Let's share good ideas. 💡 "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." ~John Stuart Mill
Sydney, New South Wales
Joined May 2010
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The Ridiculous Spending Hidden in the Federal Budget
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Pauline Hanson points to France and asks: could it happen here? The migration debate just got harder to dismiss
'“The multicultural bargain is not failing because Australians have stopped believing in it. It is fraying because both sides increasingly feel they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting back' said Parnell McGuinness
news24.com.au/politics/austr…
Australian kids aren’t failing. The system failing them is. But the outcomes are becoming hard to tell apart.
Blaise Joseph points out 'screen addiction, plummeting attention spans, and disruptive, noisy classrooms—which cost students up to 12 weeks of learning time every single year—as primary drivers of the collapse. Remarkably, this rapid academic decline comes despite a 27% real per-student increase in public school funding over the past decade, sparking urgent calls to overhaul classroom discipline and early literacy programs.'
Watch more: youtube.com/watch?v=vAByEJ1B…
A mum got her kids’ favourite games banned from the classroom. The reason tells you everything about where education is headed.
'A priority to reduce screen time in schools should be about cutting back on unnecessary activities' said Kelly Norris
Read more: dailytelegraph.com.au/educat…
Why Australia's slow start to primary maths is failing students
'Education ministers will soon receive advice on the findings of a national review of the maths curriculum for the first three years of school. It may be one of the most important curriculum decisions of the decade.'
Read Kelly Norris's latest op-ed: canberratimes.com.au/story/9…
54% of Australians believe migration has historically benefited the country. Just 25% say the same about migration today, and 52% now call its impact negative. New CIS research from Parnell Palme McGuinness
Read the weekly ideas: cis.org.au/ideas-october-16-…
They built lives here. They love it here. And many are quietly worried about where here is heading.
"New Australians have a strong sense of contribution to Australia, as well as an anxiety that they are not fully embraced'' said Parnell McGuinness
au.news.yahoo.com/migrants-p…
Every other party submits to costings. One Nation won’t. NSW voters deserve to know why
“Political parties outside the mainstream such as One Nation will often have their own unconventional arguments of the costs and benefits of their policies, I think it is reasonable for parties to not have their policies costed – but most voters will be and should be very sceptical of the claims those parties make.” said Peter Tulip.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/…
Proud to be Australian. But feeling rejected by Australia. New research captures a painful contradiction
Parnell Palme McGuinness said 'the relationship between migrants and established Australians was under strain because both sides believed they were giving more than they received'
news24.com.au/politics/austr…
Proud to be Australian. Anxious about what Australia is becoming. New migrants are feeling both at once.
"New Australians have a strong sense of contribution to Australia, as well as an anxiety that they are not fully embraced," said Parnell McGuinness
canberratimes.com.au/story/9…
New research finds migrants and Australian-born citizens both feel short-changed by the migration bargain.
A Culture of Reciprocity, a new Centre for Independent Studies Research Report by Senior Fellow Parnell Palme McGuinness, draws on Spectre Strategy polling of 3,552 Australian voters, including 2,025 born overseas.
The headline divide: 54% of Australians believe migration has historically had a positive impact on Australian society, but only 25% say the same of migration today. A majority, 52% now considers its current impact negative.
The research also corrects some widely held assumptions. New Australians name economic and job opportunities (38%), Australian lifestyle and values (34%) and the environment (31%) as the main reasons migrants come. Just 5% nominate access to welfare, against 22% of Australian-born citizens who assume it is a major draw.
New Australians are strongly committed to the country, 83% are proud to be Australian, higher than the 79% of those born here but many feel their contribution is unrecognised and that people from their background are not fully accepted.
“The multicultural bargain is not failing because Australians have stopped believing in it,” McGuinness says. “It is fraying because both sides increasingly feel they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting back.”
The common ground is substantial. More than eight in 10 on both sides say a strong national identity is important, and a majority of every group prefers integration over either assimilation or cultural separation. The report argues policy should be built on that shared preference, and that migration settings be measured against whether they strengthen it.
Australia has never deliberately cut migration. The question nobody wants to answer: what happens if we do?
'There would be a big hit to exports [from the university sector] and also be a big hit to government revenue. So, economically, we would be worse off' said Peter Tulip.
theguardian.com/australia-ne…
Reserve Bank takes big government as a given
'The most spendthrift federal government in at least 40 years, as productivity does nothing and inflation accelerates, makes a fifth hike “plausible”, says outgoing RBA board member Ian Harper'
Read Michael Stutchbury's latest op-ed: cis.org.au/commentary/opinio…
A survey of 377 Australian teachers found they scored just 4.5 out of 10 on basic teaching principles and 88% still believe the debunked “learning styles” myth. New CIS research from Trisha Jha
Read the weekly ideas: cis.org.au/ideas-october-9-2…
ALT An individual standing in a classroom, smiling, with blurred desks in the background. The overlaid text reads: "A survey of 377 Australian teachers found they scored just 4.5 out of 10 on basic teaching principles and 88% still believe the debunked 'learning styles' myth.
What teachers believe and what the science says are two very different things. A new study just proved it.
'The research by Trisha Jha canvassed the beliefs of 377 teachers on ten fundamental principles about teaching and learning, finding some 88 per cent still believe in the pervasive ‘learning styles’ myth that students learn better when teaching is tailored to whether they are supposedly visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners.'
Read more: educationhq.com/news/profess…
A learning myth debunked 20 years ago is still shaping how most Australian teachers teach.
'Someone might be a podcast person. Somebody might really like reading things and highlighting ... and it's not really about those preferences' said Trisha Jha.
canberratimes.com.au/story/9…
A federal push for a major classroom overhaul. The reason? Most teachers are getting it wrong.
Trisha Jha said 'Education should be about broadening horizons beyond what someone might already have an innate interest or strength in'
Read more: dailytelegraph.com.au/educat…
Teaching myths are still shaping Australian classrooms. The degrees producing them are finally under scrutiny.
“This is not about blaming teachers. It is about an education system that has failed to give them a clear, coherent and evidence-based understanding of how students actually learn." said Trisha Jha.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/…
Why we need to teach our teachers how to teach
"Policymakers can mandate explicit teaching, but a mandate on paper will not transform classrooms if teachers have not been given the knowledge that explains why those practices work, when to use what, and for whom."
Read Trisha Jha's latest op-ed: cis.org.au/commentary/opinio…
Australian teachers are being asked to deliver evidence-based instruction without being consistently equipped with the knowledge to do it.
That is the conclusion of Knowledge is Power II, a new Centre for Independent Studies Analysis Paper by Trisha Jha. A broadly representative sample of 377 Australian teachers was surveyed on 10 fundamental principles about learning and instruction. The average score was 4.53 out of 10, and only 4% answered eight or more correctly.
Among the findings: 88% endorsed the learning styles myth; 65% believe students learn little from lecturing or reading but a great deal from activities and teaching others; four in 10 believe testing detracts from learning; and only 30% correctly rejected the claim that students learn better through discovery than explicit instruction.
Crucially, overall scores did not differ reliably by age, gender or school level. The findings give little reason to assume this professional knowledge accumulates over a teaching career.
With explicit teaching mandates now in place in New South Wales and Victoria, the paper's central point is a practical one: a mandate changes what teachers are asked to do, not what they understand about why it works. Jha recommends ensuring the Strong Beginnings core content is genuinely assessed, reforming the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers along the lines of England's Early Career Framework, and moving from portfolio-based accreditation towards knowledge-based assessment.
