Finland’s Success in Literacy

Posted on Wednesday July 22, 2009

Pirjo Sinko, Counsellor of Education for the Finnish National Board of Education, delivered a keynote address at the AATE/ALEA National Conference in Hobart on 11 July. < >> Read on...

Why Merit Pay Won’t Work

Posted on Thursday April 23, 2009

Diane Ravitch comments on the Obama administration’s plan to pay teachers based on their students’ “value-added” test scores. >> Read on...

School Re-structuring Options Fail in the US

Posted on Friday April 10, 2009

Kevin Rudd’s threat to apply school re-structuring sanctions against schools that fail to improve student achievement is doomed to failure according to a new US report on school sanctions. >> Read on...

The Failure of England’s Education Revolution

Posted on Monday March 16, 2009

This article, published recently in The Guardian, provides a succinct overview of the failure of the education revolution initiated by the Thatcher Government and expanded by the Blair Government. It is a salutary lesson for Australia. >> Read on...

Shifting the blame: the real crisis in education accountablity

Posted on Thursday February 19, 2009

Some commentators and education elite have made the policy in terms of dollars spent and start looking at ‘accountability outputs’. But shifting the accountability onto schools quite misses the point.< >> Read on...

New National Education Goals Are Contradictory

Posted on Monday February 2, 2009

The new school year opens this week with new national education goals to follow. Unfortunately, education ministers have set two incompatible goals. >> Read on...

SOS Policy Brief on the New National Goals for Education

Posted on Wednesday January 28, 2009

A Policy Brief published by Save Our Schools shows that the new national Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (the Melbourne Declaration) promulgated by Australian education ministers at the end of 2008 fails on equity. >> Read on...

Comment: Enough of Small-Minded Education Reformers

Posted on Saturday January 17, 2009

I have done my share of complaining about the business types—and the phonies who think they are thinking like business types (when in fact they are clueless about teaching and learning and therefore lean on incentives, data, and an attitude of toughness to mask their ignorance of curriculum and instruction). >> Read on...

Gillard Wrong Again on New York

Posted on Monday January 12, 2009

It has to be seriously questioned whether the Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, is interested in informed debate on reporting school results. >> Read on...

New US Education Secretary Profile

Posted on Friday December 19, 2008

With the Rudd Government increasingly looking to the United States for ideas and policies on school education, the appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education in the Obama Cabinet is significant. >> Read on...

Klein Lied to the National Press Club

Posted on Tuesday December 9, 2008

New York City Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, was exposed as a dissembler at his National Press Club address in Canberra last week. >> Read on...

New York City High School Results Questioned

Posted on Saturday November 22, 2008

Last week, report cards for New York City high schools were released for 2007-08. As was the case of the report cards for elementary and middle schools released in September, they beggar belief. >> Read on...

New York Parents Condemn Klein’s Education Policies

Posted on Wednesday November 19, 2008

Three letters by New York parents on the education policies implemented in the New York City public education system under Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein present an entirely different perspective on these policies than that heralded by the Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard.< >> Read on...

No, Julia! New York is Not Working

Posted on Monday November 17, 2008

Claims by Julia Gillard that reforms by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are “working” and have produced “remarkable outcomes” are refuted by test results in reading and mathematics. National tests show that average student achievement in New York City schools has stagnated while state tests show a mixture of increases and declines, with no consistent pattern of improvement. < >> Read on...

Does Money Matter for Schools?

Posted on Wednesday November 5, 2008

A new study from the London School of Economics which concludes that increasing expenditure on schools can raise student results, especially for disadvantaged students. < >> Read on...

Testimony From New York on Klein’s School Reforms

Posted on Friday October 10, 2008

A New York public school parent is amazed and appalled that people are so snowed by the Klein reforms endorsed by Deputy Prime Minister Gillard. >> Read on...

Gillard Should Repudiate Klein’s Skulduggery

Posted on Thursday October 9, 2008

Julia Gillard has invited New York Schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, to counter widespread criticism of the Rudd Government’s policy on reporting individual school performance. She should know that Klein is widely derided by educationalists, teachers and parents in New York. >> Read on...

School Accountability Discredited in New York

Posted on Friday September 26, 2008

Conservative educationalist, Diane Ravitch, is at it again – highlighting the failures of the New York City school accountability model which Julia Gillard wants to emulate in Australia. >> Read on...

The Case Against League Tables

Posted on Sunday August 31, 2008

The case against reporting individual school results and league tables of school results was presented in a report by the ACT Government Schools Education Council in 2004 in response to the proposals of the then Commonwealth Education Minister, Dr. Brendan Nelson. >> Read on...

Social Equity in Education as a National Goal

Posted on Monday August 4, 2008

Save Our Schools supports the social equity goal of the existing National Goals for Schooling. It opposes replacing this goal with the much weaker commitment to high quality schooling free of discrimination as proposed in the draft National Declaration on the Goals for Schooling. >> Read on...

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