The truth about Tasmania Tomorrow

These are the facts of TT (Tasmania Tomorrow) and I defy anyone to refute them:

– Tasmania has a serious retention and completion rate in senior colleges.

– this has everything to do with the state’s poverty, rurality, transport, resourcing and cultural values and little to do with how students were taught in colleges

– Bartlett was M for Ed and at a MCEETYA meeting he had to sign up along with all other ministers to an agreement to address the problem

– he asked his bureaucrats what to do. Fixing the problems listed above would be too slow, too expensive and too difficult and not on show to bolster his career within an election period

– John Smyth almost singlehandedly came up with a mish mash of things that were going on in other countries which have very different cultures (Singapore) and/or better resourcing (Scandinavia). However, this exact TT format has never been done anywhere else

– he announced the reforms to the union without the slightest consultation with teachers or the union. Some college principals had been told but they were sworn to silence

– during this process Bartlett constantly omitted to give the full picture of what he had in mind. It was done by stealth.

– insufficient funds and time were set aside to implement it effectively

– principals were told to support the reforms or ship out

– enrolment figures are constantly quoted as being evidence of success – they may merely reflect the higher leaving age, fewer jobs for Gr 10 leavers and more difficulty in getting the YS allowance (dole). They have nothing to do with completion or level of qualifications gained

– this is therefore an under resourced and badly implemented experiment. It can be nothing else. It may work or it may not – we can’t know yet but considering that Tasmania has suffered from a long series of failed educational experiments that date back to whole word reading in the 70s through ELs a few years ago, it is hardly surprising that teachers are cynical

– teachers have a right to belong to a union and a right to take industrial action. No one can force them to do that – not even their own union. Unions are just like schools – they reflect their membership, they do not create it. Whether you believe that people should have this right is a personal one but that is all it is.

So, we can:

– wait and see what the eventual outcomes are which will probably take a decade to demonstrate definitively and in the meantime understand that the lack of adequate planning and implementation and resourcing have and will continue to make both teachers’ and students’ roles extremely problematic and therefore impact negatively on outcomes anyway

or

– make informed prognoses of what the outcomes are likely to be based on best knowledge and experience of those involved and act accordingly by either dumping the reforms completely or slowing them down and properly resourcing them. There are minefields in either action as teachers know but that is not what it is really about. It is about the careers of politicians and bureaucrats. It is mostly about winning or losing an election and not losing face.

This comment appears on this article, HERE. Comment HERE

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Children has weighed in: HERE: Call to keep kids off-limits