@dlowan,
This'll give you a wee bit of an idea, Deb. Too tired (after a hard day in a school!
) to write too much tonight. They've pin-pointed the problem (Well who could miss it?) but the response is the same old, same old conservative stuff ... Sigh. I really would like to know who IS advising Labor.:
Prime Minister to take on unions over education reforms
Samantha Maiden, Online political editor
August 28, 2008/The AUSTRALIAN
KEVIN Rudd has warned he's ready to brawl with unions and the states to deliver a new ranking system for schools that could see underperforming teachers sacked and schools merged.
The Prime Minister was unapologetic about his plan to deliver more autonomy to principals to hire and fire and boost funding to struggling schools.
"There may be a bit of argy bargy on the way through but I think it's time to do this,'' Mr Rudd told Fairfax Radio Network today.
"We're prepared to have an argument if that's necessary ... you can't simply allow our kids to be in schools which are consistently underperforming.''
Mr Rudd must now seek agreement from the states to reveal the performance of their schools from next year, with individual school reports available to parents within three years that detail their child's results and a comparison against a group of comparable schools.
But the Prime Minister said the new transparency would not deliver league tables ranking all schools as such because only schools with a similar socio-economic profile would be compared. Mr Rudd said the Coalition had talked tough on transparency but failed to deliver.
"We are moving to a system where we can compare apples with apples,'' he said.
"I notice the Liberals were saying that they had come up with some of these ideas in the past, well that's terrific.
"Twelve years (they were) in government, 24 reports on boosting quality education in our schools ... and not much to show for it in terms of real action.
"I think it's time to get on with this.''
But the Opposition has accused the government of a "me-too" approach on transparency today.
Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says Labor has simply rehashed Coalition policy.
"From what we have seen, it appears to be, essentially a reheated Coalition policy, much of which has already been legislated,'' he said.
Greens senator Christine Milne says the government's approach is just an extension of the previous Howard government policy.
"It's punitive, it's saying principals perform or heads will roll,'' she told reporters.
"It's shifting responsibility for the educational outcomes of the nation onto the shoulders of principals and making them personally responsible, when the government isn't adequately funding schools to be able to do the job.''
Education Minister Julia Gillard stressed the plan would not provide for a league table of all schools.
"There's no point in the world with comparing a rich school on Sydney's north shore with Elizabeth North in South Australia and how the school is going there,'' she said.
"Our whole plan is to analyse student population and compare like schools with like schools.''
"We're pledging a school like that with difficulties ... would get resources of $500,000 a year extra to make a difference and to bring that school up to standard.''
with agencies
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24254264-2702,00.html
It's very tired stuff, imported from the usual (conservative) places (where those "iniatives" are old hat now & have made bugger-all difference to the most disadvantaged students ...) ... Plus, there are a few key ideas lifted from Howard's Libs as well. Sigh. 
