Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
I have followed the debate about the publication of national numeracy and literacy testing with interest.
My view, of course, is that parents, the wider community and the government should have as much information as is practicably possible about educational standards, including information about which schools are doing well and why.
The AEU (Australian Education Union), of course, thinks any such plan is reprehensabul, riprahinsable, reprehansbil, bad, because parents might choose to send their children to schools which produce better results. Which means that mediocre teachers might find themselves out of work. Which would be another really inaproprite, unexcaptable, bad thing.
Much badder than children not getting the best possible education, for example.
Over the objections of the AEU, the Federal Government today launched the My School website, which enables anyone to check any school’s NAPLAN test results against the national average, or an average of statistically similar schools.
My nearest school is KICE – Kangaroo Island Community Education.
The site shows KICE’s results are below average compared with all schools and statistically similar schools at all year levels, and spectacularly below average in year three.
On Friday I will make some suggestions about why this is.
The reasons private schools generally do better than public schools is not that they are better resourced.
A few of the top schools are, of course. But private schools receive on average a third less overall government funding per student.
Although they make up some of the difference through fees and fundraising, most private schools have larger classes and fewer resources than their government equivalents.
The difference is attitude.
This is true of private vs public hospitals too.
If you walk into a private hospital the chances are that you will be able to see the reception area immediately, and that when you get there reception staff will look pleased to see you, and will try to help.
If you walk into a public hospital and manage to find the reception desk, you will be snarled at by some surly slattern, who after saying ‘Yorrite?’ will say she doesn’t do patient enquiries, and direct you down the hall to the right, second stairs on the left, along the passage and up the lift, where if you are lucky, someone might have some idea where your loved one is.
I have nurse friends who have worked in public hospitals and gone to the private sector expecting higher staff to patient ratios, and found the reverse is the case. And yet, patients feel better cared for.
The difference is attitude.
Private schools and hospitals only succeed if clients are happy with the service they receive.
This means outcomes matter, and patients, students, visitors and parents are treated as people.
A new report commissioned by the Australian Education Union, has found, surprise, surprise, that State schools are not receiving a fair share of Federal Government funding.
This, they claim, is terrible, unfair, wrong, bad, and disadvantages families whose children attend State schools.
These claims by the AEU are so misleading that it hard to see how thay can be anything other than deliberately dishonest.
Education is a state responsibility. Schools are meant to be funded by the states.
But states routinely give only minsicule funding to private schools – less than 10% of the funds given to State schools.
The Federal Government makes up some of the shortfall by giving additional funds to private schools. But total government funding to private schools is still only about two thirds per student of funding to State schools.
Children who attend private schools are just as much citizens, and their parents just as much tax-payers, as those who attend State schools.
A system which so grossly discriminates against families who choose private schools is unfair. The AEU claims it should be even more unfair.
The AEU is not concerned about justice. Nor is it concerned about better outcomes in education.
The AEU has consistently opposed every state or federal policy proposal which evidence suggests would give better results.
The evidence is indisputable that clear curricula and standards based teaching works, that clear reporting of student results and rankings works, that more parent involvement in schools works, that giving parents free choice of schools works.
But all of those things undermine union power, and the AEU can be relied on to object to all of them.
Perhaps it should be renamed the AUPMT - the Australian Union for Protecting Mediocre Teachers.
The report cites half a dozen pieces of research that demonstrate pretty conclusively that children do better in terms of mental health and social adjustment when their fathers as well as their mothers are involved in their upbringing. Children are 40 per cent more likely to suffer mental health problems if they do not have contact with one parent. Girls are more likely to have healthy relationships with men – as you’d expect – if their fathers are part of their lives.
Getting a smack from time to time:
According to research from Marjorie Gunnoe, professor of psychology at Calvin College in the US State of Michigan, children smacked before the age of six perform better at school when they are teenagers. They are also more likely to do voluntary work and to want to go to university than their peers.
Professor Gunnoe interviewed 2,600 teenagers about being spanked. She found that when participants’ answers were compared with their behavior, such as academic success, optimism about the future, antisocial behavior, violence and bouts of depression, those who had been physically disciplined only between the ages of two and six performed best on all the positive measures.
No surprises in either case, really – it’s about being loved, feeling secure, and having clear boundaries.
1. I had occasion to visit the regional hospital in Geraldton a couple of days ago. Staff seemed competent and concerned for their patients. So far, so good.
Ouside the main entrance was a vendng machine for syringes and needles. This is a photo of the machine, and of my $3.00 worth of needles and syringes:
Needle Vending Machine Outside Geraldton Hospital
Needles From Hospital Vending Machine
I know there is a view that the best way to help intra-venous drug abusers is to make their drug use as easy as possible.
That is a view not well-founded in research, but it is at least motivated by good-will. Well, I assume it is. It is not clear how implementing or continuing policies which have been shown to do more harm than good can really be motivated by a desire to help, but let’s give the hospital administrators and drug policy people the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe they are so busy they don’t have time to read.
What I don’t understand is how putting a vending machine in a public place so any five year old with $3.00 can get a supply of syringes and needles is helping anyone.
2. I bought some very good fish and chips yesterday evening. On the shop notice board was an advertisement for the ‘Murdoch University Chiropractic Clinic.’
Murdoch University teaches chiropractic. It runs chiropractic clinics.
How is it possible to have any confidence in the academic integrity of a university which offers PhDs in quackery?
It is a bit like Oxford offering a degree in tea-leaf reading, and running a tea leaf reading booth at the local shopping mall.
The university website tells potential students:
We are excited that we are now entering a time where more emphasis can be placed upon generating research relating to chiropractic.
They could just take note of the century of existing research, which shows that the only thing chiropractic can do is provide temporary relief of some kinds of minor back pain – about the equivalent of taking two aspirin, and that other chiropractic techniques are not only useless but harmful.
The website goes on:
In September, 2006 Murdoch University School of Chiropractic was informed by the Council on Chiropractic Education Australasia Inc. that its program had become fully accredited.
So if you decide to do a course in chiropractic at Murdoch, you can be assured that the piece of paper they give you will be accepted by quacks and charlatans around the world.
Congratulations!
Darn.
Early previews of Avatar were stunning. But it looked preachy right from the beginning – like a magnificent sci-fi retelling of the noble green fight against logging in Tasmania.
Jim Schembri at The Age has seen it, and says this is exactly right:
THERE’S no argument that, as a showcase for the immersive potential of 3D visual effects technology, James Cameron’s long-awaited $300 million sci-fi epic Avatar – his first film since 1997′s world-conquering Titanic – is an unqualified triumph.
But as a story designed to engage, enthral and entertain adult audiences for almost three hours, it is a major disappointment strewn with weak characters, environmental platitudes and anti-progress cliches. …
The lush alien world Cameron creates is a magnificent, photo-realistic landscape of multi-coloured dragons, dinosaurs, endless waterfalls and floating mountains. But with its patronising, predictable images of noble savages, evil technology and gigantic bulldozers crunching their way through precious alien rainforests, the film often feels like a megalithic piece of green propaganda. As superbly rendered as his 3D world is, Cameron has populated it with characters who are strictly 2D. And sometimes not even that.
A compulsive envelope-pusher, Cameron invented a pioneering camera system and ground-breaking visual processing techniques for the film, but perhaps he should have spent a little less time obsessing over the technology and a tad more developing the story beyond the compendium of cliches it regrettably is.
But I’ll still go and see it.
Catherine Deveny, comedy writer, stand-up comedian and perpetual sad sack.
I have never encountered a column writer who has such an immense talent for finding something offensive or hurtful in ordinary day to day life and human interaction.
But she manages to slip beneath even her former underwhelming efforts in her column variously titled private schools muck up, watch those grammars, or private school values.
Firstly she is offended by the idea that a private school principal might have some friends who could assist someone in need.
Did you read about the boy who may lose hearing in one ear because a Melbourne Grammar boy threw an egg at him during a muck-up prank gone wrong? Did anyone else feel sickened but at the same time not at all surprised when the principal of Melbourne Grammar said in an interview: “[The injured boy's mother] asked for help because . . . her son was not able to gain access to a surgeon. I was able to, through contacts, get him an appointment with a surgeon the very next day.’
Well, actually no. I was not sickened by this. I was pleased to hear of school authorities taking responsibility and doing what they could to assist.
It is still not clear to me what Catherine found so distressing.
The idea that some people actually have friends? The idea that some people might be willing to help someone in need? The idea that some people might be in a position to help someone in need?
Baffling.
Then she is offended by being invited to mentor a gifted student at another private school. Well, offended that no pay is offered. The school is surprised that she asks. No one else has done so.
Catherine suggests the school is greedy, attempting to shame her into working for nothing to increase their company profitability.
But private schools are not businesses. They are non-profit organisations whose income goes entirely into providing facilities for students and their communities.
Private schools receive substantially less government funding than state schools – on average $5000 less for every student. Parents and school communities work hard to make up the rest.
Catherine told the schoool that she would mentor a student if the school agreed to donate $200 to the Asylum Seekers’ Resource Centre. They agreed, and she mentored the student.
The school should have just said ‘No thanks’ right at the start.
There are some people who walk into my shop whom I know within thirty seconds of their opening their mouths that I do not want as customers. There are some people you will just never be able to please.
But having agreed, it should have given the money.
Catherine claims the school reneged on the agreement. Maybe they did.
She took their not wanting to communicate with her as proof. Maybe they had just reached the same conclusion about her that I reach about some of my customers - too much trouble when weighed against possible benefits.
If they did not give the money, their failure to do so is reprehensible.
But one incident of one school not doing the right thing does not make greed and dishonesty ‘private school values.’ There is something wrong in thought processes that can lead to such a claim being made with such blind certainty.
What is wrong with Catherine Deveny?
You could quibble about the headline.
By tough love, the ABC reporter means parents setting boundaries and sticking to them. Children don’t seem to be smarter, just more resilient, more confident, more capable. And setting consistent rules is raising children, not breeding them.
But it is an interesting story.
9,000 families were studied over eight years.
Children treated with warmth, and given clear consistent guidelines, followed up by clear, consistent discipline, were much better at developing life skills including self-control and empathy.
Before you start thinking that this is as much of a headline as Britney’s lip-synching, let me tell you what I think is interesting.
The study claims that clear rules and firm discipline are more important to a child’s self-esteem and future success than any other factor, including household wealth, single or both parents, etc.
But it also notes that discipline is likely to be firmer and more consistent in families with average or better income, and in families where both parents are involved in raising children.
Why might this be?
Raising children is emotionally exhausting. Children are hungry, energetic, rude, thoughtless, constantly testing the boundaries. It is often tempting to give in. Having a loving and supportive partner makes it easier to say no, to stay in charge and in control.
But why should a good income make it easier? The answer, I think, is that it is not the income that makes it easier, but the skills and self-discipline that are the usual pre-requisites to earning a good income.
If you are capable of saying no to yourself, capable of making sacrifices, capable of managing your time, and see the value of work and study, you are more likely to take the harder road of firm, fair discipline in raising your children.
Teacher friends have frequently confirmed this, telling me it is generally (but not always, obviously!) the children from two parent families on reasonable incomes who are more considerate, more creative, better workers, with more confidence in themselves and the world, and consequently more chance to succeed.
But if all of that is true, and I think it is, how do we in Australia begin to address the huge problems facing young people from groups where confidence in the world around, and consistent, positive, active parenting have been lost?
One of my best friends is a highly intelligent and capable woman who has raised four lovely daughters, run a successful business, and is a respected teacher whose students have produced consistently good results.
This will be her last year of teaching. She just does not have the energy to struggle every day with children who are rude, have no interest in learning, and for whom everything is boring. Of course it is they who are boring, because they have no interests, no skills, no informed opinions to share.
My friend is also dismayed by the level of verbal and physical abuse directed at staff and other students, and by the inability or unwillingness of Education department staff and politicians to recognise the problem, and to put reasonable structures in place to encourage learning, or even to ensure schools are safe places to work and learn.
The always interesting Boris Johnson makes a case for greater support for teachers, and more meaningful (though not necessarily corporal) discipline policies and processes.
A study of more than 12, 000 British children between the ages of seven and nine has found that children who spend large amounts of time in daycare because both parents (or a sole parent) work, are significantly more likely to become obese, and to suffer other long term health problems.
Naturally there are howls of outrage. An article in the Australian says the results have been refuted by Queensland mums. No they haven’t. To refute something means to show it is untrue. A couple of working mothers saying ‘Well my kid’s healthy, and eats salad and stuff’ does not refute the findings of an independent study of over 12,000 children.
Previous studies have found that extensive time in daycare in the early years can have long term negative effects on vocabulary acquisition and behaviour – effects which may be cause children to struggle at school and in later life.
Time to think again about subsidised daycare.
My general rule is that if something needs to be subsidised, it probably shouldn’t be.
For example, South Australian taxpayers pay about $2 for every $1 a commuter pays for a train or bus ticket in Adelaide. I travel 100 kilometres to work and back each day, with petrol prices on the island about 30% higher than in the city. So why should I be asked to subsidise the transport costs of people who travel 10 kilometres to work and back each day, and already pay less for petrol?
Likewise, why should parents who make the decision to sacrifice income so that one of them can parent their children full-time, be asked to subsidise parents who both work? The only reason would be that doing so provided some clear benefit to the wider community. But the now well established negative effects of long term early day care make it difficult to see any such benefits.
Parents shouldn’t be stopped from sending their children to daycare, of course. But they shouldn’t expect other people to pay for it.
A Brisbane lawyer and mother of four children, Mrs Tempe Harvey, agrees. She is establishing a lobby group for children’s welfare, the Kids First Parents Association of Australia. One of their policies is the scrapping of childcare subsidies. Good news.
Reviewing the results of the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, Walter Williams notes:
..the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.” That’s a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get.
Australia does not participate in PISA, but I would be surprised if our results were much different.
There is no evidence that throwing money at education, or any of the popular demands like smaller class sizes, a laptop for every student, etc, make the slightest bit of difference to learning outcomes.
What does? Making schools compete for students.
This leads to more involvement by parents, more concentration on learning as opposed to fluffy fillers, more cost effective personnel and resource management, and employment of more effective teachers.
The voucher system is one way of achieving this. Bring it on!
One of my close friends is a muslim and a teacher. She is a delightful and interesting woman with a bright smile. I speak with her three or four times a week.
She is Indonesian, and teaches Indonesian language and culture.
As part of her programme she talks about the religious culture of Indonesia. She tells the students she is a Muslim, and explains something of her faith. I have no problem with any of that.
A couple of days ago she was distressed and angry after school. I asked her what had happened. She told me she had been telling the students Islam was a religion of peace. They laughed at her.
That was rude. And to be fair, she is not always treated well, by staff or students. But I almost laughed too.
This is the monthly jihad report for April 2009 from Religion of Peace:
Jihad Attacks: 158
Countries: 15
Religions: 5
Dead Bodies: 715
Critically Injured: 1135
Her response to the class resulted in further laughter.
She started by telling the class that the way people thought about Islam was because of distortions by the media.
Christians killed people just as much, she said. Martin Bryant, for example, killed all those people at Port Arthur. And then to illustrate how morally lax Christianity was, she pointed out that here in Australia lots of men have sex with one another.
She assumes that everyone in Australia, or every white person, is a Christian. She has been here long enough to know better.
But more alarming is the blindness, even in this intelligent and largely westernised woman, to the horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam
Where to begin?