Comments on: Mungo: Education revolution needs more thought

By: Avocado

Avocado — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

"Labor’s punitive approach to truancy" is in fact a gradual approach using several steps of investigation, counselling and persuasion where needed, that will have in reserve a not-too-harsh measure as a very last resort.

"Poor kids who habitually fail to turn up to school will now see their parents" contacted and perhaps counselled if there is a strong pattern of neglect involved.

They will not be casually and arbitrarily "deprived of welfare in an attempt to starve the miscreants back to a sense of responsibility." Their welfare income will be re-directed if necessary to ensure that the kids are not starving.

No starvation will occur, only some justifiable pressure on the parents to take better care of their parental responsibilities.

This approach is not "both heavy-handed and silly." Some parents neglect their duties as parents "for many reasons", not all of which they are able to justify. It is these parents who will find they have less freedom to decide what they do with their welfare income, if they consistently fail to perform better for their kids. But nobody will starve in the process, that is just hyperbolic misrepresentation and scaremongering by the Mungo.

In some cases the conflicts will "be resolved by discussion and consultation; in others it may be necessary to change school."

But it is hard to see what the problem will be in improving the way the family spends its principal source of income if it is welfare dependent and neglecting to take due care of the kids and their education, Mungo.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

“Most Americans end up either under-educated or at best very narrowly educated; American ignorance of anything outside America, or in many cases a single state, is both notorious and dangerous. This is not the path an internationalist like Rudd would want to tread.”

MacCallum you are an embarrassment of prejudice……a joke.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Perhaps we should just give up. It’s obviously all too hard. Nothing is ever going to be good enough no matter what Rudd does. Heres a clue. Instead of pissing on the man from the sidelines why dont you belt up and give the bloody man a go.

By: Lucy

Lucy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I don’t think we need to resort to anti-American stereotypes, particularly since New York is hardly a bastion of American isolationism or ignorance of the outside world.

There are other reasons we shouldn’t be adopting the New York system though, namely that there are better models for the choosing. Did Gillard go to Finland? What about Japan? Korea? If we’re looking at raising literacy and numeracy standards, surely the education systems that produce PISA top-scorers should be our inspiration.