Teachers at work

By Maree O’Halloran

Teachers create amazing teaching and learning environments for our children. This is often despite working in less than optimal conditions.

It's hard for me to correlate the excitement, curiosity and collegiality that I experience in most public schools and TAFE colleges with the type of commentary I read in the media. For example, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop stated in The Age on August 7 that teachers are leaving the profession due to "high community expectations". If she has been quoted correctly, that is truly one of the most ignorant statements I have ever seen about teachers. Teachers know all about high expectations. They are essential for good teaching and learning to occur.

Julie Bishop completely misunderstands the psyche of teachers, cannot know the potential job satisfaction that teaching offers and does not understand a profession that requires collegial cooperation to be successful.

Pitting public education teachers into competition against each other for a handful of "bonus" pay dollars (deliberately misnamed "performance" pay by the federal government) will not improve the quality of teaching and learning. Many "performance pay" schemes for teachers trialled in the United States have been discredited. Yet Julie Bishop and the Federal Coalition Government have effectively made a pre-election promise to introduce "performance" pay for teachers.

"Performance" pay would be accompanied by individual contracts for teachers. It was heartening to hear NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca on August 27 reject "performance pay contracts" for teachers. The quid pro quo from the NSW Government, of course, is the forecasting of a 2.5 per cent salary offer for the next salary round. Federation has rejected that offer.

The federal election this year looks to be a close contest. I only wish we could clearly distinguish between Labor and the Coalition with respect to education funding. At a Daily Telegraph forum in July, Opposition leader Kevin Rudd apparently referred to the "politics of envy" to explain away the passion of public education supporters.

Can we hope to hear an analysis of the "politics of greed" from Kevin 07? The Association of Independent Schools Victoria released a report on August 20 showing that private school students on average received less government funding than public school students on average. This is true. The Association's argument was that the "taxpayer" was actually saving money by subsidising private schools. All privatisation projects are said to save "taxpayers" money. However, the cost to society of a chronically underfunded public system and increasingly wealthy private schools operating on policies of exclusion may well be immeasurable.

Behind the Association's report lies ever-increasing demands by private school lobbies for public funds.

Public schools are under-funded by approximately $2.9 billion per year. Federation thanks all schools who have been able to complete the Public Education Resource Demands sheet. It is important those demands are publicised and sent to federal Labor and Coalition MPs. To date Labor has spent more time appeasing the private school lobby groups than considering the value of public schools and their resource needs.

The Australian Education Union TAFE claim was launched on August 31. The Federal Government has not only short changed the TAFE system, but has attempted via the Australian Technical Colleges to duplicate the system. At a cost of approximately $500 million, the colleges have been a failure. As the Sun-Herald editorialised on July 15: "...several of the new technical colleges have been forced to outsource their trade training to TAFE... If the millions spent on the duplicate Australian Technical College system had been spent on the system that already existed, any future skills shortage might already have been averted."

To date federal Labor's significant point of difference with the Coalition has been about abolishing Australian Workplace Agreements and "ripping up" WorkChoices. I urge you to hold a Federation meeting in your workplace to sign the Your Rights at Work petition organised by Unions NSW to be sent to Kevin Rudd. The Your Rights at Work campaign is about all political parties recognising the need to guarantee rights at work. Federation congratulates the new ACTU Secretary Jeff Lawrence on his appointment and fight for a fairer future for Australia.

On August 28 federal Labor announced details of its industrial relations policy. Federation rejects outright Labor's compromise to allow people earning $100,000 or more to be placed on contracts without award conditions. Such a policy could eventually affect many of our members including principals.

While WorkChoices does not directly affect public school teachers, the abuse of managerial prerogative does. Federation is working to ensure that Department policies and practices treat teachers with respect and dignity. This also applies to the Institute of Teachers. Some of the letters sent by the Institute to beginning teachers regarding fees are designed to intimidate. Yet to date the Institute had done little except "tax" young teachers to set up a supervisory bureaucracy.

Similarly some Teacher Assessment Review Schedule (TARS) practices in schools run counter to good industrial practice. Federation has negotiated with the Department to renew joint Federation/Department of Education and Training about TARS to ensure the award is implemented fairly and professionally.

Finally, we are reminded of the value of teachers' work and public education by Justice Michael Kirby's words: "My debt to Public Education is enormous." Justice Kirby's confidence that public education can be the catalyst to end homophobia that so damages the lives and educational opportunities of gay and lesbian people is inspiring.

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August 2007 contents