Curriculum battles.(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: It is always good to read a review of what you have written and to know that, at least, your book has been read. At the same time, as the author, there is a natural desire to want to correct misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

Alan Barcan's generally favourable discussion of my book, Why Our Schools are Failing (July-August 2005) contains a number of egregious mistakes. First, Barcan states: "Like many Victorians, he tends to assume that events in that state are representative of the rest of Australia ... whereas New South Wales survived the last forty years better than most."

He is wrong. I clearly acknowledge that New South Wales was able to ameliorate some of the worst aspects of the curriculum fads that washed over Australia since the early seventies--see page 41 where I note that New South Wales "remained committed to selective high schools and a competitive, academic senior school certificate", and page 61 where I acknowledge, because of the Eltis Report, that New South Wales "attempted to remedy some of the worst aspects" of outcomes-based education (OBE).

It is also incorrect to argue that I concentrate too much on events in Victoria. In the index, education in Victoria has sixteen page references, New South Wales eighteen and Queensland six; and the book deals in some detail with events and organisations at the national level, including the Schools Commission, the national statements and profiles, benchmarking literacy and numeracy, boys' education, the Australian Education Union and the Australian Deans of Education.

Second, Barcan argues that I do not fully understand "the ideological/philosophical forces which he sees as undermining education". As evidence, Barcan suggests I mistakenly label Bowles and Gintis, Bill Hannan and Doug White as Marxists. While such pedantry might be useful in the cloistered world of the academy, the book is written for the general public. I believe they can all, with some justification, be called Marxists.

Barcan's argument that I do not "directly confront the liberal-humanist collapse of 1967-74 nor the neoliberal response of 1989-93", if it is true, is a greater cause for concern. In reply, I should state that Chapter 2 of the book deals in some detail with the impact of progressive education (pages 18-36) and the ideology of the "left" (pages 36-46); both of which are described as undermining the more traditional liberal-humanist view.

As I detail in the book, both these movements attacked the so-called traditional academic curriculum associated with a liberal-humanist view of education and questioned beliefs such as objectivity and truth associated ...