Promises, promises
Published in the Australian Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Background to this letter:
Federal Labor MPs had just elected a new leader, Kevin Rudd. Within a few days, the headline of The Australian was RUDD PUTS TEACHERS ON NOTICE: Kevin Rudd will demand quality control from the nation's schools to guarantee the children of working families a good education. "The most critical aspect of fairness from the party [is] ... in educational opportunity."]
Kevin Rudd's vow to raise the standard of schooling is music to my ears. I have long believed that the greatest defect of our commonwealth is that low-income children are forced into low-achieving schools.
But can we believe Rudd? Can Labor defy its own unions? Will Rudd have the stomach to replace weak teachers with strong teachers? We are not talking here about merely sacking the few teachers who abuse children. We are talking about replacing teachers who are not confident in literacy, numeracy or effective classroom practice.
Furthermore, it is a fact of life that good teachers cannot be identified by qualifications alone, nor by any remote-control procedure operated by state education departments.
The only hope of raising teaching standards in poor suburbs is to give those schools the huge advantage that independent schools have long enjoyed - self-government, which enables them to employ the best teachers they can get to meet their students' needs.
Philip O'Carroll