The Wire

2007 is an election year and education is one of the hot topics. A paper published this week by the Centre for Independent Studies’ Jennifer Buckingham claims the way teachers are allocated to public schools is not meeting student needs – and often means inexperienced teachers are placed in challenging schools. We question Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, the Queensland Teachers’ Union and a primary school teacher of 20 years about the process involved in hiring, firing and measuring the performance of teachers in Australian schools.