How the call for high standards of teaching may be hijacked

Abstract

The front cover of the March 2011 issue of Professional Educator, the journal of the Australian College of Educators, carried the statement that ‘As the standards movement sweeps across Australian education, all eyes will be on its success in improving quality’. Inside the publication, an advertisement of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) declared that ‘locally and internationally, education systems are developing professional standards for teachers as a mechanism for attracting, developing, recognising and retaining quality teachers. Now, for the first time, we have a uniform set of Standards Australia wide and agreement by every system and sector or jurisdiction to implement them’.