LITERACY. OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

A WESTERN Sydney public school has jumped 104 positions in Higher School Certificate rankings after focusing on improving literacy skills.
Homebush Boys High, a comprehensive school, leapt from 206 to 102 in the Herald school rankings, based on the proportion of students who scored 90 and above in an HSC subject. (SMH 16.12.2010)
I've been boring people with this for years so why should you escape. Boosting kids literacy skills has a flow on effect across all curriculum areas and that's not to mention classroom BEHAVIOUR.
We've known for many years that kids (especially boys) who have poor literacy skills try to mask the fact by disengaging, claiming that the subject matter is stupid, being disruptive and generally stopping themselves and others from learning. It's certainly been proved in the last three schools I've had. Lift literacy scores and the rates of suspensions, time outs, detentions etc. goes down in line with the rate of Literacy growth. Beautiful graphs.
If Homebush Boys High can do it with high school kids how much better can it be if the kids are helped before they hit puberty with all its complications.
At one central coast school we set out to have no kids in the bottom band in the Basic Skills Test of Literacy in Year 3. Previously they had been waiting until Year 3 to try to fix problems, thus (they thought) ensuring that the growth figures from Year 3 to Year 4 were strong. We took the kids who had not made the grade standard in Kindergarten and ran an explicit phonemic awareness program, with additional staffing from within the school budget. The program ran for an hour every morning five days a week. The second year we extended it to include Years 1 and 2. The school had no additional funding for the program and it is not a school that attracts extra funding due to socio-economic or other factors. Just an ordinary school. The year after I left the kids who were in the fiorst Year 1 sat for the Year 3 NAPLAN (which replaced the BST) tests. The target was met, no one in the bottom band. Most importantly the growth figures that year and in the subsequent two years have continued to rise.
Once the kids had the skills and the confidence the results just keep going up.
So the earlier we address the problem the better the results and not just for the following year, if we keep at it they do better and better.
That a high school has managed it is truly worthy of admiration.

Arbib CIA Spy!

James Bond he certainly is not but Mark Arbib has been exposed by Wikileaks as a regular source for US Intelligence on the internal workings of the Labor party and also of course of the Government. Unfortunately (for Labor) he isn't going to be stood up agaionst a wall offered a mobile phone to make a last call to knife a colleague in the back, and then shot.

He'll still be around stuffing things up for years to come.

The CIA thing is no big deal of course. They gather information from sources all over the place as they analyse important developments and explain what they mean to Washington. 25 years ago I was often contacted by the Labor attache from the US embassy and asked for my take on developments in the unions. I'm sure he was talking to quite a few people and then making allowances for the myriad of personal agendas.

I'd be very worried if they are listening to closely to Arbib though. It's also worrying that Arbib who with Bitar was heavily implicated in the political assasinations of Beazley and Rudd is whispering in the ears of US Intelligence. Are they also whispering back with advice or instructions. One could develop some really hot conspiracy theories out of this, and it is after all the silly season....

Walter Brennan; Life gets tedious.

It's that time of year again. Christmas, the season where one tries very hard to do what everyone else wants and finished up doing NOTHING that they wanted to do. There's a great old Walter Brennan song, lyrics below...you have to imagine his voice just reciting it.

For those too young to remember him Walter starred in the TV series "The Real McCoys". He was in many movies including "Bad Day at Black Rock" with Spencer Tracey where he had another really great speech which may have inspired this song. It's a truly great movie. Walter plays the town Vet, Realtor and Undertaker. It's a depressing place and he gives Spencer (who the locals plan on killing) a little soliloquy right after telling him "I'd like to help you but I'm consumed by apathy" Here it is;

"First, I sell 'em a piece of land. Do you think they farm it? They do not. They dig for gold. They rip off the topsoil of ten winding hills, then sprint in here all fog-heaved with excitement, lugging nuggets --- big, bright, and shiny. Is it gold? It is not. Do they quit? They do not. Then they decide to farm, farm in a country so dry that you have to prime a man before he can spit. Before you can say 'Fat Sam,' they're stalled, stranded, andstarving. They become weevil-brained and butt-sprung. So...I bury 'em. But why bore you with my triumphs?"

And here's the song.

Life Gets Tedious , Don't It?
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
The hands on the clock keep going round,
I just get up and it's time to lay down,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
My shoes untied but I don't care,
I wasn’t figuring on going nowhere,
I'd have to wash and comb my hair,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Water in the well gettin' lower end lower,
Can't take a bath for a month or more,
But I've heard it told and it's true I'm sure,
That too much bathing weakens yer.
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Open the door and the flies come in,
Shut the door and yer sweating again,
And in the process, I cracked my shin,
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Ole brown mule, he must be sick,
I jabbed him in the rump with a pin on a stick,
He humped his back but he didn’t kick,
There's something cockeyed somewhere.

Ole mouse chawing on the pantry door,
Been chawing there for a month or more,
When he gets through he's gonna be sore,
Cos’ there aint a darnn thing in there.
Life gets tedious, don't it?
Hound dog howling so forlorn,
Laziest dog that ever was born,
He's howling cause he's sittin' on a thorn,
And he's just too tired to move.
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Tin roof leaks and the chimney leans,
There's a hole in the seat of my old blue jeans,
I 'ate the last of my pork and beans,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Cows gone dry and the hens won't iay,
Fish stopped biting last Saturday,
Troubles piling up day by day,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Grief and misery pain and woes,
Bills and taxes and so it goes,
And now I'm gettin' a cold in the nose,
Life gets tedious, don't it?

Here we go again....

Here goes another Labor disgrqace, this one has the added advantage of being related by marriage to Joe Tripodi. A man much misunderstood accourding to Eddie Obeid. I think the big problem is that every idiot out there in voter land understands them all to well.
The Labor brand is never going to recover in NSW until there is a huge purge. I just hope that the Liberals who come to power in 2011 are not so awful that we revert to Labor before they have properly cleaned out the stables.

NSW MP rorted expenses, corruption watchdog finds Sean Nicholls
December 7, 2010 - 10:54AM SMH


Angela D'Amore ... expenses fiddle. Photo: Peter Morris
The Labor MP for Drummoyne, Angela D'Amore, is expected to face calls for her resignation after the corruption watchdog found she acted corruptly in falsely claiming thousands of dollars in entitlements for two staff.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is also recommending that the Director of Public Prosecutions consider bringing charges against Ms D'Amore, who is the parliamentary secretary to the minister for police, for two offences of misconduct in public office.

The commission found Ms D'Amore and a staff member Agatha La Manna "engaged in corrupt conduct by falsely claiming sitting day relief payments".

Advertisement: Story continues below It recommends ‘‘action be taken against Ms La Manna as a public official with a view to dismissing, dispensing with or otherwise terminating her services’’.

Ms D’Amore, who is the sister-in-law of retiring Fairfield MP Joe Tripodi, was investigated over signing false expense claims in three periods between August 2006 and June 2007.

The forms were for a now-defunct entitlement, called the sitting day relief allowance, under which MPs could claim the cost of a staff member in their electorate office to replace one required to attend parliament on sitting days.

One of Ms D'Amore's staff, Karen Harbilas, told the commission she had falsely written the name of another staff member, David Nicoletti, on the claim form after being told to do so by Ms D'Amore. Ms D'Amore denied the claim.

The ICAC says Ms Harbilas’s evidence was the key to exposing Ms D’Amore’s corrupt conduct. It says it has exercised its discretion to not make a corrupt finding against her.

During the hearings, Ms D'Amore's counsel argued the MP had simply been "careless" in signing claim forms which contained false details.

The ICAC report says Ms D'Amore instructed or authorised Ms La Manna and Ms Harbilas to complete false claim forms, which resulted in them receiving a total of $4500 "to which they were not entitled".

Ms D'Amore consistently denied any wrongdoing and her counsel even clashed with the commission over its name for the investigation, "Operation Syracuse", which appeared to reflect on her Sicilian ancestry.

Earlier this year, a Labor MP for Penrith was also found to have acted corruptly in claiming the same allowance.

During public hearings into her matter, Ms Karyn Paluzzano admitted lying to the commission about rorting the entitlement. She was forced to resign soon after, forcing a byelection in her seat of Penrith at which Labor suffered a swing against it of 25 per cent.

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World Cup Bid Stuffed Up

Not that I actually care all that much, but Frank Lowy has put heart and soul and millions of his dollars into out bid for the World Cup. Now in the last 24 hours we learn that the dreaded Karl Bitar, Federal Sports Mininster, has interposed himself over there to help with the numbers. The man who so far has ruined two and about to be three NSW Labor Premiers and one Prime Minister (not to mention the best PM that we missed out on, Kim Beazely) is now undoubtedly going to stuff up our bid to host the world's biggest event.
Meanwhile back at the ranch the factional warriors are arcing up over the two great issues of the year, gay marriage and nuclear energy. The first one no one really gives a toss about except George Pell and co. The second is just a complete non-event. They'll fight to the death and the result will be nothing. Nuclear energy is too expensive and no one wants the reactor or the power plant withing 1000 miles of their back fence. If Tony Abbot ever gets a five word slogan instead of all the three word ones it will be all over red rover for Julia.