And forewarned and forearmed our Aussie friends will be. It looks like the blogging efforts of the NYC Public School Parents blog, Eduwonkette, Ed Notes, NYC Educator, A Voice in the Wilderness, Under Assault, Diane Ravitch and all the other watchdogs of the Joel Klein theory of shock doctrine management of schools have had their words reach into the Land of Oz. One of our correspondents in Canberra, Trevor Cobbald of "Save Our Schools," has been helping prepare the way in giving Klein the reception he deserves when he visits in November.
According to the Australian paper the Age, the Australian teachers union and education advocates are not buying the unreliable NYC school grading system that Joel Klein is pitching to them down under. Don't expect the union to lie down and roll over like the UFT.
The federal president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the Australian Government should not be importing "flawed" approaches from the US, a nation that was consistently outperformed by countries such as Finland which did not publicly rank schools.
Canberra-based public education advocacy group Save Our Schools last week called on Ms Gillard to release the details of her performance reporting plan to ensure it did not reproduce the problems of the New York system, which it said had led to league tables and dissimilar schools being compared with each other.
"Let us have an informed debate while Klein is here and not just a one-sided presentation to bolster Gillard's secret negotiations with state and territory governments," SOS spokesman Trevor Cobbold said. "It seems it is all being decided behind closed doors with the axe of Commonwealth funding held over the heads of state and territory governments to ensure compliance."
Doesn't Klein have a school system to run? I guess it's not that hard a thing to do as he and Michelle Rhee seem to have a hell of a lot of time for politics. But that is what this ed reform thing is all about, mate! Well, guys, throw another shrimp on the barbie for Joel so he doesn't go home hungry.
Full story: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/a-new-york-state-of-mind-20081012-4yyk.html?page=-1
The teachers in Australia won't put up with what Klein is selling. A dear friend of mine lives down under, and she is constantly having to babysit her grandchildren because the teachers are having a one day strike (these walkouts were happening once a week for almost 2 months). I predict that at least somewhere in the world, Klein's word won't be considered gospel.
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