indicates quite clearly a level of financial remuneration that is appropriate for teachers making a commitment to work in remote communities for a specified period of time.

Indeed, that level of remuneration should be sufficient to ensure that teachers would be willing to learn about, and develop a basic fluency in, an Aboriginal language specific to a community into which they would be placed, and that they would be prepared to seek accreditation in Aboriginal cultural awareness as well.

Such properly qualified and accredited, experienced teachers – and not “associates” of the Teach First, or Teach for America, type – can be properly regarded as part of the answer.

The answer however, will remain fundamentally incomplete so long as Aboriginal people themselves are denied opportunities to achieve teacher qualifications and are kept (“kept” because of issues of structural inequality and remoteness) at the bottom rung of the education employment ladder as clerical staff and community workers.

As it stands, Pearson's importing of the Teach for America and British Teach First models is a recipe for the privatisation of social responsibility for poverty and disadvantage - a bit like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

School funding stopped being cricket long ago

2008-01-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

We reprint today two articles from the Sydney Morning Herald on the scandalous over-funding of private schools, a situation that the new Federal Labor Government has pledged to maintain for at least another four years.

Author: Gerard Noonan
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald (11,Wed 09 Jan 2008)

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Australians like to consider themselves as belonging to one of the more egalitarian countries. Perhaps that's why this week's challenge to the sense of fairness on the cricket paddock has caused such ructions. What, Australians being boorish, pushy and sneaky? Come off the grass.

It's not only in the pampered professional cricketing circus arena where Australia simply doesn't get it. A far more fundamental, but important, example of how Australia has got it wrong - really wrong - has to do with the education of the nation's children and the way some get just about everything while many others get very little.

In October 2005, when he was a humble (of sorts) frontbencher in the Labor Opposition, Kevin Rudd gave a speech of unusual clarity, erudition and prescience to an eclectic audience at the University of NSW on the role of morals in the life of a politician. They had no reason then to believe they were listening to a bloke who would be leading the country in a little over two years. Certainly not one who has it in his sway to shape and remake a society, however conservative he might appear.

What Rudd said was interesting not simply because few leading Australian pollies dare stray into the potential graveyard of moral philosophy. He made a passionate case that the real role of religion (in his case a blend of liberal Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism) in secular politics was to challenge inequality wherever it emerged. This was especially so for the creation ofpublic policy that affected the less powerful in society.

As the Herald education editor, Anna Patty, has revealed today, Australia's educational funding model is under renewed scrutiny, and justifiably so. It is so flawed that even a hand-picked committee of federal government bureaucrats has produced a report that says that the system stinks. It recognises that the so-called Socio-Economic Status (SES) system of calculating a school's federal funding eligibility delivers up billions of dollars in a most unfair and discriminatory way.

The report, produced behind closed doors over the past 18 months, with only selected political hangers-on and lobbyists from the independent school sector getting a look-in, is not public. The Herald has been trying to obtain it, including through freedom of information laws for months, to no avail. Until now, that is. While Patty has only had a glimpse of this secret report's entire findings - access gained through the back door - its conclusions are stark.

At its simplest, the report recognises what every serious policy expert of good will and common sense in the education sector has known for nearly a decade. An education funding formula that rewards six out of every 10 private schools with far more than the formula says they should be paid is deeply flawed. These statistics include the vast Catholic network in which 20 per cent of all Australian children are educated. These are not just peanuts in overpayments. They are multimillion-dollar overpayments to schools, even by the lax standards of the SES formula, which the previous government had to adjust twice to accommodate the embarrassing largesse.

Rudd and his Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, must know this. The more honest senior players from the Catholic, Anglican and other private school groups acknowledge privately that it is unfair, even to grumpy curmudgeons like me. But to win the recent election Labor stamped out any possibility of a re-run of a feared "politics of envy" challenge by the Coalition, which had artfully used such a ploy in destroying the entirely reasonable, if culturally unacceptable, challenge to the status quo in 2004 by the former Labor leader Mark Latham.

Rudd and Gillard insisted they would keep the previous government's funding formula in place for the next four-year period, even though they had argued against it when it was imposed in 1999. That means that the system will, if Rudd's social conscience does not kick in, remain in place until at least 2012.

Few in this country seem to realise just how far out of whack Australia's school funding system is among the developed world.

The OECD places Australia in a category of its own in the way public funding is directed towards private school interests, which can then charge fees. Many industrialised countries provide funding through taxation to private and religious schools that meet national curriculum standards - some even provide 100 per cent of all costs - but the funding is cut off or severely curtailed if fees are charged by a school.

The policies are aimed at providing choice of educational type without distorting how much is directed from the public purse to well-endowed schools.

Here is one instance where those in power with a professed strong sense of social justice need to re-examine an election commitment - probably given in good faith - which has a big distorting impact on the development and legitimate aspirations of the nation's youth.

School funding flaws hidden

2008-01-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

Author: Anna Patty Education Editor
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald (1,Wed 09 Jan 2008)
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A SECRET federal report into funding for private schools has found that many are receiving more than their fair share of taxpayers' money.

The Herald understands the federal Education Department's review of private school funding has identified entrenched inequity in the Commonwealth system. The report, which was completed last year but kept under wraps by the Howard government before the November election, recommends transitional arrangements to wean some schools off inflated levels of funding.

The Rudd Government - which made an election promise to maintain the existing system that delivers more than $6 billion in subsidies to private schools each year - is now faced with the department's own criticism of the funding system, which measures each school's entitlement according to the wealth of families who attend.

The report found that many schools are being overpaid as part of the Howard government's "no losers" policy which ensured no school would receive less money than it had in the past.

That was despite a review in 2004 that found the socio-economic status (SES) of some schools had improved, entitling them to less money.

About 60 per cent of independent and Catholic schools have had their funding maintained at artificially inflated levels and are exceptions to the rule of the funding formula.

The Australian Anglican Schools Network said new schools were not able to access the same levels of funding as older schools that have had their funding frozen at historic levels.

The network's president, Peta Smith, has said a review of inequities in the Commonwealth funding model was long overdue because some schools had government funding maintained at levels that new schools in the same area could not access.

In her confidential submission to the Commonwealth inquiry into the SES funding scheme, she said the system of funding schools at artificial levels was unsustainable.

"Funding maintenance is not sustainable in the long term as it ignores the logic of needs-based funding being assessed on the SES score that is at the core of the SES model," the submission, obtained under freedom of information laws, says.

However, Ms Smith said there were some schools that needed to have their funding maintained.

Christian Schools Australia has been arguing for a greater share of funding for its low-fee schools and hopes to strike a similar deal to that achieved by the Catholic school system, which will receive $12 billion in funding in the present four-year funding agreement, which runs to the end of this year.

The Greens NSW MP John Kaye said the department's review was bad news for the Rudd Government.

"In order to take the heat off the education issue in last year's federal election, they committed Labor to the SES funding model without worrying about its deep flaws," Dr Kaye said. "Now they will have to work their way out of trouble, probably by burying the report and papering over the massive cracks in private school subsidies."

Dr Kaye said it was outrageous the federal government review was conducted behind closed doors and that the final report had been buried.

"More than $6.2 billion is distributed each year to private schools under current arrangements and this is tipped to rise to more than $7.5 billion by the end of the next funding period," he said.

"With such large sums of money and such massive impacts on public education, the Government has an obligation to publish the results of the review."

Australian History: Gillard must listen to history teachers

2007-12-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

Disappointingly, Julia Gillard has signaled that the “me too-ism” that saw Rudd successfully checkmate his way to the Prime Ministership is still very much alive in Labor ranks.

She is reported in the media today as saying that she believed Australia was “settled” rather than “invaded”.

“I would say that Australia was settled,” she said on television. “I can understand that many indigenous Australians would say that it was invaded….”

Why should it only be indigenous Australians who might want to use the word “invasion”? The wording of Gillard’s comment implies that no non-Aboriginal Australian would accept that an invasion began in 1788. There are a significant and growing number of non-Aboriginal Australians who are quite comfortable with the notion that an invasion took place. Or is it only in reference to the post-colonial era that we are meant to take offence should a phrase like “Japan’s plans to settle Australia during WWII” ever, God forbid, be uttered?

But leaving that aside, what is the future of History as an area of study in Australian schools?

We know that John Howard sought to narrowly define an Australian history curriculum for Years 9 and 10. The history of his attempt to control this process and its outcomes is well-documented on the NSW History Teachers Association website (here). Howard intervened over the top of Education Minister Bishop’s head and appointed a hand-picked group of right-wing cultural warriors to create a curriculum that corresponded to his ideological bent.

The resulting Guide to the teaching of Australian History in Years 9 and 10 has been widely criticized. It is structured around Topics, Milestone Events, and People. The Milestones are more like millstones around the necks of teachers and students: impossibly content rich and typically “mainstream”.

This Guide must be dumped by Gillard.

Hopefully she will read right-wing ideologue Kevin Donnelly’s piece in the Australian (Dec 4, 2007, p. 12) in which he gloats that Gillard’s comments are “evidence of the power and longevity of John Howard’s influence on Australian politics.”

The new Labor Government must refer a national History curriculum to its proposed National Curriculum Board, and the education “experts” on that Board must seek out and listen to the voice of the professional associations for the teaching of History in each State and Territory.

Never again must History teachers be excluded from the process for the development of their curriculum.

As progressive educators, we advocate a socially critical curriculum.

We advocate knowledge of the history of human occupation of this country and of the ability to understand sequential or narrative structures applying to that history.

Above all, we advocate the acknowledgement of multiple perspectives, and that such perspectives exist on the question of the history of human occupation, for it is embedded in the culture of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders that they have been here since “time immemorial”, that they have been here “from the start of time” and that concepts such as 50,000 years or 60,000 years are not part of their culture.

(Having said that, when students see a physical representation of time, it can be a humbling experience for some. I used to get them to count out 60 bricks along a section of our school’s Lecture Theatre, with each brick representing a thousand years in the human occupation of Australia. The last fifth of the very last brick always looks so tiny - the entire span of post-invasion Australia!)

We advocate that students be able to distinguish between a primary and a secondary source, and to recognize the value of each; that they can distinguish between fact and opinion, and be able to detect bias or prejudice.

We advocate exposing students to learning about family and local history so that they see themselves as part of history and understand that history can be investigated through artefacts as well as text books, and that artefacts can be classified and catalogued and exhibited for the sharing of historical information and insight.

We advocate students developing the understanding that values don't fall out of the sky but are created by people in different circumstances for particular purposes, and that while one set of values may lead to someone believing that “The story of Australia encompasses settlement and expansion…” (Howard’s The Guide…), another set of values might lead someone to believing that “The story of Australia encompasses unsettlement and encroachment…” Neither view should be forced down the throats of students, but they should be able to identify which of their own values encourages them to lean towards one belief rather than the other.

Gillard may be persuaded to abolish Howard’s History curriculum, for in the same article she also stated that she “supported students being exposed to different interpretations of Australian history and reaching their own conclusions”.

That, at least, is an improvement on the Howard model.

……………………

For an excellent article on the exposure of students to different perspectives, see the article by John DeRose in the Fall 2007 edition of Rethinking Schools magazine, called “History Textboooks: ‘Theirs’ and ‘Ours’”. Unfortunately, it is not yet linked to in the on-line version of the publication.

Prince Alfred College teachers fighting AWAs

2007-11-22T15:24:00.000-08:00

This article is repeated without change from the Eastern Courier (21/11/07) an Adelaide suburban newspaper.

It is a warning to teachers in the public education system that un-Australian Workplace Agreements are infiltrating education, and that what private school teachers face now will be what we face in the future if the Howard regime is re-elected on the 24th of this month.

The article follows:

Workplace Disagreement

By Aaron Coultate

Teachers at one of Adelaide's most elite private schools are at loggerheads with management in a dispute over WorkChoices, which is likely to act as a test case for other independent schools.

Teachers at Prince Alfred College, Hackney, have overwhelmingly rejected a new pay deal in which union members were asked, for the first time, to sign Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). Staff voted 80-20 against the changes which, they said, would ban the Independent Education Union from meeting with members on school grounds, or discussing with them workplace issues.

They have previously accepted the school's offer on pay and conditions.

"The workplace is now in deep dispute over form rather than function," union secretary Glen Seidel (right) said.

"...There is a lot of resentment there."

Mr Seidel said the outcome could be a landmark ruling for SA independent schools, most of which were set to begin AWA negotiations in coming weeks.

"It will probably set the precedent for the rest of the state's non-Catholic private schools. PAC is the vanguard, everyone else is looking at them."

He said it was unlikely teachers would strike. "The most that may happen is some teachers boycott a Saturday morning game of school cricket.

"These are not your usual militant union members."

The teachers have gone back to management with a proposed "memorandum of understanding", which would bypass WorkChoices while maintaining the agreed working and pay conditions.

Mr Seidel said the need for the teachers to take this action made a "mockery" of the laws.

It is unclear whether the school will accept the teachers' position.

Contacted on Friday, PAC Headmaster Kevin Tutt refused to comment.

The issue could take a different tack if the ALP is elected on November 24, with leader Kevin Rudd promising to overhual industrial relations laws.

..............................................................................................

The situation at PAC (a Uniting Church elite college) mirrors that at Sydney Church of England Co-Ed Grammar School (SCESGS) which is also using the WorkChoices legislation to deny teachers basic industrial rights by refusing to negotiate with the IEU.

Staff at SCECGS have been offered a new enterprise agreement that varies the template agreement negotiated between the IEU and the Association of Independent Schools, to the disadvantage of staff.

"SCECGS senior personnel told staff that 'theoretically' the school could dismiss all the teachers if they voted 'no' to the agreement and hold a second vote of the new staff in order to get the agreement passed," said IEU General Secretary Dick Shearman.

"The School Principal and Board have ignored a petition by over 100 staff members...The school has flatly refused to negotiate...(and) is using WorkChoices to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation," he said.

Let them sell cake!!

2007-11-20T19:57:00.000-08:00

Is this what it will come to - a lamington stall - to make up the funding shortfall for public education if the Howard government is re-elected after November 24?

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf5J-XB3BVA

More teachers and laptops needed - the education revolution must tackle the capitalist press!

2007-11-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

One of the contributing factors to the growing psychological complexity of teaching in Australia is the continual denigration of, and hostility towards, teachers in the mass media.

These is particularly true of the print media, and of the Murdoch press above all others.

The Murdoch flagship, The Australian, is the worst of the lot.

Consider its editorial response to Rudd’s promise to provide each student in Years 9-12 with their own computer. The editorial was headed “MORE TEACHERS NEEDED, NOT MORE LAPTOPS – The education revolution must tackle union power” (16/11/07).

Let’s deal with its treatment of Rudd’s policy first.

The editorial states “Labor’s plan ignores the fact that OECD figures show that all Australian students already have access to computers at school.”

As any teacher or student would know, “having access” to a school computer doesn’t mean much when there is continual competition to book a class into a computer lab. It doesn’t mean much when computers are old and slow.

And “access” doesn’t equal equity across school systems: elite Scotch College in Adelaide requires each student to have a laptop, private Westminster School does well to have 500-plus computers for its 1100 students, but highly regarded Glenunga International High, a state school, has only 250 for 1250 students. Rudd’s promise of high-speed broadband and a computer for each Year 9-12 student will solve the problem of competition for access and ensure equity across school systems. In state schools in particular, it will free funds to target other resource requirements.

The editorial also states: “We question also whether parents may not ultimately be more persuaded by Mr Howard’s pledge to fix the core curriculum and get the basics right than Mr Rudd’s promise to promote computer use as a time when a pressing issue is to get children to switch the computer off and take some real exercise.”

To advance a populist argument that kids need to get off computers and get some exercise denies the OECD finding that “School students who are established computer users tend to perform better in key school subjects…” (OECD, “Are students ready for a technology-rich world’, 2006). I doubt that ACHPER, as the peak body promoting healthy exercise, would target the use of computers in classrooms in its advocacy for increased levels of fitness.

And really, this sentence should read “We hope that parents will be more persuaded…” because the intention clearly is to mould public opinion into support for the Howard Government.

But note the insidious teacher-bashing behind the claim that the core curriculum needs “fixing” and that the basics of education are “wrong”. This is where the sub-title about tackling “union power” comes into its own.

The editorial states: “A big obstacle (to lifting the quality of teaching staff) is the socialist collective bent of the teacher unions, which remain hostile to any system that links teacher pay to performance outcomes or even different skills sets.”

And it is the lack of performance pay that is keeping the young away from teaching: “…university students considering a career are reluctant to choose teaching because it has a rigid pay system, based on tenure rather than performance.”

However, as careers counselors know, the lack of a performance pay system is not what is keeping students from becoming teachers. Poor pay compared to comparable professions certainly is. The stress of teaching (workload, class size, behaviour management) certainly is. The lack of respect for teachers compounded by continually negative media reportage certainly is. Or at least, this is what senior students have repeatedly told me for many years. None have cited the lack of a performance pay system. Nor has one been adopted in Finland where “the profession of teacher is now the most popular among upper-secondary students, even more popular than careers in IT, medicine or business” (Phi Delta Kappan Oct 2007 p. 109). Finns are very protective of the high status of teachers and provide small classes and decent conditions. They don’t stand for their teachers being continually disrespected in the media.

The editorial closes with a call to “Anyone who is going to fix Australia’s education problem (to) be brave enough to stand up to the teachers’ unions…”

Regardless of which party wins office after November 24, we will need to remain strong and united, defending the very high standards of education in Australia (confirmed in the OECD’s 2006: Education at a Glance), and challenging the continuing denigration of our profession by media hacks tied to the Business Council of Australia and its cronies.

Military intimidation backfires in Chicago

2007-11-19T20:52:00.001-08:00

By George N. Schmidt (CHICAGO)

More than a dozen active duty United States Marines and Army formed a perimeter around the meeting room of the Chicago Board of Education prior to the Board's November 14, 2007, meeting, apparently prepared to raise objections to a Board Report which would restrict military recruiters' access to Chicago's high schools.

The soldiers and Marines, who have been confirmed by military officials as members of the armed forces on active duty, were present at the beginning of the meeting, standing along the walls of the meeting room and posted at the two public entrances to the room.

The military people remained standing during the early parts of the Board's meeting, but departed soon after a female Iraq War veteran, Patricia McCann, began speaking describing her experiences with recruiting fraud while she was a high school student and her subsequent treatment while in the Army, both in Iraq, during her term of service, and subsequently. Those of us who arrived at the Board before the official beginning of the meeting noticed that more than a dozen uniformed Marines and soldiers were standing along the walls inside the Board chambers. One of them was wearing desert combat fatigues and combat boots. Another dozen or so Marines (most in uniform) were sitting in the Board chambers near Alderman James Balcer (D-11th Ward, Bridgeport, etc), who sat a few rows behind the Press section.

Seven individuals (including Balcer) were signed up to speak on military recruiting, and five of those identified themselves in the public participation agenda as members of the military (three National Guard and two Marine Corps). There were enough empty seats in the Board chambers for all of the standing Marines (and one Army person) to have seated themselves, so it was clear that they had either chosen to stand deployed around the perimeter of the room (with one at each of the entrances) or had been ordered to do so (remember: these are active duty military people: they are under orders and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- which is very different from the way the law works for you, me, and Arne Duncan).

By 10:30 a.m. on November 14, there were more than 50 people seated in the "holding room" on the 19th floor watching the Board meeting on closed circuit TV, even though many of them were part of groups signed up to speak (the largest I saw was from UNO Charter Schools). Typically, the Chicago Board of Education holds its meetings in a room which is too small for all those who wish to attend, so the remaining people are placed in what has been called the "holding room" on the 19th floor of the same building at 125 S. Clark St. in Chicago. The Board meets in a special meeting room on the 5th floor.

The Board's monthly meetings generally consist of three parts. First, the Board honors various individuals and groups. Second, the Board listens to "Public Participation" from people who wish to bring their concerns democratically before the Board. Each person wishing to participate in public participation signs in between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. on the day of the meeting. Their names are then printed in a "Public Participation" list before the Board convenes at approximately 10:30. After public participation ends, the Board convenes its regular meeting, which usually hears executive reports before going into executive session. The Board comes out of executive session to vote on its agenda items (or, in the case of the most controversial one on the November 14 agenda, table them) by dinner time, then adjourns for the month.

Since the Chicago Board of Education was reorganized in 1995 under the complete control of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Board has abolished all committees and ended all public meetings except the monthly meeting. For more than eight years, the Board has approved every item on its public agenda--more than 5,000 pieces of business--without discussion or debate. The members of the Board and the school system's CEO (currently Arne Duncan) are both appointed by the mayor. Although the opening of the public participation portion of the meeting was again delayed by various honoraria and the usual VIP speaking (Alderman Balcer was placed in front of all the other signed in speakers, as is traditional with the Board when elected officials show up), it had begun by 11:00 (when Board President Rufus Williams called on Ald. Balcer). Balcer didn't mention any Board Report on recruitment policy in his remarks. He was merely repeating what he has already made clear to the public on hundreds of occasions -- that he feels that his service in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War changed his life for the better, and that he is glad he was recruited.

The regular public participation then began. During that time, I generally try to photograph all of the people speaking and rarely leave the space where photographers are confined. The fourth or fifth person to speak (Number 5 on the Public Participation Agenda, which is often adjusted during the meeting) was Patricia McCann, who was identified at being with "Iraq Veterans Against War, Coalition Against Militarization of Schools."

McCann spoke about how she was recruited while still a student in high school, how she served in Iraq, and her experiences as a woman in the Army and since. A report on McCann's comments aired on Chicago's WBBM "newsradio" station (the local CBS radio station) the day of her comments and covered fairly her public remarks and the comments she made to reporters (from at least five media outlets, including Channel 2 and the Tribune) in back of the Board chambers after she spoke. During both her remarks and press comments she was accompanied by two people from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

But by the time McCann had finished speaking, all of the uniformed military people in the room had left the Board chambers and (apparently) Board headquarters. And when they were called to speak, they weren't there. Only a young man named David Askew, wearing a suit and introducing himself as an attorney, spoke in favor of military recruiting in the schools (in addition to Balcer). None of the five men identified as Marines and soldiers spoke or was present by the time they were reached on the agenda. During the time this was taking place, I was photographing the speakers (generally) as I usually do, so I didn't even see the uniformed military people leaving. However, I did see Patrick Rocks, the Board's attorney, and he did not leave his place during that time. Two hours later, he reported that the recruiting policy would not be voted on that day.

A spokesman for the military told me later that the uniformed military people had left when they were informed that the agenda item was not going to be voted on that day. When I asked him how they could know that the item had been tabled, he said he didn't know. (Rocks had placed the item on the agenda, and the item was still on the agenda when I picked up the full agenda on the Sixth Floor early that morning).

After trying to learn why the military people had left so abruptly, I was finally called by Lt. Col. Brian Redmon, Commander of the Recruiting Batallion, Illinois National Guard. My question, left earlier with the Guardâ's press office, was why the military people had signed up to speak and then left. "Alderman Balcer had spoken and the issue [we were concerned about] was tabled," Redmon told Substance. "I got word that it was tabled." The question of who told the military people that the issue had been tabled was not answered.

I'm still reporting what happened and why, and am only sad that I didn't turn from Patricia McCann to see the Marines and soldiers leaving the Board chambers during her powerful remarks (accurately reflected in John Cody's report). The uniformed people were clearly not available to be interviewed by the press by the time McCann completed her mini-press conference behind the Board chambers at about 11:30 a.m. and were nowhere to be found. At that point, there were still dozens of people up in the "holding room" on the 19th floor, while more than two dozen seats in the main chambers were empty, including all of those that had been occupied by military personnel.

One of the things I'm trying to report is why uniformed active duty military personnel had shown up at a meeting of the Chicago Board of Education in force on November 14, 2007, and why they redeployed out of the Board chambers prior to 11:30 that morning.

All of these questions are still relevant to any complete report (in context) of these matters.

Men and women on active duty in the military are not free agents. They go where ordered, they leave when ordered, and they do as ordered. I've gotten some answers from spokesmen for the recruiting people in Illinois, and have received other information from others. I'd be glad to hear from anyone who knows the answer to my three main questions now.

Usually, as friends know, I downplay the importance of the "Why" question in the big five for news reports. "If you've got the who, what, when and where you can leave the why to a priest or psychiatrist..." But in the case of this story, the "Why" is the biggest questions. (That's a deliberate plural). Why did CPS withdraw a Board Report it had placed on its public agenda and which remained on that agenda the morning of the November 14, 2007, meeting. Why were more than a dozen active duty Marines and soldiers ordered to attend the November 14, 2007 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education and stand around the perimeter of the meeting room (when seats were available) rather than seating themselves as everyone else does? Why did all of the uniformed military personnel at the November 14, 2007 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education retreat from the meeting during the remarks of a young woman who said that she had been recruited out of high school into the Army and had served in Iraq during the Iraq War?

I just spent two days reporting what should have been a simple story. Out of context, the story would have been that CPS withdrew a new policy on recruiter access to Chicago high schools and will consider the policy again at its December 19 meeting. But context is everything, and the bland report on Iraq War veteran Patty McCann's comments on WBBM (the Trib and Sun-Times ignored the story completely) only touches what was in play in and around the Board Wednesday.

George N. Schmidt Substance Nov. 17, 2007

Bishop announces soup kitchens for elite private colleges

2007-11-14T15:42:00.001-08:00

(Scotch College, Adelaide, above - one of the beneficiaries of Education Minister Bishop's soup kitchen initiative. The college exists to train young entrants to the ruling class, not the workforce, hence this proud proclamation on its website: "While a number of Australian schools have abandoned the Three R's for general studies aimed at "occupational competency", Scotch College has added two more R's: Responsibility and Relevance." Puke!!!)

The Federal Coalition Education Minister Julie Bishop today announced funding for the establishment of soup kitchens at the entrances to some of Australia’s wealthiest private schools.

The move comes days after the Prime Minister, John Howard, announced tax rebates for school fees.

In announcing the soup kitchens, which had their origins in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Ms Bishop said that “welfare for the rich” was a core value of the Coalition Government.

“Maintaining the privileges of the wealthy is an essential component of developing aspiration in the poor,” she said.

“We showed, with the Prime Minister’s tax rebate scheme for school fees that we are determined to help elite private schools survive.”

Ms Bishop said she was disappointed that many in the community were unaware that a number of elite privates were struggling to retain enrolments.

“We have been pumping money into them in an effort to compensate for the lack of students,” she revealed.

Annesley College, with the biggest enrolment decline during the years of the Howard Government, a drop of 38 per cent, has seen its Federal funding increase by 61 per cent in constant dollar terms. In nominal dollar terms (i.e. without adjusting the 1996 figures for inflation) the increase in funding was exactly 100 per cent!

Scotch College, with the second-largest enrolment decline of 14 per cent has had its Federal funding increased by 146 per cent (see below), whilst Prince Alfred College, which lost 8 per cent of its students over the eleven year period, had its funding from the public purse increased by 237 per cent!

“Obviously, the wealthy need our compassion and support,” said the Minister.

“Soup kitchens at the entrances of Scotch, St Peters, Annesley and other elite privates will also be available to parents as they drop their children off at school.”

“No-one driving a child to college in a Beemer or a Merc should be doing so on an empty stomach,” she said.

Fundraiser: Unley High Refugee Support Group

2007-11-08T14:51:00.001-08:00

The Unley High School Refugee Support Group is showing

"Elizabeth the Golden Age"

with Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen

at Wallis Cinemas, Mitcham Shopping Centre, Belair Road, Torrens Park, on Monday December 3rd at 6.00pm.

Cost $15 per head and lucky door prizes.

If you'd like to buy a ticket (or even sell some- we hope to fill the cinema which seats 200) please call Peter on 0409 804 192 and I can get tickets to you.

Hope you can come.

So who – or what – is Mark Lopez?

2007-10-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Australian on 30th October carried an article by one Mark Lopez, under the heading PC warriors serve up a slanted education, with the sub-heading Examples abound of students trying to survive ideological bias in the classroom.

In case you missed it, you can still read it here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22668464-7583,00.html

That will save me having to regurgitate and summarise the rubbish that the Australian’s editors found so compelling as to gave it prime centre space on their Opinion page.

What they don’t say is that the article is largely lifted from the October 27 issue of Newsweekly, that desperate little publication of the late Bob Santamaria’s National Civic Council. Lopez has been a regular contributor since 2000.

So who – or what – is Mark Lopez?

According to the article’s by-line he “is an educational consultant who was a participant in the Howard Government’s History Summit in August 2006.”

That’s part of the “who”.

The “what” is that he’s rapidly emerging as the replacement for Kevin Donnelly who seems to have fallen somewhat out of favour in reactionary circles.

Donnelly always waved the flag for the Right on education issues, particularly in the Australian and in the Institute for Public Affairs’ magazine IPA Review.

However, Donnelly lost favour with Bishop and other reactionaries when he distanced himself from her proposals for a national curriculum, and then went public with his observation that Labor was winning the education debate.

If you don’t stick to the straight and narrow then you’re on the outer. It sort of makes a mockery of Lopez’s “growing desire among Australians for greater intellectual diversity and freedom”.

Nevertheless, Lopez is emerging as the new Donnelly.

His credentials began with the publication of his The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics in 2000.

This was one of a new wave of right wing publications that ascribed every progressive development in any field to the work of “elites” and “lobbyists”. A tiny group of such persons developed the “ideology of multiculturalism” and foisted it on ministers in both the Whitlam and Fraser governments.

He has summarized the politics of the “multiculturalist” push and its victory over “public opinion” here: http://elecpress.monash.edu.au/pnp/free/pnpv8n4/v8n4_3Lopez.pdf

Then the IPA picked him up - at about the same time that Donnelly began to disappear from its pages.

Lopez contributed a four-page critique of The left wing domination of Year 12 English to the December 2006 edition, and reviewed Donnelly’s Dumbing Down: Outcomes-based and Politically Correct - The Impact of the Culture Wars on our Schools for the July 2007 edition.

The day after his latest piece in the Australian, Lopez was published in Melbourne’s Herald Sun (also part of the Murdoch empire). This piece was another teacher-bashing exercise timed to coincide with the Victorian branch of the AEU’s push for a new enterprise agreement and wage structure.

Lopez’s credential for this piece (also referenced in the Australian article) was his work as a private tutor: “As a private tutor…I have an insight into what is really going on…I have the rare opportunity to observe what is good about the system and what the teachers’ unions would rather Australian families not consider.”

This dismal diatribe can be found here: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22668399-5000117,00.html

Perhaps we can suggest that the good Dr Lopez gets a job in a secondary school teaching Year 12 English or History to a class of 30 students, and compare that experience to the luxury of one-on-one tutoring before he throws any more slurs on the professionalism of Australian teachers.

It is unlikely that he will.

But keep in mind who - and what – he is the next time he graces the pages of a newspaper near you.

Education progresses in China and Finland

2007-10-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

Two articles in the October 2007 issue of Phi Delta Kappan make interesting reading as Australia’s education system is pushed inexorably towards the US model: privatization of services, standardized testing, conservative political control, vouchers, expansion of private schools, performance pay, teacher bashing as a media art form.

The first article compares the US and Finnish education systems.

It can be accessed at: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v89/k0710gru.htm

The second compares schooling in the US and China, and how each system seems to be moving towards what the other once was. It notes that “The Chinese system is making every effort to reduce the emphasis on exams because it is believed that China must foster creativity and innovation to compete in the global economy…American policy has identified accountability as the key to creating such a workforce, whereas Chinese policy has identified creativity as the key.”

This article can be accessed at: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v89/k0710pre.htm

Progressive Educator ticket in AEU election win

2007-10-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

The Progressive Educator ticket, representing the interests of all education workers, has won an impressive victory in the AEU SA branch elections.

Correna Haythorpe was successful in the contest for the Presidency, winning against Jan Webber, backed by the principal associations.

Marcus Knill has been re-elected Male Vice-President.

(Two other Progressive Educator candidates – Jack Major, who stood for reelection as General Secretary, and Anne Crawford who stood as Female Vice-President - were elected unopposed.)

In order of votes gained, the new Executive (with Progressive Educator candidates in bold face) consists of:

Andrew Gohl
Jan Webber
David Smith
Lara Kelly
Jackie Bone-George
Lesley Lindsay-Taylor
Chris Waugh
Peter Trethewey
Ray Marino
Kelvin Jeanes
Richard Baxter
Lorraine Young

Members are to be congratulated for responding to the call to keep the leadership of the union in the hands of a broadly representative progressive group.

For a union that represents ALL members!

2007-10-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

OK, it’s the dying days of the AEU elections in South Australia and most votes are in.

However, the grumbling and complaining continues to bounce along on the Principal Association chatlines.

Latest is this piece from Aberfoyle Park High PC08 Wendy Teasdale-Smith:

“Colleagues
Was I the only person who found it annoying and offensive to receive sent to my home address a letter from AEU candidates saying something to the effect of "whatever you do don't vote for any principals at the next election"? And, to have included in the letter references to what was implied as underhanded or inappropriate behaviour by the Associations?
Wendy “

For the record, this is the letter sent to members and signed by all Past Presidents with the exception of local Liberal party luminary Bob Jackson:

Dear……

Past AEU Presidents are taking the unprecedented step to write to you to provide some important information about this year’s AEU Elections.

Since the eighties, AEU leadership and executive have represented a balance of all members’ interests regardless of classification. The voices of SSOs, classroom teachers, Aboriginal educators, early years educators and of course principals have all been represented equally, fairly and in the best interests of all AEU members and Public Education.

This year, however, a group or “ticket”, consisting predominantly of principals is running for President, Vice-President and Executive positions.

This is an unprecedented attempt by a specific interest group to take control of the AEU to progress the interests of principals.

Such a ticket, particularly if supported by Principal Associations, will encourage a vote en bloc by Principals across South Australia, as evidenced by the outcome of the last AEU election in 2005.

A low participation rate in AEU voting by the broad membership will almost certainly see this narrow interest group elected.

That is why past AEU Presidents are calling upon you to make sure your vote counts this election and elect members of executive and of course a president and vice presidents who truly represent all members.

A progressive union that represents the interests of all members is the key to a strong and active union that has a proven track record of successfully promoting public education and improving all members’ working conditions.

(Signed by the following):

Andrew Gohl 2004-2007
John Gregory 1978-1981, 2000-2003
Janet Giles 1996-1999
Clare McCarty 1992-1995
David Tonkin 1988-1991
Leonie Ebert 1982-1983

Really, it’s a bit naughty of Wendy to word her gripe so sloppily, and to include a deliberate fabrication in quotation marks as though it really represented the views of six past Presidents from 1978 to the present (excluding the Liberal Jackson).

“Whatever you do, don’t vote for any principals at the nest election”????

Then why would we stand primary principal Marcus Knill as Male Vice-President and Area School principal Mick Braham for Executive on our ticket?

So people won’t vote for them?

Sloppy, Wendy, sloppy!

Teasdale-Smith’s piece followed on from a similar gripe by current executive member and primary principal Katrina Spencer that was pasted onto the Secondary Principals Association chatline by Phil Goldman.

Here is principal Mick Braham’s considered response to Spencer:

The email from Katrina Spencer and posted by Philip Goldman regarding the AEU elections cannot go without a response.

I understood that SASPA Executive determined they would not support any group in the AEU elections. I commend that stance. The AEU does not involve itself in anyway in Association elections and nor should Associations in AEU elections (I make a clear distinction here between associations and members of those associations). However, since a one-sided point of view has been posted on the chat-line, I felt it was important to respond to the email to give an alternative insight.

Firstly, to Katrina's comments, supported by Phil:
1) I do not concur that leaders are poorly represented in the AEU. It's easy to sit back and criticise, but as an active member of the AEU Band 3 Consultative Committee, it has been evident to me that the AEU is highly committed at improving the conditions for its leaders. As our Association can attest to, achieving "wins" with the employer (with the might of a State Government) is not easy. Marcus Knill as Vice President and Ken Drury as Band 3 Organiser are highly committed to AEU leaders in schools.

2) The letter sent to members by past AEU Presidents does not in any way "speak against" Principals. Three of the five past presidents who signed the letter were principals, one still is and another was recently thanked by the Secondary Principals Association for working pro bono in retirement to resist the education cuts. All were teachers, and proud of it. Together, they offer a wide range of perspectives. This group of past presidents is not against Principals and school leaders. They have a history of effective advocacy in the interests of all members, including principals and school leaders. They do not in their letter say who they endorse. They encourage a vote in the interests of ALL members. As one, they are merely making a point that there are two groups or "tickets" seeking election. One ticket is comprised almost totally of principals and deputies, predominantly primary, and the other represents all AEU members, including primary, including leaders, including secondary, and reflects that in its make up.

Privately, they may endorse a range of candidates representing all members, including principals and school leaders. That is why, amongst a group including a primary teacher for President, Correna Haythorpe, and Marcus Knill for Vice President, I have been endorsed for Executive. Marcus was Principal at Kimba Area School and Assistant Principal at Roxby Downs Area School before becoming AEU Vice President. I am currently the Principal at Cleve Area School and have spent the last 13 years in leadership positions.

In the previous two years, Marcus Knill has convened the AEU Secondary Education Committee to develop papers on the future of public senior secondary schooling in SA and response to the SACE Review. He has formed an AEU/DECS Future SACE Implementation Group and has held several AEU Future SACE forums, including one here in Whyalla. Who will provide this leadership in the AEU from the principals' ticket for Secondary curriculum?

Correna Haythorpe is currently the AEU Women's Officer. She addressed the Band 3 Committee earlier in the year and it was clear that she is committed to representing all members including school leaders.

Finally, I agree with Phil's concluding statement, I believe it is important to have leaders representing ALL AEU members. That's why I will be supporting Correna Haythorpe, Marcus Knill and the Progressive Educators ticket for the next crucial two years as we enter a new enterprise bargaining period.

Where Has Katrina Spencer Been?

2007-10-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Statement

A quote from Executive member and Primary Principal Katrina Spencer which has infiltrated Principal Association chat-lines: “Ensuring better representation for leaders was begun by the formation of the Band 3 Committee but still needs active support by leaders at the Executive level. In my years with Band 3 and now on Exec I am still to see a regular report from Band 3 presented or their recommendations forwarded to Exec and then tabled for action.”

Reports from Committees to Executive?

Executive hears reports from Principal Officers from committees on a needs basis. In fact, the President’s report, to which the Vice Presidents contribute, usually comprises the bulk of Executive meetings. “Regular” reports do not exist at Executive from any committee, although reports covering issues of the day from Principal Officers are comprehensive.

The Inconvenient Truth - Executive Consideration of Band 3 Issues

Katrina has insinuated that the Band 3 Committee and Principal Officer of this committee has not brought issues pertaining to Band 3 members to the attention and discussion of Executive.

Here’s a trail of items raised at Executive by Principal Officer Marcus Knill on behalf of this committee:
13/02/06 - Watervale Trial
08/05/06 - Band 3 Classifications
14/08/06 - Band 3 Classifications
11/09/06 - Principal Classifications – Operational Guidelines
23/10/06 - Student Reports: Advice to Principals
13/11/06 - Implementation of the New SACE
27/11/06 - Part-Time Principal Arrangements
11/12/06 - Part-time Principal Arrangements
12/02/07 - Open Advertisement of Leadership Positions
26/02/07 - Open Advertisement of Leadership Positions
25/06/07 - Watervale Project

President Andrew Gohl has also raised a number of Band 3 issues. The Band 3 CC was also highly influential in supporting the defeat of the BTIT model as presented by DECS in mid-06.

Katrina has been an Executive member for the past two years. The question needs to be asked, “Where has she been?”

Why now?

It is troubling that an Executive member would choose to air personal frustrations of the AEU Band 3 Consultative Committee and its Principal Officer, via a Principal Association chat-line, right in the smack of an AEU election. Katrina has had two years as an Executive member to raise these concerns, either at Executive, with Marcus Knill as Vice President directly, or with Ray Marino as Chair of the Committee.

Newsletter Sept 25, 2007

2007-09-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

Instrumental Music – AEU members take industrial action to support AEU colleagues

Just prior to the successful 1000+ gathering at the Capri Cinema, Goodwood on 12 August 2007, DECS CEO sent the AEU a letter that backed away from the proposed model with a range of concessions. These are:

No changes to Instrumental music in 2008 for primary or secondary schools or students.
Instrumental music teachers to remain part of the Instrumental Music service, north, south and country and will not be forced into schools.
Trials to commence in 2008 of a range of different instrumental music delivery styles, including the original Year 5 whole class approach.
Trials will be paid for by DECS and from outside the Instrumental Music Service budget.
Trials will be voluntary for both school and Instrumental music teachers. That is; no school or teacher can be compelled to participate.

AEU members have always supported quality teaching and excellence in the Public Education system. AEU members support the critical evaluation of teaching methodology and pedagogy. On this basis the AEU also supports the trials where the following preconditions are met:
All staff involved, including Instrumental Music Teachers, are provided with appropriate Professional Development that meet identified needs.

All staff participation is on a voluntary basis.
Trials will not contribute an additional workload impost upon those who volunteer, that is; trials will be fully resourced; e.g. to allow for any release time required for planning and evaluation.
Trials are conducted within an action research framework and outcomes are critically evaluated by a centrally established “Trial Review Committee’ consisting of representatives from Instrumental Music Service, primary and secondary classroom teachers and the AEU.

However, since then, the situation for the Instrumental Music sub branch has become much more complex. 2 staff members have been informed that they are under investigation by DECS for alleged complaints of bullying. These members have been outspoken activists in the IMS campaign and have the support of their sub branch. In question is the process used by DECS for the investigation. The DECS Special Investigation Unit has been instructed to conduct a “preliminary investigation”. This process is in breach of DECS policy which specifies that the DECS Grievance Procedures be used to investigate bullying allegations.

The IMS sub branch has voted unanimously to engage in a further campaign in support of their colleagues. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, members gathered at 31 Flinders St for a rally. This was followed by the withdrawal of goodwill and the refusal to use private vehicles to travel to schools.

On Wednesday 26th September, IMS AEU members will take a one hour stop work from 2pm – 3pm.

Members are calling for:
· an immediate reinstatement of the employees to their positions; and
· a commitment by DECS to act within agreed procedures and specifically the DECS Grievance Procedures.

The Progressive Educator team supports the IMS sub branch in taking strong action to resolve this matter.

AEU elections - make your vote count!

AEU ballot papers will be sent out to you on Friday 5th October, 2007. The ballot will remain open until Friday 26th, October, 2007.

Please talk to members at your worksite about the importance of voting.

Make sure you vote as soon as you receive your election papers in the post. Less than a third of AEU members voted in the last election.

We are very pleased to announce that 2 members of our team have been elected unopposed. Anne Crawford will be AEU Female Vice President and Jack Major continues in his role as AEU Branch Secretary. Congratulations to both Anne and Jack.

To complete the AEU leadership team, we ask that you vote 1 Correna Haythorpe, Branch President and vote 1 Marcus Knill, Male Vice President.

"I believe that this team has the experience and ability to deliver strong outcomes for all members and for public education".
Andrew Gohl, current Branch President

Please vote for the following Branch Executive candidates:

Andrew Gohl, David Smith, Lesley Lindsay Taylor, Peter Trethewey

Correna Haythorpe, Lara Kelly, Daniel Pereira, Mick Braham

Marcus Knill, Jackie Bone-George, Lyn Waller, Chris Champion

Anne Crawford, Kelvin Jeanes, Carmen Kowalski

Film Screening:

Sunday: 30 September
Time: To Be Advised
Palace Cinema, Rundle St., City
Tickets: $15 full, $11 concession
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL
Bookings Call: 0412 231 011, 0423 213 690, 0418 894 366

Howard Haters Art Exhibition

2007-09-24T17:26:00.001-07:00

This is an invitation to attend the opening of Matt Walker's brand new art exhibition, featuring commentary on the Howard regime. Matt’s art is very popular with Howard haters and he also puts it onto T-Shirts on request.

This exhibition opening is a timely artistic contribution on the eve of a watershed election.

Free entry.

The exhibition opening is 7.30 pm Thursday October 4th at the Wheatsheaf Hotel (a striking piece of his work is on the invitation above).

Music teachers fight back

2007-09-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

On Thursday 20 September Instrumental Music Services members are withdrawing their goodwill and are refusing to use their private vehicles to travel to schools.

The Commissioner for Public Employment has advised that public sector employees cannot be compelled to use private vehicles for work purposes. The Acting Chief Executive at her meeting with AEU President Andrew Gohl and Organisers Group Coordinator Bill Hignett on 18 September 2007 confirmed that employees could not be compelled to use their private vehicles.

Gohl and Hignett today attended the two IMS branch offices at Dover Gardens and Klemzig to ensure that there were no high jinks by DECS Officers to undermine this action.

In an attempt to scuttle action by IMS teachers, an email was sent after 4pm yesterday telling the teachers to report to the school they will be teaching at tomorrow.

The advice the AEU have given to the teachers is that they are to report to their base which in the metropolitan area is either the Dover Gardens or Klemzig Office and to ask for a government car or taxi chits to travel to their schools.

This withdrawal of IMS teacher goodwill follows two successful rallies outside the offices of DECS in Flinders Street (photos above and below).

Yesterday’s rally began with an instrumental version of the Simon and Garfunkel classic Mrs Robinson (DECS CEO’s surname is Robinson), ended with a sing-along to a rewrite of Paul Kelly’s Special Treatment.

Notice: Pilger Film "The War on Democracy"

2007-09-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday 30 September

Time: To Be Advised

Palace Cinema, Rundle St., City

Tickets: $15 full, $11 concession

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL

Bookings Call: 0412 231 011, 0423 213 690, 0418 894 366

The impact of the Howard years on Public Education

2007-09-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

by Correna Haythorpe

Since the Howard Government was elected to office in 1996, it has reduced federal funding for public education from 42% of the total school’s education budget to 35% despite the fact that 70% of students are educated in public schools. If this trend continues, federal funding will be down to 31% by 2010.

In a recent Australia Rising address, John Howard made his views very clear about public education when he responded to a question about school vouchers. He expressed opposition to a wholesale voucher approach to education funding because that “undermined the fundamental value and strength of public education as the safety net and guarantor of a reasonable quality education in this country.” Note the word “reasonable” which sets a low bench mark for Howard Government policies on public education.

There has been a massive shifting of funds from public education to private schooling and this comes with the government rhetoric of “choice”, otherwise known as shifting the cost of education to parents by convincing the populace that public education is failing our students. It reflects the Howard/Bishop view that quality education should be located in the private system, with the public school providing a “safety net” for the poor and the dysfunctional – those whom private schools would not accept.

In the run up to the 2007 federal election, the Howard Government has engaged with the insincerity of pork barrelling. In education, there has been an injection of $489 million of additional public funds into private schools which are located in marginally held electorates. The 2007/8 federal budget delivered a $1.7 billion increase to private schools over the next five years, a total of $7.5 billion. Public schools received a $300 million increase taking their total to $3.4 billion. This same budget also ignored preschools and TAFE.

Further analysis of the funding issue must focus on corporate sponsorship and tied funding. Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, has stated that schools should explore corporate sponsorship because it is beyond the capacity of governments to give them the resources they deserve.

She also argues that “increasing links between business and schools would enhance student learning, their employability and skills”. Under a corporate sponsorship arrangement, the question can be asked about how schools would maintain their independence in curriculum delivery and professional matters. In what capacity would business be involved in the daily management of the school, the students and staff? How long before we see a “MacDonald’s syllabus” in the Vocational Education sector? Corporate sponsorship is just another strategy employed by the federal government in their refusal to face their responsibility and duty to appropriately fund public education.

In recent years, public schools have faced the issue of tied funding used to enforce implementation of Federal government imperatives. Grants for flagpoles in schools came with the proviso that a Liberal or National Party politician must “unveil” the flagpole. The A-E grade directive that all schools must produce a report that had a common grade was tied to the threat to withdraw federal education funding for each state. This federal attempt to undermine the professional judgement of educators to assess their students, placed enormous pressure on teachers to engage in a grading process, which was seen by many to be psychologically damaging to students.

From 2009 the Federal Government(if re-elected) will use tied funding to require state education authorities to introduce “initiatives” such as performance-based pay for teachers, reporting against national benchmarks with school and state comparisons (otherwise known as league tables) and greater principal autonomy in hiring and firing of staff. State ministers are likely to accept this funding blackmail in order to have the $$$$ for education. Effectively, this will be a move away from hard won employee rights and entitlements, wage security and the concept of equal pay for equal work. It also has the potential to create a staffing crisis in socio economically disadvantaged schools as performance pay will be based on meeting benchmarks set by the federal government and not about delivering a curriculum that enables each student to achieve optimal learning outcomes.

Tied funding has been used recently in the TAFE sector to blackmail state governments into offering all employees Australian Workplace Agreements or face the loss of federal funding. Combine this with a serious national skills shortage, chronic under funding of TAFE, the duplication of services via the Australian Technical Colleges (which are yet to produce graduates despite millions of dollars of public funding) and you have more than 300,000 people being turned away from TAFE since 1998.

The inability of the Howard Government to engage in genuine consultation and partnership with Aboriginal communities about the educational well being of Indigenous students is a national disgrace. It is estimated that in the Northern Territory alone, there are as many as 5 000 Indigenous students who miss out on access to basic secondary education and many thousands of Indigenous children who miss out on preschool and early childhood education programs. The Howard government has shown its lack of commitment to the appropriate resourcing and implementation of long – term strategies needed to provide quality schooling and to address the educational disadvantage faced by Aboriginal communities. Instead the federal government has opted for a quick fix based on political opportunism in the face of an election it looks likely to lose.

For migrant and refugee students (non English speaking background) John Howard expects “[new Australians] to master the common language of English” yet his government is responsible for the scandalous under-funding of essential English language programs for NESB migrant and refugee students. For the provision of required English language services, it is estimated that the current federal funding shortfall is $85 million per annum.

The 2007 Benchmarks - Work and Family Policies in Election 2007 state “A high quality early childhood education and care system is a public good and so requires significant public investment”. As previously mentioned, the Howard government continues to ignore the early childhood sector by refusing to accept responsibility for funding and supporting quality early childhood learning. Research shows that by the time children begin the compulsory years of schooling many of the factors contributing to future inequality are evident. Disparities in access to early childhood learning and the corporate takeover of childcare facilities by profit driven companies further exacerbate those inequalities.

In the past 11 years, the Howard government has continually undermined the professional and public face of the teaching workforce. The recent attacks on history teachers - "a fragmented stew of themes and issues.... dominated by Marxist, feminist or green interpretations of history"; and women - "ageing female primary school teachers are contributing to the nation's obesity epidemic" contribute to the undermining of public schools and educators, values, cultural tolerance and understanding.

The Howard Government education policies have damaged public schools, educators, students, families and the community. However, educators and school communities will continue to fight for a vibrant, strong system where all students can be part of a quality, secular and equitably resourced public education.

We owe it to the children of Australia- our future- to ensure that this happens.

Principal Association slanders public education and teachers

2007-09-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

What are the principal associations up to?

This morning's front pager in the Advertiser is a real wake-up call as to what we can expect if the principal associations-backed ticket of AEU Presidential candidate Jan Webber is successful in the forthcoming AEU elections.

Essentially, the principals have gone on strike, refusing to advertise Round One vacancies in the 2008 placement process.

This is the round in which teachers in the Priority Placement Pool are matched first against vacancies.

The impression given by the Primary Principals Association, and splashed as a sub-heading across the Advertiser, is that this results in schools being forced to accept substandard staff.

This is an outrageous slander of the public education system and a despicable attack on teachers by a crew that wants to run the union!

It is worth restating the composition of the Priority Placement Pool from the current Enterprise Agreement:

2.2.1 The Priority Placement Pool would be centrally managed and contain:

2.2.1.1 Teachers with an approved Work Cover claim who need to be placed would be given a priority.
2.2.1.2 Permanent teachers who have an approved priority compassionate placement request….
2.2.1.3 Teachers who still hold a guaranteed right of return to the metropolitan area from the country….
2.2.1.4 Country teachers seeking transfers to metropolitan locations who are eligible…
2.2.1.5 Teachers who are eligible to transfer and are in at least their 4th year of continuous service in an Index of Educational Disadvantage Category 1 school
2.2.1.6 Teachers who are eligible to transfer and are in at least their 5th year of continuous service in an Index of Educational Disadvantage Category 2 school
2.2.1.7 Teachers who have been placed as involuntary PATS for a period of at least 4 years.

These seven categories of teachers together comprise a group of 350, only a few of whom are involved in underperformance issues.

But all teachers and all schools in the public system are now in doubt in relation to their quality because of this contemptuous action of the Primary Principals Association.

Principals who advertised some 700 vacancies for Round One in 2007 are deliberately withholding vacancies this year. Only 230 vacancies have been advertised, fewer than the number of teachers in the PPP.

Let us be clear about what the principal associations want.

Principal associations want to jettison the rights of permanent teachers to a placement.
They are happy to leave teachers forever in remote and difficult schools.

They made this clear in the latest edition of SAPPA News, where Glyn O'Brien, SAPPA President writes: “Currently there is an emphasis still on placement of permanent staff at the expense of true local selection.”

She adds, “SAPPA will continue to expect merit selection.”

This view was also expressed by secondary principals last year in a paper produced by their association's Human Resources sub-committee.

It is a view that means the abolition of the rights of permanent teachers and the opportunity for transfer dependent on the whim of a principal!

We know there is an entrenched culture of bullying both within DECS itself, and out in the schools.

This same group of principals, who aspire to lead the Australian Education Union in SA, are set to further entrench the capacity of principals to bully and intimidate staff by their opposition to the current selection process.

And they have no scruples in fostering a public perception of a “Second Class” public education system, to quote today's main Advertiser heading, in order to get their way.

Principals ticket firms up

2007-09-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

Two incidents over the past 24 hours have confirmed that the AEU faces an organised “takeover” bid from the DECS-funded Principal Associations, with the support of 31 Flinders Street.

Firstly, Glynn O’Brien (SAPPA President) has confirmed that the Primary Principals Association is endorsing Jan Webber and her predominantly principal member ticket in the AEU elections. It is likely that SAPPA talk and SASPA chat lines will be used (again) to lobby for support amongst principal level members.

Secondly, DECS sent an email to the AEU declaring that “This is just a courtesy e-mail to advise you that election material for Jan Weber (sic) and Richard Baxter et al will be distributed through the DECS Distribution Centre. This service may be “extended” to other candidates on the proviso that: a service fee was payed(their spelling!) and the material presented is not inimical to DECS’ interests”.

"Inimical", of course, means "contrary, opposed, unfavourable". It's a sad reflection of where this principal-led ticket wants to take us with DECS that DECS is so comfortable with their election material!

So obvious was this DECS-Webber arrangement that wiser heads prevailed over in Flinders Street, and the deal was withdrawn a few hours later “after further consideration of the issues”.

This, combined with the recent attitude of a DECS officer in declaring” that things will be very different at the AEU after the elections, we won’t have to deal with things like we have to now” paints a grim picture of a future for the AEU that none of us wish to see. It also emphasizes how important your work over the next few weeks , and classroom teacher votes during the balloting period, will be.

We know there will be a bloc vote by DECS-funded principal associations in support of a conservative, principal-led faction.

Classroom teachers, other education workers, and progressive school leaders concerned about the quality of public education must encourage a huge participation rate to counter the principal push.

Talk the issues up as widely as possible.

Support the Unity. Action. Strength team led by classroom teacher and Women's Officer Correna Haythorpe (below, centre).

Californian teachers oppose Democrats reauthorising of NCLB

2007-09-10T18:50:00.000-07:00

South Australian teachers may like to read the statement below from the Californian Teachers Association.

Under the Bush regime, education in the US has been gutted by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Bill. This Bill has provided Howard and his succession of Education Ministers with the ideological framework for the imposition of so-called national standards testing.

Regrettably, Labor is playing much the same role as the Democrats in the US, pandering to populist misconceptions fostered by the Government of the day.

As progressive US educator and commentator Susan Ohanian notes in introducing the California Teachers Association statement on her website: “You asked for it, George. And Nancy. For a long time these corporato politicos have figured we were so fed up with Republicans that we would take anything they dish out. There a lot of teachers willing to show them that they are wrong.”

Whilst we rush to rid ourselves of the Howard mob, we need to prepare ourselves to show Steven Smith and Kevin Rudd that they are also wrong for promising to continue to link Commonwealth funding to A-E grades (currently the subject of legal proceedings and ongoing industrial bans in SA) and for their pledge to tie funding to the publication of schools league tables.

The California Teachers Association (and links) follows:

Don’t Let Congress Punish Our Students, Teachers and Schools - AGAIN
by California Teachers Association

Don’t Let Congress Punish Our Students, Teachers and Schools - AGAIN

Vote NO on the Miller/Pelosi NCLB Reauthorization Proposal

California educators have supported the Elementary and Secondary Act since its inception in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it as part of the War on Poverty. CTA supports improving student achievement, closing achievement gaps and accountability, but when the law was reauthorized in 2002 and was named the No Child Left Behind Act by President Bush, it became a system of sanctions rather than assistance to public schools, students and teachers.

NCLB is again now up for reauthorization. And the proposal by California Congressman George Miller and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does nothing to improve the law. California teachers are calling on Congress to vote NO on the Miller/Pelosi NCLB reauthorization plan.

The No Child Left Behind Act is Not Working. It is Hurting our Students, Teachers and Schools -- read more.

The NCLB reauthorization proposal by Representative George Miller and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does nothing to improve the current law and actually makes it worse -- read more.

The Miller/Pelosi NCLB reauthorization bill will make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in California classrooms -- read more.

The Miller/Pelosi NCLB reauthorization bill imposes new federal mandates that undermine local control and employee rights -- read more.

Rather than punishing students and teachers, NCLB should provide proven reforms that improve student learning -- read more.

We can’t let the past repeat itself. This law is too important for the future of our public schools.

Take Action NOW!
Tell Your Member of Congress to VOTE NO on Miller/Pelosi NCLB Proposal

California Teachers Association

Congratulations Anne and Jack!

2007-09-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Anne Crawford (right) and Jack Major!

Anne and Jack, members of the Progressive Educators team, have been elected unopposed to the positions of Female Vice-President and Branch Secretary respectively.

It is important now that the Progressive Educator ticket, as a broadly representative grouping of active and committed teacher unionists, receives support in the forthcoming elections.

In the previous election, the South Australian Primary Principals Association endorsed a ticket led by the current Female Vice-President, Jan Webber. The SASPA chatline was used by the SASPA Executive to organise a bloc vote of principals who were told to "follow exactly the numbering shown".

This organised vote saw then Executive member Jan Webber elected Female Vice-President, and three other primary principals won Executive positions.

Now, Jan is running for Branch President, and will be looking to boost her support base on Executive.

Particularly if her ticket wins the endorsement of either, or both, of the primary and secondary principal associations, members who want a more representative AEU leadership must vote.

AEU elections are conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission and ballot paper are sent to homes rather than to the workplace.

They are sent during the school holidays, and not during term time.

It is easy to put the ballot papers to one side and foget about them.

Please talk up the issue with your workmates and AEU colleagues in other sites, and encourage a huge turnout of progressive votes for Progressive Educator candidates.

Andrew Gohl - Speech to Governors Leadership Foundation

2007-09-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

The following is the text of a speech by Andrew Gohl, President of the SA Branch of the Australian Education Union, at the Governors Leadership Foundation on Tuesday September 4, 2007.

It is indeed a pleasure to be talking to the future leaders of South Australia. I could talk about the allegation of Maoists in control of the History/English/Geography curriculum or outcomes based learning, phonics, literacy, numeracy or I could talk to you about A-E grades for 6 year olds, the skills shortage; even performance pay for teachers would be an interesting topic.

However, I want to talk to you about public education and public education funding and choice. The Australian Education Union is an unashamed supporter of public education. Oftentimes the AEU is the lone voice of support and advocacy for Public Education. I have no need to defend the excellence in public schools and I don’t need to cite the untold successes of students from public schools.

However, the AEU wants Governments, State and federal, to fund public education in vastly greater proportions than they do currently. The AEU believes that access to quality public education system is a right of all students regardless of their socioeconomic status, where they live, their religion or country of origin.

The government mantra for education has been ‘choice’. That parents should be able to choose what school their child attends. It’s hard to argue with this. Choice is the right of an individual in a democratic society. Choice is exercising the power of a consumer in a market driven society. Choice is good.

Actually, choice for many in our society is a myth. Choice is the luxury of those who can afford it. The more one earns the greater choice one has. I hasten to add that greater choice does not necessarily translate to the best decisions. Just ask Paris.

So, choice in education. The Federal Government and State Government support it. Opposition at State and federal levels support it. Who wouldn’t? The question most significant is how does the federal and state governments' funding of public schools compared to private schools impact upon choice and fundamentally who has a choice, who has no choice and what does it mean for children who have no choice. Social justice, equity and equal opportunity are terms out of fashion it sometimes seems, but are central to the deliberations of the AEU and others fair minded in our community. For that which creates injustice and social inequity also breeds resentment, hostility, and anger or disengagement and apathy and self abuse.

A 2003 analysis of Federal Budget paper 1 indicates that Public schools received 12% ($2262m) of Federal Government funding, while private schools received 40% ($4373m). State and Territory Governments contributed 88% ($16588m) to public schools, while private schools received 17% ($1859m). Some additional 43% of private school funding was from private sources.

In percentage terms public schools receive 63% and private schools 37% of all school funding. Public schools look to be doing pretty well.

But factor in the national student enrolment data sourced from the ABS. In February 2004 the number of students attending government schools is 53% of the total number of students in the nation and so the amount per student in the public sector is $8361 compared to $10275 per student in the private sector.

The last time federally public and private schools received an equal share of funding was 1982. To the period 1993 funding to the public sector remained pretty stable at around 45% of total federal government funding. In the period 1996 – 2007 the public education share of federal government funding has declined from 43% to 34%.

The Federal Government asserts that this is because there are more students now enrolled in private schools, but in 1996 for every $1 spent on public school students the federal government spent $4.40 on private school students. By 2005 that amount increased to $5.63 for every $1 spent on public school students.

And these figures will improve for private schools. The very formula by which the federal government funds private schools is based upon the average cost of educating a student in the public sector. Public schools can be found right across rural and isolated Australia. The costs of country education are higher. Public education has by the far the greatest number of students with special needs. Education costs for special needs students are greater. All this goes to the average cost per student in the public sector which is allocated on a per student basis to private schools.

Almost all social justice payments to public schools raise the per capita cost and flow on to private schools.

Private schools, generally speaking aren’t as frequent in the country, and can be selective in the students accepted into the school. The net result is lower costs for a more homogeneous group of privately educated students. Those funds left over contribute to more facilities.

And if you doubt these figures take a drive past your local public and compare it with your local private. New buildings and facilities equals new funding. That’s a simple equation.

Well, so what? Back to the rhetoric of choice. While the costs of private education, especially the huge growth in low fee religious schools have decreased making private education more accessible to middle Austrlia it is clear that for many, many Australians the only choice is Public Education. This includes parents who indeed have a choice and choose public.

There is an obligation on state and federal governments to ensure that public education for those with no choice is not some residualised system but a well funded, vibrant challenging public education system that outwardly and inwardly demonstrates excellence and quality teaching with rejuvenated building, facilities and resources - the external features upon which many parents make their choice.

A recent announcement by the Federal treasurer indicated that Australia managed a budget surplus of some $17b! That is $17b budget surplus per annum!

A 2003 report commissioned by MCEETYA (Ministers Council for Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs) indicated that in order for the 95% of public schools in the nation to reach the national benchmark described in the Adelaide Declaration of Schooling was $2.6b per annum. Clearly the funds are available, but the political will is lacking.

You know, Keating and Costello duel over which treasurer put Australia in a stronger financial position. I assert that in fact it has been the provision of a universally free, secular and compulsory public education since federation which has enabled the majority of Australians to meet their educational aspirations which in turn has contributed to Australia’s social and economic prosperity. Public education has been a foundation stone of a civil Australian society and the pathway for millions to participate fruitfully in building a nation. Public education has provided opportunities for all students regardless of religion or race or creed to learn together be successful and value each other’ s potential and respect each other’s limitations.

A residualised public education system amidst well funded private schools cloistered by religion or ideology I believe presents a threat to the long term social stability of Australian society. Good leaders recognise threats and neutralize them. I hope that in my brief time today I have been able to convey to you the threat to public education and its important role in Australian society and I urge you, leaders all, to support public education and lend your voice from time to time for a fairer funding deal from state and in particular federal governments.

Vote for Marcus Knill, Male Vice-President

2007-08-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

MARCUS KNILL
Current Vice President (06/07)
Vice Presidential Candidate (08/09)

ABOUT ME
I am married and have a beautiful daughter who is 17 months. We live in Cheltenham.

I began my teaching career in 1994 at Ceduna Area School. The multicultural town with a relaxed lifestyle, professionalism of the staff and the spirited students saw me there for six years as a middle primary teacher. One of these years I had the opportunity to be a Primary Counsellor and in 1999 was the Assistant Principal (R-5 Focus).

This was followed by an appointment of Assistant Principal (3-6 Focus) at Roxby Downs Area School. In addition to the leadership of ten primary classes, I had responsibilities in Special Education, Aboriginal Education and OSHC.

An opportunity as Principal at Kimba Area School presented a move in 2004. I resigned from this position at the end of 2005 to take up my current role as Vice President.

Throughout my working life I have been a passionate unionist and advocate for public education. I have been a Branch Council delegate since 1995 and always been an active member of workplace organising committees. I firmly believe that collective activism at the sub-branch and branch levels has a powerful impact on keeping the employer in check. We cannot leave issues such as resourcing, social justice and progressive education ideology to the Governments.

WHAT I CAN OFFER
· Classroom teaching and leadership experience in R-12 schools
· Two years’ experience of the Vice Presidency
· Ability to negotiate in a measured way
· Ability to listen and analyse issues
· Understanding of the need for work/life/family balance
· Strong social justice principles
· Comprehensive knowledge of curriculum and other professional issues
· Collaborative leadership at both the SA Branch and Federal level

RUNS ON THE BOARD
Curriculum
· Rigorous opposition to the Federal Government’s A-E grades
· Established the AEU/DECS SACSA Implementation Reference Group
· AEU response to the SACE Inquiry with the Secondary Education Committee
· Development of “Secondary Public Education Renewal in South Australia” paper with the Secondary Education Committee
· AEU representative on SACSA Executive – keeping workloads and usability of the framework in check
· Led AEU input into the SSABSA Legislation Bill.
· Drafting the AEU Assessment & Reporting Policy with the Curriculum & Professional Development Committee
· Represent SA Branch on the Federal Curriculum and Professional Issues Committee
· Consultatively developed a position in response to the TRB’s introduction of standards linked to teacher registration.
Band 3 (Leaders)
· Successfully negotiated operational guidelines for Band 3 classification, including improvements for Deputy Principals
· AEU representative on the Principal Classification Review Panel
· Convened meetings with the Heads of Associations
· Joint exploration of administration time with DECS, including interstate visitations
Aboriginal Education
· Convened Aboriginal members with Research Officer to develop a response to Howard’s inappropriate intervention in the Northern Territory
· Developed a position on DECS’ Individual Learning Plans initiative for all Aboriginal students in consultation with the Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee
Work/Life Balance
· Successfully negotiated improvements to the DECS HR04 Special Leave Policy including protracted negotiations on the ability to take special leave with pay in hours
· Successfully negotiated the formation of the HR14 Part-time Policy
· Developed the AEU position on Part-time Principals
· Attended numerous sub-branch meetings hearing the views of members on work/life balance
Country Education
· Taken several forums to the country to listen to the views of country members, including SACE, housing and country incentives
· Working with the Roxby Downs sub-branch in attempt to avert a rental crisis for 2008
· AEU representative on the PEHAC (Public Employees Housing Advisory Committee)
· Developing a campaign with the Country Conditions Standing Committee on service provision to country areas

Newsletter Aug 27, 2007

2007-08-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

Instrumental Music – AEU members secure another win!

Just prior to the successful 1000+ gathering at the Capri Cinema, Goodwood on 12 August 2007, DECS CEO sent the AEU a letter that backed away from the proposed model with a range of concessions. These are:

No changes to Instrumental music in 2008 for primary or secondary schools or students.
Instrumental music teachers to remain part of the Instrumental Music service, north, south and country and will not be forced into schools.
Trials to commence in 2008 of a range of different instrumental music delivery styles, including the original Year 5 whole class approach.
Trials will be paid for by DECS and from outside the Instrumental Music Service budget.
Trials will be voluntary for both school and Instrumental music teachers. That is; no school or teacher can be compelled to participate.

AEU members have always supported quality teaching and an excellence in the Public Education system. AEU members support the critical evaluation of teaching methodology and pedagogy. On this basis the AEU also supports the trials where the following preconditions are met:

All staff involved, including Instrumental Music Teachers, are provided with appropriate Professional Development that meet identified needs.
All staff participation is on a voluntary basis.
Trials will not contribute an additional workload impost upon those who volunteer, that is; trials will be fully resourced; e.g. to allow for any release time required for planning and evaluation.
Trials are conducted within an action research framework and outcomes are critically evaluated by a centrally established “Trial Review Committee’ consisting of representatives from Instrumental Music Service, primary and secondary classroom teachers and the AEU.

Regardless of the outcomes of the trials, no Education Minister is going to hastily adopt any changes that will bring about another public show of strong opposition.

Speaking of common sense….

Why can’t DECS leadership and the Minister snap out of its unquestioning reliance upon the miasma of poor advice that is passed upward as well informed strategy and initiative by DECS middle level bureaucrats – many of whom have either never taught or are from Victoria and were appointed by Spring or are so long out of the classroom that memories have become very dim?

Here’s an incomplete list of the matters that DECS and the Minister have been poorly advised on and forced one way or another to back down on since September 2006:

Threat to cut 10 metro permanent relieving teachers
Imposition of 1% Workcover levy
Threat to cut Swimming and Aquatics programme
Threat to cut Instrumental Music programme
Threat to Schools to pay more for temporarily placed teachers
Threat to increase travel distance from 45km to 70 km

The two directorates within DECS that think they are a part of the wild, wild west are Industrial Relations and Human Resources.

How many times has DECS Industrial Relations ignored advice from AEU Industrial Officers only to learn the hard way in the commission since 2005? Five times!

One DECS officer from IR is rumored to have openly defied the Assistant CE in a meeting over permanency for Aquatics Instructors.

Country PATS and contracts exploited

Country PATS and contract teachers who have demonstrated a clear commitment to country schools deserve to appointed to on-going vacancies. Instead, a number are being shunted from pillar to post while inexperienced early exit teachers are being placed first, in ongoing vacancies.

It is a matter of convenience for DECS to keep country PATS and contract teachers filling short term vacancies as these teachers are already in the country district - a ready made pool of exploitable labour.

This issue needs to be raised by the AEU on behalf of country PATS and contract teachers. Names and circumstances are important to build the case. We suggest that anyone who feels that they have been “passed over” by a graduate appointment, should alert the AEU so that the issue can be dealt with.

Have you been worked over by Education Works?

The Minister’s Education Works ‘Team’ is supposedly working with communities to examine the feasibility of preschools and schools co-locating or amalgamating. Remember that any restructures under education works are meant to be voluntary. Not so apparently, according to one lower north primary school!

AEU elections - make your vote count!

Election time is in October. Make sure you vote as soon as you receive your election papers in the post. Less than a third of AEU members voted in the last election.

Stay tuned!

10 reasons why women’s votes count at the next Federal Election.

2007-08-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

1. Amber: sacked and offered her job back on an AWA that cut her pay by $40 a shift.

2. Jane: sacked after four and a half years when she questioned whether she was being paid correctly. The employer then called her to dismiss her, saying that he couldn’t possibly work with Jane any more because she had questioned him.

3. Ana: an administrative worker for a small company. Two months before her long service leave was due she was sacked. The reason given for her dismissal was that her employer’s relative was coming into the business.

4. Valerie, 54, full time manager at a small transport company. She had worked there for over two years and had never been paid any superannuation. Valerie raised the issue of the non payment of superannuation with her employer before she went on annual leave. While on leave she was not paid. When she contacted her employer about payment for the annual leave he was abusive and dismissed her over the phone.

5. Helen, receptionist, had a miscarriage and had to attend several follow-up medical appointments. The employers made it difficult for her, and were not happy that she had to leave work for these appointments. One day Helen was upset and teary at work and notified her supervisor that she needed to take a break. She was gone for an hour. She was then accused of abandoning her position and dismissed for this reason.

6. Suzy, 35, worked between 10 am to 4 pm, which suited her child care arrangements. Suzy’s employer asked her to extend her hours to 5 pm. When she said she couldn’t because of the high cost of after school care, Suzy was told she had to do the extended hours or leave. She refused and was dismissed.

7. Larissa, sacked after refusing to sign an AWA that included a $200 fine for workers who take sick leave without giving 12 hours notice.

8. Single mother Amie was sacked from her job of five years on the day she stayed home to care for her sick daughter. Her five-year-old daughter had spent the night vomiting. The next morning, Amie telephoned the Adelaide real estate office where she worked and told the office manager she needed to take Natasha to the doctor. In the afternoon, the office manager arrived at Amie’s house and handed her a letter of dismissal. “When I was sacked, I was most worried about paying the mortgage — I didn’t want to lose my house and I didn’t know how I would pay the bills. I feel disgusted. You can’t play with people’s lives like that.”

9. Joan, 58, had worked as a cook for nearly ten years, early morning to lunchtime Wednesday to Sunday. Joan’s employer handed her an AWA individual contract to look at overnight and told her if she refused to sign it she could look for another job. The AWA provided no sick or annual leave, no public holiday penalties, and she would have to be available on call seven days a week until 10 pm.

10. Gender pay equity is slipping beyond the reach of working women. Since the introduction of the Howard Government Work choices legislation, women in full time jobs now earn around $100 less than men (2007 ABS data). For those in part time or casual employment, the gender pay gap for hourly rates is as high as 20%
This is not the only area where women are particularly at risk of being affected by Workchoices. Others include: loss of unfair dismissal rights; reduced working conditions and entitlements such as paid leave; conversion of part time work to casual employment with no leave or flexible work options attached.

AWAs are not about negotiating better conditions for employees, they are being used as a means to reducing working conditions and to prevent unions from representing employees. Statistics from the Office of Employment Advocate show that only 25% of AWAS have included family friendly provisions. This has had a significant impact on employees with family responsibilities as there are no guaranteed entitlements to penalty rates or shift pay under the “fairness” test.

These stories are real. Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality for people who are speaking out about what has happened to them under the Howard Government IR legislation. The stories are not isolated and are happening to women all around you, your friends, your neighbours, your students, your families. Make your vote count for women in the next Federal Election.

Anecdote source: http://www.actu.asn.au/

DECS proposed Instrumental Music model compounds disadvantage

2007-08-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

Instrumental Music funding and jobs were saved though union member campaign, but DECS wants to implement a new model for delivering instrumental music that will cease opportunities for students to learn from Year 3 and begin instead at Year 5 learning an instrument as a whole class.

While DECS asserts that the evidence is that students learn musical instruments better as a large group no one can be sure about exactly what circumstances that might be the case.

Instrumental Music Teachers’ professional judgment is that that the more time spent with a qualified music teacher on an instrument the greater the student’s capacity to learn. Small classes improve student learning outcomes.

DECS want to reduce secondary students’ access to Instrumental Music by 20% every year until nothing is left – forcing students wishing to continue studies in an instrument to pay for private tuition - during the school day. This will make it tough for secondary students to satisfactorily complete their music component of SACE.

This is not only socially unjust; it is a breach of the contract between the Public Education system and students and parents for the government must ensure the provision of a broad and comprehensive curriculum is accessible by all. Under DECS’ flawed model Parents will pay for public education music twice - once through state and federal taxes and second through instrumental music tuition fees.

Specialist Music Schools have been quarantined for the moment at least, which is a relief for those metro based students who can at least attend one of the four specialist music schools in the state.

While some might herald the announcement of a scholarship for country music students, it won’t take long for country parents to realise that a music teacher shortage has implications for the quality of music tuition. City students get at least some access to registered and qualified teachers. Country kids are likely to be taught by unqualified, unregistered tutors without police checks.

DECS has lost its way. Too many middle level bureaucrats too long out of the classroom (if indeed they’ve had any education background at all) are calling the shots without a focus on student learning outcomes or understanding of teaching.

DECS is attempting to censor education department employee critics exercising their professional judgment about the educational value of this new model with threats of disciplinary action.

DECS’s crash through or crash approach is a disgrace.

Open debate, critical analysis and reflection

As bureaucrats and bean counters attempt their mealy minded public service takeover of public education the only antidote are educators with strength of character and commitment to students to begin to challenge the DECS bureaucracy with professional and open debate based on critical analysis and reflection.

We should always be asking ourselves what is the best for our students learning? What is the best for our profession? What and who is hindering? What and who is helping?

Whose interest and what purpose do we serve when we unquestioningly act or implement any matter in our preschools and schools? Students? Educators? Departmental Bureaucrats? State Government? Federal Government?

Professional and critical debate and reflection in every public education forum and meeting from the site to the centre is not just our right, it is our responsibility. Committed educators everywhere must ensure that the Public Education system remains focused what is best for students as opposed to what is best for AAA credit ratings or what is best for populist politics.

Bishop's uneducated power grab

2007-08-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

Julie Bishop has contracted a marketing/polling firm to survey school principals about 'autonomy'. They are 1 hour face to face interviews. With Howard's taste for grabbing power from the states, watch out for Julie Bishop's Education power grabs. The various Principal Associations (considered by many Principals as unrepresentative Liberal Party fronts) already softening up the public with curriculum concerns.

Speaking of Bishop power grabs, Julie B. has jumped aboard the PM's Mersey Hospital intervention in Tasmania. She's suggesting that public schools apply to become self governing trusts outside the state system and get direct Federal funding. Similar to Thatcher style Opting Out in the UK. Not sure how it would work constitutionally, but wasn't it only recently that she said that the Feds could no longer afford to fund public education, and invited her big business pals including the head of Maccas in Australia, to step in and bail them out?

APPA’s Draft Charter captured by Federal Agenda

2007-08-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

The Australian Primary Principal’s Draft Charter on Primary Schooling seems to have taken an unexpected turn with a proposal that would be very encouraging for the Howard Federal government education agenda of attempting to control and limit curriculum that might cause students at any level to develop skills in critical analysis and independent thinking.

No surprises there since the development of the Draft Charter was funded by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop.

The draft errs from the outset by stating that, “the main purpose of primary schooling is ensuring that all children learn and gain a permanent love of learning.”

Learn what though? No point at being good at learning if somebody has already made a decision about what should be learned. Surely the main purpose of schools (primary and secondary) is to educate. An educated individual would be recognised as one who has knowledge, skills and understandings in a broad range of disciplines.

One might be simultaneously clever in maths but also incredibly ignorant about their personal contribution to global warming, or be a gifted scientist but unable to consider the ethical issues surrounding their research. Clever and gifted perhaps, but not educated.

In April 2007 the original concern voiced publicly by APPA was that the primary curriculum was “cluttered” What was the primary curriculum cluttered by? Leonie Trimper, President of APPA stated that, “Governments expect schools to give equal weight to the eight learning areas while also dealing with a host of other needs and issues.”

Ms Trimper identified curriculum add-ons such as children’s emotional, nutritional and physical health problems, their interpersonal issues and a host of other things from road safety to limiting television viewing and teaching safe behaviour near dogs.

Fair enough and in fact, in five minutes AEU members from the Murraylands Area listed 26 separate ‘curriculum initiatives’ outside of the eight learning areas.

Primary and Secondary teachers could all tell of politically driven curriculum initiatives that are foisted upon schools without adequate resourcing for professional development or funding for teaching materials or time for implementation.

This is the real issue. More and more, populist politically driven curriculum components are foisted upon schools. Education Departments have bowed to politicians and promoted the curriculum add-ons, without addressing resourcing for schools in terms of cost in time, funds, professional development and implementation or consideration of the impact upon teacher workload that will detract from the eight learning areas.

Members report that principals and schools will commit to any number of these ‘initiatives’ without analyzing the school’s capacity to implement the add-on in terms of the current teaching workloads of staff or the priority of implementing that particular add-on compared to existing initiatives or even the essential learning areas of the curriculum.

There’s only so much time in the day. What stays and what goes?

What is really needed is for teachers to exercise their professional judgment about the value of the curriculum add-ons and their capacity to teach these without compromising the real curriculum.

And then there’s the hours of mind numbing anti educational bureaucracy and administration geared to increasing levels of accountability for state and federal governments who are decreasing funding to public education

This is the second flaw of APPA’s draft charter. Instead of taking a strong position about the workload of teachers because of bureaucracy and inadequately funded politically driven curriculum add-ons and the expectations upon principals to slavishly implement them APPA has chosen to make a comparative judgment about the value of the eight areas of learning.

APPA has stated that it values most highly English literacy and Mathematics (including numeracy) – the core. Next most important is Science and History. What about the Arts? Design and Technology? Health and Physical education? Languages?

Teaching literacy and numeracy are so important that they should and do feature within the eight areas of learning. Certainly literacy and numeracy are necessary skills to be mastered in order to learn effectively and should be taught in conjunction with a broad and inclusive curriculum.

Primary teachers put a great deal of emphasis upon ensuring that every student experiences success. Not all students will come to love learning maths or science or English or history. Many will develop an affinity with one learning area or another. Pity the poor student whose only chance for success in primary education is through physical education or music or a second language.

APPA’s Charter fails to address the real cause of curriculum overload and teacher workloads. Teachers by and large want to focus upon literacy and numeracy and the eight learning areas of the curriculum with control over the implementation of politically driven add-ons and mindless administrative tasks.

The AEU supports a broad and comprehensive and inclusive curriculum for all students.

The AEU supports the professional judgment of its members to determine what contributes and what detracts from student learning and the curriculum in collaboration with parents and students.

Progressive Educators Quiz Night

2007-08-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

QUIZ NIGHT

Supporting the Progressive Educator fundraising campaign
- AEU Principal Officer and Branch Executive Elections

Come along and meet the candidates for:
2008 President and Vice Presidents

Saturday, 18th August
6:45 for 7.00pm start
Prospect Town Hall
128 Prospect Road, Prospect

Parking available
Enter car park from Vine St. or Olive St.
Tickets: $15.00 per person
Tables of 8-10

Put together your own table or join another table
BYO drinks and nibbles

RSVP: Correna Haythorpe, Marcus Knill, Anne Crawford
E-mail: proged@adam.com.au

Phone: 04033 08633

Progressive Educators announce AEU leadership candidates

2007-07-31T18:17:00.000-07:00

Outgoing AEU President Andrew Gohl announced the new candidates for the 2007 AEU Leadership elections to be conducted later this year at a well-attended wine-tasting and fundraiser last Friday.

Current AEU Womens’ Officer Correna Haythorpe intends to stand as a candidate for the position of President. Correna has developed an extensive understanding of the issue of work and family balance and understands the workload issues that are faced by all educators under an increasingly complex education environment.

As AEU President Correna will be able to lead AEU members in a struggle to regain professional control over working lives and restore balance with family and personal life.

It is time for a female President for the AEU.

Marcus Knill and Anne Crawford were also introduced as the male and female Vice President candidates.

Marcus Knill has served AEU members as male Vice President for two years and has managed a strong curriculum focus and supported AEU principals.

Anne Crawford is a respected educator who has a long history of strong advocacy in Equal Opportunity and inclusion of disadvantaged groups in education including vociferous support for Aboriginal people. Anne has recently worked as an AEU Organiser.

(Public) Education Works Phase 2 - be warned.

2007-07-26T17:52:00.000-07:00

Phase One – the amalgamation of 16 education sites to create 6 new ‘superschools’* is a clear investment in public education – real money - $134m was contained in the 2006/07 budget.

Phase two is a different matter. Many sites are considering amalgamations or closures under the umbrella of (Public) Education works.

A nominal $82m has been identified in the same state budget, but this money would be generated by sale of school/preschool assets and land. That is, there is absolutely no certainty that schools going down this path will be able to access the quantity of funding required to realise the dreams of the amalgamating school community.

Same old advice applies – proceed cautiously and get your commitments from DECS in writing before proceeding.

Every amalgamation ultimately means loss of leadership and administrative time. Autonomy of leadership in curriculum for specific age cohorts is threatened too.

The experiences of staff in some schools are that consultation is inadequate at worst and at best rushed. Get agreement about your consultation process.

* There has to be an alternative name.

Rumours

The Minister has received a bit of caning from cabinet over the state budget.

The Minister is furious to have been compromised by DECS inept advice….again.

Government is said to be reconsidering its approach to education issues following the union community campaign.

DECS leadership is concerned about anti union practices including lack of consultation with the union over key matters. Word around the traps is that DECS policy makers should be working more with the union because of the lack of talent and understanding within DECS to get it right.
Principal Associations struggling to find representatives for all the DECS working parties they are called to be part of.

National Testing for Years 3,5,7 and 9

State and territory ministers have agreed to implement the national testing regime called for by the federal Government.

The battle lines are drawn however because SA Minister Lomax Smith is on the record stating that the state government will not support the creation of league tables. Someone should tell Stephen Smith (and Julie Bishop) this. Labor federally seems more than willing to go down this path.

Stay tuned.

New AEU leadership team at Wine Tasting

2007-07-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

Come and meet the new AEU leadership team who will be contesting this year’s AEU elections at the Progressive Educator Wine Tasting.

Sample some great wines and buy a cheap crate at Options Wine Merchants, 33 King St Norwood, 5.30-730pm Friday 27 July.

Tickets are $10.

Have a drink with the next President and Vice Presidents of the AEU who will ensure a continuation of balanced and strategic leadership of SA’s strongest and most successful active union.

See you there.

Andrew Gohl

Welcome to Progressive Educator

2007-07-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

Progressive Educator is a network of education workers in South Australia.

Our goals are to further the interests of public education and of education worker unionism.

We will update this site from time to time with articles about social and educational issues of relevance to AEU members in South Australia, including links to relevant articles and websites.

Our most recent email newsletter is reproduced below.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

(Forward this website on to friends and colleagues who want a progressive union that will strongly represent educators in preschool, school and TAFE.)

2006/2007 Budget Cuts Campaign

Strong community campaigning by AEU members across the state supported by principals and parent associations has forced a state government back down on the Workcover component of the 2006/07 budget cuts. It’s a great result and demonstrates the power of united and sustained strategic action. The tactic of targeting MPs in their electorates and providing them with information about the impact of the cuts was very powerful. So too, was the threat of the one hour industrial action. The campaign continues and further action is possible, if not likely, depending upon the outcome of negotiations with DECS about the remaining matter:

5% interest creamed from preschool/school SASIF accounts

30 TRT days loss for preschools and schools with TPTs

$36 million over four years loss to education for the so called state government efficiency dividend

These remaining matters still have the potential to impact upon learning programmes in preschools and schools. Branch Council of 18 August will consider the outcomes of negotiations and decide upon the need for further industrial action.

Swimming and Aquatics

In another campaign win for AEU members the state government announced that Swimming and Aquatics jobs would be saved and the budget allocation remain. Some further negotiation is required around the ongoing delivery of the swimming and aquatics program. DECS has proposed the introduction of 3 year contracts for instructors. There is a strong argument for permanency on this basis.

Instrumental Music

Announced in much the same terms – maintenance of the budget and no loss of jobs has also been a win for the campaign mounted by AEU members of the IMS sub branches. Significant issues remain to be resolved including delivery to secondary schools, music class size and travel. There is also some significant concern regarding the methodology of delivering music to students and further discussions will need to occur.

Activists get the white car call in DECS attempt to intimidate

A member from the IMS branch recently received a call to meet a DECS executive officer to discuss their active role in the media and the Code of Conduct. It was a clumsy attempt to intimidate and bully an active AEU member and to undermine their right to engage in AEU campaigns. This comes on top off media reports of principals also feeling intimidated by DECS officials. The Minister of course denies that a culture of bullying exists in DECS

One Minister, 20 DECS Officers and still clueless!

Budget estimates is the annual exercise in parliament whereby the Treasurer and ministers are interrogated about the state budget.

Opposition spokesperson for Education Iain Evans asked quite a few insightful questions about the impact of budget ‘reinvestments’ (otherwise known as budget cuts).

One question in relation to Work Cover costs for DECS had the Minister scratching for an answer and the gathered DECS officers scrambling through papers for a response – which wasn’t forthcoming.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Will the minister explain the difference between the 2005 figure of $40.488 million from DECS and $18.9 million?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: I will take the question on notice.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Out of 20 officers and a minister, no-one knows

Howard’s jackboot takeover

The Howard Government’s 11th hour response to the issues facing Aboriginal communities should be seen for the cynical political election stunt that it is. His new found concern for Aboriginal children comes months out from an election after more than a decade of utter contempt for reconciliation in office and ignoring the plight Aboriginal people.

Commentators have already identified the puzzling attempt to eliminate community control over who enters Aboriginal lands as part of a broader strategy to make easy the takeover of Aboriginal land for mining interests. Territory police are advising against such a move because unlimited access will allow for undesirable and exploitative individuals entering the lands for exploitative purposes.

Howard has failed utterly to enunciate any positive initiatives that would support the self determination of Aboriginal people. No commitment has been made to boost education for Aboriginal people despite the recommendations made by the Wilde-Anderson report.