Yep - this post is called "Anything At All" cause otherwise I won't have blogged this month. After such a good late 2006 run something's happened in '07.
The short answer is that it is being the Democrat candidate for Epping at the State election which, together with other Democrat work has kept me away from my blog.
So I'll just make a cryptic note here to my real desire to blog on education policy. Does anyone else think it odd that the Howard government, that blathers on about choice in education, thinks that we need ONE national curriculum. Wouldn't a genuine "choice" in education allow schools to prepare students however they choose and let parents decide between schools. If the Government line is then that parents would suffer what the economists would call an information problem - i.e. how do you assess schools against different standards - doesn't the Government run into exactly the same information problem anyway. How can you judge from aggregate results for a student intake six years ago what a school will deliver for your specific child now. So informed choice by parents is never possible.
The second education curly one is about research in universities. Similarly we expect universities to compete for students and private enterprise investment (in research). Surely the best way to let that choice run is to go back to giving Universities there own control of research budgets rather than one single centralised research funding project.
It all adds up to the single conclusion - the Government doesn't actually understand what "choice" means (or markets are).
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