Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling Recent documents in Dr. Andrew Dowling en-us Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:33:27 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/14 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/14 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:42:11 PDT The quicker migrants integrate into Australian society, the better for Australia's future prosperity. The crucial ingredient for successful integration is proficiency in English. This is true for children as well as adults. The quicker a newly arrived child learns English, the quicker they are to succeed in school and successfully participate in post-compulsory education and the workforce. This paper focuses on the newly arrived migrant students whose English language skills are not developed. A survey of the government state and territory education systems and Catholic education systems across Australia was conducted for this report. The survey was structured to collect data about the different modes of delivery of ESL tuition provided by a system for its newly arrived students. Financial and non-financial data were collected in the survey. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/11 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/11 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:49:15 PDT In July 2001, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) established the Schools Resourcing Taskforce (SRT) to analyse and provide advice on school funding issues. MCEETYA 2001 also endorsed a significant national project Resourcing the National Goals (RNG) to form the major work of the Taskforce. The overall aim of the project is to advise Ministers on the future amount of resources required by the school sector to deliver even more effectively on the National Goals for Schooling. The RNG research has followed the adoption of MCEETYA in 2002 of a set of Principles for a National and Cooperative Approach to Funding Schools. The research and analysis of the SRT on the costs of schooling provides a tangible basis for understanding the possible implications of the Principles. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/10 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/10 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:45:06 PDT The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 and the Divorce Court it created were hailed by some contemporary observers as "one of the greatest social revolutions of our time." Among the many "revolutionary" consequences of this new Court was an increased legal and social recognition of psychological cruelty in marriage and, through the journalistic reportage of its proceedings, the creation of a new reading public that had become fascinated with tales of marital strife. This essay suggests and examines a correlation between these legal and social changes and the emphasis found in George Eliot's fiction on silence as a sign of matrimonial conflict. Throughout Eliot's fiction, from "Janet's Repentance" in Scenes of Clerical Life, through to Felix Holt and Middlemarch, and culminating in the portrayal of Henleigh Grandcourt in Daniel Deronda, there is a progressive emphasis on the nonphysical signs of matrimonial conflict and, in particular, on the oppressive power of silence in sexual relationships. Eliot's use of silence to evoke this experience reflects a new social awareness of psychological cruelty in marriage, one that was being formally recognized in the law courts at this time. But by hinting at a form of matrimonial cruelty so terrible that it must remain veiled, Eliot's use of silence also functions as a rhetorical device that whets a new public appetite for tales of matrimonial conflict. Andrew Dowling http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/9 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/9 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:36:31 PDT The purpose of this book is to address two principal questions: 'Was the concept of masculinity a topic of debate for the Victorians?' and 'Why is Victorian literature full of images of male deviance when Victorian masculinity is defined by discipline?'" "By analysing how Victorian literary texts both reveal and reconcile historical anxieties about the meaning of manliness, Dowling argues that masculinity is a complex construction rather than a natural given. Andrew Dowling http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/8 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/8 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:33:22 PDT REPSF II Project No. 07/006. Phil McKenzie http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/5 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/5 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:10:19 PDT Australia's system of school funding is notoriously complex and difficult to understand. This article shines some light on this issue by describing clearly the processes of school funding that currently exist in Australia. It describes the steps taken by federal and state governments to provide over $30 billion each year to government and non-government schools. The article argues that more can be done by both levels of government to imple- ment a consistent and transparent allocation process. Greater consistency and transparency in this area would improve efficiency (by understanding better the impact of school resources on student outcomes) and equity (by understanding bet- ter the level of real need in individual schools, and funding appropriately). As such, it is a worthwhile goal. Andrew Dowling http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/3 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/3 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:10:18 PDT Governments can no longer justify their performance in education in terms of inputs; that is, in terms of the amount of new money they have provided, or the number of new teachers they have employed, or the range of new computers they have installed. It has been observed that 'today, educators need to show how they have transformed current and new dollars into student achievement results, or the argument that education needs more - or even the current level of - money will be unlikely to attract public or political support'. Output measures, particularly those related to student achievement, are the new bottom line in education. The emphasis on accountability through external testing is driven by the growing realisation that education is a major factor in economic development and the consequent understanding that it is the quality of education that is most important. Accountability for quality has been given a harder edge, often in the face of opposition from the education profession, through standardised tests of cognitive skills. The essay provides an overview of The development of output measurement; The extent to which such measures have been used in education systems to improve accountability; Evidence of their effectiveness; and, Implications for Australia. The essay argues that performance measures constitute a positive shift in education but they haven't gone far enough. More work needs to be done in evaluating the programs that are meant to improve student performance. The programs that are designed for the most disadvantaged students often escape any systematic form of evaluation yet systems need to formally identify what actually works, and doesn't work, in schools. Andrew Dowling http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/2 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/2 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:10:18 PDT Australia needs a clear national model for school funding, based on need and applying equally across the sectors, but this does not seem likely, at least in the short term. Andrew Dowling examines the issues. In May 2008, the Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, referred to an ACER policy brief in a speech to the Association of Independent Schools (AIS) NSW and said that, "Australia's school funding system is one of the most complex, most opaque, and most confusing in the developed world." She went on to observe that "this lack of transparency has served to heighten the atmosphere of uncertainty and mutual suspicion which has characterised the politics of education in Australia over the last decade." The next day, she announced in the daily newspapers that the Federal Government would review its school funding system in 2010-11, in time for the next formal funding model for schools that begins in 2012 (the current four year agreement ends in 2008 but Labor promised during the election campaign that the next agreement, which runs from 2009- 2012, would maintain the existing system). Andrew Dowling http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/4 http://works.bepress.com/andrew_dowling/4 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:10:18 PDT Australian governments spend over $30 billion on primary and secondary schools each year.1 Yet the process of school funding, including the way in which amounts are calculated, distributed and reported upon, is unavailable not only to the wider public but to some extent even to those working in education. Although Australia's total spending on schools is small by international standards (given the size of its population), it is significant enough to warrant a more transparent process. Andrew Dowling