Julia, Stand and Deliver WAS JUST A MOVIE

So was Lean on Me, and Mr Holland's Opus. Just movies, okay? You weren't supposed to base you education policy on them!

"I want to reward a teacher who is in a disadvantaged classroom who transforms kids' lives by making sure they're most improved," she said.

In theory, there's nothing particularly wrong with rewarding good teachers, but in practice, it kind of falls over and dies. Because good teaching is an intangible and trying to put a dollar value on it only works to further turn education into a business. In business, it can make sense to reward good workers. Of course, in practice it often just builds resentment and fucks up morale, but it CAN work. But a business often has measurable outcomes like how much money you make. Schools do not. Nor do they exist in perfect situations where teacher dedication magically creates good outcomes.

And finally, rewarding teachers like this creates even more stigma on bad teachers. When was the last time you heard about the government encouraging good nurses or good doctors, by singling them out? But teachers, they're societies punching bags. That's why we can get away with handing them societies' garbage bags, paying them for half the hours they work each day and then blaming them when they don't produce angels. And true enough, this "reward teachers" system comes with a big series of tests to make sure teachers are good enough. Again, there's this hideous assumption in all of Gillard's policies that teachers are just crap.

Julia, you get what you pay for. Pay teachers like doctors and you might get the best and the brightest. Make those passionate/insane few who do it for love and dedication jump through your hoops to prove they're good enough to do a job they've already qualified for will just piss people off.

But it appeals to the battlers, doesn't it Julia. Those gangs Tony is trying to round up, those wild teenagers with their long hair, that's not the fault of the parents or a massively poorly run and funded education system, it's just bad teachers. I think Julia liked the dog whistle so much she swallowed it.