More on performance pay

Steve's post on this topic offers some very sound ideas about how the government might financially reward good teachers, if it is indeed more interested in improving education than it appears to be in cheap populism.

See also: The Road to Surfdom

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Journalism teacher threatened with sack over student newspaper editorial about TEH ANAL SEX GAYS

If aspiring young reporters want to get a sense of what it must be like to be a journalist in a theocracy or a banana-republic, they should look no further than the case of a high school principal in Woodlan, Indiana, who is threatening to fire a journalism teacher over a student editorial in the school newspaper calling for GASP!! SHOCK!! HORROR!! tolerance towards gays and lesbians. The tinpot dictator principal is also demanding that all future stories be vetted by himself personally, and has issued a written warning to the teacher in charge "for exposing students to inappropriate material".

The full editorial is available via the previous link, but here's the gist of it:

The editorial in question was Chase’s first-person appeal for tolerance and equal protections for gays and lesbians. She said she was inspired by a friend who told her he was gay.

“Would it be so hard to just accept (gays and lesbians) as human beings who have feelings just like everyone else?” she wrote. “Being homosexual doesn’t make a person inhuman, it makes them just a little bit different than the rest of the world. And for living in a society that tells you to always be yourself, it’s a hard price to pay.”

A sobering reality-check, one would think, for all those doe-eyed and naive students who were under the impression that their country still values a free press.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

UPDATE: The war on TEH GAYS continues closer to home in small-town Tasmania, where a gay couple have become the subject of a hate-mail campaign because of their plans to open a residential development in the town of Penguin. Evidently the pamphlets were of the COVER YOUR ARSES AND LOCK UP YOUR 15-YEAR OLD SONS!!!!!!! kind that Western Australians endured a few years back prior to the Gallop Labor government's gay law reforms.

Rodney Croome, who played a leading role in the push to reform Tasmanian law regarding homosexuality in the late 1990s, takes the fact that the mayor of Penguin almost immediately condemned the hate mail campaign as a sign that things are improving:

Beyond a dramatic shift in laws and attitudes, Tasmania has witnessed a demographic transformation with hundreds of same-sex couples moving to the state's regional and rural areas from interstate and overseas. Many of these couples have started small tourism and food production businesses, established strong links to their adopted districts and profoundly impacted on local attitudes to same-sex relationships.

Sometimes there is a backlash to this impact. But just as often gay immigrants are embraced. Indeed the intensity of both responses often match. Of this, there is no better example than Penguin.

In short then, Penguin lies on the fault line in Tasmanian identity. Whenever the tectonic plates we call the old and new Tasmania shift Penguin quakes.

Read his full post here.

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On teaching and performance pay

You may be aware that the Howard Government is pushing for a system of performance pay for teachers--one in which parents and students will be given a say in both the evaluation of teachers' performance and the determination of what they should be paid. True to the Lib/Nat's authoritarian-Right bully-boy form, Education Minister Julie Bishop has stated that while she will discuss the initiative with her State counterparts, if they don't fall into line she will make it a condition of funding. Ninglun has been covering this issue in some depth of late, and those of you who are elitist enough to listen to Radio National might have caught the Background Briefing programme on performance pay this morning.

I'm new to the teaching myself, and as I remarked at Ninglun's, I think this is a disgraceful proposal--even if it might end up being little more than rabble-rousing rhetoric on the part of a Government that is getting nervous about its own performance in the polls. In a nutshell, I think it is unfair and unjust to have teachers' performance--not to mention their pay--evaluated by those who lack qualifications and expertise as teachers. Bishop insists that by having parents and students appraise teachers the latter are being treated as professionals. But can you recall the last time you had any input in what your doctor or dentist earns? Having unqualified individuals with zero teacher training determine what teachers get paid will only undermine their status as professionals. Even the spotty kid who cleans the fry vats at McDonalds has the benefit of having the quality of his work adjudicated by someone who with a modicum of retail experience and training--at least more than he possesses.

Allow me to summarise the Howard Government's attitude towards education thus: Any idiot can walk into a classroom and be a teacher; the actual teachers are just those who are stupid and desperate enough to do it. Why shouldn't we shit all over them?

Other objections:

1. Students in higher socio-economic areas tend to do better than those in lower socio-economic areas. If teacher performance is to be measured in terms of student performance, those who teach in schools located in wealthier suburbs will have an unfair advantage over those who do not.
2. Prove to me that a method exists for measuring all dimensions of what a teacher is expected to do that is objective, mathematically-sound, and able to be translated into a dollar figure? (Or is it all down to how students perform on standardised tests?)
3. A curriculum that emphasises standardised testing as its chief mode of assessment = a dumbed-down curriculum. (e.g. Teaching to the test, etc.)
4. As Ninglun suggests--and as experience in the US reveals (according to Background Briefing)--paying teachers according to standardised test results will give some teachers a greater incentive to fudge their students' results.

Evidently the Libs believe that teacher-bashing wins votes, but I foresee an accelerated exodus from the profession if this ridiculous scheme ever sees the light of day.

A thoroughgoing analysis of this topic is provided by Jim Belshaw. (Via Ninglun)

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A meme about memes

Paul of Fishers, Surfers and Casters fame has tagged me on the topic of "Five reasons why I do/do not respond to memes." (I had to read that twice--take out the "do/do not" qualification and you have something reminscent of the liar paradox on your hands.)

1. Because little Kimberley Anne is dying of a horrible disease.
2. Because I have tried this twice -- the first time I made about $1,200, and the second earned me just over $2,000!
3. Because I will experience great sex within four days of receiving this meme, provided I send it on!
4. Because Carlo Caditt, an office employee, received the meme. He forgot it and a few days later he lost his job. He found the meme and sentit to 20 people. Five days later he got an even better job. Dolon Fairchild received the meme and not believing it, threw it away. Nine days later he died..
5. Because every meme I answer releases a soul from Purgatory.

I, in turn, tag yepthatsgold.

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The Wonderful World of Magical Thinking V

The week in fundie . . .

See this post at Pharyngula for details. (Image source)

*Conservapedia: the Right's response to Wikipedia's "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American" bias. What's their evidence for such bias, I hear you ask? Wikipedia uses CE and BCE instead of AD and BC, the Christ-o-phobes. Via Pharyngula.

*Via Dispatches we also hear tell of an article in the respected conservative news site World Net Daily, regarding the singing of angels being captured on tape.

*The day a non-theist is elected to politics in the United States will be the day Satan turns to one of his henchmen and remarks: "Did it just get cold in here?" That doesn't stop Jim Wallis from making the absurd claim that the Democrats are "running more candidates who have been emboldened to come out of the closet as believers themselves." (Via Attempts and Pharyngula)

*Introducing the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice the Religious Freedom Task Force. (Via Seeing the Forest)

*Oh, yeah. Did I mention that Jesus is back? (Pharyngula)

UPDATE: Jon Swift posts a selection of extracts from Conservapedia entries. For example:

Kangaroo: "Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the
Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern
kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great
Flood."

Scopes Trial: "Hollywood has little regard for the truth. Its movie version Inherit the Wind changed everyone's name, thereby preventing libel suits, and changed the facts in order to ridicule religious belief. Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency."

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

One of the commenters at Thoughts From Kansas has decided to take advantage of the open nature of Wiki software to create a Conservapedia page on "Nucular weapons," but I can't imagine it will survive for long. A week or so, maybe. (The very un-fundie, and therefore un-Conservapedia entry on "Atheism"--where atheism is defined as "part of a scientific worldview which is based upon observable evidence rather than dogmatic insistence upon the veracity of superstitious claims which are unsupported by evidence," and where it is also pointed out that when it comes to morality "most Christians actually rely on their own innate philanthropic sense (which has evolved as a necessary element of communal living over millions of years) to cherry pick the pleasant parts of the Bible and ignore the rest"--is still up also). 

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Five Public Quotes

BeepBeep! has tagged me for my five favourite quotes:

Hitler got the fascists sexually aroused. Flags, nations, armies, banks get a lot of people aroused (Gilles Deleuze)

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. (Nietzsche again)

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment. (Immanuel Kant)

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. (Michel Foucault)

I, in turn, tag Lucy, Mikey, Jacob and Simmo.

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God-worship and flag-worship

There is a push among some members of the Australian Muslim community, chiefly former chair of the Prime Minister's Muslim reference group Ameer Ali, for the Australian flag to be flown outside mosques as a sign of Muslims' "loyalty" to Australia.

Given that god-worship and flag-worship are both manifestations of magical thinking, the proposal to fly the national flag outside mosques is hardly surprising. Indeed, it is probably more remarkable--given the obvious parallels between these two forms of irrationalism--that the practice of flying the Australian flag outside places of worship isn't replicated more regularly and more widely among other religions in this country.

So there is something a tad sinister about this flag-waving initiative . . . though perhaps "sad" would be a more appropriate description. I'm sure there are more than a few Christian churches with a flagpole installed at the front door, but nobody expects them to have one, and nobody would question the patriotism of Australian Christians if they didn't. And the same applies--I would suggest--to other religious communities (e.g. Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.) in Australia also.

So why is this necessary? Why does the mere fact of being Muslim automatically cast doubt upon one's "Australianness," such that certain Muslim leaders feel the need to overcompensate for this default assumption of Australian Muslims' "disloyalty" by sticking a flagpole--as if it were a bogan's car aerial--outside their place of worship?

At least Tom Zreika, president of the Lebanese Muslim Association which supports the iniative, and who has called upon the Federal Government to provide the flags and flagpoles, is being consistent when argues:

It's no use having a flag outside of the mosque and down the road outside the synagogue there's no flag.

UPDATE: BrokenLeftLeg makes an excellent point in the comments:

But of course Muslims flying the aussie flag takes away the symbol of those nasty cronulla folk.
it says, "hey whitey, we are muslims, and we are australians too".
kind of like the wogs from "wogs out of work" hijacking a term of abuse.
I think they should fly it, solely to piss hanson off.

I hadn't thought of it like that when I posted, but he's right.

Fight dem back! has run several stories recently highlighting why some Australian Muslims might feel obliged to "Aussi-fy" their places of worship:
Psycho racists abuse Perth woman
NSW-Pol email scandal takes a racist twist
Racism goes both ways

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