New publications

On 10 August 2011, Tasmania's Minister for Education and Skills, Nick McKim, established the School Viability Reference Group (SVRG) to consult widely and to provide a report and recommendations on the provision of a viable Government school system in Tasmania. The challenging current economic climate combined with past and future demographic changes requires decisions to be made and actions taken that continue to afford all Tasmanian children the quality education they are entitled to and deserve. Against the above context, the SVRG has listened to, worked with and taken into account the views of many stakeholders to propose a process to assess a school's ongoing viability, including the criteria that should be used and a consultation process to engage school communities.

The debate about Value Added (VA) stems from two fundamental questions. First, does VA accurately measure teachers' impacts on scores or does it unfairly penalise teachers who may systematically be assigned lower achieving students? Second, do high VA teachers improve their students' long-term outcomes or are they simply better at teaching to the test? Researchers have not reached a consensus about the accuracy and long-term impacts of VA because of data and methodological limitations. We address these two questions by tracking one million children from a large urban school district from fourth grade to adulthood. (From executive summary). The full report is available online.

In Their Own Hands: Can young people change Australia? documents and celebrates young people's active participation in social, political and civic life and describes the many ways in which they are leading vital social change. At the same time, it critically examines the barriers to this participation and questions the degree to which the voice of young people is genuinely valued in Australia. Young people are often characterised as disengaged and apathetic. This book challenges that view while providing a set of needed signposts for change at the level of core social institutions and processes. The book draws on the work of The Foundation for Young Australians and its legacy of significant research into the education, wellbeing and participation of young Australians. It also draws on the expertise of renowned commentators in youth research, policy and practice. From publisher's description.

The papers in this volume were delivered at the Communications Policy and Research Forum on 7–8 November 2011. The Forum is Australia's largest annual gathering of communications research and policy experts. It is a non-profit, cooperative effort by research centres to provide an open platform for all viewpoints. It brings together academic researchers, policymakers, and professional and industry practitioners. (From the Preface). Papers include 'Access to digital devices and its relationship to digital media literacy' by Sora Park (pp 241–250); 'A longitudinal analysis of children's media use and time choices' by Leonie Rutherford, Jude Brown and Michael Bittman (pp 251–258); and 'Australian children's experiences of parents' online mediation' by Lelia Green, John Hartley, Catharine Lumby and Danielle Brady (pp 259–276). See the full record (4MB) or the summary of papers and talks available online.

The International Summit on the Teaching Profession brings together education ministers, union leaders and other teacher leaders from high-performing and rapidly-improving education systems to review how best to improve teacher quality and the quality of teaching and learning. This background report, taking up the four themes of the summit in turn, presents available evidence about what can make teacher-oriented reforms effective, and highlights selected examples of reforms that have produced specific results, show promise or illustrate imaginative ways of implementing change. Of the four themes of the summit, the first three look at system features that shape particular aspects of teachers' professional careers. The fourth theme looks at process, and considers what can make reform effective (from Introduction). The full report is available online (4MB) from the website of the US Department of Education. 

One of the measures of a just society is the way in which it deals with its most vulnerable people. There are few more vulnerable than refugees, and among the most vulnerable of refugees are young people from Africa. Schools and teachers are at the front line of resettlement of refugee families. Crossing Borders sets out to inform and clarify issues in relation to the education of African students, and explore some of the ways through which education systems, schools and teachers have developed effective strategies and approaches to meet the needs of their African students. From publisher's description.