Reporting on world events from a Bairnsdale Conservative perspective.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Life is Beautiful, My Child
A beautiful song written by a poet and performed by my friend, Lafayette, covers an issue of today.
The NSW Teachers union hasm with possible secret support from the Iemma government, opposed the useful practise of standardising report cards.
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Teachers roll Iemma on reports By Bruce McDougall TEACHERS have inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Iemma Government demands by blocking student report cards.
The NSW Teachers' Union has won a three-year battle to stop a "one-size-fits-all" report that would have ranked children in the classroom based on their performance.
Public school teachers are now gloating that not one of them has been disciplined over the refusal to prepare the reports requested by Premier Morris Iemma.
Mr Iemma championed A to E grades two years ago, saying he could not understand his daughter's report and needed a meeting with the teacher to determine her ranking in class.
"The report that came home was confusing to us and required very careful reading and raised a number of questions that we could only have addressed at the parent-teacher night," he said in 2005.
But now, Mr Iemma's demand for a simple, uniform report card system has been stymied, with different approaches being taken across schools at the behest of the Teachers Union.
Teachers were taken to the Industrial Commission after banning the new reports claiming they would label children as failures and could be used to judge their work in class.
The union has told each of the state's 2240 schools to decide their own preferred format for student reports.
The successful campaign effectively prevents any comparisons of performance between students, teachers or schools.
Threats by the Howard Government to withdraw $3.7 billion in school funding if the reports were not implemented also have come to nothing.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that many schools across the state are not grading students on an A to E scale or telling parents they can request details of their child's ranking.
"The majority of NSW public schools did not conform to the department's reporting requirements," a fax sent to schools by the union during term two said.
"No federal funding was lost. No teacher was disciplined."
Primary Principals' Association president Geoff Scott said yesterday that individual schools were deciding the best way to report to parents.
"There is variety . . . most schools have reached a compromise with their communities on Plain English reports," he said.
"There is no compiling of league tables ranking students."
Public Schools Principals' Forum chairwoman Cheryl McBride also said a "whole lot of schools are doing their own thing in consultation with their communities".
"Many schools are not doing A to E but are using word descriptors (such as 'outstanding' or 'limited' to indicate a student's progress)," she said.
"Some have made up their own (descriptors) or are using just four instead of five.
"There won't be a direct comparison between schools because of the differences (in report formats)."
1 comment:
Teachers roll Iemma on reports
By Bruce McDougall
TEACHERS have inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Iemma Government demands by blocking student report cards.
The NSW Teachers' Union has won a three-year battle to stop a "one-size-fits-all" report that would have ranked children in the classroom based on their performance.
Public school teachers are now gloating that not one of them has been disciplined over the refusal to prepare the reports requested by Premier Morris Iemma.
Mr Iemma championed A to E grades two years ago, saying he could not understand his daughter's report and needed a meeting with the teacher to determine her ranking in class.
"The report that came home was confusing to us and required very careful reading and raised a number of questions that we could only have addressed at the parent-teacher night," he said in 2005.
But now, Mr Iemma's demand for a simple, uniform report card system has been stymied, with different approaches being taken across schools at the behest of the Teachers Union.
Teachers were taken to the Industrial Commission after banning the new reports claiming they would label children as failures and could be used to judge their work in class.
The union has told each of the state's 2240 schools to decide their own preferred format for student reports.
The successful campaign effectively prevents any comparisons of performance between students, teachers or schools.
Threats by the Howard Government to withdraw $3.7 billion in school funding if the reports were not implemented also have come to nothing.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that many schools across the state are not grading students on an A to E scale or telling parents they can request details of their child's ranking.
"The majority of NSW public schools did not conform to the department's reporting requirements," a fax sent to schools by the union during term two said.
"No federal funding was lost. No teacher was disciplined."
Primary Principals' Association president Geoff Scott said yesterday that individual schools were deciding the best way to report to parents.
"There is variety . . . most schools have reached a compromise with their communities on Plain English reports," he said.
"There is no compiling of league tables ranking students."
Public Schools Principals' Forum chairwoman Cheryl McBride also said a "whole lot of schools are doing their own thing in consultation with their communities".
"Many schools are not doing A to E but are using word descriptors (such as 'outstanding' or 'limited' to indicate a student's progress)," she said.
"Some have made up their own (descriptors) or are using just four instead of five.
"There won't be a direct comparison between schools because of the differences (in report formats)."
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