JC

Jan 23, 07 - 12:54 AM

How much money has been spent?

I heard Marko say on radio that a conservative estimate of the amount spent on touting OBE is $200 million. Given that there was a report of $19 million spent over 5 days, $200 million appears to be an under-statement.

Will we ever know a more correct estimate?

If levels are no longer to be part of the picture, is there now a reason to change the syllabi of Upper School Economics, Maths (and other subjects?).

Richard J

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 1:05 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Good question.

I imagine that the figure could easily be $200 million given that the printing costs of the (useless) books for primary school alone must be huge. Remember that every primary teacher needed a complete set for all the learning areas.
And then we were told to "throw the old set of books away" in 2005 because the progress maps were out...as if they were any more informative.
The cost of MCJ materials, PD time...the list goes on.

Greg Schofield (GregS)

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 1:32 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Don't forget that the reporting and assessment software. The wages bill for all those do nothings at DET and the CC, the funding of consultants, the budgets for this and that quick fix along the way. 200 million may be a very conservative figure.

There is the accumulation over years, nearly a decade, the junkets and the conferences, they all add up. Once office space and other rentals are added in, that alone adds its bit and no small bit at that.

And then we look at the shabby condition of most schools, our poor pay, the computers promised but which we pay for, the lack of text books, the corners cut and the wasted effort (unpaid) in doing the work DET should do, and we also see who really paid for this extravaganza - us and our students.

marko vojkovic

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 7:16 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Paying refief teachers to cover for those doing PD, the catering for pd days (12000 x $5/head/day = $60000/day), the ARMs, the groups set up to deliver assistance to clusters of schools (I forget the acronym), the hiring of the venues for pd, the advertising campaigns on TV and in the press, the Andrich and Tognolini reports, the spin doctors employed by DET and the CC, the photocopying of draft after draft after draft after draft of each course of study, the files, the booklets (how many of those beige books do we have each?) the CDs, the door-stopping, desk-levelling Curriculum Framework, the progress maps, the printing alone would be over $10,000,000, the salaries of the full time extra staff in the CC and DET, floor space and the new hardware and software.

The figures I did in collaboration with two other teachers were conservative estimates only. We then cut our final figure in half just to be sure we weren't exaggerating and came up with $200,000,000.

Rob

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 12:00 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

You would think all that wastage would attract an true investigative reporter.
I emailedLiam Bartlet several times about the wastage when he was at ABC but no interest shown.

K Wright

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 3:45 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

I have been contacted by The West to confirm an email
letter that I have submitted. It has been short listed for publication. A copy appears below.

"For years many teachers have been telling the powers to be that
OBE wasn't working, and couldn't work. But millions of dollars of
public money has been spent to try to prop up this white elephant in spite of professional
advice otherwise, in spite of world wide evidence to the contrary.

Who is to be held accountable for this money?
Will they be asked to repay it? "

Peter

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 3:56 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

KW - it appears the CC certainly won't be made accountable for this scandalous waste and damage - though they carry a great deal of responsibility for it. Rather, it seems the CC has been rewarded for it with a great expansion of their powers, role and authority.

marko vojkovic

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 5:52 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

The CC contracted Professor Andrich to explore the feasibility of using levels to determine TERs. His report quite emphatically said they could not be used for this or any other purpose. Further conversations with him revealed that the very basis of levels foe assessment was flawed. The CC shelved his findings and approached Ljiljiana Ravlich for $19,000,000 for 5 PD days to explain to teachers how levels were to be used for TER calculation.

This is a scandal in anyone's book.

Bruce Hancy

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 6:12 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

In the beginning, a 'C' student in Year 9 achieved at around 48% - 62%.

Then came the CC demigods who professed: "A level is the way to go, so award any student a level 3 if they demonstrate they understand that people can make decisions when buying a product."

In response there was a gnawing and gnashing from the plebs. But surly, they cried: "A student in Year 5 can understand this?"

The demigods sent CC angels to earth and they explained: "Do not be concerned. Simply do what you have done and then compare your percentage mark against our level tablet. You will find that a 55% score in Year 9 equals a level 3!

Satisfied that they had soothed the plebs, the angels returned to the heavens and informed the demigods that all was well on earth.

Then the politicians began to hear rumblings from the electorate....

Web

Jan 23rd, 2007 - 6:29 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

What a deathly silence -- all the politicians refuting Marko's figure of $250 million wasted.

"Teacher lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the State Government had wasted $250 million pursuing OBE and was almost back where it started." [today's West]

Comparable to the silence that greeted Steve K's article saying that OBE was being abandoned world-wide.

PLATO Watcher - ATTENTION GREG AND MARKO

Jan 26th, 2007 - 11:53 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Greg and Marko

Can PLATO ask "The West Australian to obtain figures to show how much money has been wasted on OBE?

If a journalist from "The West" is reading this, my request is for an article to be written on how much taxpayers money has been spent on OBE?

What about a Class Action against the WA government for fraudulent use of taxpayers funds? It's a complete SCANDAL.

Steve Kessell

Jan 27th, 2007 - 12:52 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Suggest you email that request directly to Beth Hiatt at The West, with a copy to shadow education minister Peter Collier. Also a copy to news editor Zoltan Kovacs [the chap I've dealt with getting my two long Op Ed pieces published].

bethany.hiatt@wanews.com.au
Zoltan.kovacs@wanews.com.au
Peter.Collier@mp.wa.gov.au

Angry

Jan 27th, 2007 - 12:31 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

But how far back in history should reporters delve? To the year when the Curriculum Framework was first mooted? I think that was in the early 90s.

The final figure will be astronomical. In one 18 month to 2 year period we were getting new 'fine tuning' letters just about every 2 - 3 months, each edict contradicting the last one, a mountain of paper and clerical hours there.

And what about resources spent on the Disclaimer that some schools had to attach to their reports so that parents would not confuse the meaning of their children's so called grades with that of the grades when they were at school. A Disclaimer! Complete idiocy. If it weren't so stupid, it would be laughable.

Part pf the working poor

Jun 29th, 2008 - 1:49 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Trawling through ancient posts today I came across this one.

I would really like someone to come up with an estimate of the millions that have been squandered over the last 12 - 15 years.

The answer to this question is even more relevant today as we ask for a fair pay ioncrease.

Secondary Teacher

Jun 29th, 2008 - 5:01 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Come on the West - do some research - to see how much money has been spent and wasted on Education in this state during the last 10 - 15 years.

Anyone like to "lay the odds" on what the figure is?

Web

Jun 29th, 2008 - 7:32 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

$500 million +

Greg Williams

Jun 29th, 2008 - 8:46 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

I with Web on this one, and I will call it more than half a billion dollars.

And that our educational leaders and government ministers from both sides endorsed the nonsense we have suffered in the last decade WITHOUT a shred of evidence that it would ever work, without a sniff of a trial of any of it, and without a single evaluation of the efficacy of what has been inflicted upon teachers, beggars belief. It's a pity the people who signed off on this can't be hung drawn and quartered, but already many of them have been pensioned off, or moved to lavish surroundings in another job or another portfolio, with zero accountability for the damage they have done.

Fred

Jun 29th, 2008 - 8:58 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

What beggars belief is that the CCC hasn't dealt with the architects of this colossal disaster yet.

FOS

Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:14 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Greg, I agree that it has been a very costly business: a waste of money; a waste of paper; and a waste of time for many teachers.

The Teacher Juries were a positive step to break the circuit of waste. The English Teacher Jury of 48 teachers spent two days trying to fix up some of the mess of the English Course and came up with good recommendations which were acceptable to teachers.

Now we find that the English Reference Group is undermining the recommendations concerning the nature and structure of the English exam.
A number of influential members of that group were advocates of the English COS.

So as far as the English exam goes we are more or less back to the position that existed before the English Jury. More money and time wasted resulting in an exam which is unacceptable to most English teachers.

A scandal.

Web

Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:51 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

A Quote of the Month, Greg.

Bree

Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:53 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Just a reminder to everyone that OBE and levels are still alive in the primary schools. Reports go out this week. We still level each child in many aspects in all learning areas then the grade is automatically calculated. The level however is not indicated on the report that goes home. What a waste of time!

FOS

Jun 29th, 2008 - 10:03 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Not just in primary schools. The same process takes place up to Year 10.

rob

Jun 30th, 2008 - 7:24 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

This must be an area that DET and the Government are vulnerable.

The huge amount of money wasted on OBE and OSS should be headline news and may even interest the CCC.

No one likes to see taxpayers' money wasted, if we really have friends at the West, and they really want to expose carpenter, then this is where they should be going.

Secondary Teacher

Jun 30th, 2008 - 8:34 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

The DET spent enormous amount of money on the SIS program and that is why we have the rediculous need to have levels, that the program will aautomatically convert to Grades for reports for Years 1 - 10. Also the grades were part of the deal with the previous Commonwealth Governments education grants. So if we add all that to Web's conservative estimate of $500 million+, we are probably looking at closer to 1 Billion dollars of taxpayers money being wasted. I just wish an investigative journalist would do a story on this waste of taxpayers money and the absolute lack of accountability.

Also consider the environmental waste - all those files of useless paper and cardboard, now used as door stops. Also consider the hours of wasted time, that teachers spent in trying to make sense of all this rubbish. All that stress, anxiety and ill health caused by this rubbish. All those teachers who resigned, or retired prematurely, adding to the teacher shortage scenario. If all of this was put before the taxpayers before the next election, I think Alan might be in serious trouble.

Part of the working poor

Jun 30th, 2008 - 11:37 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

I have emailed Bethany, Zoltan Kovacs and Peter Collier about the possibility of looking into this.

Today I spoke to an English teacher who told me she and others in the department spent a summer holiday (not sure whether she said it was last summer) working on an CoS only to be told after the holidays that it had been changed.

This is not the first time the CC have done thissort of thing. They do it with impunity... and with incredible arrogance.

marko vojkovic

Jul 1st, 2008 - 7:39 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

To highlightthe cost so far, I will examine one simple expense: the salaries of those teachers/bureaucrats hired to write and implement the courses.

If we assume only one full time staff member for each course for the last 5 years (this is extremely conservative, but we don't want to be accused of alarmist exaggeration):

48 x 5 x $70,000 = $16,800,000

We can easily multiply this by 3 when we include all the TDCs and support staff. So a cool $50 million on salaries alone.

Just one more: the CF book. Just to print it:

50,000 x $30 = $1.5 million.

Now think of the total printing and photocopying costs of all the other books, course documents, discussion documents, files, sample exams, questions etc. THAT WERE ALL THROWN OUT AND REPLACED, and you start to see the magnitude of the waste.

I wonder how much they paid for the 'Imagine the Possibilities' advertising campaign?

Boxer

Jul 1st, 2008 - 8:00 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Don't forget the WA Certificate of Education fiasco. A new WACE document was launched by the hapless CC late last year to much fanfare and celebration. The launch included the obligatory glossy and expensive manual.

Needless to say, the CC couldn't even get that right. Due to the haphazard and incompetent formulation of the original WACE model and its attendant weekly ‘revisions’; less than six months later they’ve had to create a brand new handbook. So junk the December 07 version and use the early 08 edition.

Oops; because they pissed so much money away on the first version; there’s only a limited print run of the brand-new edition. If you want the new one you’ll have to download it from the CC site and print at your own expense.

Who says the CC couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery?

Primary Teacher2

Jul 1st, 2008 - 8:34 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

When the SIS software program was first introduced in WA, I heard a figure of $30 million for the initial purchase. I would say that has blown out considerably with the changes made to it, the training, the wasted hours because of the faults in it, the cost of upgrading and purchasing computers to run it and so on. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that SIS has cost over $100 million now.

Web

Jul 1st, 2008 - 10:28 PM

Re: How much money has been spent?

But there's no money to fix blocked school toilets.

Yvonne Meyer

Jul 2nd, 2008 - 6:15 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

This is not an issue for a journalist, but an issue for the Office of the Auditor General for WA.

See their website;

auditor general

The Victorian Auditor General did an audit of the Years 3, 5 & 7 AIM (Benchmark) tests in 2004 and found the tests not worth the paper they were written on. Vic DET did little to fix this and there was no-one to bring the issue to the attention of the media and the general public which might have forced the Vic DET to act.

If the WA Auditor General investigates and writes a report, that would give PLATO and the media the hard facts they need to expose this waste of taxpayers money.

Yvonne Meyer

Jul 2nd, 2008 - 6:31 AM

Re: How much money has been spent?

Example from Auditor General website;

17 October 2001

PERFORMANCE OF WA PUBLIC SECTOR AGENCIES IN DEALING WITH CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS UNDER FIRE FROM AUDITOR

A performance examination by the WA Auditor General's Office of how effectively six selected public sector agencies handled customer complaints in key areas of their operations has found that only Western Power and Royal Perth Hospital had a satisfactory level of performance, with the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Department of Transport, Library and Information Services of WA and the former Department of Productivity and Labour Relations all well below standard.

Of concern is that as the sample six agencies were a reasonable cross-section of the public sector, with preference given to agencies with a high degree of service provision to the general public, similar problems and experiences are likely to be present across other public sector agencies.

Disquiet was also expressed that whilst agencies may be managing individual complaints adequately, without the extra effort of service improvements via the efficient collation and effective review of complaints data, this approach is very much a 'band-aid' treatment of a symptom without addressing the root cause of the problem or service deficiency...

Author	Comment
JC Jan 23, 07 - 12:54 AM	How much money has been spent? I heard Marko say on radio that a conservative estimate of the amount spent on touting OBE is $200 million. Given that there was a report of $19 million spent over 5 days, $200 million appears to be an under-statement. Will we ever know a more correct estimate? If levels are no longer to be part of the picture, is there now a reason to change the syllabi of Upper School Economics, Maths (and other subjects?).
Richard J Jan 23rd, 2007 - 1:05 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Good question. I imagine that the figure could easily be $200 million given that the printing costs of the (useless) books for primary school alone must be huge. Remember that every primary teacher needed a complete set for all the learning areas. And then we were told to "throw the old set of books away" in 2005 because the progress maps were out...as if they were any more informative. The cost of MCJ materials, PD time...the list goes on.
Greg Schofield (GregS) Jan 23rd, 2007 - 1:32 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Don't forget that the reporting and assessment software. The wages bill for all those do nothings at DET and the CC, the funding of consultants, the budgets for this and that quick fix along the way. 200 million may be a very conservative figure. There is the accumulation over years, nearly a decade, the junkets and the conferences, they all add up. Once office space and other rentals are added in, that alone adds its bit and no small bit at that. And then we look at the shabby condition of most schools, our poor pay, the computers promised but which we pay for, the lack of text books, the corners cut and the wasted effort (unpaid) in doing the work DET should do, and we also see who really paid for this extravaganza - us and our students. Email [optional]: greg.schofield@iinet.net.au
marko vojkovic Jan 23rd, 2007 - 7:16 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Paying refief teachers to cover for those doing PD, the catering for pd days (12000 x $5/head/day = $60000/day), the ARMs, the groups set up to deliver assistance to clusters of schools (I forget the acronym), the hiring of the venues for pd, the advertising campaigns on TV and in the press, the Andrich and Tognolini reports, the spin doctors employed by DET and the CC, the photocopying of draft after draft after draft after draft of each course of study, the files, the booklets (how many of those beige books do we have each?) the CDs, the door-stopping, desk-levelling Curriculum Framework, the progress maps, the printing alone would be over $10,000,000, the salaries of the full time extra staff in the CC and DET, floor space and the new hardware and software. The figures I did in collaboration with two other teachers were conservative estimates only. We then cut our final figure in half just to be sure we weren't exaggerating and came up with $200,000,000. Email [optional]: markovojkovic@hotmail.com
Rob Jan 23rd, 2007 - 12:00 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? You would think all that wastage would attract an true investigative reporter. I emailedLiam Bartlet several times about the wastage when he was at ABC but no interest shown.
K Wright Jan 23rd, 2007 - 3:45 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? I have been contacted by The West to confirm an email letter that I have submitted. It has been short listed for publication. A copy appears below. "For years many teachers have been telling the powers to be that OBE wasn't working, and couldn't work. But millions of dollars of public money has been spent to try to prop up this white elephant in spite of professional advice otherwise, in spite of world wide evidence to the contrary. Who is to be held accountable for this money? Will they be asked to repay it? " Email [optional]: tigger6333@gmail.com
Peter Jan 23rd, 2007 - 3:56 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? KW - it appears the CC certainly won't be made accountable for this scandalous waste and damage - though they carry a great deal of responsibility for it. Rather, it seems the CC has been rewarded for it with a great expansion of their powers, role and authority.
marko vojkovic Jan 23rd, 2007 - 5:52 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? The CC contracted Professor Andrich to explore the feasibility of using levels to determine TERs. His report quite emphatically said they could not be used for this or any other purpose. Further conversations with him revealed that the very basis of levels foe assessment was flawed. The CC shelved his findings and approached Ljiljiana Ravlich for $19,000,000 for 5 PD days to explain to teachers how levels were to be used for TER calculation. This is a scandal in anyone's book. Email [optional]: markovojkovic@hotmail.com
Bruce Hancy Jan 23rd, 2007 - 6:12 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? In the beginning, a 'C' student in Year 9 achieved at around 48% - 62%. Then came the CC demigods who professed: "A level is the way to go, so award any student a level 3 if they demonstrate they understand that people can make decisions when buying a product." In response there was a gnawing and gnashing from the plebs. But surly, they cried: "A student in Year 5 can understand this?" The demigods sent CC angels to earth and they explained: "Do not be concerned. Simply do what you have done and then compare your percentage mark against our level tablet. You will find that a 55% score in Year 9 equals a level 3! Satisfied that they had soothed the plebs, the angels returned to the heavens and informed the demigods that all was well on earth. Then the politicians began to hear rumblings from the electorate....
Web Jan 23rd, 2007 - 6:29 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? What a deathly silence -- all the politicians refuting Marko's figure of $250 million wasted. "Teacher lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes said the State Government had wasted $250 million pursuing OBE and was almost back where it started." [today's West] Comparable to the silence that greeted Steve K's article saying that OBE was being abandoned world-wide. Email [optional]: platowa_web@hotmail.com
PLATO Watcher - ATTENTION GREG AND MARKO Jan 26th, 2007 - 11:53 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Greg and Marko Can PLATO ask "The West Australian to obtain figures to show how much money has been wasted on OBE? If a journalist from "The West" is reading this, my request is for an article to be written on how much taxpayers money has been spent on OBE? What about a Class Action against the WA government for fraudulent use of taxpayers funds? It's a complete SCANDAL.
Steve Kessell Jan 27th, 2007 - 12:52 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Suggest you email that request directly to Beth Hiatt at The West, with a copy to shadow education minister Peter Collier. Also a copy to news editor Zoltan Kovacs [the chap I've dealt with getting my two long Op Ed pieces published]. bethany.hiatt@wanews.com.au Zoltan.kovacs@wanews.com.au Peter.Collier@mp.wa.gov.au Email [optional]: skessell@bigpond.net.au
Angry Jan 27th, 2007 - 12:31 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? But how far back in history should reporters delve? To the year when the Curriculum Framework was first mooted? I think that was in the early 90s. The final figure will be astronomical. In one 18 month to 2 year period we were getting new 'fine tuning' letters just about every 2 - 3 months, each edict contradicting the last one, a mountain of paper and clerical hours there. And what about resources spent on the Disclaimer that some schools had to attach to their reports so that parents would not confuse the meaning of their children's so called grades with that of the grades when they were at school. A Disclaimer! Complete idiocy. If it weren't so stupid, it would be laughable.
Part pf the working poor Jun 29th, 2008 - 1:49 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Trawling through ancient posts today I came across this one. I would really like someone to come up with an estimate of the millions that have been squandered over the last 12 - 15 years. The answer to this question is even more relevant today as we ask for a fair pay ioncrease.
Secondary Teacher Jun 29th, 2008 - 5:01 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Come on the West - do some research - to see how much money has been spent and wasted on Education in this state during the last 10 - 15 years. Anyone like to "lay the odds" on what the figure is?
Web Jun 29th, 2008 - 7:32 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? $500 million + Email [optional]: platowa@bigpond.net.au
Greg Williams Jun 29th, 2008 - 8:46 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? I with Web on this one, and I will call it more than half a billion dollars. And that our educational leaders and government ministers from both sides endorsed the nonsense we have suffered in the last decade WITHOUT a shred of evidence that it would ever work, without a sniff of a trial of any of it, and without a single evaluation of the efficacy of what has been inflicted upon teachers, beggars belief. It's a pity the people who signed off on this can't be hung drawn and quartered, but already many of them have been pensioned off, or moved to lavish surroundings in another job or another portfolio, with zero accountability for the damage they have done. Email [optional]: plato@aapt.net.au
Fred Jun 29th, 2008 - 8:58 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? What beggars belief is that the CCC hasn't dealt with the architects of this colossal disaster yet.
FOS Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:14 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Greg, I agree that it has been a very costly business: a waste of money; a waste of paper; and a waste of time for many teachers. The Teacher Juries were a positive step to break the circuit of waste. The English Teacher Jury of 48 teachers spent two days trying to fix up some of the mess of the English Course and came up with good recommendations which were acceptable to teachers. Now we find that the English Reference Group is undermining the recommendations concerning the nature and structure of the English exam. A number of influential members of that group were advocates of the English COS. So as far as the English exam goes we are more or less back to the position that existed before the English Jury. More money and time wasted resulting in an exam which is unacceptable to most English teachers. A scandal.
Web Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:51 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? A Quote of the Month, Greg. Email [optional]: platowa@bigpond.net.au
Bree Jun 29th, 2008 - 9:53 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Just a reminder to everyone that OBE and levels are still alive in the primary schools. Reports go out this week. We still level each child in many aspects in all learning areas then the grade is automatically calculated. The level however is not indicated on the report that goes home. What a waste of time!
FOS Jun 29th, 2008 - 10:03 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? Not just in primary schools. The same process takes place up to Year 10.
rob Jun 30th, 2008 - 7:24 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? This must be an area that DET and the Government are vulnerable. The huge amount of money wasted on OBE and OSS should be headline news and may even interest the CCC. No one likes to see taxpayers' money wasted, if we really have friends at the West, and they really want to expose carpenter, then this is where they should be going.
Secondary Teacher Jun 30th, 2008 - 8:34 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? The DET spent enormous amount of money on the SIS program and that is why we have the rediculous need to have levels, that the program will aautomatically convert to Grades for reports for Years 1 - 10. Also the grades were part of the deal with the previous Commonwealth Governments education grants. So if we add all that to Web's conservative estimate of $500 million+, we are probably looking at closer to 1 Billion dollars of taxpayers money being wasted. I just wish an investigative journalist would do a story on this waste of taxpayers money and the absolute lack of accountability. Also consider the environmental waste - all those files of useless paper and cardboard, now used as door stops. Also consider the hours of wasted time, that teachers spent in trying to make sense of all this rubbish. All that stress, anxiety and ill health caused by this rubbish. All those teachers who resigned, or retired prematurely, adding to the teacher shortage scenario. If all of this was put before the taxpayers before the next election, I think Alan might be in serious trouble.
Part of the working poor Jun 30th, 2008 - 11:37 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? I have emailed Bethany, Zoltan Kovacs and Peter Collier about the possibility of looking into this. Today I spoke to an English teacher who told me she and others in the department spent a summer holiday (not sure whether she said it was last summer) working on an CoS only to be told after the holidays that it had been changed. This is not the first time the CC have done thissort of thing. They do it with impunity... and with incredible arrogance.
marko vojkovic Jul 1st, 2008 - 7:39 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? To highlightthe cost so far, I will examine one simple expense: the salaries of those teachers/bureaucrats hired to write and implement the courses. If we assume only one full time staff member for each course for the last 5 years (this is extremely conservative, but we don't want to be accused of alarmist exaggeration): 48 x 5 x $70,000 = $16,800,000 We can easily multiply this by 3 when we include all the TDCs and support staff. So a cool $50 million on salaries alone. Just one more: the CF book. Just to print it: 50,000 x $30 = $1.5 million. Now think of the total printing and photocopying costs of all the other books, course documents, discussion documents, files, sample exams, questions etc. THAT WERE ALL THROWN OUT AND REPLACED, and you start to see the magnitude of the waste. I wonder how much they paid for the 'Imagine the Possibilities' advertising campaign?
Boxer Jul 1st, 2008 - 8:00 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Don't forget the WA Certificate of Education fiasco. A new WACE document was launched by the hapless CC late last year to much fanfare and celebration. The launch included the obligatory glossy and expensive manual. Needless to say, the CC couldn't even get that right. Due to the haphazard and incompetent formulation of the original WACE model and its attendant weekly ‘revisions’; less than six months later they’ve had to create a brand new handbook. So junk the December 07 version and use the early 08 edition. Oops; because they pissed so much money away on the first version; there’s only a limited print run of the brand-new edition. If you want the new one you’ll have to download it from the CC site and print at your own expense. Who says the CC couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery?
Primary Teacher2 Jul 1st, 2008 - 8:34 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? When the SIS software program was first introduced in WA, I heard a figure of $30 million for the initial purchase. I would say that has blown out considerably with the changes made to it, the training, the wasted hours because of the faults in it, the cost of upgrading and purchasing computers to run it and so on. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that SIS has cost over $100 million now.
Web Jul 1st, 2008 - 10:28 PM	Re: How much money has been spent? But there's no money to fix blocked school toilets. Email [optional]: platowa@bigpond.net.au
Yvonne Meyer Jul 2nd, 2008 - 6:15 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? This is not an issue for a journalist, but an issue for the Office of the Auditor General for WA. See their website; auditor general The Victorian Auditor General did an audit of the Years 3, 5 & 7 AIM (Benchmark) tests in 2004 and found the tests not worth the paper they were written on. Vic DET did little to fix this and there was no-one to bring the issue to the attention of the media and the general public which might have forced the Vic DET to act. If the WA Auditor General investigates and writes a report, that would give PLATO and the media the hard facts they need to expose this waste of taxpayers money. Email [optional]: yvonnemeyer@optusnet.com.au
Yvonne Meyer Jul 2nd, 2008 - 6:31 AM	Re: How much money has been spent? Example from Auditor General website; 17 October 2001 PERFORMANCE OF WA PUBLIC SECTOR AGENCIES IN DEALING WITH CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS UNDER FIRE FROM AUDITOR A performance examination by the WA Auditor General's Office of how effectively six selected public sector agencies handled customer complaints in key areas of their operations has found that only Western Power and Royal Perth Hospital had a satisfactory level of performance, with the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Department of Transport, Library and Information Services of WA and the former Department of Productivity and Labour Relations all well below standard. Of concern is that as the sample six agencies were a reasonable cross-section of the public sector, with preference given to agencies with a high degree of service provision to the general public, similar problems and experiences are likely to be present across other public sector agencies. Disquiet was also expressed that whilst agencies may be managing individual complaints adequately, without the extra effort of service improvements via the efficient collation and effective review of complaints data, this approach is very much a 'band-aid' treatment of a symptom without addressing the root cause of the problem or service deficiency... Email [optional]: yvonnemeyer@optusnet.com.au