Editorial: There’s no denying teachers have it tough, so why do we continue to make it harder for them?

There’s no denying teachers have it tough. Their battles with violence, social media, parents — even the odd ham sandwich — are regularly covered in this paper as they deal with an increasingly complex working environment. So why do we continue to make it harder for them? Today it can be revealed that Melbourne think-tank the Grattan Institute has found a remarkable amount of Australian school-aged children are unable to read properly. In fact, lead author of the report Jordana Hunter says about eight students in a typical class of 24 can’t read well. That’s a shocking statistic and an indictment on the education system. “Australia is failing these children,” Dr Hunter said. “And it’s a preventable tragedy — the reason most of these students can’t read well enough is that we aren’t teaching them well enough.” And while they put this problem down to poor teaching methods, let’s be clear, this isn’t about the teachers themselves. This is about an inability to have a consensus on how to teach them this fundamental skill and give our hard-working educators the best chance to deliver what is needed. The Grattan Institute claims that a key cause of the nation’s “reading problem” is actually down decades of disagreement. It means, essentially, all over the country children are starting from a different base. Some are getting the support and direction they need, while others simply aren’t. The report goes on to estimate that the ones who aren’t come with a heavy socio-economic price to pay. Those Australians deemed poor readers were more likely to drop out of school and end up unemployed or in poorly paid jobs — costing the nation about $40 billion over their lifetimes. While health, no doubt, has similar repercussions on our economy it seems remarkable that literacy has this week been overshadowed by the nutritional benefits of ham. Under a Department of Health “food checker” tool for canteens, 20 ham products are now rated red, leaving just three that meet strict nutrient criteria in a new category known as “selected red” that can be sold two days a week. It seems those in charge of running our schools can agree that the odd toastie is a blight on society, yet being able to read is somehow debatable. The furore over school lunch policies — an idea that is well-meaning — is only exacerbated when schools are failing to deliver on their primary function. That primary function, according to the Grattan Institute could be exponentially improved by mandating a nationally-consistent “reading guarantee”. This would hand teachers a blueprint on how to teach reading based on latest evidence and would appoint literacy instructional specialists in schools. Paediatric dietician Kyla Smith puts the ham ban succinctly when in her message to school bosses by calling it “micromanaging” that has “gone a step too far.” But here’s the kicker, when it comes to agreeing on how to teach our children to read . . . Micromanage away! Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie