I won't get into much about how the WA minister for education has gone ahead and scrapped parts of OBE and allowed teachers to 'traditionally' grade their 11/12 students. This is because it's already received massive coverage in the news and press today and will continue to do so for the rest of the week/year.
I for one and disappointed because I am one of the few teachers who are in favour of OBE (don't have a go at me for that, we've already been involved in numerous debates on this blog and my other blog). I believe that the courses of study that were introduced were clear, concise and provided teachers with an easy guideline as to what content to teach. This is particularly good for me since I am a media studies teacher and the Media Production and Analysis course of study, which was finalised in 2005, is by far one of the easiest to follow courses there are for teachers.
Now that elements of OBE (and I'm confused as to what elements they are) are being scrapped, this means that eventually the courses of study will no longer have a place when a new syllabus is formed and adopted. (However we all know how long the CC takes getting their asses into gear)
And the changes only apply to year 11's and 12's anyway, so is this really a bold move? Why are they doing this?
McGowan obviously believes that swapping an unwanted and supposedly controversial education system for votes is for the best. Like any politician, he knows nothing about education and will always put the polls before TEE results in our state schools. No wonder the system is failing and suffering.
I was also peeved today at the very predictable tone that the West Australian took in reference to the story, their typical loudspeaker journalism from high up on their soapbox would appeal to the most ignorant of parents and the band-wagon full of anti-OBE teachers.
I just hope that one day the pollies sit down and put the kids first, think about setting an education system that won't get changed every 3 years and give them some consistency, let them actually know where they are academically and how they're doing, rather than having the bigwigs re-inventing the wheel.
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Now that elements of OBE (and I'm confused as to what elements they are) are being scrapped.
The elements would be the levels or the assessment tool of OBE in WA.
I'm glad that levels have been removed from the Courses of Study.
They were too vague and difficult to apply with any accuracy.
The level descriptors cannot to subjective to be of any real use and should have been ditched a long time ago.
Like many teachers I'm hoping that levels will be dispensed with in all years along with the ridiculous outcome statements.
Good riddance the the worst of rubbish.
The levels were completely unworkable and should have been abolished a long time ago.
In one the the PD days I attended every teacher in the room agreed that they were too subjective (at best) to absolutely meaningless (at worst).
The other feature of the Course of Study that caused much angst were the outcome statements themselves which everyone agreed were vague and superfluous.
So far I like McGowan's style, he is listening to what the majority of teachers and parents want in an education system rather than listening to a vocal minority of those with vested self-interests.
Yet another victory for the "I don't understand x, therefore x is bad" mentality. How typically John Howard's Australia. Well done.
As opposed to the pro-OBE crowd mentality of:
x is old, therefore x is bad.
y is new, therefore y is good.
Therefore y is better than x.
I think most teachers understand OBE well enough, that is why they have campaigned so hard to be rid of it.
As opposed to the pro-OBE crowd mentality of:
x is old, therefore x is bad.
y is new, therefore y is good.
Therefore y is better than x.
You would do better not to misrepresent your opponent's position with a strawman like this one, which is a product of your own imagination rather than reality.
And I love this notion that the old grading system was somehow the epitome of objectivity and accuracy. Tell me, if you can, according to what "objective" criteria might I might mark one English essay 82%, and another essay 84%? How might you justify the differential to a parent?
Maybe the one with the higher mark made less spelling mistakes?
Or possibly made less grammatical errors?
How about gave a more convincing argument to support or refute an idea?
The list is pretty much endless isn't it?
That is why percentages are more accurate than levels.
At least you can make these differentials using percentages, unlike with the useless levelling system.
Well said Judy, percentages at least make sense unlike the demeneted ramblings of the level descriptors.
I can't believe that anyone could possible claim the that the reverse is true.
If you think of any subject as a body of knowledge then the percentage represents how much of the body of knowledge has been learnt,
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