How is it that a young person in Australia is able to complete at least 10 years of schooling and yet remain illiterate? Once, such a tragedy was a rarity to be blamed on a specific disorder like dyslexia. Today, though, it’s far too common for that excuse, and too obviously the result of an education system that simply isn’t teaching a great many kids how to read.
Taxpayers pour more and more billions of dollars into an education system which, year on year, delivers worse and worse results. Parents are having to dig into their pockets to pay for what their taxes are already supposed to.
Frustrated parents of semiliterate children are spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on remedial tutoring and speech pathology for children who are not taught to read properly at school.
The extent of literacy problems is spelled out in a new Equity Economics report commissioned by Code REaD Dyslexia Network, chaired by Adelaide GP Sandra Marshall, who co-founded the advocacy group after her dyslexic son struggled to read in primary school.
To be fair, some of this is a (foreseen) consequence of the Covid panic. Some doctors warned that mask mandates for children would have a devastating effect on their linguistic and cognitive development. Within very short order, speech pathologists were reporting a wave of childhood speech disorders. The warnings that the handbrake on children’s educational development would concatenate through their lives is being shockingly borne out.
Poor teaching methods are only making a bad situation worse: the decline in reading standards long precedes Covid. The blame lies squarely with the fashionable educational theories that took root in the 1980s.
Melanie Eglinton, a Brisbane mother of two boys diagnosed with dyslexia, said […] the Catholic primary school had based its reading instruction on children guessing words from pictures and memorising lists of words, instead of sounding them out through phonics-based teaching […]
Dr Marshall said speech pathologists should be sent into schools to help diagnose dyslexia, and teachers should focus on teaching phonics to ensure all children learn to read properly.
“As a GP I can confidently say that if the lack of standards of evidence in education were used in health, we’d be sued for malpractice,’’ she said.
“Teachers aren’t being trained about this at university, and there is a lack of screening and early intervention.
“It’s a massive problem and children are just being left to fail.”
And that’s the way it will stay, if the teacher’s unions have their way.
The Australian Education Union has been accused of “putting students last’’ after imposing work bans on teaching reforms designed to help children learn, in an escalating funding fight with the Albanese government.
AEU president Correna Haythorpe announced “an immediate ban on the implementation of the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement’’.
The boycott would stop teachers from switching to evidence-based teaching techniques, such as the use of phonics to help children learn to read by sounding out the letters of words.
South Australia and NSW have already mandated ‘phonics checks’ at the start of year one. Tasmania has recently announced it will adopt it. The federal government is also trying to push the reforms through, with the bipartisan backing of the opposition.
Federal opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said the “shameful boycott of evidence-based teaching reforms shows the AEU has no regard for the best interests of children’’.
“The union’s decision to weaponise the learning outcomes of young Australians struggling to read and write is disgraceful.
“With one in three students failing NAPLAN (the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy), these reforms are critical to raising academic standards.’’
Senator Henderson said the Coalition would push for a “back-to-basics education sharply focused on proficiency in literacy and numeracy, underpinned by explicit teaching and a knowledge-rich, commonsense curriculum.’’
The AEU is digging in its heels, but a least one teacher union can see the rot.
A rival teaching union – the Teachers Professional Association of Australia – accused the AEU of “putting the needs of students last’’.
“The changes needed in our schooling system aren’t achieved by simply throwing more money at the issues,’’ TPAA secretary Edward Schuller said.
“While the AEU may be more focused on campaigning on political issues, teachers and parents are crying out for genuine reform in our education system.
“All of the key issues in education have rapidly spiraled as the bureaucracy has expanded. Student behaviour, the teacher shortage crisis, inclusion policy and plummetting results are consequences of an inefficient and unaccountable system.’’
Some classroom teachers in Victoria also revolted against the AEU when its Victorian branch tried to boycott mandated phonics-based instruction, earlier this year.
