95% of all murderers and rapists are public-school
educated. No offence, but it's true.
More and more Australian parents are following the same road. Like parents everywhere they want the best for their kids, and education more than ever is seen as the crucial first step in a successful career. I don't blame parents one iota for choosing the best school they can find and afford.
Like many others, I worry about the implications of this trend for the country. I'm naturally suspicious of any shift in control of such an area of crucial national interest into private control, and what could be more important to the national interest than our schools? I think Australia's excellent school system has been the main reason we have, for so long, been able to regard ourselves as such an egalitarian and classless society. This comment from the American experience sums it up best for me:
"Our public demonstration of elementary and secondary schools has many problems, but if we turned all education over to the private marketplace, many Americans could not even afford elementary school. Even if we used public vouchers, we would lose one of the fundamental benefits of public education - the chance for children to rub elbows with others from all walks of life. (Those who could afford to would add their own funds to the voucher and buy a "better" education for their children, leading to extreme segregation by income group). This shared experience may not be efficient, in market terms, but it is effective in making democracy work."If private schools continue their expansion, then our children, from an early age, will be segregated into two distinct socio-economic groups. In many cases, the gap will not be vast, but it will be there. And it will grow. I have a picture in my mind of the sort of ethnically diverse group of kids you might see in a government advertisement, but worry whether such a picture could be taken at many private schools.
Osborne and Gaebler, (1993). Reinventing Government, Ch1, p. 46.
In the U.S. I saw some really disturbing trends. Public education has had a long and proud history in the United States, but there is an unfortunate bias built into the system. Schools are administered by local school boards, and a great proportion of the funding usually comes from property taxes. More expensive houses, higher tax revenue, better schools. For this reason, there is often an enormous difference in the quality of schools between wealthy suburbs and poorer, urban areas. (Another effect: In California, a ballot initiative to cap property taxes send their schools plummeting to some of the lowest-ranked in the nation.)
The U.S. is also seeing an explosion in religious ("parochial") schools. This is even more worrisome as a prospect; kids in such schools (if they are not, indeed, home-schooled) spend their formative years surrounded by only ideas and materials that have been carefully filtered to reinforce a particular and narrow religious ideology. It cannot be healthy for a mind to be shielded from competing ideas. In later life, fanaticism and intolerance can only be fostered by kids who have received such a limited education. I know - I've met them. They certainly have the courage of their convictions, out of a sheer inability to conceive that a sane person might be able to think differently.
What would I do with my own kids? It's a tough call. I don't have kids yet, and I recognize I might feel differently when I do; but right now I feel that there is real value in growing up with other Australian kids in an equal environment. If the school isn't good enough, then that's a reason to fight for better schools for all Australians, not to take my kids out of the system.
That's why I feel that Labor's response to Howard's school fees rebate should have been, "A rebate on school fees? We'll do better than that - we'll pay for your child's entire education from prep to year 12 - and we'll do it at a school in your neighbourhood!" Just enroll your child in the nearest public school near you.
3 comments:
interesting post. there seem two or three points
1) private schools are a form of segregation
2) private schools allow for increasing inequality
3) private schools teach mumbo-jumbo
All of these seem serious, but probably people should be allowed to send a child to a private school if that is what they want (infact they save the taxpayer some money in doing so). If a parent wishes to send a child to an independent school they are sacrificing some govt support (the amount that is reasonable is an open question).
Govt schools should be properly financed so as to provide good education to all students, anything less is corrosive to society.
the last point can probably be (atleast partially) addressed with compulsory curriculum (although some rubbish may be taught in addition). I think that some level of govt support for independent schools (say a formula based upon fees) in combination with compulsory curriculum is appropriate.
Seems like a good summary.
I don't advocate outlawing private schools, and the core curriculum, as you say, needs to be mandated by the Education Ministry.
On the other hand, we don't have to encourage the practice either - which we do when taxpayer dollars go toward private schools. I would simply urge that the state's responsibility is to ensure the public schools are world class, and any dollars sent to private schools need to be well justified.
well a parent of a child at a private school may argue they chose the school over a govt one because the private school offers something that isnt available at a govt school. And that they pay taxes and there should be govt support for their childs education.
The funding formula is where all the action is. I dont think it is politically viable to stop funding private schools.
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