Independent Public Schools

There is a lot of talk in the papers about independent public schools in WA. Independent public schools would be given increased independence from DET and the ability to manage their own affairs.

This could be a wonderful thing:

• Schools given ability to hire and fire staff on a needs basis
• Schools better able to pay according to need within the school
• Schools able to seek maintenance independent of bureacracy
• Schools able to advertise based on strengths of school to attract students
• Schools better able to remove difficult students, bullying decreases
• Schools results gain on independent school sector

so on and so forth but ..

Schools become semi-autonomous Qwangos.. organisations that are paid for by government but that government is not directly responsible for. Typically these organisations start out well and then have their funding squeezed (typically by inflation) until they are inoperable. A very nice political manouver that brings about an expensive government rescue in a few years time..

So let's make some predictions about what happens when wholesale efficiencies are lost (such as staffing, maintenance, curriculum and payroll) and these roles are now paid for by schools with existing budgets.

• less FTE available for face-to-face teachers due to increased administrative requirements
• class sizes increase or time in class trade offs occur (see current private sector)
• lower availability of relief and PD
• fewer subjects available for students (especially where high teacher:student ratios are required)
• increased reliance on "online learning"/SIDE
• staff bullying increases ("managed exits" becomes a common euphemism)
• non-independent public schools are saddled with students unable to exist in independent public schools; rather than shared across all schools (non-independent public schools become safety net for disaffected youth)
• capable teachers move to independent public school sector
• schools exceed budget and seek emergency funding in term four
• inflation erodes school budget
• increased audit requirements
• increased pressure on parents and corporate sector to fund public schools with non tax dollars
• hiring in regional areas becomes more difficult (non-centralised staffing)
• schools expected to perform as businesses but run by administrators

DET is less than perfect, but asking schools to do more with less may not be the answer. If we know the issues upfront maybe we can sidestep most of them and initiate change within DET bureaucracy rather than creating larger administrative teams in schools!

The Pirahna occupation

Something that I always looked forward to was being part of a collegiate profession. I observed as a student that teachers worked as a block and always supported each other publicly. How different it is from the inside.

Criticism of teachers by teachers is rampant, a common source of gossip in the staff room. That's not to say there aren't some outstanding people that seek to assist the teacher needing a hand ( and often it's those you least suspect ), but often given an opportunity the boot goes in spikes and all. Often this results in losing developing teachers or slowing their progress with them doubting their progress. Maybe it's hard for experienced teachers to remember back to their first couple of years where behaviour management was dodgy at times and content knowledge and delivery was far from perfect.

This has also grown a culture of defensiveness, where teachers take insult where none is intended. I had to laugh when I heard that insult was taken by overhearing a reference to a stereotype of the stinginess of a specific religion via a movie quote. If I took offence for every time a Scot was called stingy I'd be in a continuous flap about nothing.

It would be much better to see a developing mentality seeking constant improvement rather than seeking to attack the weakest link. I suppose it's always been in the back of my mind that one day it might be me that needs that support due to a range of issues out of my control (lack of sleep, personality conflict, family crisis, overload of work, poor timetable, teaching out of area etc.)

It's humorous that we criticise each other rather than our superiors (which is more common in other occupations). It's even stranger to hear the criticisms filter downwards from senior staff. Who would ever think to do that in a management position? To some degree though, I understand their frustration as the ways of actually performing any form of performance management seems to be limited to, 'this could be a good idea for your classroom' or going through dismissal procedures over serious misdemeanours.

The closed door policy of many classrooms also makes me scratch my head. I don't understand - 'this is my work and I'm not sharing' or the lack of interest in common planning activities. I suppose that idealism of 'we are here in the best interest of the kids first and foremost' still rules my thinking and the cynicism still hasn't fully kicked in.

I was also thinking about next year, and how classes will fall to teachers; how will admin arrange classes. Will it seek optimal learning (and place the strongest teachers with the strongest students) or will it take a capacity building role again giving teachers an opportunity to develop their skills. If it does the former, what will be done to support and prevent burnout of the developing teachers. If it does the latter how will it ensure that adequate student performance is maintained. If a middle road is taken how will that work?

On another note, again I was reminded of the need for revision and pre-testing yesterday, when students showed that they had limited recall work they had previously successfully completed. I'm glad I've noticed as I will now create a revision paper for the test. That should assist them further.

Who do you want your child to be?

If you didn't see "Who do you want your child to be" on SBS one, 7.30-8.30 11/8/09 then it is worth digging up one of the many webcasts of it or reading the transcript to get a grasp of the ideas discussed. Having the attention span of a gnat, a show has to be relatively interesting to grasp my attention for 60 mins.

From the beginning it was full of ideas, presented in a viewer friendly manner - geared at parents and educators. Well worth watching a couple of times.

It reminded me of the first time I read Raising boys by Steve Biddulph.

Why students are taking easy options in yr 12

Students are taking easy options in year 12. Schools are encouraging students not to take harder upper school subjects. Why?

Students have:

• little resilience - failure is an end product rather than a path to success
• do not experience exams in lower school and fear them
• have little work ethic - would rather coast than strive for excellence
• fear not making TEE score due to perceived issues with scaling and moderation
• have not been driven to complete lower school curriculum in lower school heterogeneous classes and have to make large leaps in year 11/12 to succeed (ongoing problem)
• have difficulty moving from developmental approach (going at own pace is ok) in lower school to graded syllabus approach (you're a C get used to it, we have to go at this pace to finish the course) in yr 11/12
• Core subject areas (Maths, English, S&E, Science) have lost actual teaching time to "equal" learning areas T&E, Health & PE and the Arts.
• VET courses are more readily available and provide an outlet after fatigue of 10 years education

Schools:

• Fear poor league table scores (and thus only attract weaker, behavioural issues students)
• Small academic classes creates timetabling issues
• Require more effort and experience by teachers to get students to pass a difficult subject
• Can only "suggest" that students take harder subjects
• "Good" students are being attracted to academic schools and G&T programs
• WACE issues; have to reach 100% graduation rate (therefore coach students out of difficult classes if at risk of failing)
• Specialist subjects are harder to staff (check the number of schools unable to run Lit, Economics and Maths Specialist or more than one class of each if they wanted to) - exacerbated by the half cohort
• Schools now cater to 'all students' rather than focus on academic students
• Correcting behavioural issues takes precedence to correcting academic issues (just check time allocated to both in any school) - schools can be seen as behaviour centres rather than learning centres.
• Lack of rigor and programming in lower school programmes
• No single point of responsibility within learning areas for performance with loss of level 3 HoD positions to behavioural/administrative roles
• Have a large number of 'refugee' or 'parents with work permits' students with little primary schooling when entering high school
• Students that traditionally left school in year 10 and now staying until year 12
• Students that may have found work in better years are finding it harder to do so in today's economic climate

This is a rather cynical comment and to be honest, this year we have the largest equivalent G&T, Calc course than we've had for a number of years (it raised some concern that we had been too lenient when coaching for subject selection) and next year's cohort for 3A MAS/MAT is an order of magnitude larger again. The issues listed are not true in all schools and when identified schools do look closely at them. I think many of them have occurred all at once due to the simultaneous introduction of the NCOS.

It's not rocket science. Just talk to a few teachers, they'll give you the remaining reasons.

Dispositions and education

I was reading an article on the disposition of teachers that investigated how teaching schools should identify potential students in a similar way to how doctors are identified. Personality traits or "dispositions" to act could be used as a criteria to predict the success of student teachers.

It tied neatly to a discussion I had in the staffroom this week about how teachers had a persona (or disposition) they had to maintain in society. In the past, there was a clear expectation that teachers were pillars of society. They have been maids that did not date or marry. They have been philosophers, terminally interested in the pursuit of knowledge. They have been experts in their subject areas and acknowledged for their ability to do something at a level that is beyond most. They have also been over harsh disciplinarians, child molesters and cretins.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The idea of dispositions was interesting as it worried me. Too many see the 'A type' personality as the only teacher worth having (poor treatment of practicum students in schools is common where "lack of personality" is the main reason for failing or "great personality" hides multiple failings). The 'A type' type teacher is good from an administrative point of view as typically there is little in the way of additional behavioural assistance required, students graduate out of their classes and when kids look back they say that they liked the teacher (but may not have learned much).

Yet if you dig a little deeper and ask a student that has left school who they admired, it seems to be the opposite. It is the disciplinarian, the teacher that yelled at them and gave them detention, the one that made them try harder when there was little left in the tank to try with. The ones that did not need to be liked to maintain a high level of learning in the classroom (but may have needed assistance from time to time to reset the classroom - think back to that time you have seen a teacher explode at a class or a student).

I'm concerned that if you define dispositions, that inadequate research will define the disposition required as being the "type A" personality and exclude the people I have always admired as the true teachers - the teacher that takes pride in their performance first (often to their personal detriment) rather than the teacher that rattles the least amount of cages. The one that seeks out performing and under performing students with mild motivational issues (I don't mean students ill suited to the classroom environment) and lights a fire under them when the easy option is to let them figuratively play cards in the back corner.

Maybe it is these people we need to search out and put discipline frameworks around for education to reach more students.

Assessment and reporting, not more exemplars!

I notice with despair that systemically we are going through another attempt at defining what an A -E is for a variety of topics and year groups to help teachers accurately mark assessment. I wonder how long it will take "those in the know" that providing A-E definitions either is so cumbersome with detail that it is impossible to use or too vague to be of any real use.

There are good reasons why teachers have used percentage grades (and not exemplars or rubrics) historically to assist in judging grades. Percentages combined with basic teacher judgement has been the only valid tool for judging students A-E on assessments. The simple fact is that teachers gain accuracy in assessing students over many years and by teaching as many year groups as possible in their sector (primary or secondary). By watching students mature into more capable students, teachers are better able to determine the snapshot grade of students and judge what makes a student an A (in any given year) and what type of student deserves B-E or the politically incorrect and now defunct F.

The sheer breadth of the curriculum and the variety of responses by students makes the task of defining A-E for all topics in all learning areas a task that serves no real purpose. Teachers do not have the time to find and refer to these exemplars when marking nor are the exemplars accurate for a variety of socioeconomic sectors (yes, I am saying an A in a low socioeconomic area is lower than a higher socioeconomic area by reducing amounts until TEE examinations). Much of marking is viewing the material of the student, noting key issues and making a teacher judgement on where the student is positioned on a continuum. As more students are guided through to TEE (or yr 7 graduation) by a teacher, teachers get better at giving feedback to students with information that helps them reach their potential.

That is what teachers are paid for, they get better with experience and this experience (or lack of) should be valued where accurate and monitored and augmented by senior staff whilst experience is being gained.

(...now if we were being given EPW's with solutions for all maths NCOS then I might give a little cheer as a good use of systemic resources).

Idiot Generation

I wonder now that developmental curriculum has again given way to syllabus driven curriculum if we will look back at the current generation as the illiterate or idiot generation. A bunch of kids that have 'challenged' spelling, writing, reading, grammar and arithmetic. A generation where challenging oneself was only the domain of those driven from outside the education system or those lucky few with teachers with the ability to entertain or drive students through sheer will.

This being the case, will children that have been betrayed by a poorly implemented experimental education system be able to seek redress from the government in years to come?

We risk a lot when we keep children in the system until year 12 regardless of their want for education. These children typically do not succeed and do not want to be in the education system. Are they the stolen generation of the future, "abused" by being kept in a system neither of their want or perceived need (by either their parents and themselves) a system not really geared to their needs, in many cases the children themselves are resented by those within the education system as time wasters and do nothings?

Will we be accused of preventing children reaching their potential by not providing adequate measures to curtail disruption in the classroom? Should we be doing more to create optimal environments for learning? Is preventing disruptive kids from these "optimal learning environments" abuse by neglect?

As society becomes a more litigious environment and legislators are less able to create common sense legislation, schools could become a battleground for lawyers on behalf of parents and children, based on the expectations gained through unscientific reports given by schools in early years and via standardised testing and IQ analysis.

Are students that only respond to physical violence at home (and/or experience few real boundaries) able to respond to verbal chastisement at school? Is a teacher that hits a student on the arm with a ruler worthy of an assault charge? Can we better protect the 100's of teachers that are assaulted every year?

I would hate to think that negative questions become the focus questions facing our next decade. I personally would much prefer to be concentrating on creating a stronger education system, well funded, well managed and with willing participants.

Curriculum Council PD events

Curriculum council events are always attended with a healthy amount of skepticism. They have typically been fairly patronising towards teachers in their approach, devoid of usable content and fairly defensive of their purpose.

The most recent compulsory moderation was the latest shmozzle. The requirements sent to teachers during the reporting period were as follows for each course gathering materials for four students, an A, B, C & D student:

"Each file must consist of all completed assessment tasks that have contributed to the grade for the first semester unit or all tasks completed so far if units are being delivered concurrently, including:

• the assessment outline for the units/s
• the tasks/ task briefs/ task descriptions and marking keys indicating the allocation of marks
• a complete set of all marked tasks for each student (Including the Semester 1 Examination if one is used).

It is advisable that schools supply photocopies of the assessment tasks (not the originals). Where possible indications of the school and students name should be removed from each of the tasks and the student work."

This might sound like an easy task, but photocopying and anonymising 4-5 tasks for four students (up to 10 pages per task) plus a 10 pg exam, marking keys, unit outlines, descriptors is about 240 pages of photocopying and a fair amount of work at a busy time of year. Do this for two courses and it is 500 pages of photocopying.

Teachers would have appreciated knowing the requirement at the start of the year and then the task would have had negligible impact (as it could have been collected as the term progressed). As there is no moderation generally in year 11, these materials are not normally kept in the same ordered manner year 12 materials are kept. There were many stories of teachers needing to spend considerable time during the break gathering materials. This may have been exacerbated by a lack of feedback from school admin to teachers of requirements as information became available.

The task itself on the day involved 10 teachers examining the marking of fellow teachers and stating whether their grade based on a cursory inspection of the results of students. The process failed to some degree because 80% of DET schools were using the same exam (from the TDC). Thus what we saw was the same exam 5-6 times, we examined the percentage score of the exam and defined a grade accordingly (80%+ -A, 65-80% B, 50-65% C and 35-50% D) or thereabouts depending on the level of difficulty of associated assessments.

A better use of time (but not the purpose of the meeting as I was chastised by the Curriculum Council person at great length) would have been to swap EPWs, discuss timing and difficulty levels of the courses and how students are performing in the courses. I was told to ensure that I wrote my feedback down. I responded that I had been down that path before and would no longer spend time on unread feedback but she was welcome to feed back my concerns. I find my blog a much more therapeutic venue for developing my understanding of the coursework.

There were some key findings:

It was reported by teachers that there is major concern about students passing from 2CD to 3AB in year 12 as the difficulty jump is seen as more than possible for the majority of students (many students are destined to repeat the same course). Another issue has been raised that there is not enough "teaching time" for low ability students in the 1BC course which seems to be more focused on assessing past learning than having time to teach new material.

The Curriculum Council representative raised issues with the Saddler 3AB text stating that it was flawed and that the Westone resources were superior. I nearly fell over when she said that, as I have found the Westone resources near useless as it is far too investigative for my liking. It should be noted though that this may be my teaching limitation and a reflection of my cohort, rather than an issue with the Westone resources. The usability of the OT Lee materials were questioned by a number of teachers (although I like them as a supplementary text) and in general it was considered that Saddler texts were the preferred text, albeit you needed to be careful where content exceeded the course requirements.

There is a lot of confusion about what the TEE papers will look like and teachers are waiting impatiently for example papers. It was generally considered that it would have been preferable to have been given full TEE exemplar papers for each module before schools had to create and run courses.

My favourite issue raised though related to a hearsay Curriculum Council comment made by a teacher in the 3A MAS moderation meeting that the curriculum for the 3A courses is aimed at 30% of mathematics students as opposed to the old Introcalc & G&T course that aimed at about 10% of students. This raised mirth from the whole room of senior teachers who indicated that if this was the case, the course was failing in its objective.

As the most junior member at the 3A moderation meeting I attended, I did appreciate the feedback given by the more senior members. For this the meeting was worthwhile.

ta!