OLPC's XO-3 tablet

"if it works"

It sounds too good to be true that Nicholas Negroponte could deliver on both the most amazing computer hardware and also the holy grail of education - teaching reading without adult help. I would love to hear more detail about this software based adaptable reading program from anyone who knows more.

As part of a two-year project to study educational development among young children in developing countries, researchers will collect data from XO-3 tablets used by three-to-eight-year-olds in India, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. Software on the tablets will record audio and video and adapt a reading platform to the needs of the children without human intervention. The project will study how children interact with the tablet and will aid in the study of tools for self-learning and critical thinking among children. One goal is to provide basic comprehension and reading, which is important in countries where teacher training is inadequate.

"In the reading experiment, where we ask can a child learn to read on his or her own, we imagine many hours of use per day, as many as six or eight. Frankly, the reading experiment may be the most important thing I have ever done....if it works," Negroponte said.
- OLPC's XO-3 tablet to debut at CES

Footnote:
I looked up an old blog where alan kay said something about this during his 40th anniversary of the dynabook speech:

BUT, when Nicholas started up the OLPC project my heart sank, even as I supported it ... because if it's tough to get good mentors in the USA then it's really tough out in the Third World ... no user interace today can find out who its user is, what its user knows, what it can do ... it can't find out what level of reading the user can do and help find out the next level of reading

Australia's red centre

From my daughter's recent trip: Adelaide to Uluru

ending the groundhog day of educational reform

Some notes on a talk given by Noel Pearson on the launch of his book, Radical Hope, in September, 2011 :
Bringing Explicit Instruction to remote aboriginal schools in Cape York, Queensland

Primary school education was the hardest domain for us to penetrate. NAPLAN results over the past 3 years provided useful evidence to break out of failing education programmes. We could say to professional educators: “We can no longer leave the future of our children in your hands”. We could end the groundhog day of educational reform

The grandmothers in Cape York are more literate than their grandchildren. The Missions had succeeded in teaching children to read and write in their own indigenous language. Over the past 40 years indigenous children have become illiterate in both their native and English language

We arrived at the conclusion that in the Reading Wars, the Explicit Instruction / Phonics side of the war was correct.

MULTILIT (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) and all Explicit Instruction programmes have their genesis in Direct Instruction, an American programme developed by Professor Siegfried Engelmann at the Universities of Illinois and Oregon. In early 2009 we visited the USA and subsequently formed a partnership with the American National Institute of Direct Instruction.

We established this programme in two Cape York primary schools: Aurukun and Coen. The programme consists of Class and Club. Class is the western curriculum. Club is indigenous culture.

The compulsory school day runs from 8:30 to 2:30. This is followed by a voluntary programme which runs from 2:30 to 4:30.

The new programme commenced on January 28, 2010. The first few months were marked by chaos, controversy, revolt and alarm. But eventually things settled down. There were 65 kids in the Time Out room one week. Then there were 3 kids the following week. This transition marked school acceptance of the new programme.

There is regular coaching of teachers in the required methods every 3 months. Each week there are mastery tests of the previous 5 or 10 lessons. Students do not move to the next level unless they achieve a 90% achievement score.

Every Tuesday morning there is a conference with coordinators in the USA with the Principals of Auruken and Coen. The operating assumption is that if the student has not learned then the teacher has not taught. There is no alibi for the teacher. The Principals main task is to lead instruction.

When kids experience success, then behaviour changes and interest engages.

Aurukun was possibly the worst school in Queensland. In 2009 police were called to the school 160 times, for a school of 230 students. The attendance rate was 30%. We are now 18 months into this educational reform.

FURTHER INFORMATION FROM THE Q&A SESSION AFTER PEARSON’S TALK:

Welfare System
The welfare system must be reformed from unconditional welfare to conditional welfare. Parents must meet four conditions to continue receiving welfare:
1. send children to school
2. children free from abuse or neglect
3. meet housing tenancy obligations
4. don’t break the Law

The welfare system has been funding dysfunctional lifestyles. The Commonwealth government has been paying for people’s drug habits. There has been unconditional financing of dysfunction. Welfare is not a wage, it is social assistance which comes with conditions.

Trust Accounts
Trust accounts were created to cover educational expenses (uniform, tuckshop, equipment, computers). The money comes from the parents. They are completely voluntary.

At Coen there was a 100% signup to the trust accounts. The trust accounts now contain $1500 per child and over 1 million dollars in total. The swift uptake of trust accounts persuaded us that parents care deeply about their children’s education.

Results
We use DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy), which is more informative than NAPLAN, to assess the progress of students. This tells us that:
- the top 30% is progressing at double mainstream speed
- 50% are progressing at above mainstream speed
- poor attenders continue to have poor results

Lack of Support from Education Department Bureaucracy
A Cairns Principal who was prepared to run a Direct Instruction stream was banned from visiting Aurukun by the Department!!

What sort of teachers are required for Direct Instruction?
The DI programme has been described as “teacher proof”. For Pearson the biggest surprise was that they are making progress with the stock, standard issue Queensland trained teacher. As long as the teacher is amenable to the program there are good results. However, teachers college has not taught these teachers how to teach reading!

sources:
audio: Noel Pearson: Radical Hope (the above notes are made from this extract)
video: Radical Hope Book: A Talk by Noel Pearson (the whole talk including an informative Q&A session)

alyawarre scratch file

I used Scratch to make a tiny multimedia dictionary (voice, pictures, words) for the Australian indigenous Alyawarre or Alyawarra language. It's available here. Three girls from wiltja provided the words and their voices. Alyawarre tribe is near Tennant Creek.

The words are:

• kungar = blue tongue lizard 
• numa = snake 
• loget = goanna 

I always remember the insightful words of Noel Pearson:

"Keep our diverse languages and cultural traditions by excelling in education and digital technologies, the only means of arresting the decline of our ancient and oral traditions"

chess swings and roundabouts

My chess results have been quite erratic of late. Currently I'm playing interclub in South Australia for the Modbury Club. I'm busy so for preparation all I really do is go through some tactical exercises in the Combinational Motifs book by M. Blokh, beforehand.

Last Tuesday I played against the new State Champion, Goran Srdic, and lost.

We did a quick post mortem after the game and Goran revealed that he thought his position was always good. I had played a risky move 16 which enabled him to cleverly win the exchange. Nevertheless, he had weak pawns and I had the 2 bishops so I thought I was still doing ok. His move 28 looked strong but I had thought of a brilliant reply, which I played. I thought he would have to give up his queen but he didn't. My attack petered out and he won the endgame easily.

This game stayed in my head, particularly the position after move 31. I recaptured his knight so I wouldn't fall too far behind on material. I was short of time. Eventually, a better move came to me without even setting up the position. It looked like I was winning now. How exasperating!

I setup the position to confirm my mental analysis and I'm pretty sure I'm correct. I could have won this game as a brilliancy against the new State Champ. Oh Damn! Here is the game.

White: Bill Kerr
Black: Goran Srdic
1. Nf3 d5
2. g3 Nf6
3. Bg2 Bf5
4. d3 c6
5. O-O h6
6. Nc3 e6
7. Nfd2!
I saw this maneuver in an online GM game a while back and liked it. White's e4 cannot be prevented and his pieces are well co-ordinated
7. __ Be7
8. e4 Bh7
9. Qe2
Black is now reluctant to develop his QN at d7 since then e5 from white would force his other night back to g8. So he decides to expand on the queenside instead.
9 __ a5
10. Kh1 Na6
Preparing f4. Since black has played __ a5 I didn't think he was planning to castle on the queenside so I'm going to attack him on the king side or centre.
11. f4 Nd7
12. exd!
Black has delayed castling and is vulnerable on the K file
12 __ cxd
13. f5! Bxf5
14. Nxd5 exd5
15. Rxf5 O-O
Initially, it looks like white will win the QP but that doesn't work out because black has a strong reply in __ Nb4. After thinking for 15 minutes I played a risky move.
16. Nf3?!
Possibly 16. c3 immediately is better
16. __ Bf6!
17. c3 Re8
18. Qf1 g6!
Winning the exchange
19. Rxd5 Nc7
20. Rd6 Qe7!
I was half expecting __ Nb5 here with a possible draw by repetition. (21. Rd5 Nc7 etc.) but Goran has seen further ahead than me this time
21. Bf4 g5
22. Ra-e1 Ne6
I had missed this move during my move 19 calculations
23. Rdxe6 fxe6
24. Bd2
Nevertheless, I have one pawn for the exchange and his pawns are weak and his king position is shaky. I thought the position was even but Goran thought he was winning.
24. __ Qd6
25. d4 e5
26. dxe Bxe5
This removes an important defender for the black king. But if he takes with the knight then 27. Nd4 is awkward
27. Nxe5 Nxe5
It would have been smarter if I withdrawn the B to c1 on move 24. Now I would have had more options.
28. Be3 Nd3
I saw this coming and initially it looked strong. But then I realised I could exploit the vulnerable position of the black king, with a great move!
29. c4!?
Probably 29. Re2 is good too. But this roll of the dice was worth it!
29. __ Nxe1
30. Bd5+
At this point I thought Goran would give up his queen and thought that would end in a draw by white implementing a perpetual check. 30 __ Qxd5 31. cxd5 Rxe3 32. Qf6 Ra-e8 (anything else looks too risky) and white has perpetual check. But Goran still thought he was winning.
30. __ Kh8
31. Bd4+ Re5

This is where I missed the win. I played the obvious 32. Qxe1 which gave black time to organise his defence. After 32 __ Ra-e8 33. Qe4?! Qf6! 34. h4 Kg7 35. Qg4 Kh7 black went on to win easily.

White missed a brilliant thirty second move which would have forced a win. Can you see it?

xo deployment in australia

View One Laptop Per Child Australia in a larger map

Legend:
Ear-marked or has expressed interest for deployment
Scheduled for deployment
Partial deployment
Full deployment - one laptop per child

One laptop per child australia has done a good job of deploying to remote aboriginal communities. This is best viewed at Google Maps but even in this version if you click on map icons you can obtain more detail of the deployments.

strange times

I guess that 2011 will go down as the year of the glorious Middle East democratic revolutions!

I have been doing most of my blogging at the Strange Times collective over the past three months. Here are links to some of my posts:

shock tactics in alice

No fly zone demand for Libya

the vlog that helped spark the egyptian revolution

The marxist theory of crisis

Hans Rosling’s fast forward history

the achilles heel of capitalism

a puzzle for some

Resources for studying “Capital” with emphasis on Value theory

As far as I can tell my future posts will be more frequent there and less frequent here.

Build Your Own Blocks

Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB) is an extension to the visual drag and drop programming of Scratch. It adds custom blocks, recursion, first class lists and procedures to the original.

The developer is Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from logo legend Brian Harvey.

There is a make a block shape in the Variables section. When you click on it an easy to use block editor comes up. First up, I made a block that draws squares, then followed up with a hex block and a star block. Here they are:

I am following a sequence suggested by Jens and Brian in their paper, Bringing 'No Ceiling' to Scratch: Can one language serve kids and computer scientists?

The next step is to draw a V shape with a randomly chosen decoration at each end. In a text based logo language this would look like:

to v
left 45 forward 50
run pick [square hex star]
back 50 right 90 forward 50
run pick [square hex star]
back 50 left 45
end

The tricky bit here is how to implement the line: run pick [square hex star] visually. Initially, I couldn't figure that out but my friend Tony Forster helped me with it:

And here is the whole v procedure, in visual block form:

This procedure draw shapes like this, (running it 3 times with different starting positions):

The next step illustrates how to do recursion in BYOB! Recursion means that a procedure calls itself. Here it is:

There are a couple of places where vee might randomly call vee causing the procedure to loop back on itself. Since it is random (item any) then the result are varied and unpredictable. Here are a couple of the more complex results:

As well as the paper by Jens and Brian make sure you read the manual which comes with the download, too.

The Climate Fix by Roger Pielke jnr

Here is my summary of his main points so far:

1. we will need VASTLY more energy in the future
2. the amount of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere is a big problem - both AGW and biogeochemical effects
3. so we have to decarbonise the energy supply, aka reduce carbon intensity C output / energy consumed (see Kaya identity section for more detail here)
4. decarbonisation makes sense from other perspectives too, eg. energy security for some countries (from a policy perspective it is important that there are some short and intermediate term gains from the pain or costs of policy)
5. the public will not accept a big C tax designed to change energy consumption behaviour - they will vote out any party that introduces it
6. small steps are better than grandiose plans that end up being rejected
7. there is not a linear relationship between climate science and government policy, Scientific findings in complex social issues do not dictate policy. Politics in a democracy requires public support. A non linear or oblique approach might work. The direct approach has failed (Copenhagen)
8. the public will accept a small dedicated C tax (rising slowly over time) to fund R&D; there is consistent public support for some action on climate change but not dramatic action which will alter standard of living
9. We need more R&D because present technology is not sufficient to do the CO2 reduction that is required – taking into account future economic growth and removal of CO2 from the ocean to reduce harmful biogeochemical effects, as well as from the atmosphere
10. Since the above steps do not provide a guarantee for targeted CO2 reductions then a backstop is also required
11. CO2 air capture and storage (remediation) is a potential backstop, which could reshape the climate debate, one of the targets for further R&D

the Nobel family has dissociated itself from the economics prize

One of the most annoying things is to read or hear an economist's views promoted because they have won the Nobel Prize. Hence, it is refreshing to hear that the Nobel family has dissociated itself from the economics prize

There are some good spoofs on this at Improbable Research:

2010 ECONOMICS PRIZE: The executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof

2009 ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

brain plasticity

Norman Doidge has written a book, The Brain That Changes Itself, about brain plasticity which has implications for our education system in general, those with learning disabilities and for senior citizens. Note the comment in the Kerry O'Brien interview below where it is argued that the decline of rote learning of long poems has contributed to declining oratory skills.

These theories developed in conjunction with Michael Merzenich have a great deal of scientific support. Check out the Norman Doidge video (on the brain and neuroplasticity, in 3 parts) and Michael Merzenich videos (TED talk, google talk) on the web.

Here is an extract from a 2008 interview with Doidge:

KERRY O'BRIEN: You write that humans instinctively were on the right track in the age of rote learning in education and you cite Abraham Lincoln's skill as an orator as an example. Can you elaborate?

NORMAN DOIDGE: Sure. In the '60s, there were things that were part of a kind of classical education that people did away with 'cause they thought that they were irrelevant like an almost fanatical attention to elocution and handwriting, or memorising long poems. But, it now turns out that what these activities did is they exercised very important parts of the brain that allow you to think in long sentences, have deep internal monologues and a certain amount of grace in all kinds of expression. And probably a lot of damage was done by doing away with these exercises that were there for good reasons we didn't understand.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You mean that they have reduced the scope of the functions of a child's brain as they grow to adulthood?

NORMAN DOIDGE: Yeah. The simplest example would be memory of long verses of poetry. It allows you to speak in public and have long, deep paragraphs of thought in private. When you reduce the amount of memory in those processors, we're reduced to a world of sound bites.

KERRY O'BRIEN: So, somebody else might say, well, you know, the kind of oratory of a Lincoln is simply a lost art. You would add to that; you would say it's a lost art …

NORMAN DOIDGE: That can be recovered.

KERRY O'BRIEN: ... but a lost art that was lost in the way we learnt, which you connect to the plasticity of the brain.

NORMAN DOIDGE: Most definitely.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Does mainstream science take it as seriously as it should?

NORMAN DOIDGE: I would say that mainstream neuroscience is now smitten with neuroplasticity as the new revolutionary paradigm that is giving us great insights in the levels of activity that are going on in the brain. And an example of it is just the following amazing fact: that when you think thoughts or learn something, you actually turn on genes inside the nerve cells in your brain to change the number of connections between those cells. You can double them in a matter of hours between nerve cell A and nerve cell B. So, what we've discovered with neuroplasticity is that consciousness can direct genetic expression, and neuroscientists are looking at all the sort of points along that trail from consciousness, ultimately to structural change in the brain and altered behavioural expression as one of the chief tasks right now.
- Kerry O'Brien speaks with Norman Doidge

crises of capitalism (David Harvey)

This talk contrasts five different mainstream theories of the economic crisis with David Harvey's Marxist analysis. He build the talk around the rhetorical device of a question which the Queen asked the London School of Economics: How come you guys didn't see the crisis coming?

The very entertaining RSA ( (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) artistic animation enhances the presentation considerably.

ethical consumption debunked (Zizek)

I love the way this Slavoj Zizek talk is animated by RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and some of his argument about how post 1968 capitalism offers redemption for the consumer through ecological sound purchases is spot on, too.

Some snippets, just phrases:

... the anti consumerist duty to do something for the environment is included (in your purchase)

Starbucks coffee ethics ... good coffee karma

... through a consumerist act you buy your redemption of being a consumerist

He then quotes extensively from Oscar Wilde in a polemic against all charity. Some of that was challenging but overall I wasn't so supportive of that section. It is one thing to expose phony "ethical consumerism" but I don't think all efforts to reform the system from within are misguided. "One laptop per child" is a good example of reform from within initiated by philanthropists which empowers the recipients.

Capital chapter one (Laurence Miall's blog)

Capital by Karl Marx, Chapter 1 - blog by Laurence Miall

Laurence writes in an entertaining (and self deprecating, not claiming to be a Marx guru) manner replacing Marx's commodities of linen and coat with the more modern examples of gasoline, iPads and cat kibbles.

I think his summary of the most difficult chapter of Marx could be improved by a deeper analysis of the value form. I cite some references below which I found particular helpful in coming to grips with this. Here are some extracts from Laurence's article with comments:

para 10: “David Harvey really saved my pea brain from total meltdown here. It turns out that value is socially necessary labour time. This is to say that what gives a commodity value is the labour that went into it”

This is true but incomplete in that it is limited to the magnitude and substance of value. Value also has a social form  (the capacity to be exchanged as an equal with another commodity) as well as a substance (embedded abstract labour) and magnitude (socially necessary labour time).

para 11: “And lastly, what gives my cat kibbles their exchangeability is the fact that they hold value: their value is that they provide a use-value for somebody else (in this case, for James, because he can feed my yummy cat kibbles to his own cats)”

This mixes up value and use value in a way which muddies the concept that value is a historically contingent social form, a social construct which eventually took on the form of money. In another type of society (pre or post capitalist) the cat kibbles would not have value at all. Imagine a society where your neighbor James just took the cat kibbles (no exchange) and that wasn’t regarded as theft. There is enough cat kibbles for everyone, no scarcity. Without exchange there is no value.

para 22: “Furthermore, the quantities are pretty arbitrary too. What makes 20 pounds of linen the basis of comparison? Why not 50 pounds? Or one pound?”

Those quantities in the general value form are not arbitrary. They are equivalents of socially necessary labour time required to produce those various commodities.

para 28 David Harvey quote: “People under capitalism do not relate to each other directly as human beings; they relate to each other through the myriad products which they encounter in the market.”

An issue which I found difficult to understand in Marx – in the same sense that Laurence qualifies Harvey’s quote - was Marx’s use of the word social in phrases like “socially necessary labour time” and in the commodity fetishism section, particularly the phrase “… material relations between persons and social relations between things”. My understanding now is that the use of the word social here relies on:

• a restricted sense of social to mean exchangeable on the market – not social in the more general sense of human social interaction
• the historical transformation of things into social forms, eg. products of labour become commodities, which as well as having use values are exchangeable (and hence social in that restricted sense)

So, appreciating value as a historically contingent social form I think adds a deeper dimension to Marx's analysis as well as helping to fathom out some of the ways in which he expresses himself.

Reference:
Marx, Karl: The Value-Form: Appendix to the 1st German edition of Capital, Volume 1, 1867 (link)
Rubin, Isaak Illich: Essays on Marx's Theory of Value, esp Ch 12: Content and Form of Value (link)

Geoffrey Canada

I've been participating in a discussion with Tom Hoffman about the Harlem Children's Zone and Geoffrey Canada's role in the Waiting for Superman video (which I haven't seen in full). I wrote this initially as a comment on the thread but it became too long for blogger's word length restriction, so I am publishing it here. I knew a little about Geoffrey Canada from past discussions and initially updated my knowledge by watching this 2008 video interview with Charlie Rose:


I also watched the Oprah Education Panel Continues the Discussion After the Show (link), featuring Geoffrey Canada and some others, which was fascinating. (The Charlie Rose interview provides a better look at Canada's overall world view and the reasons he has formed a political alliance against "big labour"; might be worth summarising in more detail at some stage)

No one raised the fundamental question which is that the problems of social class cannot be solved within a system which by its nature and day to day activity continues to generate those problems on a greater scale than any solutions within that system. Canada was not critical of government and praised Obama's "Race to the Top". Nor can such a big nation wide problem be solved by philanthropy as Tom points out, the pockets of Gates and Zuckerberg (Facebook entrepreneur who has become a recent education philanthropist) are miniscule compared to what is required nation wide. Also Canada buys into the great American empire rhetoric which is populist and misleading when it comes to solving this problem for America as a whole. His empire rhetoric is more apparent in the Charlie Rose video.

Nevertheless, Canada's analysis of educational problems for the disadvantaged and what to do about it are correct. High expectations, early intervention, build parental support into the package, longer school day, teacher accountability (even though we might argue about how to do that). This is along the same lines (progress without progressivism) of the scheme proposed and now being implemented by Noel Pearson in Cape York, Australia for the most disadvantaged Australians. Pearson is not so dependent on philanthropy because Australia differs from the USA in that respect but he has ended up allied to what is regarded as the "right" because they are more practical than "correct". That political alliance seems to go with solutions within the system too.

IMO you can't really polemicise in an all round manner (black and white, they are bad and we are good) against people who are trying to help the Disadvantaged in the here and now and at the same time describe yourself as "progressive". Because what progressives do is help the Disadvantaged. Part of the logic flowing from this is criticism of the Union, since the role of the Union is to protect working conditions. If you are working very long hours on moderate pay for the sake of the kids then that is not what Unions are on about. This part is tricky because good teachers do work long hours on moderate pay for the sake of the kids.

Davis Guggenheim, the film director of Waiting for Superman also made An Inconvenient Truth. The parallels here to me are striking. Identify a real problem but through exaggeration completely muddy the waters about a real solution on a macro level.

the battle for the high moral ground of education

The Wrong Conversations

Will's blog is about learning innovation using the read/write web. This particular blog advocates caution in dealing with the political encroachment of the education standards juggernaut on teachers. This struggle is reaching fever pitch in the USA with the release of Waiting for Superman which pushes for Charter Schools sponsored by wealthy philanthropists and its promotion on pop shows such as Oprah.

Will Richardson: involvement in political struggle drains energy from innovative learning
Tom Hoffman: a defensive, vigorous, noisy political struggle by teachers is essential, if this is lost then all is lost
Gary Stager: presents an alternative plan for a more just distribution of educational resources, The Stager Plan
Scott McLeod: firing bad teachers is not the solution but it is something that progressive educators do have to support (amongst other good points)
Stephanie Sandifer: Where is the student voice?
Brian Crosby: After a decade of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) primary teachers are scared, so scared they don't even want to know what is happening politically to education

My thoughts:
I can discern not two but at least three or perhaps four distinct positions here.
(1) innovative learning using technology
(2) public schools have failed to meet the needs of the Disadvantaged including basic numeracy and literacy, Charter schools and derivatives of Teach for America are the answer
(3) defence of public schools for the public good, teacher rights and strong unions to support those rights
(4) The Stager Plan

All points of view can and do claim the high moral ground. In reverse order:

The Stager Plan fails the Hegel / Engels test. Although everything that exists deserves to perish it won't actually perish until the social reason for its continued existence is eliminated. Everything that exists also exists for a reason. A revolution in schooling cannot eliminate class society; class society can only be eliminated by a revolution in society. In other words The Stager Plan sounds fair but it ain't going to happen unless a lot of other things happen first.

Teachers have a right to sanity and reasonable working conditions. I can see some merit in Teach for America public service but it's never going to scale successully. By the organisations own admission the inductees have only to work like slaves for 3 years as a stepping stone to a "higher" career.

Tom Hoffman's suggestion for noisy protest is good but is that going to happen at a time of economic crisis that isn't going away? At such times people who are fortunate enough to be still working become more insecure and less liable to protest. Unless things become really bad - another Depression - when you reach the point that a huge minority have little to lose by really vigorous protest.

The critics of public school have a point, more often than not public schools do fail the Disadvantaged. The more you are disadvantaged the more they are likely to fail you. This doesn't mean that Charters promoted by the wealthy will necessarily do any better (for the Disadvantaged), although a few will if they are put together in the right way. Damaged kids bring their damage to school in such a huge way that any repair of that damage, by the school system, is usually only partial. As already stated superman and superwoman don't scale.

Computer technology can be used for innovative learning (either Papert constructionist style or Richardson et al read/write web style) or they can be used to do the data crunching required for standardised testing and league tables. From a teaching point of view the former requires high knowledge levels (epistemological use of technology). From a political point of view the latter is very attractive as a ready means of measurement and control of teachers. So, we shouldn't be surprised that the latter use is gaining ascendancy.

Teaching is a profession whose advocates can appeal for legitimacy to the the noble aspects of the human spirit, the desire to learn new things. From the point of view of the ruling class this makes teachers hard to control. Hence when computer technology produces the data which offers the opportunity to control teachers they are bound to use it for that purpose. That is one of the main goals of the capitalist class, to control its workers.

All sides will continue to claim the high moral ground.

Noteworthy link:
It's not a revolution unless someone gets hurt

I think it is becoming increasingly clear that our current system of education is going to go away. There are simply too many societal pressures and alternative paradigms for it to continue to exist in its current form
- Scott McLeod

climate: the triumph of the blogosphere

As well as Judith Curry's excellent climate blog, Climate etc I just discovered that Richard Tol, economist, has a climate blog too: IPCC5 KEY ECONOMIC SECTORS AND SERVICES

He is an IPCC author who is critical of many aspects of the IPCC and has a wicked sense of humour to boot, for instance:

I would add two things, though. Firstly, Pachauri apparently does not trust IPCC authors and editors to be mature enough to say sensible things to journalists. Most of us have PhDs, after all, and many are full professors. We might just slip into juvenile language and compare people to Hitler, accuse them of practicing voodoo, or recommend they rub asbestos in their faces. Better to leave communication to the IPCC leadership, who would never say such things
- Letter from Pachauri

Rajendra Pachauri is Chair of the IPCC.

The blogosphere is maturing as more expert people who have become impatient with formality, bureaucracy and who have a desire to widen the democratic process come on line. My other favourite climate blogs are Pielke jnr and Pielke snr.

critique of crisis theory

blog: A Critique of Crisis Theory (from a marxist perspective)

I like the approach and admire the research effort of this blog. The author, Sam Williams, has spent many years studying political economy and is systematically addressing the many and varied interpretations of Marx on crisis theory. He points out that Marx's analysis was unfinished and of course much has happened since Marx's death. His goal is to fill in some of the gaps in Marx's crisis theory as a guide to younger people who will make the future.

Read these sections for starters:
About Me and This Blog
The Problem: Marx Didn’t Leave Us a Completed Crisis Theory

extract:

These writings are built on the foundations of “Capital,” a work that at least in Germany is becoming a bestseller once again. But “Capital” itself, though it lays the foundation, is not a book about the periodic crises capitalist production goes through. Nor is there a section within “Capital” dealing with such crises, as is generally the case with works that popularize the theories of “Capital.”

Since Marx and Engels put so much emphasis on crises in the Communist Manifesto and other works, this omission at first seems surprising. Marx had planned to crown his economic work with a book on the world market, the state, competition and crises. As is well known, Marx did not have the time to write this work. It is, of course, impossible for any other person to write the work Marx might have written if he had had the time.

Of course, you will have to read a fair bit of the original Marx and probably some interpretations of his theory of value as a precursor to understanding the issues discussed on this blog.

Update (28th September): Note the Anti Duhring reference to overproduction (in The Problem: Marx Didn’t Leave Us a Completed Crisis Theory) - that markets can't keep up with continually expanding production which is compelled by the capitalist system - and Sam's implied disagreement with "Marxists" who don't grasp that overproduction is still the key to understanding crisis:

Indeed, many—perhaps today most—Marxists largely disagree with Engels and Marx as well, and deny that industrial overproduction is the essence of the cyclical economic crises that mark the concrete history of capitalism from 1825 onwards

My own study still has some way to go but I look forward to reading Sam's efforts to sort out the issue of whether the current crisis is due to overproduction or financialisation of the economy, an issue which I don't yet understand.

Is there an education crisis in your country?

Some thoughts on reading
SCHOOLWORK by Nicholas Lemann
and
How there can be and NOT be an educational crisis in the US by Mark Guzdial

Three reasons why you might say there is an education crisis in your country:

1) We aren't as good as Finland. Your country is falling behind other countries on the international PISA test scores (link)

Finland envy is relatively new because PISA tests, the technical ability to compare educational achievement in different countries is relatively new. What does it mean? My guess is that Finland as a society values education and social equality higher than other OECD countries. For example, to become a teacher in Finland you need a Masters Degree and they are more generous in their treatment of Disadvantaged students and cater better for their needs at a younger age.

So, if your country is not like Finland there are grounds for saying there is an education crisis. If you are near the top of the PISA list then you might claim there is not an education crisis.

2) The gap b/w the knowledge rich and the knowledge poor is increasing, there is a long tail of educational under achievement for the Disadvantaged. For example, Australia does alright on the average PISA scores but we do have a long tail of disadvantage.

This one is driven by social class and a sense of social justice or fairness. Australian education is quite unfair because the children of poor people who live in low socio economic areas end up being grouped together in school classrooms. It doesn't matter how good the teachers are, these classrooms can't compete - other things being equal - with the children of wealthy parents who end up being grouped together in Private schools which have a completely different classroom environment.

So, if you can access the wealthy Private schools or the few elite government schools (the way it works in Australia) there is no education crisis but if you can't then there quite possibly there is a crisis in your classroom.

3) There is a perception that desired education goals (however they are defined) are not being matched with desired educational attainment. eg. declining enrollments in maths and science courses, with maths and science being seen as desirable by observers and not particularly desirable by many students. Or you might think computer programming skills or some other computing skills are really important in today's world and be frustrated at how poorly these skills are lagging in education systems.

(update 27th September: This section could be much expanded especially in a qualitative sense.
eg 1. Alan Kay has argued there is not a real computer science.
eg 2. The current economic crisis reveals that the real science of political economy has been suppressed in higher education for many years - a great evasion of past findings has been occurring
eg 3. the global warming issue has revealed that there is a crisis within the culture of science and how it connects to the politics of policy formation)

So, if you can complete any old course and get a job there isn't a crisis. But if you are worried about the education system delivering a good education to all citizens based on your view of high quality education then there is.

Conclusion: Education crisis doesn't really exist on a country by country basis. update 27th SeptemberRather the education crisis is a barometer of an underlying crisis in social class and depth of awareness of knowledge development issues in your country. Finland is on top because there is less class division and a more caring attitude to the disadvantaged.

Education crisis exists on the basis of social class and your attitude towards knowledge. The education crisis is a class crisis and an epistemological crisis. It really depends on your point of view of the sort of society you see as desirable, so it cannot be measured "objectively".

Lemann downplays the crisis because his outlook is middle class, the crisis does not directly touch him the way it touches the disadvantaged. Guzdial, from his perspective in computer science and epistemology, acknowledges a crisis of sorts but there is no reference to the importance social class in his article.

related:
maths education crisis in Australia - the long tail of underachievement
curriculum reform will not improve education without quality teachers

The Australian: carbon tax better than a crazy-quilt

You have to take notice when the Economics Editor of The Australian (aka the right wing mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch and his unsavoury fossil fuel loving fellow travellers) calls for a carbon tax:

A general carbon price - most likely a carbon tax - is needed if only to counter the crazy-quilt risk from the balance of power Greens and country independent
- Worried about big slugs? Try a carbon tax

The reasoning goes that with all the inefficient climate change induced indirect taxes happening there is a need to rationalise the whole process.

some features of the crazy-quilt:
- "green car" subsidies to the motor vehicle industry
- uncertainty pushes up prices
- an initially low C tax is better than an expensive ETS
- renewable energy costs more, so a 20 percent target by 2020 is expensive
- Labour's failed home insulation scheme was indirect and disastrous
- ditto for Labor's "cash for clunkers" promise
- Independents such as Windsor are promoting rural protectionism, which can't survive in the long term
- low income earners could be compensated for increased electricity prices

superwoman crashes

I noticed when watching the Waiting for Superman movie trailer (link) that it was made by the same people who made An Inconvenient Truth. Hard hitting documentaries that oversimplify complex issues and then hit you over the head with a baseball bat.

Michelle Rhee promised to crash through and reform schools in Washington D.C. who were failing disadvantaged kids. She was given unconditional backing by Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Fenty has now lost his bid for re-election, which was widely viewed as a referendum on Rhee.

Diane Ravitch points out (Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost) that Fenty was supported by white voters but lost the black vote. The media has blamed teacher unions but as Ravitch insists black voters can think for themselves.

So, the people who Rhee was going to help have turned against her. This to me is a vote against the notion that changing inequality and poverty in society can be fixed exclusively at the school level. Social class cannot be turned around in class, it's a wider social issue. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and good teacher do their best. But it does mean we have to face the wider social reality. Kids come to school and do not leave their baggage and damage in a blue bin at the gate. (thanks pat thomson!)

In her article Ravitch links to a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll which shows that the Obama / Arne Duncan policies on school reform, which include elements of the Rhee approach such as sacking Principals in schools which are judged to be failing, are losing favour.

However, this article also points out (scroll down to the Bright Spots subheading) that the public still supports improving the quality of teaching and some form of merit pay. People want reform and school improvement but not excessive crash through draconian approaches that target teachers as the only problem in school achievement. I notice a quote there from Barnett Berry who has been studying the issue of how to reform disadvanted schools for years:

“There is far more interest in supporting teachers than firing them or paying them on the basis of test scores,” said Barnett Berry, the president and chief executive officer of the Hillsborough, N.C.-based Center for Teaching Quality. “It doesn’t mean the American people don’t want a results-oriented profession. They do. I think they are more tuned in with the needs of the field than some of the policymakers who are making the rules and regulations.”

Related: Staffing high needs schools (outlines Barnett Berry's ideas in more detail)

Update: Grading 'Waiting for Superman' The introductory paragraphs are spot on:

Here's what you see in Waiting for Superman, the new documentary that celebrates the charter school movement while blaming teachers unions for much of what ails American education: working- and middle-class parents desperate to get their charming, healthy, well-behaved children into successful public charter schools.

Here's what you don't see: the four out of five charters that are no better, on average, than traditional neighborhood public schools (and are sometimes much worse); charter school teachers, like those at the Green Dot schools in Los Angeles, who are unionized and like it that way; and noncharter neighborhood public schools, like PS 83 in East Harlem and the George Hall Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama, that are nationally recognized for successfully educating poor children.

You don't see teen moms, households without an adult English speaker or headed by a drug addict, or any of the millions of children who never have a chance to enter a charter school lottery (or get help with their homework or a nice breakfast) because adults simply aren't engaged in their education. These children, of course, are often the ones who are most difficult to educate, and the ones neighborhood public schools can't turn away.

You also don't learn that in the Finnish education system, much cited in the film as the best in the world, teachers are—gasp!—unionized and granted tenure, and families benefit from a cradle-to-grave social welfare system that includes universal daycare, preschool and healthcare, all of which are proven to help children achieve better results at school.

In other words, Waiting for Superman is a moving but vastly oversimplified brief on American educational inequality. Nevertheless, it has been greeted by rapturous reviews.

helpful climate change overview

It is not as sexy to be a doubtist (white flag) rather than an alarmist (green flag) or denier (red flag). Doubt.

But quite possibly climate scientist Judith Curry presents a superior overview of the science of climate change than the way IPCC findings are presented to us. I found this exchange (starts here) on her blog helpful:

Bart Verheggen:

My major issue though is this:

For the remainder of this century, what natural forcing or variability could plausibly rival the relentlessly rising anthropogenic forcing in magnitude? Is there evidence at all for that being plausible? If so, is that evidence really as large as the evidence showing that greenhouse gas forcing will exceed the likely bounds of natural variability (if it hasn’t already)? Or alternatively, so you really believe that an equal portion of the climate change over the next 90 years will be caused by natural variability versus caused by natural variability/forcing?

I haven’t seen any plausible evidence for such.

Judith Curry:

Bart, the issue for the 21st century is this. NOBODY in the IPCC has tried to actually predict 21st century climate change. What they have done is conduct scenario simulations for adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the next century. They do NOT predict 21st century solar variability or volcanic eruptions. They do a poor job at simulating the observed modes of natural internal climate variability (e.g. the multidecadal ocean oscillations).

So what the IPCC simulations basically say is that, if the solar and volcanic forcing remains fairly neutral in the 21st century, then CO2 warming will dominate and they provide specific projections for these scenarios. The elephant in the room is that no one is predicting the natural variability for the 21st century (we don’t know how to do it, basically).

So even if we knew the CO2 sensitivity perfectly (which we don’t), we don’t know how to estimate the natural variability piece, which could be smaller, equal to, or larger in magnitude than the greenhouse forcing. If equal to or larger in magnitude, then during some periods greenhouse warming will be cancelled out by natural variability and in other periods greenhouse warming would be the same sign as the natural variability.

We already know what the natural variability looked like in the 20th century, no big surprises but still an unexplained increase between 1910-1940 and decrease between 1940 and 1970. We have no idea what 21st century natural variability will look like, but already we are seeing surprises from the sun re sunspots. So this is why I bumped up the size of the white for the 21st century.

and in a follow up comment from Judith:

IMO, too much emphasis and focus has been given to greenhouse forcing, and insufficient focus on natural variability and land use changes

and:

The two candidates (apart from volcanic forcing) are solar variability and the natural internal variability of the coupled ocean atmosphere system, e.g. the multi-decadal and longer oscillations such as the NAO, PDO, etc. Not to mention abrupt climate change, which has been documented in the past to occur without any obvious external forcing.

NAO = North Atlantic Oscillation
PDO = Pacific Decadal Oscillation

not a triple crisis IMO

update 20th Sept: For the full dialogue b/w me and steve see comments 13, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 55, 56 at Can capitalism save the planet?

I left a comment on Steve Keen's blog in response to his recent talk at the Can Capitalism Save the Planet? forum. I only watched the first 9 minute video on his blog (link). I didn't like his triple crisis scenario that economic crisis, peak oil and global warming will combine to create a disaster by mid Century. This is a departure from Steve who up to now has focused on debt deflation and the instability of capitalism developing the ideas first advanced by Hyman Minsky. In response to another complaint in the thread Steve linked to a pdf (A comparison of Limits of Growth with 30 years of reality) by Graham Turner which argues that the Club of Rome Limits to Growth scenarios are being validated.

My comment is #13:

I had a quick look at the Graham Turner paper you linked to. I don’t believe that a computer model at this stage of their development could accurately predict a catastrophe by mid century.

You promoted a triple crisis view in your talk – economic crisis, peak oil and global warming. Each of those issues has its own complexities and specifics. But the computer modelling aspects of the global warming thesis is not its strong point. I read James Hansen’s book and he does not base his dire predictions on computer modelling -he specifically says they are not reliable enough yet – but relies much more on paleo-climate evidence. In light of this how anyone could say that a computer model will predict trends 100 years into the future is beyond me.

You create a bit of dilemma for those who want to discuss this further. Your blog is about debt deflation but in your talk the triple crisis theme was strong. I think the evidence for capitalisms instability is overwhelming but the other issues require extensive discussion in their own right and in how they connect to the economic crisis.

In your response to johnyh I think the issue you are missing is that there is not a linear relationship b/w the science of peak oil and global warming to the policy actions that might be taken in response to that science. The issue is not so much that the science is wrong (although I don’t think there is a consensus on these issues) but that alarmism at the policy level may not be warranted in response. In that respect I would argue that those issues are quite different from the economic crisis

update 18th September: Steve has replied to me as follows, comment #18:

I agree my talk does create a bit of a dilemma for this blog, so I’ll relax my resistance to discussing global warming here for a short while; but I’ll start by putting my position in perspective, in particular about the role of computer modelling here.

We need a bit of a perspective on what that particular computer model–World 3 and its developments that generated the results in Limits to Growth–were actually doing, and what I have come to agree is a fundamental blindspot in the human psyche (I think Sirius here first put this to me), our inability to grasp the impact of exponential trends.

If there is a fixed resource–say land area–and our use of it is growing exponentially and doubles every ten years, and after 100,000 years we have grown to the point where we are consuming 50% of the land, then in 10 years time it will run out.

If we somehow manage to increase the amount of this resource, or say improve our efficiency of use of it by a factor of four, that will buy us another 20 years. A thousand-fold increase in efficiency will buy us an extra century.

So the model was not as such trying to “predict trends 100 years into the future” as to say that IF exponential trends of usage continue THEN given the feedback between exponential trends and fixed inputs, a crisis will occur sooner rather than later. The models also acknowledged that we could perhaps improve our efficiency of usage of fixed resources (though not as a “magic bullet” but as another exponential trend over time), and that if we did and we reduced other factors as well exponentially (pollution) while reduced some pressures to sub-exponential growth (population), we could probably sustain an indefinitely improving standard of living.

That was written in 1972, and almost 40 years later it is manifestly obvious that we haven’t done any of that (save a continuing tapering in population growth which is still nonetheless growing); if anything we’ve increased the intensity of our exponential loads on the planet.

So the models were not so much a prediction as a warning that we had better come to understand the dilemma of exponential growth on a finite planet sooner rather than later. I don’t think there is much doubt that we have failed to do that, and the “climate sceptic” position, though it’s not consciously trying to refute that proposition, is in effect delaying us coming to terms with it.

My reply back to Steve #21:

Thanks for relaxing the guidelines.

I agree that there are always limits to exponential growth and that not everyone understands exponential growth. However, peak oil is not a problem given that we have long term energy alternatives, such as nuclear. The real problem here is the lack of R&D being devoted to energy alternatives. Nuclear would also solve the problem of excessive CO2 entering the atmosphere.

The real problems here are economic (nuclear is still more expensive than fossil fuels) not environmental.

I tend to agree with John McCarthy (progress and its sustainability) that in the case of energy supply the limit is roughly a billion years since nuclear can supply our energy needs for at least that time and in the case of population it “will eventually be limited by a sense of crowdedness rather than by material considerations”

categorisation of uncertainty

Interesting essay and comment thread about Doubt on climate scientist Judith Curry's new blog.

She proposes an Italian flag model inviting participants to cast their percentages wrt focus questions or hypotheses on their opinions about evidence for (green), evidence against (red) and uncertainty / unknowns (white):

She outlines a couple of hypotheses, one from the IPCC and one of her own about climate in the 21st Century and provides her own percentage estimates in the different categories for these. Her position is even handed in attributing climate change equally to human and natural factors with the uncertainty (white area) being dominant in her judgment.

Her main aim is to emphasise the uncertainty of much of the science in contrast to the name calling between "alarmists" and "deniers" that spoils much of the debate.

Roger Pielke snr left a comment there drawing attention to his hypotheses 1, 2a and 2b, which is an alternative way forward for the discussion. I have blogged about the Pielke snr hypotheses earlier

One of the critical comments, from Dan Hughes, concluded:

I don’t get the litmus-test question or the Italian-flag approach. I think we need to get a much better handle on many of the critically important aspects. While a top-down problem can be specified based on very little truly understood information, and even mis-information, and even not-applicable information, successful solutions are always, and I do mean always, based on extremely well-understood bottom-up information

I think that's correct from a scientific point of view but Judith is making an attempt to at least dampen down an acrimonious discussion which has got out of hand.

I left a comment there drawing attention to other ignorance categorisations, which I have blogged about in the past:
Five Orders of Ignorance
we don't know what we don't know

Actually, my main thought wrt the Italian flag categories was that it could be applied to other areas outside of climate science, such as political economy. In response to this focus question:

Will the current economic crisis develop into something akin to the Great Depression?

My guesses on this one are:
Green (evidence for): 20 percent
White (unknowns, uncertainties) 60 percent
Red (evidence against) 20 percent

I say guesses because the distinction b/w evidence and belief is not clear to me. Evidence is evidence that you believe in.

wild rivers notes

The key issue on wild rivers is the choice between pristine wilderness for the benefit of urban greenies or managed development for the benefit of the indigenous australians. This basic difference in outlook is the main  thread which runs through the debate.

On what principles should the future of Cape York be based? Marcia Langton outlines the difference between the extreme environmentalist position and the managed development position:

In the context of Cape York, some conservationists argue that the only sustainable types of activity are those that preserve the ecological value of the region. This is an extreme interpretation of the concept of sustainability, which in the mainstream usually encompasses three tenets: environment, economy, and equity. These tenets are viewed along a continuum, where meeting the needs of the present does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (see Brundtland Report, UN, 1987).
- - Bligh's callous land grab by Marcia Langton, April 11, 2009

I have read a lot of Noel Pearson - particularly on the broad issue of the way forward for Australian aboriginal people. Do a search on this blog for "noel pearson" and you will find quite a few articles. I have heard him speak once and he is a brilliant and inspirational orator.

Recently, my assumption that noel pearson was progressive was challenged wrt his stance on the wild rivers issue.

Dave Kimble left this comment on my blog (link):

Your argument assumes that Noel Pearson has progressive views - he does not. He, like Abbott and Katter, wants to see indigenous land strip-mined for bauxite, instead of it being kept in its current pristine condition, which offers so much potential for "green development" - development that doesn't destroy the land.

The only developments that might be knocked back by Wild Rivers legislation are those that would damage the water catchment. Do you seriously think the local communities want to damage their sacred land?

Strip-mining is old-fashioned conservative thinking. Progressive thinking is very much in line with indigenous ways - loving the land and caring for it. That is why Greens have always supported Native Title and indigenous rights.

I'm not an expert on wild rivers or law or the details of Queensland politics and I live far away from Cape York but I am willing bit by bit to develop my understanding of these issues further. Based on my reading from afar here is my response to the points raised by Dave:

1) On the assertion that Noel Pearson supports destructive mining:

Asked about mining in the area, Mr Pearson said each case had to be assessed on its merits and there was potential, if strict environmental conditions were met, for mining to benefit local communities.

"We have to preserve the ability of these communities to develop economic enterprises in the future," he said.

"There is no road out of poverty without an economic base."
- Green group backs Wild Rivers review, January 14, 2010

I agree with Pearson here

The issue of mining is further complicated by the fact that the wild rivers legislation does not ban mining in the first place. There is a loop hole.

The tragedy of the whole situation is that current mines are exempt from Wild Rivers legislation.

So Rio Tinto, which takes 80 per cent of water from the Wenlock River can continue to do so, even when it is declared a wild river.

And there is no blanket ban on mining for the future.

Wild Rivers has a provision for mining "if it is of state significance".

A May 2009 newsletter from Tress Cox lawyers about the implications for mining and petroleum activities says mining activities which exist at the time of a declaration are not affected until they are renewed or amended, that the Aurukun and PNG Gas projects are exempted, and that amendments to the act in 2007 "opened the door for certain mining activities to proceed if the Minister provided consent"
- - Rivers of tears, September 19, 2009

As for bauxite mining which Dave is worried about it is going ahead anyway, the wild rivers legislation has exempted it, as pointed out by Noel Pearson to a Senate committee:

I pointed out that the vast areas around Weipa -- bauxite mining leases held by Rio Tinto and proposed to be given to Chinese government company Chalco -- were exempted from Wild Rivers laws precisely because the Queensland government would never have obtained Rio Tinto's agreement. Rio would never agree, so its area gets exempted from Wild Rivers.

Meanwhile, the state imposes Wild Rivers on the blackfellas. Which of the two kinds of landowners is actually doing anything that might affect the environmental health of rivers on western Cape York?
- Cape York Aborigines go into a divided wilderness, April 10, 2010

2) On the assertion that "The only developments that might be knocked back by Wild Rivers legislation are those that would damage the water catchment"

That isn't what I am reading.

Aboriginal traditional owners do not want large-scale environmental destruction in their river basin areas, such as dams, but the wild river gazettals are a terminal threat to their economic future and will deny them the right to the most basic improvements on their land. It is likely that they will not be allowed to build boat ramps
- Bligh's callous land grab by Marcia Langton, April 11, 2009

Points taken from another article which lists 23 complaints about the wild rivers legislation:

11. Wild Rivers places unreasonable restrictions and bans on economic opportunities including animal husbandry, agriculture and aquaculture in “high preservation zones”. There have been no studies of the possible economic impacts.

12. Government declared High Preservation Areas on Indigenous Lands without prior advice to the landholders and without consultation with landholders.

13. The burden of Wild Rivers falls much heavier on Indigenous land holders than non-Indigenous landholders. Most Cape York non indigenous landholders hold limited purpose leases such as for cattle grazing
- Why they’re wild about wild rivers by Michael Moore

Another article from the grass roots:

On the Department of Environment and Resource Management website and on that of the Wilderness Society, which proposed the Wild Rivers move, assurances are given that native title will not be affected, but Bruce says this is not so.

He joined his mother, and Aunty Martha Koowarta, the widow of the late John Koowarta, in Cairns on September 9 to hear Professor Greg McIntyre SC speak to JCU students about native title, and ask him about the effect of Wild Rivers on their rights.

Greg was the lawyer for the high profile Mabo case and that of the late John Koowarta versus the Bjelke-Petersen government.

He says there is a special provision for protection of native title rights in Wild Rivers legislation but that it is vague.

He believes Wild Rivers will have a severe impact on native title rights because it takes away indigenous people’s choice as to what they can do with their land.

"If an area is declared wilderness, the indigenous people won’t have the right to make decisions about the land," Greg says. "It also converts common law into a licence regulatory regime."
Any applications for development would have to be made through the Integrated Planning Act.
"There are processes of approval with local authorities and state-wide planning schemes," Greg says. "There’s a high level of complexity."

For Dorothy Pootchelunka, a Wild Rivers declaration, which has placed a blanket high preservation zone on her homeland and which she personally was not consulted about, means she may not be able to continue making baskets and selling them to galleries around the country.
A weaver, Dorothy has always made the baskets and other traditional accoutrements such as mats and feather flowers for traditional ceremonies.

She learned the art of weaving from her grandmother and she now teaches it to the young girls at the arts centre in Aurukun.

Dorothy is now afraid she won’t be able to gather the materials in the bush such as dyes and roots necessary for her trade.

"It would appear it would be a problem because there are stringent controls on the taking of vegetation for commercial purposes," Prof McIntyre says.

It’s not the only way Wild Rivers could affect Dorothy.

She currently lives in Aurukun but she would like to eventually return to Cape Keer Weer, where her family is from, to live out the rest of her days.

There she may want to build an outhouse, but the building of outhouses now has to be applied for under Wild Rivers legislation.

"Outhouses are areas where families could go and stay and have access to their traditional lands," Bruce says.

"They might put in a market garden so they could grow fruit and vegetables, very low impact stuff."
- Rivers of tears, September 19, 2009

There are some other issues here too

The ability of the Queensland government to get it right:

The gazettals will not deliver what the public expects: good management of the river basins and protection of biodiversity. On the contrary, these measures will leave these rivers unmanaged and at further risk of degradation. Just as detrimental to the marine and riparian biodiversity of the cape are the recreational fishermen, who are able to enter these vast areas fully equipped with large refrigerated trucks, use dynamite in the rivers, leave waste along the rivers, and who often leave fires alight that turn rapidly into bushfires that burn out thousands of hectares. The Wild Rivers Act and gazettals will do nothing to prevent this environmental destruction.

It has been the case for almost four decades that none of the conservation areas in the cape has been adequately managed by the Queensland government. The National Parks and Wildlife Service would have one or two rangers based at some of the national parks, but their ability to manage these vast areas is severely limited.
- Bligh's callous land grab by Marcia Langton, April 11, 2009

Who actually understands the area better, the aboriginal people or The Wilderness Society?

The Wilderness Society would have the Australian public believe that the cape is a wilderness where the Aboriginal population and local graziers are a threat to pristine environments. The photographs they use of the beautiful wetlands, riverways and coastlines are usually on Aboriginal land where Aboriginal rangers patrol to ensure that recreational fishermen, poachers, smugglers and drug dealers, and drug plantation operators do not establish camps and conduct their illegal activities. The rangers have been reporting the activities of such types to the authorities for more than 20 years. Most of these real-life situations on the cape are not part of the Wilderness Society story about the fantasy land they describe as a wilderness.

The Wilderness Society members do not live in the cape. Nor do they depend on the cape for their livelihood, lifestyles and traditions. And they never will. They are playing with thousands of people's lives by remote control.
- Bligh's callous land grab by Marcia Langton, April 11, 2009

another reference:
Red tape adds insult to injury by Peter Holmes a Court, who took the trouble to visit Cape York and inquire.

when the right is progressive and the left is conservative

Right crucial to Aboriginal reforms
Read the whole thing. It's a masterly example of Noel Pearson's optimistic threading of the policy needle as a result of his deep understanding of Australian politics.

Noel Pearson points out that Bob Katter and Tony Abbott are crucial to and supportive of indigenous rights. This goes against the general trend of "progressive" media opinion that Bob Katter is a loony who hates gays and delivers death threats to his enemies at airports and that Tony Abbot is a die hard conservative catholic with no genuine feelings for social justice. On the other hand it is Labour and The Greens who have formed an alliance which denies aboriginals their basic rights to use the land in Queensland.

About Bob Katter:

Bob Katter is a pioneer of the transformation of the Right. He was a member of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland government with which Aboriginal people had so many bitter disputes. But Katter initiated the very reforms in land title and housing that we are pursuing today. Katter was 25 years ahead of his time.

In recent weeks Katter has been driven by conviction and passion, having taken the unique step of elevating indigenous policy to the top of his list of political priorities. It was a great moment when Katter said at his press conference on that chaotic Tuesday that "indigenous affairs was a very burning question for me".

"My reputation and my history was staked upon what happened there and I'm not going to walk away from it."

About Tony Abbott:

Abbott understood at an early stage that our argument was that Aboriginal disadvantage is not different to disadvantage in the non-indigenous mainstream, but is an extreme case of the effects of passive welfare and substance abuse epidemics....

The other big question where we need to achieve bipartisanship is a national settlement between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Abbott's private member's bill to overturn the Queensland Wild Rivers legislation is one example of the fact that Aboriginal rights is not a clear-cut Left v Right issue, where the Right has no positive contribution to make.

It was heartbreaking to us that the Labor Queensland government made a deal with the Greens about a conservation regime that is being enforced without the consent of the traditional owners.

Abbott's bill would restore traditional owners' property rights that were infringed by the Wild Rivers legislation...

Last year I wrote a Quarterly Essay explaining our education policies, which aim to make sure that all students in Cape York become fully numerate and literate in English, and receive high-quality secondary and tertiary education.

But I also wrote that for the sake of Australia's soul, contemporary forms of Australia's own indigenous languages and cultures must survive and develop.

The most encouraging reply to my essay came from Abbott. He wrote: "Pearson has the capacity to surprise both his backers and his critics. His call for a longer school day so that Aboriginal children can receive a sound general education is a challenge to the political Left. His bigger challenge, though, is reserved for the Right. Pearson wants the longer school day also to accommodate serious, sustained teaching in traditional Aboriginal culture and language.

"The challenge," Abbott continued, "for those who have been Pearson's philosophical fellow travellers up till now, is to accept that biculturalism, at least for Aboriginal people, is a worthy object of Australian government policy and is worth paying for [my emphasis]. Because it is unique to our country, support for Aboriginal culture is a responsibility of Australian government.

"In his final scripted speech as prime minister," Abbot concluded, "John Howard acknowledged how far he'd come in his attitudes to Aboriginal issues. Undoubtedly, his late flowering friendship with Pearson was a key factor in his personal journey from resistance to engagement. Over the years, Pearson has prompted quite a few conservative Australians to a change of heart. He's now inviting us to go a little bit further than the former prime minister was prepared to, but it's a project that we should be ready to support."