Accountability for Schools/Teachers
Kevin Rudd is becoming an "easy mark" for criticism these days, but I was impressed by his plan to make schools and teachers accountable and measure their performance. This happens in just about every other industry, so why not our school system?
Huge amounts of money go into our school system, yet we are still churning out illiterate, mono-syllabic morons who cant get a job and become a drain on the Social Welfare system. There are some fantastic teachers in the system......they love their jobs, really CARE about kids and make their best efforts to educate our young. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of "drones" who just want to bludge, take lots of holidays and couldnt care less about the kids in their charge. I am all for any system that recognises and rewards excellence in the teaching profession and helps us decide where to send our kids to get the best education. If poor teachers are identified by their results and kept at "award" wages, they will soon find a vocation that better suits their attitude and interests.
I suspect that the teaching unions are squealing about this plan in order to protect their "lowest common denomenator " in the ranks.
[size=4]Mr Rudd copied the policy from John Howard, as he has with a number of others, (and yet at the same time, still blames Howard for whatever goes wrong.)
He says, when faced with that criticism, well why wasn't it done?
With Labor in govt all around Australia, plus the Teachers' Union with whom to contend , what hope did Howard have?
And now, it's all very well to announce this policy, but what happens re the curricula?
Just by handing out elephant stamps for the "best performing" schools, does not mean a thing to me.
What will be the criteria? It quite possibly could simply mean that some students are slightly less illiterate than others, unless there is a massive overhauling of the curricula.
The State governments have much to answer for. John Howard tried his best to bring excellence back into the schoolroom.
But instead we are stuck with Socialist Govts now from the top down, and these are the very people who do not recognise excellence, nor do they believe in competition.
The dumbing down to all one level has been the result.
So therefore Mr Rudd will have to DO a lot more than give a speech at the National Press Club.
Words are cheap...and actions will speak louder than words.
One last comment.
Why did [u]he[/u] give the speech, and not the Education Minister.[/size]