Although the AEU has been dismissed as one of the dreaded teachers’ unions by Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, some others have actually been looking at the evidence in the evidence-free policy of the Kevin Rudd “education revolution” narrative. And that’s some clever people who’ve actually been reading an evidence based report.
Because the Rudd Government promised to leave the funding formula unreformed during the next funding quadrennium ending in 2012, McMorrow projects that whereas another four years will see annual grants to the private schools increase by 3 per cent in real terms, real grants to public schools will fall by 2 per cent.
All this will occur while Rudd is pressing schools to publish far more information about their performance and encouraging parents to “walk with their feet” if they don’t like what’s revealed.
The state education bureaucracies and their unions have their own reasons for continuing to resist federal pressure to publish performance indicators. But Rudd is giving them a valid argument that his competition is biased against them.
Information about schools informs government policy and parental choice. It’s just that the beneficiaries are usually those already well educated and with access to networks and money. It rarely improves all schools for all kids: it crams middle class kids together and leaves poorer kids, schools and communities further out on a limb — further worsening our equity gaps in schooling.
There are ways to solve some of these problems — and this is where we get to this larger unresolved profound issue: the corrupted and dysfunctional way we fund schools.
The report doesn’t say why the grants are decreasing for public schools and increasing for private ones though – is it just because the projections indicate that more students will be moving from public to private schools and so it makes sense that some of the funding will follow them?
Gittins has the answer to that, I think, Chris:
I think its important to recognise that not all private schools are Kings or Geelong Grammar. A large number of them are Catholic Schools who often have very few facilities.
Rudd freezing the funding formula is politically rather than policy based, but funding for private schools is not necessarily giving to the rich. Grouping all “private schools” together as one is reductionist, overly ideological and peculiarly unhelpful.
Collecting information about how schools perform against other like schools would seem to be a valid way of better targeting funding, ie to those schools who need help. If some parents move then so be it,but many can not, and the information collected needs to be used (as Rudd did say it would be) to better target school funding.
Jabberwock – let’s say every school, public or private, gets funded equally on a per-student basis. If a school decides to charge fees, should this money affect what the school gets from the government in your opinion? If so, in what direction?
Sorry, that moniker wasn’t even funny the first time.
Kim – yes I think Ross is right – a combination of the federal govt formula trying to compensate the unequal funding that the states give to public and private schools as well as the ongoing drift of students to private schools.
I’m not sure about the economies of scale argument – thats only true if governments refuse to consolidate schools when they get too small. If there really were huge economies of scale to be had then the public school system should be able to perform much better in comparison to the poorer private schools.
FDB – I think thats worth looking at – but not only school fees, but money and time donated to public schools by parents (which is quite considerable in richer areas).
C (ADO) – you mean funding shouldn’t go where it’s not needed?
COMMIE!!!
FDB – well when it comes to school funding people will always claim that a bit more will help if only a little (and they’re probably right). Everyone “needs” a bit more.
But yes, its why I’m generally supportive of differential value voucher systems (more money for the poor/disadvantaged/poorly educated) so money goes to those who need it rather than getting concerned about whether it ultimately goes to a public or private school.
FDB,
Public school students receive a lot more government money (Federal and State) per capita than private school students.
Poor private schools, like Catholic Schools, do exactly the same job as public schools (HSC / VCE etc) yet receive much less funding per student. They also charge minimal or optional fees. The funding gap is often not covered by fees.
The current formula may not work particularly well, and it may advantage rich schools, but to have a simple dichotomy of public v private is to reduce the debate to monkeys throwing poo.
Jabberwock – I was running a hypothetical.
When you say “federal and state” do you mean both are higher for government schools, or the combined total is higher? Because the feds give HEAPS more to private schools.
My advice to Catholic schools wanting more government funding is for them to stop being Catholic schools, and become government schools.
You wanna be a religious school? Knock yourself out, but I ain’t payin’.
What is it exactly that males a government school a government school?
(1) Is it because the government owns the real estate?
(2) Is it because the government is paying the teachers’ salaries and other costs?
(3) Is it because the school has to take all comers who live in its catchment area?
(4) Is it because the school is answerable to the relevant department of education?
(5) Is it because the school charges no tuition fees?
Victoria is about to have schools where the land and buildings are privately owned but (2) (3) (4) and (5) still are true. Selective government schools have existed for ages.
It’s quite possible to imagine schools that operate independently of head office, get to choose their students but the government pays the costs. It’s possible to imagine schools that take on all comers but charge tuition fees.
In future the distinction between public and private schools may be quite fuzzy.
I am soooo sick of the misinformation and lack of logic that surrounds this issue.
The fact is that in Australia:
1. There are no private schools. We have a school system where all schools receive money from the government. One group has highly selective entrance requirements, generally based on wealth of the parents, religous persuasion and academic ability of the student, often all three.
The second group of schools takes on all students irrespective of the factors above, and is open to all.
Strangely enough the second group of schools receives less money than the first from the Federal government. You know, they’re the ones with lots of money.
The second group, also strangely is subject to greater scrutiny and reporting requirements than the first.
2. No other country in the developed world operates such a system.
3. In no other area of governance in Australia does such a system exist.
Nobody has ever adequately explained to my why my taxes should support the above system.
Repeat after me: There are no private schools in Australia.
adrian – if receiving public subsidy means you no longer a private institution then I doubt we have any private institutions
Its not clear that there are two distinct groups anymore. The second “public school” group does not always take all comers – some are academically selective schools, some select based on music capability, others do it based on wealth by restricting students whose families can afford housing in the local area. And they all get varying levels of private funding.
Chris, no private institutions receive the level of funding that ‘private schools’ do.
Of course there are selective schools in some states, but many are semi-selective, meaning they also take all comers, and the fully selective schools always have a comprehensive school nearby.
I don’t particularly like the idea of selective schools, but they were introduced as a way to combat the drift to ‘private’ schools.
Just how much does each job in the car industry cost the government? (its in the 10s of thousands of dollars). Childcare is another area which is heavily subsidised, and even community based childcare groups would qualify as private).
Selection based on geographic area has been around in public schools for quite a while and its generally just a de-facto wealth filter.
I don’t particularly like the idea of selective schools, but they were introduced as a way to combat the drift to ‘private’ schools
In fact selective public schools in NSW at least, were introduced over 80 years ago, and were abandoned as an active tool, in the 1970′s before they were ‘revived’ as a means of encouraging the ambitious middle class to remain in the public system, by subsequent Liberal and ALP governments in the 1980s and 1990s.
Australia’s school funding system is an international oddity, and if the current funding system is justified, could I put up my hand for a public grant from federal and state governments to permit me greater choice in the vehicle I choose to buy and run on publicly funded roads? Oh, and I believe I have a right to choose to have a better class of tree planted outside my house, than the rather scrappy and plebian native supplied by Council. Could I also have a grant from my local council and the state government to permit me to exercise my right to choose to have different and bettter trees (from my point of view) outside my house? Thanking you in advance, Yours faithfully, etc etc
The system is tragically half-arsed. Choice for some, little for others. Absurd lines about “real choice” and, despite decades of real per-student funding increases and endless government failure, exhortations to prop up the system to make “a really truly wonderfully world-class PUBLIC system so that people don’t need to send their kids to divisive nasty places not run by bureaucrats and stuff”. Federal funding formulas overlaid on state funding formulas and childish debates that focus on one or the other (but never both). Meanwhile, the key policies that will allow citizens of low to average means make decisions of substance about their children’s education are decried as “neoliberal” in the pejorative sense, as if the opponents of “neoliberal” reforms are above ideology when in fact they are wedded to ideology ’til death do they part. Chris is bang on the money here. Disadvantage ought to be tackled at the student level. Anything higher-level than that is not good enough.
BBB
BBB – so now there’s no such thing as a school either? Just individuals and famil… wait, not even families?
It’s not some universe-encompassing concept, FDB. I was merely referring to the differential voucher proposal. Funding ought to follow the student and take into account his/her parents circumstances. We can’t allow a lack of money get in the way of each and every family having the opportunity, if they want to take it, of making a genuine choice about where/how their children are educated. The poorly-targeted proxy of SES and catchment areas, etc. isn’t acceptable and needs to be replaced with something far more granular. As a society we’ve put that well and truly in the too-hard basket. We wouldn’t accept that level of abstraction in progressive income taxation. We wouldn’t accept it for welfare payments. Why do we accept it in publicly-funded education?
BBB
I was just ‘avin’ a larf, guv.
Provided a system such as you propose also took in such factors as geography (and obviously special-needs kiddies/schools), then I think it would be better than what we have.
Ah sorry FDB. I always miss that.
The problem with my “side” of this debate is that it usually comes along with a call to step down public funding. It’s the libertarians doing the heavy lifting on this. I’d like to see the opposite. I’d like to see both the differential per-student funding model implemented (which would probably herald a long-term transition to a fully private system) and a large increase in absolute public funding, weighted far more heavily on the poor/disadvantaged than is now the case. It’s the combination of market-based reform and more public cash that will put a real dent in inequality of opportunity. The law of diminishing returns means we can be reasonably comfortable about the inevitable inequality at the very high end.
BBB
That is a much more nuanced position than I’d given you credit for BBB, and sounds just dandy to me.
Commie.
One of the key questions being missed in this debate is the question of what do parents want for their kids? I hold high aspirations for my children and want to give them every opportunity I think is appropriate. My aspirations don’t match with a lot of parents, so should I have to acccept a lesser outcome for my children or should I have the choice? If not, why not?
Should parents be allowed to have full access to a broad range of information to allow them to choose where and how their children are educated?
I know in WA we have strict boundaries for the government system, which means as a parent if you want your kids to go to a better perfoming school in a different district then you have to move there. Is that a reasonable system? Should the boundaries be removed?
At the moment the government education system does not give parents the choices that they want and that is why people are leaving.
I believe in seeking academic excellence, cultural excellence, sporting excellence, personal discipline and social responsibility. The government system offers academic mediocrity, cultural relativity, stuff all sport, discipline is marginal and social engineering. Why would I send my children to a government school?
“Why would I send my children to a government school?”
You can choose to have your children where you see fit. Nobody is going to judge you for these decisions. It’s unlikely anybody cares. But this has nothing to do with how the government decides to allocate money to particular schools.
Spiros – my individual personal choice may not matter but the choices of many parents matter. The lack of confidence in the Government system and the loss of students to the private system is a reflection of the poor state of the system. I have been harangued by ALP members that I should neither have Private Health Insurance nor send my children to private schools because all that will left in those systems will be the underpriveledged who are unable to effectively lobby for a better deal. My response is – nice argument, but I ain’ sacrificing my family on the alter of utopian dreams and the Teachers unions (most ALP politicians don’t so why should I?)
Having gone to an excellent government school, and currently living a cover-drive from another, I think I must have a pretty rosy view of govt schools.
Razor, obviously every parent should be free to procure the best education they can for their children. The line that supporters of quality public education should necessarily send their children to public schools has always been rubbish. So while we have a dysfunctional public system by all means pay for the alternative. But don’t use that as an excuse to do nothing about the dysfunction that kicks the children of those who cannot afford to buy their way out like you have. Better to accept the on-the-ground facts and then actually do something about them that doesn’t involve throwing band-aid cash at problems that arise from the philosophical foundations of our present public school system, which are also rubbish.
BBB
And since when did the word ‘revolution’ mean so little? More computers. Well if that isn’t the very definition of evolution I don’t know what is. Maybe if computers in schools weren’t a reality circa 1988 you’d be OK calling it a revolution. Does this misuse merely reflect the depth of consensus on public education? Let’s hope not.
BBB
I encourage readers to look at what’s happening in Victoria as a further example of the encroachment of the private sector on public education. Not only is the overall funding equation flawed, but schools in Victoria stand to be privately built and operated, and now ‘partnered’ with businesses, supposedly without influence on their curriculum, or the leveraging of this support by private interests to influence government in other areas.
At the same time, many Victorian schools, starved of funds but striving to provide quality education, are being turned into petty fundraising operations. The business of our schools is not business at all – it’s the education of our children. Come clean on public education, Messrs Rudd, Brumby et al – where’s your report card?
Been avoiding the
inevitable shitfight viz vouchersdebate here but I’ll have to pay attention tomorrow. But I’d like to ask a question:.
How ’bout this. The government doesn’t grant anybody anything. Every kid is awarded a voucher equivalent to the expense of said kid’s education. Schools are independent and can organize themselves as they please bearing in mind that there are central standards for competency. This allows for different kinds of schools for different kinds of kids. Posh schools get no preferential treatment or special favours from the public sector. Kids with bona fide learning disabilities or disadvantages get extra assistance.
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What’s wrong with this picture? Just asking.
Razor, and others, I couldn’t care less if you are sufficiently ignorant to want to send your offspring to a ‘private’ school.
Just don’t expect me to subsidise your choice.
adrian, surely given the current funding arrangements it is the other way around? The public gives less to Razor to educate his child than it would if he left them in a public school. At least that’s my understanding.
BBB
Adrien: “Nobody has ever adequately explained to my why my taxes should support the above system.”
That’s easy. It’s because the system has historically worked well (and still does for literacy), despite all the rhetoric from the government and other such groups telling you how bad it is. It’s only in recent times that mathematics scores have declined, but that’s a world-wide phenomena excluding East Asian countries and the Netherlands, so it’s not clear that the type of school system we happen to have is responsible.
The poor state of the system is a reflection of the lack of funding to the public system. The solution is simple. More funds to the public system, and students will flock back to it.
I was very disappointed in the Labor Government for making this promise. Why did they do this? Judging by their recent actions, I believe it is possible that it is because they are reasonably happy with the current balance in the education system. However, I hope that they are just being ultra-conservative.
Whatever the reason, there is an obvious unfairness and imbalance in the system of funding schools which needs to be addressed as soon as possible – not in 4-5 years time.
It’s odd that so many people think that publishing performance information would “encourage public schools to lift their game.”
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If (and it’s a big ‘if’) it were possible to compare the value-added for different schools why should we assume that private schools would come out ahead?
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Many private schools might look better if all you see is the raw data. But much of the gap is probably the result of differences in student and parent variables rather than the quality of the teaching.
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It’s possible that some private schools could get a rude shock. And what will parent think if they realise they’ve been paying extra for something that’s no better than the local public school?
BBB@28: “The line that supporters of quality public education should necessarily send their children to public schools has always been rubbish.”
How can one say with a straight face “I support public education but I won’t send my child to a public school”? That’s just rank hypocrisy.
I’m firmly of the the belief that one sends one’s kinds to the local state school. I went to the local SS, then the SHS. I can’t say for sure if I got a good education, let alone ‘the best possible’, but I passed my exams and went to Uni so that’s a ‘win’ I suppose. (I went to Uni where I rapidly began failing my exams. Ah, perhaps if I’d gone to Bond instead of that nasty state run University of Qld… ;^)
Are my kids getting a good education at the local SS? How am I supposed to tell? They can read, write and do ‘rithmetic. They know the names of the mascots of the recent olympics, the major parts of an insect’s body and that the electric chair has only ever been used in the USA and the Philippines. We get a report every couple of years with box and whisker diagrams on it and they are (generally) to the right of the box, which reassures wifey. Based on brief interactions at semi-regular events, their teachers have ranged from observant, insightful and attentive thru to ‘mostly harmless’.
I really can’t see how any of that would change if they went to a private school, nor how I can develop a proper system for evaluating one school against another. The base fact that ’42% of the students at school X are in the upper quartile of moderated state results for language and literacy’ isn’t of any interest to my decision making without some sort of explanation of *why*.
Besides, if they went to a private school, I’d probably have to start paying attention to Rugby Union. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere, comrade.
d
Don @ 37 – indeed more information will probably show that there are private schools not doing a good job. But hey thats a good thing isn’t it?
Darryl @ 38 said:
Well I support public transport but I very very rarely use it (especially in Canberra!) – when I can’t cycle somewhere then it generally means I want to drive. I think its quite reasonable to support the existence of a system and yet find its not personally appropriate to use.
I support the existence of good public schools – the default choice that many parents make of sending their child to the nearest school should result in a good education. But I also don’t want to penalise parents who genuinely believe that there is a more appropriate school for their child than the geographically closest one.
There’s public schools I know of that I’d be quite happy to send my children to, and others I’d pay good money to avoid. Of course I’d prefer not to pay school fees, but if it comes down to a choice between a public school I’m not happy with and paying fees to a private school that I am happy with, then if it all possible I’ll choose the latter.
“How can one say with a straight face “I support public education but I won’t send my child to a public school”? That’s just rank hypocrisy.”
Really? It tends to be used for risible ‘gotcha’ moments involving lefty parents. If I say: “I want more of my taxes applied to public schooling, but until that happens I don’t think a public school is good enough for my child”, I might be misinformed, elitist or just plain wrong. But I’m not a hypocrite. Hypocrisy would be saying: “I support public education but I don’t want my money to be spent on it”.
“Are my kids getting a good education at the local SS? How am I supposed to tell? They can read, write and do ‘rithmetic.”
How well do they read? How well do they write? It’s not that hard to get a grasp on their abilities. Just remember that you were an idiot when you were their age, as were we all.
“The base fact that ‘42% of the students at school X are in the upper quartile of moderated state results for language and literacy’ isn’t of any interest to my decision making without some sort of explanation of *why*.”
Well that is fairly useless information. But I would suggest that you are wrong if you think that usefully measuring the *why* is beyond the scientific method. It’s just complex and hard and politically difficult to arrange.
Kim’s quote: “Information about schools informs government policy and parental choice. It’s just that the beneficiaries are usually those already well educated and with access to networks and money. It rarely improves all schools for all kids: it crams middle class kids together and leaves poorer kids, schools and communities further out on a limb — further worsening our equity gaps in schooling.”
Well then it’s the wrong information. Sounds like he’s referring to raw league tables. Why such rankings are in the frame I don’t know. They just don’t get us anywhere useful. Upper middle-class kids read and write better than poor kids. What a revelation! Jesus wept.
BBB
No idea what you’re on about there, BBB. Clearly the point is that when those parents who have the ability to send their kids to other better resourced schools, they will, which leads to a vicious circle for those which aren’t so advantaged.
Yes I know that. I am objecting to the monolithic reference to ‘information about schools’. There’s information that highlights disadvantage and allows us to target it, and there’s information that just reinforces stereotypes. The pointless raw league tables are an example of the latter. We are in furious agreement on this, unless you think that collecting ‘information about schools’ is itself a dangerous thing that should be avoided, which I don’t think you do.
BBB
No, I don’t. But I think it’s entirely unclear what’s going on with the Rudd “plan”. Either you don’t like what you read in the “information” and he encourages you to “walk” or the information is used to remedy inequity. It can’t be both.
This stuff from Krudd sounds more like soundbite bullshit the more you think about it.
Well there’s the Rudd plan and there’s the Gillard plan. It depends who you talk to. Rudd doesn’t give a fuck what Teh Left thinks, but Gillard seems to be reluctant to say out loud what she’s presumably agreed to in cabinet. Doesn’t want to anger all those poor ‘they won’t be like this in government’ types, you see.
BBB
Hmmm, I think it goes deeper than that, BBB. It’s just not properly thought out.
Different Chris @ 39: “Well I support public transport but I very very rarely use it (especially in Canberra!) – when I can’t cycle somewhere then it generally means I want to drive. I think its quite reasonable to support the existence of a system and yet find its not personally appropriate to use.”
Oh don’t be silly. You can’t say “Oops slept in this morning. Better send the kids to the private school today.”
The analogy with transport doesn’t work because school is a six-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week commitment over a period of years, not a casual ‘drop-in’ like public transport. It’s really one or the other with education, but one’s daily commute is much more flexible. Also, state schools are usually more abundant and closer to the family home than private schools, which is the inverse of the private-public transport situation.
d
bbb@40 ‘If I say: “I want more of my taxes applied to public schooling, but until that happens I don’t think a public school is good enough for my child”, I might be misinformed, elitist or just plain wrong. But I’m not a hypocrite. Hypocrisy would be saying: “I support public education but I don’t want my money to be spent on it”’
Hmmm. If the public system isn’t good enough for your child, whose child is it good enough for? I believe if it’s not good enough for my kids, then it’s not good enough for anyone’s kids. Where’s my error?
“How well do they read? How well do they write? It’s not that hard to get a grasp on their abilities.
I think my kids are doing OK but this conversation isn’t about whether kids are doing OK. It’s about parents ‘procuring the best education they can for their kids’ (as you put it @28). We seem to be less interested in ‘how well do my kids read’ and more interested in ‘how well do my kids read compared to other people’s kids and would that result be improved at a different institution‘. I can’t see how it would be possible for me to amass the necessary information to determine an answer to that.
And we’re in agreement about my ’42%” quip. I just expect that sort of statistic is exactly what we’re going to get, presented as an ‘information revolution, facilitating unprecedented levels of informed choice by parents’.
d
PS Is anyone else getting really sick of ‘The post you are trying to comment on does not currently exist in the database.’ errors. Or is it just me?
Darryl @ 46 – Well one example – I think school A would be good for child #1, but school B would be better for child #2. Or I like what the public local primary school is doing, but not what the public local high school is doing. There seems to be an assumption that every public school can be everything to every child – I really don’t see how this is possible.
Different children thrive better in different learning environments. Why shouldn’t we be making it easy for parents to send their children to the school which best suits their child’s needs?
Precisely. The proposition that “this adult’s intelligence and knowledge would be improved had they spent five/six/ten years at a different institution” is a massive exerise in counter-factuality, and the assumption that private schools would be improving is quite loaded.
This isn’t the first research to show that people from public schools do better at University than those from private schools. (Sorry, Darryl
There are of course many ways of interpreting this, but the obvious one is that public schools are better at getting students with aptitude to learn, while private schools are better at getting students with less aptitude to pass exams. (Some people regard this as proof that private schools work.)
But of course private schools know that it is hard to show how the inside of a persons mind is developed. They will certainly make claims about the quality of their education, as all schools do. But it is the things that they can show clearly – the well-clipped lawns, the rowing sheds, the religious instruction, the army cadets – that make the sale.
“Either you don’t like what you read in the “information” and he encourages you to “walk” or the information is used to remedy inequity.
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Kim’s right, this doesn’t look like a seriously thought out plan to help the kids who are most educationally disadvantaged.
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The parents who are most likely to shop around and best able to afford top-up fees aren’t likely to be the ones whose kids most need help. And I’m not sure how encouraging an exodus from underperforming schools is going to help the kids who are left.
“This isn’t the first research to show that people from public schools do better at University than those from private schools.”
This statement needs qualification. It should read “people from public schools do better at University than those from private schools who achieved the same ENTER scores.”
It’s also true that students from private schools have on average higher ENTER scores and that ENTER scores are fairly well correlated with first year performance, but this varies by discipline, with the closest correlation in subject areas that most closely those that are taught in schools, like science.
It also shows that selective public schools do even worse than private/independent schools, exactly reversing the order that the schools get students into university in the first place. Which is why people regard this as private schools working – I think the research is more likely showing that private and selective public schools are better at utilising the natural talent of the students and so get better results (some would call this more effective teaching, others would call it an unfair advantage). At university when they’re all on an even footing, if you compare people who get equal scores, those who went to public schools will do better than those who went to private or selective public schools as their natural talent levels are higher.
But does it help to trap students at underperforming schools through ignorance or by placing financial barriers, who would otherwise move? By all means try to improve the performance of all schools (but you need metrics to see if you are making a difference anyway), but there’s no need to make people stay while you’re trying to fix it. If it gets better, they’ll return over time.
‘It also shows that selective public schools do even worse than private/independent schools, exactly reversing the order that the schools get students into university in the first place.’
Don’t know how you figure that one out.
Whatever you may think about the research is irrelevent in light of your obvious bias.
Either question the research methodology, or cite other research, but I for one am uninterested in your opinion on it.
Your image of students ‘trapped’ at underperforming schools is an emotive one, but once again do you have any evidence that there are a large number of ‘underperforming’ schools, and that if there are, students are trapped in them?
No I didn’t think so.
Gary Sauer-Thompson:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/09/educational-ine.php
Note – for those who want to make claims about state expenditure compensating for federal bias towards private schools (and Gittins’ point about the funding formula should give you pause for thought) – those figures are for expenditure by both levels of government.
And the problem with the “dissatisfied parents can withdraw their students” argument should be obvious. Contra BBB, if I’m reading him correctly, schooling is not all about individual results – there’s a lot of evidence that individual results are in large part a factor of the total learning environment – not some one on one relationship with a “good teacher” (and incidentally those who are on the “education reform” bandwagon in the MSM usually want to argue against smaller class sizes). Darryl already made the point about the stickiness of decisions to enrol a child in a particular school and the constraints on choice.
And then there’s the less quantifiable outcomes in terms of development from mixing with a bunch of different students.
adrian @ 53 – read the paper they comment on the order reversal themselves, its not my interpretation at all:
regarding evidence on underperforming schools – well no I don’t have any, but hey hasn’t this debate been about publishing more information so we actually can find out? If there aren’t any underperforming schools then there should be no concern about people leaving schools when the information is released.
“Consequently, the right policy would be to spend money to raise public schools that increasingly draw students from disadvantaged households and neighbourhoods to the level expected by the middle class.”
Exactly. The twaddle about ‘information’ and ‘choice’ is an elaborate and highly ideological smokescreen which is designed to obscure the obvious point. Money should be spent in the bucketloads on schools in disadvantaged areas, (and no, computers and laptops do not an education revolution make),including employing talented (not burnt out and exhausted) teachers, and engaging in a wide ranging remedial effort to deal with the simple, known and obvious fact-kids from middle class households where books are a part of family life, where they are taught to read by their parents either before they get to school, or where being taught at school is supplemented by interested and devoted attention at home, will always always, always do better in those early years at school, than those children who do not enjoy those advantages.
While the gap can be partly made up with a lot of effort later in life, the facts are pretty straightforward and well known-it is the earliest years of development that account for around 85% of the total development package of an adult’s intellectual and mental development.
Neglect children’s early mental development, and the money required to ‘catch up’ later is huge, where it is even available.
The first five years of life are not just critical here, they are practically life defining, and public money ought to be spent on doing something for children from families who lack either the capacity (financial and/or intellectual) or the knowledge and cultural maps, to ‘invest’ (lovely word) in the vital early years of their chidren’s mental and intellectual development.
Those parents that have the capcity (however defined) don’t need assistance, and are quite free to choose school cadets and religious training over drama and debating as a means of individuation for their little darlings. But I resent paying for this twaddle, while we know with absolute certainty that disadvantaged kids, meaning kids from poor and semi literate backgrounds, are recieving much less education investment than they need.
Oh, and btw, I went to one of the most expensive private schools in the country-and my parents paid for it. It was a great school, and I had a great time, but in terms of what it ‘added’ to what was an already pretty rich and encouraging educational environment, I am at a loss to know, except that I recognise quite a few family names of people who are quite prominent in various fields.
I think you are skipping lightly over a major point in that “getting better results” in the form of an ENTER score appears not to be the same as getting an education that will help them in later life (like at University).
If people want to send their kids to private schools because that will help inflate their ENTER score, then they should say so. But let’s not pretend that this is the same thing as getting “the best possible education”.
There was a study a few years ago that showed that educational outcomes of children were strongly linked to the educational level (not IQ interestingly) of the mother – perhaps linked with the fact the mother would normally be the primary carer and have the most influence over early development of the children.
Agree that it would be good to try to help with education about early development of children – harder to define exactly what would help.
“Agree that it would be good to try to help with education about early development of children – harder to define exactly what would help”
Yes, we do know what works. For a start, nourishing breakfasts to stop hunger pangs and raise blood sugars in a healthy and sustained way, devoted attention from talented teachers who have the time to actually get to know a child, physical checks to ensure kids’ eyes and ears are working properly, and lots and lots of time spent listening to stories, and learning to decode marks on blackboards, whiteboards, and on paper (reading) and learning to sing, clap and tap out a tune in time to music. It costs money, but it’s what works.
But of course, we can’t possibly spend money on kids imitating what middle class parents can do for free for their children. I mean, where would be the incentive to encourage ‘private provision’ over a system designed to actively intervene into disadvantage. I mean, we are all for equal opportunity, it’s just equal outcomes we disagree with, right?
amused – by early development of children I meant pre-school – eg 0-4 years. Unless you mean that the government should be delivering meals to babies and toddlers. Education starts from the day the baby pops out of their mother. The parents are their first and most important teachers.
As you mentioned its the first 5 years which are the most important.
“I mean, we are all for equal opportunity, it’s just equal outcomes we disagree with, right?”
Spot on, amused. You are doing a very good job at cutting through the bullshit that inevitiably surrounds any discussion of education in this country.
It’s the same old same old – the focus on individual student outcomes, and measuring them in terms of getting into uni etc. provides the incentive to conceive of education not as a system and not as something to do with human development but as a sausage machine designed to produce superior and competitive outcomes for one kid.
“incentive to conceive of education not as a system and not as something to do with human development”
It is certainly true that there is much more to education than an ENTER score. Which is why private schools market themselves as developing “the whole child”, with emphases on unmeasurable activities in music [creativity], sport [team work, mens sano in corpore sano], spirituality, community service etc.
Of course, it’s not just school systems that are fault in gravitating towards the measurable in making comparisons. When universities decide which students get the prizes, they decide on the basis of who got the highest marks, not who is the smartest or the most original thinker.
‘Twas not always thus. When Gough Whitlam was at school at Canberra Grammar, he was miffed at not getting the prize for first in theology even though he came first in the exam. The prize went to Francis James (later to be imprisoned by the Chinese on spying charges).
When Gough asked the headmaster why James had got the theology prize, the headmaster replied
“Because he believes it and you don’t”.
“Contra BBB, if I’m reading him correctly, schooling is not all about individual results – there’s a lot of evidence that individual results are in large part a factor of the total learning environment – not some one on one relationship with a “good teacher” (and incidentally those who are on the “education reform” bandwagon in the MSM usually want to argue against smaller class sizes)…Darryl already made the point about the stickiness of decisions to enrol a child in a particular school and the constraints on choice.”
None of which I would disagree with and all of which is consistent with advocacy of the commodification of schooling. Education is complex. It consists of class-level teaching behaviours and whole-of-school structures and activities. No one will ever tell you different (although I think you are underestimating the output differences between good and bad teachers). That just makes the initial choice so much more important.
BBB
BBB, I’m arguing that we should try to minimise the necessity for “choice” by minimising the inequity between different schools in the first place. I’m assuming you’re not suggesting that unequal outcomes are a good thing philosophically?
Yes and it is a formula for mediocrity, stagnation and parental disengagement. That’s the same old same old stuff about ‘we need a world-class public system and then parents won’t have to think for themselves’, and creating inequity through catchment systems and house prices. It’s a failed model.
BBB
So you’re in favour of unequal outcomes then? I can’t understand the logic of your comment any other way.
I’m not arguing in favour of catchment systems, btw. We don’t have them in Qld. Nor am I arguing against choice – in that some schools might rightly highlight some aspects of education – ie music. But I’m arguing against a system which is designed to create winners and losers, and this “choice” thing seems to me to be all about that.
Well BBB why don’t you just come out and say that you’re in favour in inequity, if it promotes the notion of choice. I know the sanctity of choice is one of the mantras of our age, but don’t even you think that this is taking it a bit far.
Incidentally, having taught (in a previous career) at both public and ‘private’ schools, and sent two of my children for some of their schooling to one of the more elite ‘private’ schools (against my better judgement), it’s clear to me that this notion of choice is yet another myth surrounding what passes for an education debate.
Once the parents see the acres and acres of immaculate playing fields, the gym and olympic sized swimming pool, the drama theatre, tennis courts and pristine gardens, not to mention the up market vehicles parked in the visitors car park, there’s really no choice at all.
Aaargh! make that ‘in favour of inequity’.
Mark, we already have unequal outcomes. The teacher’s unions are apparently happy for that to be the result of restrictions on school choice outside catchments and buy-in costs of housing. That’s the basis of the present child-mix. Funny how the producers of the commodity are all in favour of geographically limiting the market. Where have I heard that before? I am not in favour of unequal outcomes in the sense that I want them. But unequal outcomes are not evil if they reflect genuine differences in ability (as opposed to differences created by inequality of opportunity). We’ve been through this in another place and I doubt you want to repeat it all. I certainly don’t.
BBB
Where is adrian to correctly place my apostrophes?
BBB
Get it right BBB. In NSW at least, there are no restrictions on school choice outside catchments and haven’t been for some time. Heaven knows how the extreme, radical and left wing NSWTF let that one through.
And ever thought of the real reason why we have ‘unequal outcomes’?
Let me know when you’ve thought of a creative answer.
adrian, I didn’t believe you so I checked. I’m glad I did. Here is the NSW Education Department on that subject: “Each New South Wales public school has a defined local enrolment area. This means that your child is designated to a particular school based on the permanent residential address of their primary caregiver. It is not based on the school that your child may currently be attending. Every public school reserves enough places within their school for students in their local enrolment area…When it comes to considering out-of-area applications, our public school principals are required to follow departmental policy. This is because we must ensure that all eligible in-area students wishing to attend their local school are able to do so.”
I don’t even live in NSW and I’ve got it more right that you have. The implications of this policy ought to be obvious to anyone with a brain: the schools in nice middle-class areas are full to the brim with kids born of nice middle-class parents who can afford to live nearby, with little to no room for out-of-catchment kids. Try again, adrian. Actually, don’t.
BBB
Well, you left out a fairly crucial section of the text:
“Applications for non-local (out-of-area) enrolments are considered using a range of criteria, including the availability of appropriate staff and classroom accommodation.”
In other words, parents can choose to enrol their children in out of area schools, the only prohibition appears to be available resources. How this is caused by the dreaded teacher unions, as you state, is unclear. No prizes for guessing what it is caused by, even for you.
As to middle class schools in middle class areas, you are wrong again. Most public schools in these areas have space for out of area places because so many parents are attracted by the choice of ‘private’ schools in the same area. Try ringing Hunters Hill High or Marsden High, both located in solidly middle class areas of Sydney.
Perhaps more creative writing is in order.
On the other hand we have this.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/private-schools-wary-of-cuts/2008/09/01/1220121136755.html
The omitted text doesn’t alter the point at all. It’s a secondary issue when the primary problem is that room is only made once better off kids are enrolled. The existence of some space for out-of-catchment kids is great. But it remains at the margins, hence my phrase “little to no room” (do read more carefully). In Melbourne, you get $50k+ price differentials for houses within certain catchments. People buy their child into a good school filled with what they perceive to be good kids. It’s just that they don’t pay the Education Department.
“In other words, parents can choose to enrol their children in out of area schools, the only prohibition appears to be available resources. How this is caused by the dreaded teacher unions, as you state, is unclear. No prizes for guessing what it is caused by, even for you.” Oh I see, you want more resources to go to the high-demand schools in middle-class areas so that out-of-area kids can go to them. Welcome to the market-based education system! Say it ain’t so, adrian!
BBB
No, BBB, I want more resources for ALL public schools, and if you read what I said, these aren’t necessarily ‘high demand’ schools for the reasons I’ve stated.
And it’s not ‘better off kids”, it’s kids who live in the local area. Are you suggesting that the parents in these areas given the ‘choice’ of enrolling thier kids in a school 30k away maybe? What is it you are suggesting? You seem rather confused.
I’d suggest you listen to your wife who apparently is a teacher and a fed rep. You may learn something and overcome your confusion.
“these aren’t necessarily ‘high demand’ schools for the reasons I’ve stated.” And this is why prices for houses within certain catchments are higher once controlling for other factors. That isn’t even controversial. That’s just mainstream common sense.
“And it’s not ‘better off kids”, it’s kids who live in the local area.” Oh cripes. We are talking about schools in certain areas. At least I was. You seem to be free-associating with whatever pops into your head. Which appears to be precious little.
BBB
Keep diggin’ BBB, and don’t forget to have a word with your wife. Better still, listen to her.
Chris@48 – I’m not against parents being able to choose schools. I moved my kids two years ago, mostly for convenience but also ’cause my daughter was getting bullied and she wanted out. If I knew there was a school with an emphasis on Music I’d be interested in sending her there.
d
Thanks, I will speak with her. I’m afraid that I can’t give you the same advice because it seems that you’ve already spent far too much time listening to and accepting the opinions of your wife than you have thinking things through for yourself. The dangers of trusting your misguided intellectual betters laid bare. But that’s just my impression from very limited and narrow contact. And it doesn’t matter what I think.
Finally, I should say it’s been lovely having this chat, and I’m astonished that you’ve managed to string three or four comments together that aren’t “well said” or “good work” or the variants thereof which you deliver with such panache. Over and over and over again. Well done.
BBB
Not bad snarking fellas. Nothing too spectacular, mostly 8s and 8.5s from the judges, but given degree of difficulty in this rather dry subject area, either of you could be there in the semis.
Actually you know what? I take all that wife stuff back, with apologies. I can’t believe I was drawn into it. adrian, a tip: even if you really really want to bring someone’s partner into the conversation to score points, don’t.
BBB
Which bout were you watching FDB? I’m giving it TKO to BBB.
Thanks, FDB. I take that as a compliment coming from an expert in the field.
And a final tip to you BBB. If you don’t want your wife introduced into the conversation, don’t introduce her into the conversation yourself.
“Which bout were you watching FDB? I’m giving it TKO to BBB.”
Not with his second-guessing. Words like these:
“But that’s just my impression from very limited and narrow contact. And it doesn’t matter what I think.”
have no place in the ring.
Well now that I’ve mixed my metaphors, I spose I gots to drink ‘em.
Adrian, he didn’t. That was you.
He’s talking about how I mentioned her a week ago in another thread. I mentioned her when he said something like “go ask any teacher if you don’t believe me”. I responded that I didn’t need to because I talk to my wife, a teacher, about this stuff all the time. Not sure how that brief mention relates to what we’re discussing here, or to his pathetic exhortations to “listen” to my wife, as if I don’t already. But there you. You can give people the opportunity to do the right thing but you can’t make them drink. A better mixed metaphor than FDB’s I think you’ll agree.
BBB
Darryl @ 81 – specialist public music schools are around, although the ones I know of only take out-of-area students if they are *really* good – being in the state primary school orchestra doesn’t necessarily qualify you as good enough. Otherwise you buy a house in the catchment area. And as BBB noted this leads to a house on one side of road selling for thousands of dollars more than a house on the other side as parents will buy a place in the school buy purchasing real estate.
Mark @ 54 – if it is true that on average private schools are getting more overall government funding than state schools then I think it is a concern. Based on need you’d generally expect the reverse to be true. It wasn’t clear if he included capital grants in his calculations though.
BBB@79 – “prices for houses within certain catchments are higher once controlling for other factors. That isn’t even controversial.”
@77 – “In Melbourne, you get $50k+ price differentials for houses within certain catchments.”
Have you a source for this? It doesn’t ring true to me.
Also, I’d really be interested in your response to my question @47. I’m really not interested in ‘gotchas’. The decisions you’ve made about where send your kids is your business, I don;t know where you send them and you’ve not asked my opinion. I’m just interested in your thoughts about this.
d
It really is just you
Darryl there is some research here on house prices and school catchment areas. Its on the ACT not Melbournce and I’m really quite surprised there is such a difference in the ACT given the schools are pretty good.
“Hmmm. If the public system isn’t good enough for your child, whose child is it good enough for? I believe if it’s not good enough for my kids, then it’s not good enough for anyone’s kids. Where’s my error?”
There’s no error at all. The answer is ‘no one’s kids’, which is why we need more resources put into public education. In the meantime, those who choose to buy their way out are not hypocrites, unless they buy their way out and then say “to hell with the rest of you”. That is not support, that is indifference.
As for price effects, I will try to find something academically rigorous for you. In the meantime, to give you a flavour for how it works, here are some quotes I dug up from real estate listings and websites:
“This one’s got the lot! A highly sought-after Balwyn High School zone locale, a wonderful 60ft wide frontage, sweeping city skyline views…”
“On the other side of town, University High School in Parkville is drawing more parents into its designated enrolment zone, especially since the property boom, says principal Rob Newton. ‘I would say, anecdotally, that a quarter of families in the school have moved to the area specifically to send their children to University High…’”
“The proximity to a good school can add a 10 to 20 per cent premium to houses, and this is often a vital part of the marketing campaign when a place goes on the market…”
And one which beautifully illustrates my point:
“Within the City of Boroondara there are 39 private schools, plus government schools that are attracting increasing numbers of enrolments each year. But unlike private schools that can take students from any area, public schools must give preference to pupils who live within a local enrolment boundary. Camberwell High School principal Elida Brereton has received 306 applications for 200 year 7 places for 2007. “People are writing to us and promising to move into the area,” she says. “We do our best but we can’t accommodate everyone.”
It’s rampant. I would be surprised if other states had overcome this problem, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong.
BBB
‘Razor’: “The lack of confidence in the Government system and the loss of students to the private system is a reflection of the poor state of the system.”
Right. And if the government can pin point the worst state schools, get rid of the genuinely lazy and bad teachers, and inject more funding into them, then more people might start coming back to them.
At the moment they can’t even get an exact statistical grip on which are the good and the bad schools because of the herd mentality of some unions. Krudd wants to bypass the unions who are not allowing transparency so he can do something, hopefully.
Lets just hope the funds are there for the public schools: an increasingly two-tier society, beginning with a blatant two-tir education system, might be good for industry and mindless consumerism, but not for culture.
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Um all outcomes are unequal. Because people have different attributes. This is not being solved by the education system. We need further action.
Well gosh darn it. Iasked me a question. And no-one replied.
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‘Ceptin Conrad who replied to a question I never actually asked. Well anyways thanks for the effort Conrad.
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Conrad’s argument is that if the public system ain’t broke don’t fix it. Exactly what the American car makers of the 70s used to say. And they was right. Wasn’t they?
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And then we’ve got Amused. Amused is amusin’ ’cause s/he says:
Hey yuk. Spit. Ja see that boy? S/he done rejected this vouchers thang as idee-a-logikal and then went on to say somethink that’s also idee-a-logikal. Give it to the poor kids. Poor kids. Then s/he goes on to say:
Indeedly-deedy-do. It’s a gross injustice that people from Clubtye Heights are able to read to their kids whereas the parents from Bogan Springs are not allowed to by law and are also not able to afford books.
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Oh wait…
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And then thar’s the u’shul argaments ’bout the public system versus the private system,. Hey I got a joke fer you. I wenna both and they both sucked. I wanna little variety. C’n I get some variety? No? Why’s the hell’s not?
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An equitable voucher system – publically funded. Decentralized schools. No favours for the rich places. Help for those who really need it. What’s the problem?
“At the moment they can’t even get an exact statistical grip on which are the good and the bad schools because of the herd mentality of some unions”
Will statistics really tell us which schools are ‘good’ and which are ‘bad’.
What really defines a good or bad school? Student positions against a national benchmark? It is easy to teach to the 3, 5, 7 test and elevate student outcomes but are the students better off? Does a higher school average really equate to a better school?
Society asks schools to do more now than ever before. School is no longer in the business of academic instruction alone. So in order to measure the success of a school requires measurement of a whole range of results including the students personal growth, resiliency and social skills. Public or private, first we need to define what is a good school, how we measure it and then fund where it is most needed.
“Kids with bona fide learning disabilities or disadvantages get extra assistance.
What’s wrong with this picture?”
There may well be disagreements about what’s bona fide.
It is harder and costlier to educate children with no or poor computer access at home, with behavioural difficulties, with parents with lower levels of educational attainment and so on.
These are all actual costs that the current private system can avoid or mitigate, but the public system cannot.
If there’s a voucher system that, with administrative efficiency, genuinely reflects theses kinds of costs, and does no favours to elite schools by allowing them to avoid them then I’d be happy to consider it.
You could even have a system that (a) prohibits private schools charging more than the highest value voucher and (b) mandates a ‘first-come, first-served’ selection policy. That’d be an improvement if one of the key objectives is equity, especially if, as I propose, there were a substantial increase in public funding for low-income families. Don’t inundate me with the no doubt many practical shortcomings… just a thought off the top of my head.
BBB
Hi there.
BBB
Heh! Just like Rudd and his plan!
Yes but at least I admit when my ideas are half-baked. I wouldn’t, for example, get up and say it at the Press Club.
BBB
Oh for fuck’s sake.
BBB
BBB, it’s considered bad form to start an argument with your own pseudonym!
Adrien: “Conrad’s argument is that if the public system ain’t broke don’t fix it.”. p.s., in case you’ve forgotten, please re-read what you said in post 13, where you summarized the education system and wondered why you pay for it, and I answered why (whether you happen to like paying for it or not). I personally agree with you that there are essentially no “private” schools in Australia.
Here’s the answer to your second question of why we shouldn’t change it substantially: Apart from hyperbole, the system gets good outcomes, and the areas educational outcomes are declining in are probably not because of the school system. The fact that people think the school system doesn’t get good outcomes is because they don’t seem to be aware that constructing an education system is hard and some students will inevitably do poorly no matter what. The important question is what the distribution is, in terms of outcomes in key areas (i.e., science, literacy, and mathematics), and to what extent the school system is responsible for that. Given that Australians are not high up the “work hard to get a good education spectrum”, it means the school system is currently working well.
I will be satisfied with a report card system on schools when they also include
1. Report on how many SUV’s parked in the school carpark
2.How many children came to school with no identifiable food groups in their lunchbox or any lunch at all.
3. Parents report how many hours of conversation and reading were managed per week in the home.
4. Waste disposal report on how many empty alchohol bottles and cigarette packets were disposed by each household
5. Report on swipe ID card access to poker machines, TAB and Keno outlets on each parent in the school
6. Monitored list of how much reality TV, soapies and repeats of the Simpsons were watched in each household
7.Report card on how many graduates ended up in jail in the previous year.
At that point I might be able to make an assessment of the true results of education in that school.
Whilst I despise social climbing parents I also have to feel a bit sorry for them as they have so little confidence in themselves and thier offspring and they are so terrified of the world finding out that they think throwing money around will fix it. I find the ALP disgraceful for continuing to promote the fear and loathing of public schools when most of them are the product of the very same – How will Nambour High come out in the report card? Does that mean we should immediately suspect the judgement of anyone who is a product of its education?
Anyone who’d like a clear explanation of the inequitable funding system that this government plans to keep on with (I’m pretty disappointed), read The Stupid Country. Can’t remember who said it, but I do tend to agree that we don’t really have ‘private’ schools in this country, after reading how the funding works in this book.
Love the idea of assessing numbers of SUVs in the car park, hours spent watching the Simpsons, etc. I think that would provide a much more accurate picture of results in schools! Basically it’s extremely unfair to underfund public schools, then judge ‘em on their results and call it ‘choice’ when people scared of all the ‘bad public schools’ fork out for private. They’re not usually bad, many public schools are quite excellent (yes yes, I went to one – great teachers, crappy infrastructure).
No need to bleat about Catholic schools getting no money… even all Catholic schools aren’t created equal. Within the system there are certain schools who get more than their fair share of the funding, grants etc, and others who miss out.
Great ideas, Maggie.
Having met many of the parents of children of private schools, there is certainly an element of lack of confidence, and also the idea that the whole package these schools present will somehow shield their children from the realities of the outside world. In the end it’s actually got very little to do with education and everything to do with marketing, status and perceived security.
adrian – I think you summarise well the attitude of anti private school advocates who want to make it as difficult as possible for parents to not send their children to a public school. They believe parents who decide to send their children to private schools must be deluded, deceived and lacking the ability to make rational decisions and doing it for status reasons. Only those who decide to send their children to public schools can see the real truth, only they have the best interests of their children in mind.
Maggie – if you’re suggesting that there is a lot of factors outside of the school which affect how much and how well students learn then I’d totally agree! It not coincidence that you find people at uni who come from schools where they are only a handful of students from their school to get in, and discover that also happened to their siblings who went to the same school.
Conrad -
Now what are the reasons for declining literacy? I’d speculate it has something to do with teevee.
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It might not be the school system’s fault that educational outcomes go south but it is the school systems’ problem. My frustration with the school system is that you have two choices (maybe): St. Poshnuts Schools for breeding male arseholes and teaching girls to put up with it and marry it, or Bogan Heights State High school. In either case you’re treated like a number. There’s little variation in methods, environment, subject matters.
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There’s little consideration of the students as individuals.
“It might not be the school system’s fault that educational outcomes go south but it is the school systems’ problem”
Actually, I don’t see why it is the school system’s problem more than anyone else’s, apart from the often unfair criticism it will cop for the decline — I would think that the main idea of the system is to do the best it can with the resources on offer. If standards go south, well, that’s just the way life is if you are trying your best.
“My frustration with the school system is that you have two choices (maybe)”
I think this problem is more confined to poorer neighborhoods where the public schools are often of poor quality (which leaves bad or private). In my neighborhood, for example, the public schools are all quite good (people actually move to the neighborhood to send their kids to one of the schools, which makes the school even better, since you get the type of parent that makes schools good), so it isn’t a problem.
“Now what are the reasons for declining literacy?”
Literacy isn’t in decline. It’s mainly mathematics that is. This of course is a good example of why it is probably *not* the fault of the schools. If schools were really getting generally worse overall, we would expect a decline in both.
Or it could be that maths/science teacher quality has declined but teaching other areas hasn’t (there is a shortage of maths teachers so that wouldn’t be surprising). I’d take a guess and say there are increasingly more better paying jobs available for those with maths skills compared to a couple of decades ago.
Alternatively it may be that the curriculum is putting less emphasis on maths and science these days. Schools are increasingly being expected to do a lot more. Or perhaps its the way that maths/science is taught these days – from what I have seen of exam questions it looks like higher literacy skills are required.