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Tag Archives: Education

“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my pun … “

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

“… opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne appeared to re-open the so-called ”history wars” which raged during the Howard years, by attacking the school curriculum for putting Aboriginal and multicultural commemoration days on the same level as Anzac Day. The national curriculum would be reviewed under a Coalition government, he said. ”The Coalition believes that, on balance, Australia’s history is a cause for celebration,” he said.

”It is because of our history that we are a confident and positive nation. We must not allow a confidence-sapping ‘black armband’ view of our history to take hold.

‘That history, while inclusive of indigenous history, must highlight the pivotal role of the political and legal institutions from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”

In the new curriculum Anzac Day is studied in year 3 as one of a number of days of national significance. The Gallipoli campaign is studied in year 9.

Mr Pyne criticised the fact that Anzac Day is ”locked in with NAIDOC Week, Reconciliation Day and Harmony Day” in the national curriculum.”

Ok, the document below isn’t official, but it gives you a taste of what we’ll see under the Coalition.

Draft History Curriculum for Christopher Pyne.

Year 3

Term 1: The foolish foreigners who failed to discover Australia

Term 2: The great and brave British explorer Captain Cook discovers Australia

Term 3: The first Australians – convicts and soldiers.

Term 4: Early attempts to civilise the Aborigines by soldiers

Year 4

Term 1: Gallipoli – the ANZAC tradition is born

Term 2: The first soldier to fall

Term 3: Simpson

Term 4: His donkey

Year 5

Term 1: The retreat from Gallipoli

Term 2: The importance of Anzac biscuits

Term 3: How Australian soldiers gained the reputation of being the bravest ever

Term 4: Anzac Day is the holiest day of the year.

Year 6

Term 1: Our great British heritage

Term 2: Why the monarchy rules

Term 3: Learning to recite Kings and Queens of England

Term 4: Great people born in England apart from kings and queens and Tony Abbott

Year 7 – Australia’s Golden Years

Term 1: Howard’s election

Term 2: Howard restores belief in Anzac Day

Term 3: Howard saves Australia from invasion by republicans

Term 4: Howard increasing number of Anzac marchers by invading Afghanistan and Iraq

Year 8

Term 1: Howard creates mining boom

Term 2: Howard’s back to basics in indigenous affairs – let’s use soldiers again.

Term 3: Why the Magna Carta is just an example of the barons’ union bullying a king

Term 4: How ASIO protects us and why we should never question their actions

Year 9

Term 1: How the descendants of convicts formed the Labor Party

Term 2: Why Anzac Day is still important

Term 3: The Gold Rush – how Peter Costello quickly sold of our gold reserves

Term 4: Free Speech – Why we changed the name of Labour Day to honour Andrew Bolt

Year 10 – Other Wars of the 20th Century

Term 1: World War Two – how we stopped the boats

Term 2: Korea – how we stopped the spread of communism

Term 3: Vietnam – how the hippy student movement tried to destroy Anzac Day

Term 4: Culture Wars – how traitors tried to make us hate Australia and turn us into a republic.

 

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Going, Going … Gonski!

INTERVIEWER

Tonight, we’ll be talking to the Opposition Education Spokesman, Mr Christopher Whine. Good evening, Mr Whine.

MR WHINE

Good evening.

INTERVIEWER

So, is the Coalition going to commit to implementing the Gonski Report?

MR WHINE

Well, we’re not in Government, so we’re not the ones you should be asking.

INTERVIEWER

Well, let’s for the sake of argument imagine you become the Government in September. Will you commit to implementing the Gonski Report?

MR WHINE

We have to wait and see if there’s any money left after all Labor’s spending, but I suspect that a lot of the things we’d like to implement will be just too expensive given the enormous black hole that Labor will leave us.

INTERVIEWER

So what is your education policy then?

MR WHINE

We’ll release it closer to the next election.

INTERVIEWER

How close to the next election? It’s only five months away.

MR WHINE

About two weeks from the election date.

INTERVIEWER

Couldn’t it be argued that releasing a policy two weeks before the election doesn’t leave enough time to analyse it?

MR WHINE

No, two weeks AFTER the election. People will have plenty of time to analyse it.

INTERVIEWER

So you won’t be releasing your education policy until after the next election? That seems a bit odd …

MR WHINE

Why should education be any different? It’s not as though people don’t know our broad position on things.

INTERVIEWER

Which is?

MR WHINE

We think that rather than throwing money at things, we should all tighten our belts and do the things that can improve our education system without costing too much. This is not a bottomless pit and people just need to make do.

INTERVIEWER

So you’ll be cutting funding to the wealthier private schools?

MR WHINE

No, that’s the sort of class warfare that Labor indulges in.

INTERVIEWER

So, why shouldn’t they have to have cuts as well as the public system?

MR WHINE

Because they need the money. Otherwise they’d have to raise their fees and less people could afford to go there.

INTERVIEWER

So what’s your plan to help the poorer schools?

MR WHINE

When we are, we’ll have loads of policies. Like improving teacher quality.

INTERVIEWER

And how will you do that?

MR WHINE

By telling teachers the best way to teach. Which is standing out the front of the class telling them things in an interesting way. We’ll also make it easier to remove underperforming teachers. And by rewarding the good teachers. At the moment we have the absurd situation where the best teachers are paid the same as the worst. Everyone knows a really good teacher when they see one.

INTERVIEWER

And how will you determine which teachers receive performance pay?

MR WHINE

I just told you – by looking at them. Everyone knows a good teacher when they see one.

INTERVIEWER

Aren’t you afraid that performance pay might disrupt the teamwork and the sharing that’s an essential part of a good school?

MR WHINE

No, I expect it’ll make all teachers try harder.

INTERVIEWER

So how will you know who are the best teachers?

MR WHINE

They’ll be the ones getting the performance pay.

INTERVIEWER

Then wouldn’t it be easier to raise the salaries of all teachers?

MR WHINE

No, then we’d be rewarding the underperforming ones as well.

INTERVIEWER

But I thought you said you’d get rid of the underperforming teachers …

MR WHINE

Yes, but that’s just the really bad ones, not the ones who just aren’t as good as the really good teachers which we’ve identified through a totally fair process.

INTERVIEWER

Any other broad concepts for education?

MR WHINE

Well, after we’ve sold Medibank Private, then we’ll look at selling the school system.

INTERVIEWER

Selling the school system?

MR WHINE

Yes everyone agrees that private schools are the best so it makes sense to privatise the whole system.

INTERVIEWER

Well that’s worked well with Public Transport …

MR WHINE

Yes, now if something goes wrong, the State Government can just blame the private operator. And look at how much money energy companies have saved on basic maintenance since they were privatised.

INTERVIEWER

But has it improved the system?

MR WHINE

Sorry, I don’t understand the question.

INTERVIEWER

That’s all we have time for. Good night, and thank you.

MR WHINE

Always a pleasure.

 

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Christopher Pyne gets it wrong again

Media release today from the Hon Peter Garrett MP (Minister for School Education; Minister for Early Childhood and Youth). Worth repeating.

Christopher Pyne has shown once again that he has no idea about how the school funding system works or what our plans are – and he has no interest in finding out.

His latest claims show a complete lack of understanding about the National Plan for School improvement and follow a succession of ridiculous positions on the important issue of school funding:

  • He dismissed the Gonski Report within 20 minutes of it being released.
  • He said he would repeal any legislation we introduced before he had even seen it.
  • He has consistently said he will keep a broken funding model that will see schools across Australia lose up to $5.4 billion in coming years.
  • He continues to pretend the Opposition would index schools at 6 per cent when he knows the current indexation rate is 3.9 per cent and is estimated to fall to 3 per cent from 2014.
  • He claims the Coalition cares about teacher quality when his real plans are to slash $425 million from our Teacher Quality National Partnership.

He has also confirmed he doesn’t even think it is his job to come up with a better way to fund schools, even though the most comprehensive independent review in 40 years found conclusively a new model is needed.

How does he expect anyone to take him seriously on education when he doesn’t even think it’s his job to come up with a plan to fix a broken school funding system?

The National Plan for School Improvement includes a new fairer school funding model. We want every child’s education to be supported by a new nationally consistent Schooling Resource Standard.

This would include a base amount per student and additional ‘loadings’ to address school and student disadvantage. These loadings would support Indigenous students, students with a disability, students with limited English language skills and schools in regional and remote areas – exactly what was recommended in the Gonski Review.

We have always recognised the important role of education authorities, including government, Catholic and independent schools, and the need for them to retain some flexibility to address local need. The Gonski Review also supported the role of system redistribution noting that it would need to be more publicly transparent.

This approach is exactly what we are negotiating with the states, territories and non-government education authorities. It represents the biggest change to school funding in 40 years.

Mr Pyne clearly opposes both transparency and needs-based funding and has said that he will not sign up to the idea of Australian schools being amongst the best in the world.

We are prepared to make significant additional investment but we also expect the states to pay their fair share. We can’t do this if some states continue to cut funding to their own education budgets.

That’s why we’ve asked states to commit to at least 3 per cent indexation and not cut further funding.

If Mr Pyne had spent more time reading the Gonski Review and less time dismissing it, he would know what we are proposing is consistent with the core recommendations of the review.

Mr Pyne’s latest claims do nothing but confirm that the Opposition simply don’t have a plan for the future of our schools – and are clearly not bothering to develop one.

The Coalition’s only plan for schools it to slash funding, sack one in seven teachers and squeeze more kids into every classroom.

Cutting funding from education is what Liberals do. Only Labor can be trusted to deliver the best results for schools across Australia.

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Liberal Party “Real” Solutions

Interviewer – Good morning, on today’s show we have a representative from the Liberal Party who promises to reveal his name closer to the election, but wishes to be known as Mr Pink, for this interview. Good morning, Mr Pink, and what’s in the Real Solutions Document. Mr Pink – Good morning, well, Terry, real…

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