Funding cut to overly political student body

A SYDNEY university is believed to be the first in the country to cut back and control funding to its student council for playing too much politics.

On the eve of orientation week, the University of Western Sydney suspended ordinary funding arrangements after complaints that the student body, called the Hive, was “too political”, according to Hive president Jacob Carswell-Doherty.

“It sets a very concerning precedent; the universities have the ability to turn the tap on and off as they see fit,” said Mr Carswell-Doherty, a five-year veteran of student politics.

National Union of Students president Carla Drakeford alsobelieved UWS was the first university to hogtie funding since the end of compulsory student unionism in 2006. She said it was more common for student representative councils to self-censor.

Those student bodies that have not collapsed have become dependent on money from university coffers since they lack the compulsory fees of students.

UWS paid $68,734 to consultants Gavin Anderson & Company (Australia) for advice on how to set up a student representative body for the new era of voluntary unionism. Mr Carswell-Doherty said the team elected last year to the newly formed Hive had run campaigns on same-sex marriage (UWS boasts an Equal Love Collective) and conflict in the Gaza Strip (UWS has more Muslim students than any other university).

Mr Carswell-Doherty made no apology for the politics, but said the Hive had recruited staff and made plans to expand the range of non-political groups and activities.

He said this imbalance had been pointed out to the student body in January by deputy vice-chancellor Rhonda Hawkins.

But on February 10, the body that governs the university, the board of trustees, suspended funding arrangements for the student body pending a report from the audit and risk committee, Mr Carswell-Doherty said.

In a brief statement, Ms Hawkins said UWS was giving the Hive money for “genuine and necessary expenditures” while it discussed “funding arrangements and budget” with the student body. Mr Carswell-Doherty said the Hive had half the money it would normally have in the busy, early part of the year, had lost autonomy in spending, and had to scale back orientation week activities.

Although the board of trustees made the decision in camera, it reportedly cited concerns about financial and accounting processes at the Hive, Mr Carswell-Doherty said. He queried whether “the financial explanation is being used as a justification to shut the student union up”.

The Howard government saw compulsory student unionism as an unjust system.

Source: The Australian

Teachers brace for another New York initiative

Julia Gillard is fuelling speculation the federal government will consider report cards for teachers, based on class performance.

The Minister for Education has refused to back away from supporting new measures being introduced by the New York schools chancellor, Joel Klein, tying tenure of teachers to the performance of their students in standardised testing.

The minister has embraced the New York model of publicly comparing the test results of schools with the launch of the My School website, which has resonated with Australian parents.

This month Mr Klein announced that probationary teachers would need to prove themselves in the classroom before being granted tenure.

Asked about the measures, Ms Gillard said: ”We obviously take an interest in developments overseas and strongly support transparency in schools. But we have already announced [changes] to My School for next year, including school funding and the next round of national testing.”

Under the new Klein measures, each probationary teacher will be given a percentile ranking based on improvement in students’ test scores on the state’s maths and English tests over the previous year and the previous three years.

That ranking will be compared with all other teachers in the same subject area throughout New York and with peer teachers who have similar classes and teaching experience.

The NSW Greens MP John Kaye said education policy in Australia was increasingly being determined by Mr Klein’s market-based ideology.

He said Mr Klein’s agenda was to set up competition between schools by reducing all educational outcomes to a simple set of numbers.

”Julia Gillard has already told parents to harass teachers, based on the school’s performance, on her website,” he said.

”Joel Klein is pushing her to the next step, with teacher report cards based on class performance. It is only a matter of time before My School becomes My Teacher.

“Even if Julia Gillard and [the NSW Education Minister] Verity Firth deny they have any intention of going down this path, it is the logical conclusion of the My School website.

“Joel Klein’s teacher report cards are a recipe for educational disaster.

”The pressure to teach to the test will force educators to sacrifice important curriculum time for areas not covered in the tests. Staffroom co-operation will be undermined and it will become much harder to find teachers for difficult-to-educate classes.

Trevor Cobbold, the national convener of Save Our Schools, said there was no credible research showing that evaluating teachers by student test scores would improve teaching.

He said teachers would avoid difficult classes rather than risk their records.

”Evaluating teachers on the basis of student test scores ignores the influence of other factors largely beyond the control of teachers, such as class composition by socio-economic status, ethnic sub-groups, gender and students with disabilities,” Mr Cobbold said.

”As a result, it will lead to unfair comparisons between teachers because of differences in the composition of classes.”

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Boy drowns at school camp at Alpine Ash Mountain Retreat

THE first day of a school camp ended in tragedy late yesterday when a 12-year-old boy drowned.

The boy was among a group of about 20 secondary school students swimming in a large waterhole about 3m deep at Alpine Ash Mountain Retreat, in Toolangi, north of Melbourne.

Students told teachers and camp leaders supervising the group that the boy was having trouble about 5.20pm.

Sgt Jon Ellks, of Kinglake police, said teachers had immediately called police.

Search and rescue officials and the police helicopter were called in and the boy’s body was found about 7.30pm.

“They kicked into action pretty much straight away, but the water was murky,” Sgt Ellks said.

“The water at this time of year is quite cold and you need to know your surroundings. This is just a tragedy.”

Sgt Ellks said a counsellor at the camp had spoken with the students, from a school in East Ringwood.

“The teachers and camp leaders are devastated,” he said. Two busloads of students, some visibly distressed, left the camp last night.

Sgt Ellks said the boy’s parents had been notified and a report would be prepared for the coroner.

The Alpine Ash Mountain Retreat, off Spraggs Rd, caters for groups of up to 150 with an activity centre, campfire area and obstacle courses.

Hire a bully settles school yard brawls

THUGS recruited to settle a school playground dispute have ambushed students on their way home from classes in two separate attacks.

While a public high school was under police guard after a serious assault, five youths followed a bus and attacked a student as he got off at Kings Langley in Sydney’s west.

The incident came three days after 20 attackers said to have been armed with planks containing exposed nails viciously bashed three Crestwood High School students at Baulkham Hills last Friday.

One victim, aged 17, suffered a fractured eye socket and broken nose.

Police later charged a male, 16, who is not a Crestwood student, with assaulting a student, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray. He was bailed to appear in Parramatta Children’s Court on March 11.

In the Kings Langley assault, about 4pm on Monday, police said the attackers targeted the wrong student.

“They accosted a young kid of 16 or 17 – he got a bit of a graze to his knee when they pushed to him to the ground,” Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Murray said.

He said police believed the incident was linked to Friday’s attack and are looking for a dark green hatchback.

“It . . . stems from an escalation from some sort of altercation that occurred at school between a Year 11 student and a Year 12 student,” he said. “There was a recruitment of kids from outside the area to settle a playground dispute.”

Up to eight police cars as well as private security guards and teachers have been patrolling the perimeter of Crestwood High School.

On Tuesday a teacher disarmed a knife-wielding primary student as police were called to Claremont Meadows school in western Sydney.

But Education Minister Verity Firth yesterday denied there was any surge in violence at schools and ruled out metal detectors or security searches, claiming schools had adequate powers to deal with violent children including mandatory 20-day suspensions and anti-bullying programs.

Source: News Australia

Boy, 14 Arrested after making threats with large knife at school.

A 14-YEAR-OLD boy has been charged with threatening fellow students with a knife during class at a Sydney high school.

The boy took a large kitchen knife to school and made threats against three other 14-year-old boys at a Cherrybrook high school yesterday morning, police alleged.

He was arrested and charged with carrying a knife visible in a school and three counts of common assault.

“The boy is alleged to have produced the knife during a morning class and made threats before the matter was reported to teachers,” police said.

“No one was injured during the incident.”

The teenager was granted conditional bail to appear at Parramatta Children’s Court on March 9.

His arrest followed a string of alarming similar incidents across NSW and Queensland in recent days.

In a crime that shocked the country, 12-year-old student Elliott Fletcher died after being stabbed at Brisbane’s St Patrick’s College on Monday.

A 13-year-old fellow student has since been charged with murder.

That same day, Huong Nguyen was stabbed, allegedly by another mother, while waiting outside Sefton Infants School in Sydney’s south-west.

On Tuesday, an 11-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly confronting a fellow Claremont Meadows Public School student with a knife.

NSW Education Minister Verity Firth yesterday tried to reassure parents by denying there was a surge in violent crimes in schools.

“Please keep it in perspective – schools are still probably the safest place in the community for our kids to be,” Ms Firth said.

Source:  News Australia

Better supervision of tests needed to stop cheats, say schools

THE lobby group for private schools is to press for independent supervision of the national literacy and numeracy tests to prevent cheating and corruption.

The NAPLAN tests are used to compare school performances on the federal government’s My School website, launched last month. Schools have traditionally used the basic skills tests to diagnose learning difficulties, and the tests are overseen by teachers, unlike the HSC exams, which are independently supervised.

The Herald has received reports of principals and teachers helping students with answers in the literacy and numeracy tests to improve their schools’ rankings.

The executive director of the Association of Independent Schools, Geoff Newcombe, said the high stakes now attached to the NAPLAN tests demanded that they be guarded with greater security, including independent supervision.

”The NAPLAN tests have achieved a high status in the community, and we have to make sure the implementation of testing is under a similar level of security as what we use for the HSC,” Dr Newcombe said.

Trevor Cobbold, the national convenor of the Save Our Schools, public schools advocacy group, said one in five schools in the US state of Georgia was now under investigation for changing student answers to similar standardised achievement tests.

He said the Georgia State Board of Education had ordered investigations at 191 schools where evidence had been found of tampering on answer sheets. Monitoring of tests would be stepped-up at 178 schools.

”The case has momentous implications for Australia, now that My School is up and running and test scores have become the measure of a school’s worth, as well as that of its teachers and principal,” Mr Cobbold said.

”[It] is the latest in a series of cheating scandals across the US since the No Child Left Behind legislation came into force.

”The legislation has placed principals and teachers under pressure to improve school test scores and many come to think they must cheat to survive.”

The Greens NSW MP John Kaye said that while the majority of teachers in Australia would resist the temptation to alter test scores, schools that cheat would add to the ”already substantial unreliability of the My School website”.

”[Federal education minister] Julia Gillard is putting enormous pressure on the profession to teach to the test and to alter scores,” he said.

“Test cheating in Georgia and the massive discrepancy between school test results in New York state and national tests should sound very loud alarm bells.”

The Association of Independent Schools of NSW yesterday published the results of a national survey of 1000 telephone interviews which found that if fees were not an issue, 42 per cent of parents of children in government schools would prefer to send them to independent schools. It also showed that 45 per cent would choose to keep their children in a government school.

General support for independent schools had increased from 54 per cent to 70 per cent between 2001 and 2009.

Source:  SMH

Early childhood education neglected

Parents fume as sick list

Uproar after teacher is replaced with a website

A FUNDS shortage has been blamed for Year 12 students being left without a qualified 2-unit maths teacher for the first month of the school year.

Education officials told parents from Davidson High School, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the situation was not a one-off and there were year 12 classes at other high schools without teachers.

One mother, Cheralyn Darcey, said she was “disgusted” to learn her daughter’s class has been forced to learn from a DIY internet maths site.

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School canteens under fire for flouting unhealthy lunch items plan

DOUGHNUTS, meat pies and lollies are still being served in school canteens six years after the NSW Government promised to ban them.

Parents and nutritionists have slammed the NSW Fresh Tastes @ School strategy as a toothless tiger following revelations fatty foods remain a mainstay on some school tuckshop menus.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has revealed schools are not penalised for ignoring the Government’s junk-food ban.

Under the policy, announced in 2004 by former premier Bob Carr, schools were to sell rye-bread sandwiches, kidney bean salads and frozen fruit rather than cream-filled buns and sweet pastries.

Potato chips, custard tarts, croissants and chocolate-coated ice creams were not to be sold more than twice a term. Soft drinks were banned completely.

Child obesity was a key issue before the last State election. In 2006, then premier Morris Iemma told Parliament: “Schools have a duty of care to our children, and no duty is more important than protecting our children’s health. Schools are no place for junk food. Kids go to school to learn and grow.

“By taking junk food out of our canteens, we are doing them a favour that will last a lifetime.”

But some public primary and high schools are flouting the rules because there are no penalties.

For example, the canteen at Sydney Boys High School sells custard-ball doughnuts, Boost chocolate bars, soft drinks, meat pies and pizza slabs. Balgowlah Heights Public School offers chicken nuggets, choc-chip muffins and hot dogs, while Winston Heights Public School sells two-minute noodles and hash browns.

Healthy Kids School Canteen Association general manager Jo Gardner said schools were struggling to comply with the guidelines.

“Lots of schools continue to provide food-menu items that still have too much sugar and fat in them,” Ms Gardner said.

Food sold in school canteens is classified as red, amber or green according to its nutritional value. However, companies such as Mrs Mac’s Pies and Smith’s Snackfood have modified their products to get around the rules.

Ms Gardner said pies, sausage rolls and pizzas were now smaller and lower in fat to ensure they met health guidelines.

She blamed the proliferation of pre-packaged “amber” foods on the lack of tuckshop volunteers and the limited infrastructure in schools.

“If you want to provide a service to your school, how do you do it when you’ve only got a facility that can heat and serve?” Ms Gardner said. “You will look to those packaged foods to do that.”

A Department of Education spokesman confirmed schools were not penalised for failing to meet the guidelines.

“Where schools are experiencing difficulties in fully implementing the strategy, we are working closely with them to make changes,” he said. “We concentrate on assisting schools to make the change, not penalising them,” he said.

More than $750,000 has been spent implementing and promoting the scheme to convince schools to speed up compliance. NSW Parents and Citizens’ Federation spokeswoman Helen Walton said schools had no excuses for not complying with the guidelines.

She said information was regularly sent out to canteen managers and principals but conceded it was hard to change the junk-food culture.

“It’s going to take a while for them to all change to a healthy menu,” she said. “People don’t like change.”

Ms Walton said one of the main issues was that non-compliant schools were not penalised.

“I don’t know if there really are a lot of consequences,” she said.

“Guidelines were put in place, but I’m not sure whether there are actually any big sticks to hit them over the head if they are doing the wrong thing.”

Oatley father of four Greg Wyer believes it is important for his children to eat healthily.

“We make our kids’ lunches probably 90 per cent of the time,” Mr Wyer said.

“Although schools have policies about not serving up crappy stuff, we prefer to have control over what our kids are eating.”

Source: The Daily Telegraph

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