With the raging success of performance-based pay for teachers in America, Australia’s Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, today announced that a trial for the same will start in 2009.
The proof of the success of this method of paying teachers is evidenced by the fact that teachers in America have been said to give students some answers to exam questions in order to improve their performance and ensure job security and a good salary.
When will governments learn that the best way to improve the standard of education is to pay teachers a fair wage and encourage them to stay in the profession rather than make their lives even harder through red tape and administrative tasks? Or perhaps the Australian government is actively trying to destroy the public education system in order to enhance the value of private schools and justify the exorbitant government grants
they receive.
Update
Just saw a related article in The Age which points to the Center for Teaching Quality web site, which hosts the 50 page PDF document describing the “Performance-Pay for teachers” plan. I haven’t read it in whole, but it’s interesting to note they look to Singapore as a reference of a successful implementation. They openly admit that
Singapore’s public education system equitably funds its schools, and well-prepared teachers have the resources and technology needed to help their students reach world-class standards.
Doesn’t it then stand to reason that this scheme will fail (as it did in 1920’s, 50’s and 80’s) again unless our education system mirrors that in Singapore even slightly?
According to Crooks and Liars, a poll by Fox News shows Britney Spears was voted the most foolish American.
The top 5 looked like this:
- Britney Spears: 33%
- Paris Hilton: 12%
- Mel Gibson: 1%
- OJ Simpson: 13%
- Pres. George Bush: 40%
Now perhaps this is an April Fool’s joke, or maybe Fox News are distorting the poll results. I cannot find the poll on Fox News Polls page. Perhaps it was pulled?
And correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it Fox News that incorrectly announced Bush as president before the votes were in?
I thought you would like to know about this new campaign to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where President Bush is holding nearly 400 detainees without criminal charges or trials. For the first time, some of his top advisors have called for closing this affront to international law, including his own Secretary of Defense. This split inside the Administration gives us a real chance close Guantanamo forever.
This new group called Avaaz is putting together a global petition to close Guantanamo. We will run the petition in key US newspapers as soon as we have signatures from every country. You can sign up here.
I heard a news article on a radio show this morning on the planned “health and social services access card”. The idea is this card will reduce the red tape involved with accessing government services such as Medicare and Centrelink.
Interestingly, the government is planning to place a photo of the card holder on the card, which will protect personal identity. Given the unnaturally early time of this news item, I don’t remember the exact wording.
There is a lot of controversy about this card, but I have to say I think they’ve nailed it. If carrying a piece of plastic in my pocket that has my photo on it stops someone in Asia fraudulently using a copy of my credit card, then I’m all for it. In fact, I’m about to laminate a passport photo now – why wait for the compulsory National ID health and social services access card?
At least our government isn’t using scare tactics in order to get their citizens to conform to its demands without question.
Oh, hang on a minute…
The USPTO’s Office of International relations released a report in November 2006 titled Filesharing Programs and “Technological Features to Induce Users to Share”.
Their view is that many peer-to-peer file sharing applications include technological features that make it easy for people to inadvertently share files they might not want to, such as copyrighted material and last years tax returns. Consequences included the sharing of government and military secrets and putting children and unsophisticated users into a position where they were breaking laws.
In other news, gun manufacturers have been found to intentionally allow people to inadvertently shoot people. One gunman, whose identity cannot be divulged, said
“I don’t know what happened. I just wanted to rob the bank, but then I pulled the trigger and shot this guy. I didn’t bother reading the manual, but who would have thought that pulling the trigger would actually make the bullet come out. I thought I’d have to enable it or something! These gun manufacturers are simply irresponsible!”.
