Curriculum
Featured Publication
Writing matters: reversing a legacy of policy failure in Australian education
Deidre Clary, Fiona Mueller
28 July 2021 | AP23
Since the middle of last century, Australian education has seen the adoption, variable implementation and occasional jettisoning of a parade of methodologies including learning styles, multiple intelligences, critical literacy, constructivism, whole language, process writing, genre theory and text types, balanced literacy and learning progressions. Most have been introduced without obvious…
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A 2021 education resolution: keep an eye on the Australian Curriculum
Fiona Mueller
11 February 2021 | OP179
The COVID-19 pandemic is stimulating debate about the relationship between the governed and their leaders, both elected and appointed. In Australia, the world’s tenth-oldest continuous democracy, there is an unanticipated but positive opportunity for a nation-building refocus on the principles and aspirations that underpinned the…
Pain without gain: Why school closures are bad policy
Blaise Joseph, Glenn Fahey
24 May 2020 | PP28
The decision by state and territory governments to strongly advise parents to keep their children at home and essentially close schools went against the health, economic, and educational evidence. There was little health benefit, while there were substantial economic and educational costs. Victoria, Tasmania, the…
Submission to the NSW Curriculum Review Interim Report Consultations
Fiona Mueller
01 December 2019
The NSW Government commissioned a review of the state’s curriculum in September, 2018, to be completed in early 2020. Led by Professor Geoff Masters, the NSW Curriculum Review was described as the first comprehensive review since 1989, the overarching aim being to ensure that the…
What Do Parents Want From Schools?
Glenn Fahey
20 November 2019 | PP26
Educational freedom and proper use of resources are both crucial in producing the best outcomes for school students. This paper provides an insight into parental perspectives of the current state of school choice and resourcing. The research results reveal the areas of importance to parents…
Overcoming the Odds 2: Where are the top-performing disadvantaged secondary schools?
Blaise Joseph
23 July 2019 | PP21
Students from disadvantaged social backgrounds perform worse academically on average than more advantaged students. However, some students and schools from lower socio-economic backgrounds are successful. Only 3 Australian secondary schools are both disadvantaged and high-achieving. In contrast, 21 Australian primary schools are both disadvantaged and…
Media & Commentary
Roll out the test that stops children failing at the first hurdle
Tom Switzer
11 December 2020 | SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Little is more fundamental to the success of an individual than literacy. If our children do not develop the abilities to read, write, speak and listen properly, almost everything else…
In defence of exams and the ATAR
Blaise Joseph
14 September 2020 | Financial Review
The pandemic has provided an excuse for some progressive education advocates to attempt another coup d’ATAR and recycle tired anti-exam fallacies.But would you want someone who has never passed a…
Paying best teachers to perform will help lift education outcomes
Glenn Fahey
06 September 2020 | Financial Review
Australia’s education unions continue to demand yet more funding, rather than provide solutions to improve the performance of the teaching workforce and to lift our educational outcomes.An “independent” review into…
Don’t expel school accountability
Glenn Fahey
27 August 2020 | Ideas@theCentre
This year’s abandonment of NAPLAN could inflict an enduring blow to school accountability. The literacy and numeracy tests — normally conducted in mid-May — were scrapped amid the pandemic uncertainty.…
Will generation lockdown write good history?
Fiona Mueller
18 August 2020 | Spectator
Twenty-first century history is being made each day. The news is full of statue-toppling anarchists and clueless looters, politicians making life and death decisions on COVID-19, increasing cybercrime and human rights abuses, loss…