Click the button to see the story about the DET process for determining suppliers for the Digital Education Revolution rollout in 2009

 

 Adele Horin, as usual, manages to get to grips with the key issues in relation to current ideas around staffing NSW schools.

Click here to read the piece in the SMH from 9.02.2008

Ross Gittins, writing in the Melbourne Age, questions the position of the Prime Minister in sticking to his commitment to retain current funding formulae for independent schools. 

Then there are the contradictions Rudd has created by promising an Education Revolution while also promising to set in stone the Howard government’s formula for grants to non-government schools.

In a report published last week by the respected and independent Australian Council for Educational Research, Andrew Dowling concludes that Australia’s system of funding schools is crying out for reform.

He quotes from a wide range of education commentators saying the system contains “considerable deficiencies” and “quite remarkable difficulties” that make it “very frustrating”, “unsatisfactory”, “deficient”, a “failure”, “exceedingly complicated”, “inequitable and inefficient”, “irrational” and “unhelpfully complex and exceedingly opaque”. 

Click here to read the piece in the Melbourne Age

Brian Caldwell, casts an eye over the sorts of pronouncements made by Kevin Rudd in the wake if the recent Federal election and highlights some key factors which Caldwell and Spinks have just outlined in a recent book which they believe are critical to makeing a real difference to educational outcomes in this country.  It seems to me that the message is probably fairly simple..Just doing the same with the same people within the same structures will not necessarily get different results despite increased funding levels.  Maybe there are some fundamental shifts required in a number of other areas too.

Click here to read the story in the SMH

Bush vetoes education spending bill
 

President rejects 5 percent increase in education funding, while approving 9 percent increase in defense spending
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
 

Escalating his budget battle with a Democratic Congress, President Bush on Nov. 13 vetoed a spending measure for labor, health, and education programs that would have provided $63.6 billion for the U.S. Department of Education, a 5 percent increase over 2007 spending and 8 percent more than Bush had sought

You can see the remainder of the story by clicking here

 Story in the Melbourne Age today:  Pike foreshadows shake-up of school principals

Underperforming principals could be removed and high-performing ones given financial incentives to work in struggling schools under a new “culture of intervention” designed to lift standards.

Education Minister Bronwyn Pike has signalled an aggressive push to raise results in public schools. Admitting that improvements haven’t “necessarily been shared equitably”, Ms Pike said she wanted a system in which struggling students were identified earlier, resources were better targeted, and teachers and principals given more professional development or encouraged to use different teaching methods to help students learn

Click here to read the story in the Melbourne Age.

New SREB report points to growing interest among government officials in expanding online education
By Robert L. Jacobson, Senior Editor, eSchool News

Click here to read the story or keep reading for a text only version of the sory

State-run virtual schools gather steam

New SREB report points to growing interest among government officials in expanding online education
By Robert L. Jacobson, Senior Editor, eSchool News

August 31, 2007—Don’t look now, but online learning–though still in its infancy–is well on its way to becoming a major part of state-sponsored education across the country.
That’s the impression left by a new report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), whose member states have long been in the forefront of developing government initiatives in virtual schooling.

The 112-page report, which is being released today in advance of next week’s annual meeting of the SREB’s Educational Technology Cooperative, provides state-by-state details on the scope, financing, enrollment, curriculum, teacher Read the rest of this entry »

 Catherine Deveney, writing in the Melbourne Age has a few things to say about parent choice in schooling

Memo, parents: choosing a school is about your child, not you. So, get a life!