Category Archives Uncategorized

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness. I have a new paper on teacher effectiveness out today. So far as I know, it's the first ‘value-added’ study to be conducted outside the United States. Estimating Teacher Effectiveness From Two-Year Changes in Students Test Scores Using a dataset covering over 10,000 Australian primary school teachers and over 90,000 pupils, I estimate how effective teachers are…

Indigenous training network proposed. Jobs Australia (the national peak body for non-profit providers of employment and related services) will establish an Indigenous Training Network (ITN) to develop the capacity of Indigenous organisations and communities to deliver high quality vocational education and training (VET) to their communities. This initiative is jointly funded by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations…

On "Chinese Whispers" in the history of psychology. I've picked this up rather late, but it alludes to a substantial problem represented in professional education programmes, including teacher education. Rarely have lecturers actually read the original, primary sources for much of the research they report, and even where they have done so, they may have chosen to represent them in…

What does the digital economy encompass? What does it mean for Australians?. A useful starting point for any discussion about how we can maximise the participation of Australian households and businesses in the digital economy is to understand what we are referring to when we use the term 'digital economy.' Read on to see recent data about internet and broadband…

How to cut drug use, violence in schools. A landmark Australian study that examined the smoking, drinking and drug taking uses of thousands of schoolchildren has shown there are ways to successfully intervene and cut high risk activities in adolescence. [School Education Headlines]

Future of schooling online conference begins. The free 2nd ACEL/Microsoft online conference on the future of schooling will be active until midnight Sunday 19 November 2006. Access a wide range of papers by classroom teachers, school leaders and education academics and take part in discussion with education colleagues in Australia and around the world. There is NO COST for participating…

A new approach to school leadership: Independent report. Minister for Schools Jim Knight today took further steps towards delivering the school leaders of the 21st Century, publishing an independent study and announcing

The Eight Hour Day?. The NYT has an article on what various US states are doing to lengthen the school day. I used to be a big fan of this plan (I think the PM still is), but the results from the class size literature make me more hesitant. Basically, we now know that reducing class size has diminishing marginal…

Close