> Sir John Howard <pmjwhowa...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
> Grades worse than in 1960s
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/grades-worse-than-in-1960s/2008/0...
> THE literacy and numeracy performance of Australian students has not
> improved since the 1960s, suggesting the increase in money invested
> on education has been misdirected, a study has found.
> Research by the economists Andrew Leigh and Chris Ryan, from
> the Australian National University, said government investment in
> reducing class sizes, while allowing teacher salaries to decline,
> relative to other professions, may explain why standards had fallen.
Or it may be something else entirely. And teacher salaries havent declined
anyway.
> "Over the past three to four decades, neither literacy nor numeracy
> have improved, and may have declined slightly," Dr Ryan said. "In
> numeracy, the typical young teenage student in 2003 was approximately
> a quarter of a grade level behind his or her counterpart in 1964.
What matters is what that actually involves. If it just involves maths
that is better done with a spreadsheet or a calculator, so ****ing what ?
If it involves fancy maths, and that means that its a bit worse
for non engineers and scientists etc, but is still perfectly
adequate for the other professions etc, so ****ing what ?
> "Over this time, per-child spending has increased substantially.
> Yet this additional expenditure does not seem to have succeeded
> in raising literacy or numeracy."
And that may be because numeracy was and still is quite adequate.
> The research compared the numeracy and literacy test results of 13- to
14-year-olds.
What actually matters is what the graduate school with, not that
particular
age group that still mostly has years more education to receive.
> It found a statistically significant drop in numeracy levels between
> 1964 to 2003 and in numeracy and literacy between 1975 and 1998.
Again, it depends on what you are measuring literacy and numeracy wise.
If the literacy drop is with spelling, thats not the end
of civilisation as we know it even if that has happened.
What matters is whether its possible to understand what they wrote etc.
> Data was taken from two national sets of tests. Numeracy results were
> compared from 1964 to 2003 and literacy scores from 1975 to 1998.
And you need to spell out exactly what was measured to be of any use.
Typical mindless academic 'research'
> The researchers said there was a 10 per cent
> increase in school expenditure from 1975 to 1998
Dont believe it.
> and a 258 per cent increase between 1964 and 2003.
Or that either.
> Productivity was measured in terms of literacy and
> numeracy points per dollar spent on education.
Mindlessly stupid as only a stupid bean counter can be mindlessly stupid.
> The results suggested a drop in productivity over the past three to four
decades.
Easy to claim. Hell of a lot harder to actually substantiate that claim.
> The researchers did not regard the results as being inconsistent
> with Australia's strong performance when compared with other
> countries on international tests, as "the previous research has
> suggested that test scores in other OECD countries may also
> have flatlined over recent decades", Dr Leigh said.
It would be a hell of a lot more surprising if they hadnt with basic
literacy and numeracy, stupid.
> "We cannot rule out the possibility that Australian students
> today are doing better on outcomes that were not measured
> in the 1960s, such as verbal communication or social skills.
Usual mindless comment. Its much more likely that those
have varied, and you didnt even bother to measure those.
> "But it is possible the additional education spending
> over the past few decades was misdirected.
And its equally possible that is wasnt, ****wit.
> "Decisions to reduce class sizes while allowing teacher
> salaries to decline relative to other professions may not
> have been in the best interests of students."
Wota terminal ****wit.
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