In today’s newspaper the death of a child in Sydney is reported. She had gone to her school bus, and then remembered that she had forgotten her keys. She ran back across the street – and was hit while crossing the road by another school bus.

In North America this type of incident is not an accident – but a traffic violation.

All school buses are highly visible, being painted yellow. When they are taking on or letting off, warning lights flash at the front and rear and a STOP sign comes out into the path of traffic. All traffic is then required to STOP until the warning lights are off and the sign retracted.

Drivers are trained to hold the traffic until the bus is loaded and the door closed when picking up – or until the children have reached a safe spot off the road when dropping off.

North Americans would think it insane to allow vehicles to drive at 40k past buses loading or unloading schoolchildren – and we should also.

I urge you to stop the next death from happening – as it surely will under the present system – by passing legislation to make it illegal to pass a stopped school bus which has its warning lights flashing. This seems eminently do-able to me.

I’d also like the yellow school buses but have a feeling that I will be told it is too expensive – even though Canada and the USA can afford it.

While it probably falls under each state’s separate mandate, these are all Australian children. One more death – anywhere – is one which should not happen.

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IMPROVING TEACHER QUALITY

Reward performance

The Australian, 18 August 2009

Julia Gillard has shown decisiveness in education policy

Merit pay for teachers was an article of faith that successive education ministers were unable to put into place for almost 12 years of the Howard government.

It is a measure of Julia Gillard's ability to cut through obstacles that, less than two years in the job, she has won agreement in principle from the states to start paying teachers their worth.

The Deputy Prime Minister recognises nothing is more important to students' learning than the quality of their teachers.

Ms Gillard's plan will be informed by a report commissioned by the Howard government from Perth-based international services group Gerard Daniels. It calls for "differential remuneration for teachers who are assessed as high performers".

Details are yet to be decided, but the system will be more comprehensive and sophisticated than one based only on student results.