Congratulations, Justine Ferrari

It's a pleasure to report that The Australian's education reporter, Justine Ferrari, has won the Australian College of Educators' annual award for excellence in journalism.

John DeCourcy, NSW president of the organisation, said:

"While Justine is critical of many aspects of what may be considered 'accepted wisdom' in some educational hierarchies, she both intelligently argues a case and gives a fair representation to alternative positions.
“Above all, her principal focus, which she shares with the college, is on quality and equity for all children, in all schools and in all systems."

Ms Ferrari was an outstanding young reporter when your Grumpy Old Journo was nearing the end of his working life on the Sydney Daily Telegraph, and a few months ago I presumed on that acquaintanceship to send her an email.

In a blog post on May 8 headed, “At last, The Australian shows how education should be reported,” I had praised her long, detailed front-page report about the introduction of a grammar curriculum as balanced, fair and comprehensive – particularly in its description of other grammars, such as those labelled “transformational” or “systemic functional”.


But in a comment which could have been seen as critical of Ms Ferrari (but wasn't meant to be), I contrasted the article to The Australian's treatment of the debate on the use of phonics in teaching reading. In a post on April 30, I had said:

. . . when the Oz reports only one side of an argument, it's not because the editors are biased. The editors know children should learn to read by phonics alone – they know every other approach is discredited. Me? I'd like to make up my own mind by evaluating the differing arguments. I'd like the news reports to lay out those arguments, even briefly.

Ms Ferrari replied with a courteous email. I hope she won't mind my quoting part of it:

On your point about balance of reading and phonics, in my defence I would argue that the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of explicit and systematic phonics as the first necessary step in learning to read. The debate is over the place at which phonics is taught, not that it isn't taught altogether or that it's the only skill required to be taught, as is often presented.

As a grumpy old fellow, I sometimes put my two bob's worth of opinion into the blathersphere. But perhaps two bob is all it's worth. I'm an outsider peering through the fence as traditionalists and progressives clash on the battlefield, wielding impressive armaments of research data.

That's why I welcome Justine Ferrari's skills to help me make sense of these complex issues. And why it's pleasing to note John DeCourcy's praise, “she both intelligently argues a case and gives a fair representation to alternative positions”.


Justine Ferrari's grammar report drew an interesting range of comment.

As evidence of her views on “quality and equity for all children, in all schools and in all systems", may I point to a paper Ms Ferrari prepared for an Australian Council of State School Organisations forum last March. What's the ACSSO?

"Literacy educators are becoming increasingly demoralised and frustrated at the relentless, simplistic, headline-grabbing attacks on their professionalism" – Dr Beverly Derewianka, Director, Centre for Research in Language and Literacy, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong. (to read more). And to see the views of other academics and teachers on what they see as attacks by conservatives, try this.

A Wry Side columnist to The Australian, Emma Tom, recounts her university experience of an intellectually demanding non-traditional grammar. She also mocks people who nit-pick their way through misplaced apostrophes.

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A closer look at our education report card

In our schools, Australia really is the land of the fair go. Children from lower socio-economic backgrounds do reach higher educational standards than they would almost anywhere else in the world.

By world standards, Australia offers high quality education – and offers it more equitably than most other countries. But there are areas of concern, particularly with Aboriginal students' achievement and with remote schools.

I've followed up my previous blog post by going into the Australian Council for Educational Research website and downloading the executive summary of Australian results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The exec summary itself is a 14-page PDF file, while the full Australian report runs to almost 10 megabytes of PDF.

As the previous blog post noted, Australia is still up there with the better performers, but has slipped on some key measures.

And to my mind, the exec summary doesn't provide enough information to answer some key policy questions that should concern all Australians and their politicians. Answers which may show us the way to regain the lost ground, and more.


The summary says questions guiding the development of PISA are:

• How well are young adults prepared to meet the challenges of the future? What skills do they possess that will facilitate their capacity to adapt to rapid societal change?


• Are some ways of organising schools and school learning more effective than others?


• What influence does the quality of school resources have on student outcomes?


• What educational structures and practices maximise the opportunities of students from disadvantaged backgrounds? How equitable is education provision for students from all backgrounds?

Under the heading, Policy Issues, and looking at the new focus on science education, the summary notes that "Australia is well placed to continue its tradition of producing high quality scientists".

It also notes that "Analysis of Australia´s performance in terms of equity and achievement places us in the category of above-average level of student performance and below-average impact of socioeconomic background in scientific literacy; in other words, high quality and high equity".

Literacy in reading also shows a narrowing of the gap between well-off and poorer students, but the report notes this may result from declining achievement in the higher levels rather than improvement at the bottom end.

The report does point to worrying areas, two of which are:

The achievement of Australia´s Indigenous students continues to be a concern. Average scores for Indigenous students place them on a par with students in a low-performing country such as Chile, and two and a half years behind the average for their non-Indigenous contemporaries. While some individual Indigenous students performed very well on the PISA assessment many more performed extremely poorly. There is no doubt that many Indigenous students will continue to need extra support.

The relatively poor performance of students attending schools in remote areas is also evident from these analyses, and requires attention. Students attending schools in remote areas were found to be achieving at a level about a year and a half lower than their counterparts in metropolitan schools in all of the assessment areas. It is recognised that schools in remote areas face problems such as attracting and retaining qualified teachers, maintaining services and providing resources, and in their capacity to send staff to participate in professional development.

Despite its aims, the PISA study may not settle debate on questions such as Australia's mix of public and private education, and the way it is to be funded. We have just removed a Prime Minister who was ideologically unable to collaborate with the Labor-governed states, and who also wanted to impose his mid-20th Century mindset on our school curriculums.

Can we achieve more in education (and in health, and everything else) with "wall-to-wall Labor governments"? Perhaps, but there'll always be tensions between Federal and state responsibilities and funding.

Are we focusing too much on vocational preparation, and not enough on developing our children so they can live better lives in in our rapidly changing world? The PISA report suggests we are achieving a good balance, but we shouldn't take it for granted.

Can we improve the professionalism, the status and the remuneration of teachers? Will some have to put extra effort into professional development to cope with our changing, digital world?

Our report card: 'Has done better'

Australian students are beginning to fall behind the standard of overseas students in reading and mathematical skills – that's the finding of an OECD study released overnight. We're still ahead of most of the world, but we're slipping.

I picked up the story first from a brief report on Sky News Online early today, which also said:

It has been reported that the results were dragged down by poor performances by indigenous students and those from a low socio-economic background.

That set off two lines of thought. First, Sky needs a good old-fashioned sub-editor, who'd rewrite that passive voice into active, and who'd see the need for attribution. But old-style subs are an endangered species as more media companies see them as merely process workers shovelling “content” in between the ads.

Second, are inequities in our education systems worsening? The picture seems unclear. Further reading suggests we may be letting down our brightest students – and also that we're not achieving much-needed improvement in the educational development of many Aboriginal children, as well as others from lower socio-economic backgrounds.


A little more browsing on the web brought up this report by The Australian's education writer, Justine Ferrari, headed: “Brightest students falling behind world”.

Results from the latest Program for International Student Assessment, released yesterday by the OECD group of 30 developed nations, show that while Australian students still perform in the top 10 of the world in reading, maths and science and well above the OECD average, their ranking dropped.

The PISA test of 15-year-olds shows the reading scores of Australian students fell about 15 points over the past six years, with the decline caused by a fall among the highest-performing students.

"It is noteworthy that, among the countries with above-average performance levels, only Australia has seen a statistically significant decline in their students' reading performance," the report says.

In maths, Australia's mean score remained about the same, but this was due to an improvement among the weakest students that counteracted the fall in performance among top students.

The Australian Council for Educational Research conducts the PISA test on behalf of the OECD.

ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said fewer students were demonstrating skills at the highest levels, which involved sophisticated reading and understanding the nuance of language.
Students had to read complex and unfamiliar texts and find information that was not obvious.

Later, on ABC radio, he said a possible reason for the decline was that students today read fewer books and long texts.

Justine Ferrari also reported:

Researchers in gifted and talented education argue that Australian schools need to better provide for the academically gifted, in the same way that elite sports people are fostered, and encourage bright students to forge ahead at their own pace rather than tie them to the class rate.

The Sydney Morning Herald's education writer, Anna Patty, also covered the issue well, focusing on the slipping ability of our brightest 15-year-olds, and also noting a downturn in girls' maths skills. She also wrote:

. . . almost a quarter of the poorest students, 40 per cent of Aboriginal students and 27 per cent of those in remote schools performed below the OECD baseline at which students are considered to be at risk of serious disadvantage.

Your Grumpy Old Blogger thought this would be a quick and easy post. It's not. So I'm taking a break to think it over after reading the report and some summaries which can be downloaded from ACER's website.

Whatever, surely this rich nation should strive to deliver the best education and the best opportunities in life for every one of its children, whether bright or struggling, rich or poor, from the city or the bush.

Our report card now says: "Has done better – must try harder." And we really must. We owe it to our kids and our grandkids and our nation's future.

The kids we try to help

WE'RE gathered around a table in the high school library, the small group of volunteer tutors who help out once a week, and we're sharing sandwiches and a cuppa. As I join the conversation, I 'm also thinking about some of the kids we've helped – or tried to help – over the past few years. What will become of them?

There was one lad, three years older than his classmates, brought up by his grandparents because his parents were drug addicts. Both grandparents had just died, and I think he would have benefited from counselling.

I was disturbed it took a volunteer to discover his needs. Perhaps a chaplain would have helped. But why a chaplain? Why is the Prime Minister offering public schools $20,000 to hire chaplains?

Is it to break down the secular foundation of public education, which has served us so well? Or is it to raise the moral values of Australians? That would be a bit rich, coming from a leader who tells lies and scratches up xenophobia to achieve his ends.

And I know many of the kids I've tried to help will get regular Es on the compulsory A-to-E grading system to be introduced by prime ministerial diktat. For what purpose?

For my full diatribe, click to my grumpy old tutor page.