A Casual Lie Smearing a Parent by NSW Ed

NEW South Wales schools are doing all they can to attract maths teachers but are competing with higher-paying employers for a small pool of talent, a senior education official says.

The casual lie comes easily from NSW Dept of Education. They have an obligation to lie because they are expected to do what they claim to be doing. But they aren't doing it. Not even close.
The reason for the lie comes from a potentially explosive problem where a parent of a year 12 student has complained about their child not being given adequate instruction in one of their chosen areas of study. The child has apparently complained to the parent that they spend much of their quality time in class on computers using online tutoring. When this allegation is put to the Department, it resorts to spin. The claim is made on air (2GB's Jason Morrison) that the child has a relief teacher who is teaching a school based program which informs the teacher of the course content to be disseminated. So what the child has alleged is apparently true, but the parent is smeared for making public the complaint when the school has clearly not addressed the issue in private. In order to defend the school, and further smear the parent, the Department refuses to address the issue publicly, but anonymously refers to systemic problems and assures the public that the school itself is not to blame.
It is true that there are a lot of poor relief teachers who are inadequate to meet the needs of such schools, but the actual result at Davidson is a failure and should not be hidden by smearing a parent. Year 12 classes should be covered by fully trained teachers, as should year 10. A school is expected to make sacrifices to ensure such classes have what they need for their students. However, the (2 unit) Mathematics course is a nowhere subject, usually taken by composite groupings of kids who are either not good enough for extension work or too good for General math. As such it is usually taken by those teachers who have earned a rest or would be too problematic to give a challenging class. The students usually know what they are hoping to achieve from the study and don't require as much direction as others.
A few years ago, another school in the met south west of Sydney had a Head Teacher of Math who had only been teaching for six years and a staff who were sorely pressed against problematic children. But that school, one of the worst in Sydney, still managed to ensure their year 12 Math class was covered by a teacher who was trained in Math. People are available, but possibly ruled out by a Department which rules by smear and innuendo and is incapable of dealing with long-standing issues, as with Hamidur Rahman.
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Written for Zaya's blog