teaching and learning

It didn’t work in the USA, it didn’t work in the UK, but let’s try it anyway. The Rudd government’s plan to ‘name and shame’ under-performing schools, principals and teachers is simplistic, populist stuff. Stuff that wont improve student learning.
The Australian reports:
KEVIN Rudd will demand states take tough action against failing schools, sacking principals and [...]

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All the journalists, academics and politicians must be back from their holidays because the media is abuzz this week with all kinds of what should be done to ‘fix’ schools and teachers in the process.
The Federal Government’s rolling up its sleeves and unveiling its education revolution with, you guessed it, a national curriculum! Let’s [...]

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Amusing, but sad article in today’s AGE from David Campbell which patiently unravels just what we are paying our best teachers in terms of per student per hour. The answer? About $3.27 if you DON’T count weekend work, holiday work, lunchtime work and the rest of the reality of the job.  Forget performance pay; how [...]

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You’ve gotta hand it to the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the compulsory union you’ve got when you haven’t got a compulsory union, although unions represent their constituents, not over-regulate them.
When it was first established I was hopeful it would represent the professional voice of teachers in Victoria: advocate for teachers, put the teacher perspective in [...]

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This arrived in my email this week from a teacher in another school. Considering I’ve been posting about this for a while now, I thought I should include it:
Merit Pay for Dentists?
My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don’t forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts [...]

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Now there’s a thought that might get some traction. As politicians help themselves to another 6.7% pay increase while teachers pays go backwards in real terms, AND it’s teachers who are in the spotlight for their performance! perhaps we should look at politicians pay in terms of performance?
And in the areas of the truth about [...]

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