How is Australia's Education System?

I have observed that many schools have consultants called Aussie. They serve as both literacy and math coaches. I became very curious about this. I wondered why we have consultants from Australia working in so many New York City schools. Although I learned that they are not all from Australia, the agency was originated there. I want to focus specifically on their reading and writing approach.

As a result of working with several consultants from Australia, I was under the impression that their literacy instruction was stellar. Unfortunately, I just learned that their literacy instruction has been put under fire because they are not giving students the right amount of time to read in class. There is an article on

http://www.smh.com.au/national/schools-lag-in-study-allocation-says-report-20090908-fg38.html, it explains further how learning time is allocated in Australia. Thus, that leads me to some questions like, how is Australia’s approach to reading and writing different from the one of the United States? Do they have a whole language approach? Do they follow a balanced literacy program that includes the workshop model? How did Aussie initiate?

At this stage I have noticed there is not a lot of information through blogs. The bit of information that I have found has led me think that there are some things we have in common with Australia. They follow standards as we do and many blogs focus on integrating more technologies in the classroom. This blog provides more information on Australia’s English curriculum http://www.acara.edu.au/default.asp click on publications.

I haven’t been able to find a lot of information on their approach but I will need to keep looking in the blogs. I found a blog which I need to continue exploring http://australianedubloggers.pbworks.com/ it’s got links to many other blogs but I have to keep looking through all of them. I’m starting to feel like our systems are not so different after all. I guess Aussie is just another company trying to succeed.