Entries Tagged: Education reform

An archive of entries with keywords: "Education reform"

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Education observed by an American: Isaac Kandel

Australia and New Zealand, 1930-1940

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

In the wake of the World War I, but more so, the second world war, United States governments began to assume a leadership role in world politics. Closely associated philanthropic agencies such as the Carnegie Corporation supported such a development. The colonies and dominions of the declining British Empire were of interest for a number of reasons, one of which was to bolster them as potential allies as Bolshevism and fascism threatened the “free” world.… Continue Reading »

New Education: Part 1

Australia , 1895-1920

By Dorothy Kass, Ph.D, Macquarie University. Posted .

In the late nineteenth century, widespread interest in the education offered to children was evident throughout the countries of Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, the colonies and former colonies of European empires, and in developing countries. A movement for the reform of education, that became known as “New Education”, was stimulated by educators, students, and authors who travelled to other countries for study or observation; book and journal publications and international conferences.… Continue Reading »

Challenging the system? (2007)

Western Australia, 1980-2005

By Craig Campbell, PhD DipEd. Posted .

Subtitled “a dramatic tale of neoliberal reform in an Australian high school”, Martin Forsey’s analysis of Como Senior High School in Western Australia provides a case study of radical public education reform in the 1990s. It stands as a parallel study to that of Mount Druitt High School in New South Wales.

… Continue Reading »

School assessment and testing; public examinations and credentials

Australia, 1780-2020

By Craig Campbell, PhD., Dip.Ed.. Posted .

Teachers no matter what forms of pedagogy they engage have usually been concerned to evaluate the learning of their students. The historical tendency, especially in the last two hundred years has been to formalise the process. Written tests and examinations have mainly displaced oral displays of achievement. Concentration on the testing of individual mastery has tended to displace interest in collective achievement, though the latter was resurgent from the late twentieth century as nation states collected data especially on the literacy and numeracy of cohorts of young people at different stages of their school education.… Continue Reading »

The Wyndham Scheme

New South Wales, 1957-1965

By John Hughes, Ph.D., University of Western Sydney. Posted .

The problem of how best to deliver universal secondary education to youth exercised many national systems of education through the twentieth century. Among the democracies, the United States and Scandinavian countries were pioneers of a particular approach: comprehensive secondary schooling. Pressures towards the comprehensive school increased after World War II.… Continue Reading »

New South Wales Teachers Federation: Part 2, The second 50 years

New South Wales, 1968-2018

By Dorothy Kass, Ph.D., Macquarie University. Posted .

Over the course of its second fifty years, the Teachers Federation remained explicitly aware of its dual roles, industrial and professional, and the interconnection of the two when applied to education and educators. Also remaining important was its role in what the 1968 celebrations called “community activities” and later decades would stress as “social justice”.… Continue Reading »

New South Wales Teachers Federation: Part 1, The first 50 years

New South Wales, 1918-1968

By Dorothy Kass, Ph.D., Macquarie University. Posted .

The New South Wales Teachers Federation has, over its one-hundred-year history, operated in two major roles, industrial and professional. As an industrial trade union it has concerned itself with teachers’ salaries, working conditions, and staffing of public education institutions. As a professional body it has endorsed and campaigned for a wide range of matters related to teaching and learning.… Continue Reading »

Blackburn, Jean, and social justice through education

Australia, 1919-2001

By Craig Campbell, Ph.D., Dip.Ed., University of Sydney. Posted .

Jean Muir was born on 14 July 1919, to a family that was rising from the working class. After overcoming the difficulty of a father who opposed any more than elementary education for girls, Jean Muir was able to progress beyond Lloyd Street Higher Elementary School in Melbourne. She spent four years at the academically selective University High School (1933-1936).… Continue Reading »