I don’t actually agree with the Labor Party that funding for private schools should be slashed and put into public schools. It’s reasonable to think government schools need more money – very reasonable – but this should come from elsewhere in the coffers. The only immediate effect of taking funding away from independent schools would be to cause their fees to rise, and so drive away everyone except the rich. The only major effective change, then, would be to make some worse off without making anybody much better off, as there’d be no real improvement in school quality from the cash redistribution in the short term.
For a better way of redressing the ugly imbalance that is a two-tiered school system, why not affirmative action for government schools? Defenders of private schools and the taxpayer money that sustains them are always banging on about how parents who make the private ‘choice’ are not actually trying to buy a high ENTER score. They say it’s much more than that: better facilities, better students and staff, and, of course, ‘values’. Well, let’s test it. Let’s start adding, say, five, even ten percent to the ENTERs of students from government schools, as a way of addressing the obvious inequality, fixing the skewed entry to uni, without reducing the (supposed) quality of private school education.
It wouldn’t damage the goal of a meritocratic education system, either. The old analogy comes to mind about two sports players, one fully fit, the other recovering from illness, and both seem relatively even in ability at training. The coach, having to pick a single player for the upcoming season, chooses the one not fully fit – the one with potential to get better.
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you'd have to account for a great deal of diversity within both the private and state school sector. School ownership isn't a ready common denominator like race in US college admissions.
Not that I support AA in that context either. There's always a case for redistribution in the face of systemic inequality, but social engineering is another kettle of fish.
The coach, having to pick a single player for the upcoming season, chooses the one not fully fit – the one with potential to get better.
Looks like the world games (I'm talking about football, the real football) encourages the use of analogies to sport. But who is the fit player, and which player can develop?
I have to admit that I'm not too familiar with the specifics of the Australian education system, yet the split between public and private schools exists similarly in Germany. And I would consider that governmental reluctance to invest in its own future is just a side effect of the neoliberal understanding of globalisation.
Private schools offer usually lots of advantages. Besides the better budget their perception on the job market is usually better than those of public schools, most likely linked to the networks build around them.
While public schools nowadays have to do a lot of fund-raising for the nominally "fee-free" public system just to keep up operations, private schools are cash-driven and loaded. IMHO there is as much need to subsidise private schools as there was for Packers memorial service, namely zero.
The need is certainly bigger on the public side than on th private, thus the potential to get better rests with the public schools. Fixing governmental neglect by adjusting the scores seems like an odd idea to me. We can't give you proper education, mate, but here are some impressive scores got you...
But most importantly, private schools are not obliged to neutrality, and quite some of them come from a religious background. If parents think that their kids need a proper religious brainwash in school, that's fine with me. I just don't see any point in using tax payers money to promote potentially dangerous ideas like Intelligent Design and the like.
If a government deserves tax money (and hurra, thanks to GST and banking laws I contributed already a lot, without anything in return or even a thank you) it certainly shouldn't be used to further the divides within its society.
In a democracy, it should be possible to remind a government of
its obligation to its citizens. Education, health care, public infrastructure and services are positive contributions to society, and governments should be judged on that basis. Memorial services for filthy rich tax evaders, shopping military junk from a coercive partner, supporting illegal invasions and subsidising private education constitute an abuse of the power given by the majority of citizens.
Well, like communism democracy is just an idealistic idea, and like socialism was just an attempt to implement this ideology, the western world has a try with democracy. IMHO they fail badly, yet I don't complain. All people get the government they deserve
I think that's a great idea. It's way too left to ever get accepted mainstream though....
Education is one of my 'passion' issues and I could talk for hours about public vs. private. Fair an square though: you do not get the same level of education in a public school as a private school and this had nothing to do with merely having a swimming pool.
The disadvantage is clear and it's the reason why any parent who can scrip and save to afford it puts their kid in a private instead of a public school.
These days public schools are for simply the poor or those who don't care about education.
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