There are a great many excellent individual teachers in the “private” school system. These teachers are far too valuable to be demoralized and antagonized by ineptness and poor planning in the abolition of the “private” school system. They must be no worse off – and preferably, a lot better off – in a new nationwide school system.

If this means spending hundreds of millions of dollars to keep former “private” system teachers directly affected by the reform happy then so be it; it would be a very cheap price to pay for retaining some of the best teachers in the world.

Planning an effective and just method of protecting the careers of these excellent teachers should take no longer than a week.

Once that is done – and means found to keep existing libraries, laboratories and physical training facilities intact for immediate re-use – then abolish ALL funding for the “private” school system. Good-bye and good riddance!

In Melbourne when I was in the music industry in the 80s, the elite private schools were churning out drug-addicted youngsters at a great rate. And I mean the elite schools. When you think about it, the kids had more money to get their hands on the wrong things.

Helen, I decided that the best thing to do was to ask the boy (well, no longer a boy) and I’m not surprised at his answer.

He said that heaps of kids at his school used drugs at parties and stuff, but only a couple were ever expelled. Some of the teachers would have known what was going on but they don’t always dob and they need very specific evidence if they do.

I knew that the school couldn’t eliminate smoking in the toilets, so I asked whether any kids used drugs at school. Only a few, he said.

So it seems that you only get expelled if you are stupid enough to get caught.

If anyone reading this thread has not read the recent one put up by tigtog they would do well to have a look. The number of people speaking well of their state school education was a little suprising and very heartening.

But Chris, I’m not sure who would get what information to which people that would make any difference. Here schools usually have an open day where they display their wares to prospective students and/or their parents. I was highly impressed with a couple I went to.

“There are ‘poor’ private schools and ‘rich’ state schools”.

Indeed there are.

Abolishing the “private” school system would free up sufficient resources to reduce the unnecessarily wide gaps without imposing sameness, blandness and torpor across all of education..

Differences between one school and another are not only inevitable but necessary too – but, for a change, let’s have differences based on worthwhile criteria [such as merit or perseverance] instead the present inefficient system of differences based on, say, money or tribalism or locality.

This is due to parental pressure, which is a tad hypocritical, because these same parents were not above a bit (or a lot) of recreational use themselves in their salad days, but there you have it.

In my experience, religious based schools excel at producing the most devout atheists.

True. I don’t consider myself an aetheist, more an Einsteinian pantheist if that makes any sense. But I was a devout little Altar Boy once. And then I boarded at St Josephs, found a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four in the library and saw the light!
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Hallelujah!

There is a lot of cultural generalisation vis a vis state and private schools. There are ‘poor’ private schools and ‘rich’ state schools.

Agree with you there and presumably thats one of the major points behind Gillard’s proposal.

I think the main difference between private and public schools was the private school students had much better quality drugs.

Don’t know about that. The kids I hung ’round in high school were private schoolies and much much wilder than the state high school kids I went to school with. There wasn’t a major discrepency in income between the two groups btw.
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There is a lot of cultural generalisation vis a vis state and private schools. There are ‘poor’ private schools and ‘rich’ state schools.

Are the parents duped by the PR? Little doubt about that one. They are being sold a pup.

Brian if this is true, then isn’t the way to solve this problem getting the appropriate information to parents so they can make an informed decision?

I find middle-class institutional religion inflicted with hypocrisy as a core feature. It becomes part of the hidden curriculum.

In my experience, religious based schools excel at producing the most devout atheists. Having science or maths classes followed by religious education demonstrates quite a strong contrast in thought processes required.

Usually everything you say is spot on Brian, but I’m certainly surprised at this one! In Melbourne when I was in the music industry in the 80s, the elite private schools were churning out drug-addicted youngsters at a great rate. And I mean the elite schools. When you think about it, the kids had more money to get their hands on the wrong things.

I think the main difference between private and public schools was the private school students had much better quality drugs. That being said, at least where I was, the two things that would be most likely to get you expelled were violence and drug use (even cigarettes and alcohol). In contrast, struggling academically usually ended up getting you extra or separate lessons (eg remedial english instead of latin).

Most of the students I know who were expelled ended up going to other private schools rather than into the public system.

Don’t like [car] the analogy? Bad luck.

If I wanted bad car analogies, I’d stick to slashdot (bit of a running joke over there). Just sayin’.

Aidan – I agree with the idea of ‘decile funding’, but as I have said in a previous post, the relative costs of educating a student from the bottom decile in a manner that will provide substantial improvement in outcomes relative to those students in the top decile is about ten times the cost. Students in the bottom decile can be up to seven years behind their peers at Year 7 (called the seven year gap in the UK). Addressing this as an issue is critical. If decile funding can deliver this sort of range of funding, then great.

Currently, and almost since the demise of the Whitlam government in the 70’s, we have given up on equitable educational outcomes, which is why we have one of the widest ranges of achievement in the world!

“If the private school system is so bad and is ruining the education of rich kids – whats your problem with it? Doesn’t that make it easier for students who attend the public schools to get into uni?”

That’s the core of the problem …. it doesn’t make it easier; it makes it harder for the talented – from any school – to get ahead.

Everyone:

Abolishing the “private” school system would not mean an end to religious instruction and observance in schools at all. In fact, abolishing the “private’ schools would strengthen the case for making such sessions compulsory – catechism and the rosary for the Catholics, Bible study and prayer for the Protestants, ethics for the atheists and agnostics, readings of al-Quran for Moslems, etc, etc.

The overwhelming need to abolish ALL public and indirect public funding [though well-concocted rorts and schemes] of the “private” school system can be understood by an analogy of the Australian “private” school system with the car industry of the ’50s and ’60s: Both produced products that were flash, luxurious, impressive as displays of conspicuous consumption, devoured extraordinary amounts of resources, readily fell apart when the going got rough, had serious inbuilt defects, needed to be replaced every few years but hung around on second-hand dealers’ lots for ages ready to to trap the next user …. and eventually …. were made obsolete by cheaper, more robust, more adaptable, better designed, longer lasting, more efficient imports with far fewer defects and far superior after-sales service.

Don’t like the analogy? Bad luck.

Andrew, I suspect the better education factor is false. Smarter kids, in terms of academic performance as measured by schools (doesn’t equate to better life skills, problem solving ability in real world situations etc) maybe. Yes, also better facilities and the opportunity to form networks with rich kids.

Discipline reason is also false, I suspect. If you want to produce elitist authoritarian types with doubtful ethics, maybe.

Are the parents duped by the PR? Little doubt about that one. They are being sold a pup.

I think there is a large measure of emotion in parents’ ‘reasoning’. Why else would parents who are generally sensible continue to pay humungous fees when their offspring was mercilessly bullied from the time he got there to the time he emerged five years later? They must have known what was going on.

I find middle-class institutional religion inflicted with hypocrisy as a core feature. It becomes part of the hidden curriculum.

Gotta go now. Seeya tonight.

Usually everything you say is spot on Brian, but I’m certainly surprised at this one! In Melbourne when I was in the music industry in the 80s, the elite private schools were churning out drug-addicted youngsters at a great rate. And I mean the elite schools. When you think about it, the kids had more money to get their hands on the wrong things.

It may be different in Brissy.

I’m not sure that this is a drift to public schools in Qld; both sectors are showing strong growth rates, with the ABS Schools 2007 report saying that a new pre-Year 1 grade is affecting the results. We’d need to pull all those students out of both sets of numbers to get figures comparable with earlier years.

Brian – A 2004 survey of government school parents found discipline was the number one reason (31%) for switching to private schools. Better education was second (25%).

The “private” school system has held Australia back for far too long. It has stifled too much talent and advanced too many dunderheads – just look at the appallingly low quality of Australia’s corporate and public decision-makers, the majority of whom came out of the “private” school system.

If the private school system is so bad and is ruining the education of rich kids – whats your problem with it? Doesn’t that make it easier for students who attend the public schools to get into uni?

And even though there are highly publicised waiting lists at the most exclusive private schools, a generous donation to the building fund will ensure entry, no matter how late your application, and indeed no matter how dull your child. The duller, the bigger the donation expected.

Apparently being the PM also gets you in pretty fast too

The “private” school system has held Australia back for far too long. It has stifled too much talent and advanced too many dunderheads – just look at the appallingly low quality of Australia’s corporate and public decision-makers, the majority of whom came out of the “private” school system.

We live in a highly competitive world – we cannot afford to keep propping up a failed system that continues to hinder our ability to keep our heads above water.

Let’s not stuff around. There is only one way to fund the “private” school system. DON’T!!! It is stupid to continue throwing good money after bad. Abolish the “private’ school system altogether.