It came to this. The newly elected Victorian Government (Liberal/National) failed in its promise to raise the pay standards of the state's school teachers. In an underhanded way, it altered its decision to make general pay increases to all teachers, preferring to pay only the best performing ones. It now wants a productivity based pay scheme. How can that be measured across the state? There are too many variables at play. The most marginal socio-economic school community in the state may have the state's best teachers and may not show a difference. The proposed pay scheme is impossible to measure and therefore needs to be scrapped.
If this ever happened in the future, best performing teachers would be driven to look for best performing schools for better pay conditions. Soon the difference between schools would become much more marked. It is right that last Wednesday's Teachers Strike was one of the largest strikes ever in Victoria. Over 10,000 teachers took to the streets (out of 25,000 who did not show up for work that day). Two hundred state schools closed that day and many others were only open in the very smallest way.
Peter attended his school that day as a neutral party and found one supervising teacher and 14 students attending. It made for a very unusual atmosphere. A never-to-be-forgotten day.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
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