Centre for Policy Development
A Real Education Revolution: Revised
A Real Education Revolution: Revised
Originally published on ABC Unleashed on May 22, 2008.
The budget makes clear that Rudd Labor has honoured its promise
to maintain funding to private schools, to the tune of approximately $6.5
billion dollars, compared to $3.5 billion for public schools. While the Howard
Government’s seriously flawed funding formulae must ultimately be revamped to
divide this money more fairly between non-government schools, and commonwealth
investment in state schools will increase, there should be no doubt that
Federal Labor will continue the provision of ‘state aid’ that it has supported
since Whitlam. While the debate about the right of non-government students to
commonwealth funds appears to be over in the ALP, the new government should
think laterally about what the community gets for its investment in private
schooling - roughly equal to its funding of higher education. Here’s a thought.
Rather than setting up competition between public and private as occurred under
the Howard Government, why not use commonwealth funding of schools to bring the
two rival sectors closer together, to encourage them to cooperate in the one
‘public’ system? Afterall, both sectors receive public money and are regulated
by government in terms of curriculum and standards in teaching.
That the Rudd Government is beginning to move in this direction can be seen
in its ‘Local Schools Working Together’ program that provides $62.5 million in
the Budget to help government and non-government schools cooperate at the local
level between now and 2011.[1] Originally announced as Labor policy in March 2007, the
initiative involves government and non-government schools sharing scarce
facilities such as science labs and libraries.[2] The funds provide for pilot projects in both new growth areas
where facilities need to be built in both sectors, for new or upgraded
facilities in existing schools and special projects that address needs in
science, language or technology. Writing in the Weekend Australian,
Kevin Donnelly is critical of this initiative as indicative of creeping
bureaucracy and a Labor prejudice against private schools that will cruel what
is unique about some private schools.[3] I believe it is a creative response by the government
to the social reality that students move between public and private schools,
and make friendships across this artificial divide. It bodes well for education
reform that marries the pursuit of excellence with the Australian values of
mateship and egalitarianism. Last week Minister for Education and Deputy Prime
Minister Julia Gillard made explicit that the Rudd Government wanted to move
beyond the old public versus private debate that has marred the policy
responses of both major parties for so long.[4] Rather than wanting to socialise private schools, as Donnelly
implies, Gillard argued that
'[t]here are examples of excellence, and of unacceptable underperformance, in schools of every sector. There is no point in putting labels on schools in the government, independent and/or Catholic systems. It is part of the old education debate.[5]’
I contend that each sector has much to learn from the other, and public funding could be used to encourage cross-fertilisation and reduce current inequities and social, ethnic and religious division. Private schools need to jettison vestiges of elitism and state schools need to try methods used in private schools that improve teaching, student performance and accountability. There is a creative, productive and social inclusion dividend from mixing children of different backgrounds, outlooks and abilities, so best practice reigns. Closer collaboration would match reality on the ground. Many families use both sectors at different times, at different stages of their kids life. Increasingly, busy, so-called working parents have children scattered between a public primary, a private comprehensive and a selective state high – depending on what works best for their child in terms of a school’s specialisation, how they did in entrance exams, what they can afford at the time, religious conviction and whether they want co-ed or not. Some of the greatest defenders of public education attended Catholic or Protestant schools and follow an enthusiastic embrace of public primary for their children with non-government schools in the secondary years.
Why are parents prepared to pay for what the public system offers for free? It’s not just that the Coalition (and now Labor) provided so much money to the private schools. Some parents, especially those with tertiary education themselves, appreciate that more teachers have academic subject specialisations and higher degrees due to staffing freedoms in many non-government schools, and offer alternatives in languages, the classics or extra-curricula arts and sports. Other parents value the superior (and inequitable) material resources (playing fields, equipment, smaller class to teacher ratio), a perception of greater discipline, accountability of teachers to parents (via homework diaries that must be signed, phone calls and regular meetings). However, contemporary twenty-first century parents seeking academic or cultural specialisations can be disappointed when they encounter the old fashioned elitism and ‘rugger bugger’ exclusivity that persists in too many non-Government schools, especially the older, higher fee paying institutions – despite the reality that most non-government schools are now ethnically and religiously diverse. Just as the Howard Government tried to promote flag waving and graded plain English reports in state schools, a Labor government should use the carrot of Federal funding to wean private schools off this Edwardian snobbery and into contemporary Australia.
Private schools who wish to receive public money would be encouraged to be responsible citizens by a variety of funding conditions. Building on the fine example set by the indigenous scholarships offered by Cranbrook and Geelong Grammar, (among many private schools) they should increase the number of scholarships offered to less well-off students and have to show good cause for turning away students with learning difficulties. Team sport should be played with local state schools, comprehensive and selective rather than those deemed part of an antiquated (and elitist) GPS rating. This would also have the environmental dividend of getting private school parents ferrying their kids to sport out of the traffic jams on weekends. Private schools should cooperate with local state schools in extra-curricula projects, such as music tuition, drama, debating, the Duke of Edinburgh awards and cadets. As a state school student in Wollongong in the late 1970s I participated with private school students in the NSW government sponsored State Youth Theatre, where I saw the horizons of both groups raised by this crash course in social reality.
Private schools could also cooperate with local state schools in some core curricula lessons where a local state school might lack expertise, for example ancient languages. Private schools wealthy in facilities should have no difficulty sharing them with local state schools, especially sports equipment, playing fields or technology.
Despite generous increases in federal government funding some of the larger independent schools continue to crank up their fees each year, suggesting they are seeking to maintain distinction for their core customers for whom money is no object. Those private schools receiving public money should agree to cap their fees for a stipulated period to allow access to a greater proportion of the public.
By such measures the Federal Government can demand good citizenship for its investment. Although it will review the criteria of the current inequitable socio-economic funding model, the Rudd Government has made clear that state aid to private schools will continue, so its important Labor does not hand over our money without seeking some mutual obligation to the community in return. Independent schools wishing to avoid these community obligations and maintain an elitist course are free to not accept public funding. Most low-cost non-government religious schools are already doing the right thing by local communities, and those schools that do not wish to associate with the public need not bother the taxpayer. In relation to the additional funding made available in the Local Schools Working Together program, Kevin Donnelly seems to be arguing that private schools should be given public money ‘no strings attached’, or else they ‘will no longer be seen by the community as special an their unique character will be compromised’.[6] But state schools must meet rigorous benchmarks from both the Commonwealth and state governments, and it is unlikely that autonomy or decades of tradition will be destroyed by private and state school students learning and playing some things together - afterall in the real world these kids are often neighbours, cousins and even siblings.
In exchange for their funding, state schools, through State Education departments and principals, must cooperate with independent schools in the above, and also implement a variety of practices that kick goals in the independent sector. Public schools should enhance accountable to parents by adopting mechanisms used by independent schools, such as daily diaries with remarks from teachers, regular email and phone contact with parents. Decentralise management to local school boards and principals - a move currently underway in NSW. Australia is rare in the OECD for having centralised state-wide bureaucracy rather than local control. More imaginative use must be made of the ‘aftercare’ space from 3 to 5 pm (when parents work) to provide school-based value-added extra-curricula alternative experiences as do private schools in music, creative writing, drama, sport, debating, and supervised homework. Ditto in vacation care.
Public schools have much to be gained by going back to past practices that worked well for them. They should reinstate weekday and Saturday team sports in addition to individualised gymnastics. And as a matter of urgency return to reports that include competitive positioning of students in the class and/or year, marks out of 100, and individual comments from teachers in preference to the routinised computer generated ‘outcomes’ jargon now foisted on bamboozled parents. Competitive marks may be contrary to the experimental education fads foisted on students in the late 1970s and 1980s but they were long part of the state school ethos to good effect- all my reports from Port Kembla primary in the early 1970s still had such information and boys and girls rose to the competitive ethos as we did in sport. This was a school in what would now be condescendingly termed a ‘disadvantaged area’ that worked minor miracles with Macedonian immigrants from peasant backgrounds and native-born working class Ango-Celts.
Most importantly public school teachers’ salaries should be increased to parity with independent sector in exchange for working comparable hours, including involvement in extra-curricula activities and meeting accountability benchmarks. Equity and value for investment requires that the educational qualifications of teachers coming into the state sector (especially as the baby boomer cohort retires) be lifted to the same level as the private schools, in terms of good subject-based university degrees rather than the more generalist education qualifications. Academically competitive teachers scholarships that pay HECS and a modest living allowance, similar to those that educated the teachers of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, should be reintroduced, contingent on the student undertaking a subject-based degree followed by a one-year education qualification. Scholarships will be based on HSC results (or equivalent and not means-tested) and recipients will be required to teach for at least 5 years.
Some of the above changes in state school teaching and operation will require more funds than the public sector received under the previous government. But it is important that those who advocate more funds for state schools consider what is done with that money, and what cultural and structural change will lift learning standards so that state schools compete equally with the private sector. The Howard Government used funding to schools inequitably to engineer social division and faux nationalism. While acknowledging the ‘strong advocacy’ of the camp followers of ‘public versus private schools and which system deserves more government support’ Gillard has declared ‘it is time for all of us to recognise that the old-style education debates need to be updated’.[7] It is significant that Gillard is also Minister for Social Inclusion, a value important to most Australians. Reactions to an earlier version of this article on ABC Unleashed demonstrate that partisans on both sides of the long running schools debate rather enjoy the ganglands of the public versus private stoush. Many idealistic public school advocates for the very best of reasons would prefer to insist that Federal funding of private schools simply cease. But given that since Gough Whitlam’s leadership the ALP has been committed to state aid, I would like to see some strings attached to the money. The Rudd government has the opportunity to build on the innovative Local Schools Working Together initiative to use core federal funds to engineer a bridge between students too long divided by dated sectarianism, to reconcile independent and state schools in a single ‘public’ system that raises standards for all. That’s what I call a real education revolution.
[1] Australian Labor Party, New Directions for Our Schools - Local Schools Working Together, March 2007
[1] Australian Labor Party, Budget Measures 2008-09
[2] Australian Labor Party, "Labor's Local Schools Working Together Program: Bishop Bungles" (Media Release), 20 March 2007
[3] The Inquirer, May 31 2008, p. 20
[4] Julia Gillard, "No more public v private debate", Sydney Morning Herald, May 29 2008.
[5] Julia Gillard, "No more public v private debate", Sydney Morning Herald, May 29 2008.
[6] Weekend Australian, 31 May 2008
[7] Julia Gillard, "No more public v private debate", Sydney Morning Herald, May 29 2008.
Biographical Note:
Tony has recently completed his PhD thesis in Australian history . His
undergraduate honours thesis was in the history of NSW schools, after
which he conducted research into the reform of the post-compulsory
years of schooling for the then Education Commission of NSW, and into
social class, education and employment for both the community youth
sector and for a series of documentaries on the ABC that included
Nobody's Children, Hard lessons and Growing Up Fast.
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Comments
Constraints
I'm not sure about how the co-ordination of sharing resources will occur. It would seem (in some instances) ferrying children considerable distances. Exchanging teachers seems easier but it seems there are some logistical challenges.
This proposal leaves the abusive nature of schooling untouched - it is a long way from radical.
Putting more pressure on families and children with diaries and such just seems like an awful idea to me.
Decentralisation I think has major downsides. The politics associated with local control in America (e.g. the teaching of creation) is the extreme case, frightening.
PhD's do not equate to ability to teach. Chasing footnotes is a little different to dealing with children and adolescents. The pursuit of qualifications as a path to excellence is a mirage - and a very expensive one.
I suggest a thought experiment: you are preparing five year olds for life in 20 years time. How would you do this? I suspect the answer bears little resemblance to current schooling practise.
Schools
First, I would point out that we are talking about schools, in which young people are largely trained not educated - the latter is a much broader and more accidental process.
Secondly, there is much talk of private schools in this discussion, here as elsewhere, when there are very, very few private schools in Australia. The vast majority of non-government schools are, in fact, religious schools and they make few apologies for that (this includes the so-called "Steiner" schools which are part of the Anthroposophists).
Thirdly, all registered religions in Australia - "mainstream" or "fringe", "liberal" or "fundamentalist" - are already heavily subsidised by the community, most members of which have no idea this is and has been occurring.
Fourthly, the additional subsidies to non-government schools were achieved largely through the efforts of the Catholic Church and its close affiliate the Democratic Labor Party. Their pressure on the Menzies government persuaded that government to use (or misuse) the constitution to provide additional federal funding to a something that was supposed to be a state responsibility. This, in turn, was enabled through the Commonwealth's control of taxation.
I have always failed to understand why those who chose to send their children to religious schools - already subsidised through the religious subsidy - demand an extra subsidy so they may have that choice.
This, of course, throws up all sorts of further arguments but I have probably tried your patience enough and its time for lunch.
Language and the Schooling Debate
Anthony Ashbolt
“If the language of politics tends to become that of advertising, thereby bridging the gap between two formerly very different realms of society, then this tendency seems to express the degree to which domination and administration have ceased to be a separate and independent function in the technological society”. (Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man).
In Overland (186) last year I outlined the way in which government funding of private schools had been legitimised and naturalised by a discourse that excluded alternatives. This discourse establishes itself as the democratic norm yet it permits no real debate. Julia Gillard’s language these days reflects the triumph of this universe of closed discourse. She argues that the old debate of public versus private must be cast aside. New thinking requires conjuring up a new realm of public education, one that includes the private schools. Cheering from the sidelines, Tony Moore (and to some extent Michael Furtado), uses exactly the same sort of language and capitulates to the same dynamic that reinforces closed discourse. Yet Gillard parades her “openness” to differing perspectives by urging us all to participate in a “conversation”. It’s an invitation we can’t refuse and the terms have been set. To paraphrase Alexander Cockburn, a conversation will incorporate and reproduce the status quo. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/cockburn
Moreover, this is the language of advertising or public relations masquerading as the language of politics. It involves the debasement of politics, the removal of genuine alternatives, and offers us instead conjuring tricks that enable old problems to disappear magically. Wands are waved and social division and inequity are gone in a puff of smoke.
Language is key to the trick. Thus social inclusion is held up as the ideal, while roadblocks are placed in its way. The old distinctions of public and private are said to be increasingly meaningless while public policy actually invests them with further meaning. There is a surreal sense of meaninglessness when Independent Schools are hardly that, private schools are lavished with public funds, the Catholic system is barely Catholic and is itself divided between elite and systemic schools (and the latter sometimes pretend to be part of the public system). The surreal does not, however, obscure entirely the real situation in which the school system is divided between an expanding private sector that is unaccountable and exclusive and a languishing public one that is accountable and genuinely inclusive.
The very problem with Tony Moore’s proposals is that they accept a language of inclusion and cooperation that is part of the universe of closed discourse. This does not mean that short of the abolition of state aid to private schools nothing can be done. It does, however, alert us to the dangers of flirting with policies that do not confront directly perverted funding priorities. The social divide between public and private schooling is cemented by current funding arrangements. A few indigenous scholarships here and the odd football game there will do little to affect the divide. Opposing such policies might appear to be against the spirit of cooperation and inclusion and community. Appearances, however, deceive. Until the lavish spending upon private schools is cut, we cannot even begin to think again about reconstituting our system of public education.
Real Education Revolution
Personally, as a parent trying to educate two children in the state school system, I think Tony's ideas have considerable merit. Putting aside all the issues raised about why this would not work, I think there needs to be greater accountability for private schools in regard to the federal funding they receive and certainly some obligation to 'give back', considering the prosperity of some of these schools. The reality for parents like me is that our facilities are rundown and in disrepair and don't meet the needs of modern day schooling. For example, we desperately need a new school hall. In order for us to build a facility that actually meets the requirements of education in the 21st century parents are looking at having to raise approximately $800,000. We are surrounded by private schools which have all recently spent enormous amounts of money on new state-of-the-art facilities while we struggle to supply heating in some classrooms. You may all say this is part of an old education debate of public v private but the reality for parents is that this is the inequity that we see everyday in our own suburbs. If the Labor Party would like to see us move beyond the old debate they need some creative thinking on the issue.
It occurred to me (when we were discussing the subject of the new school hall) that it seemed madness for us to build our own new facility when clearly there were other public schools in the area that were also in need of such a facility; perhaps there was the opportunity to share? When I raised the issue of private schools sharing their facilities as part of their obligation for the funding they receive, people shook their heads in horror that private schools would even entertain the idea.
While I don't want to dwell on the old public private debate, we do have to do something that addresses the issue of inequity and the ever widening gap between public and private. The issue of access to good teaching staff is fundamental to this problem. We recently offered an experienced teacher from a private school a senior position within our school but when he found out what the salary was he said he could earn that in the less senior position in his current school. No matter where we turn in trying to do the best by our children in the state system we encounter issues of inequity, poor facilities and lack of government action on this issue. Tony's ideas go a long way towards addressing these issues and I believe would reduce the divide between the two systems.
A Real Education Revolution: Revised
Tony Moore's analysis of Gillard's initiatives is one of the most policy literate analyses that I have read and stands in marked contrast to Kevin Donnelly's view in last Weekend's Australian. In general I would like to add my tuppence worth to support his case for a change in funding policy:
* The bulk of independent schools are strong supporters of SES based funding, while the Catholic systems are not. How will the need for
transparency and comparability be met without devising a model common to all? Surely policy transparency and comparability makes for better and fairer policy in a democracy.
* Must Australia be the only OECD country where the government does separate and sometimes covert deals with one or two of the major Churches? Surely we have moved beyond the kind of confessional politics that other OECD countries have long since abandoned without damage to Church or polity.
* If Catholic schools are as inclusive as Donnelly states, how come less than half of all Catholics now attend Catholic schools and the proportion of low SES students in them, by Cardinal Pell's own brutally honest admission, has dramatically fallen?
* How is it that all Catholic schools in New Zealand have accepted voluntary integration, with verifiable assertions from Church and state, including the unions, that integration has been an unqualified success (ref. my PhD research, UQ, 2001) or have we decided to 'extrinsically rethink' history to suit a pre-ordained anti-integrationist objective?
* What possible loss of independence and school ethos could be worse than forcing Catholic and similar other schools, whose primary mission is to educate the poor, to charge fees, when such schools in all other OECD countries (with the singular exception of the US where Catholic schools are in decline because there is no state aid) are public schools that serve a public ethos in terms of the public good?
* How is it that an apostle of school choice and deregulation, like Dr Donnelly, cannot see that what integration offers is authentic freedom of choice to all parents, regardless of the size of their wallets?
* What precisely is wrong, both morally as well as strategically, with the proposition that private and public schools (yes; there are some of the latter in well-heeled suburbs with curriculum practices that favour an elite) that don't support social inclusion forfeit their state aid, as happens in New Zealand? Is not social inclusion, with its promise of equal opportunity, anything but a redistributionist policy discourse? Where exactly is the dumbing down in this?
* What particular virtue, except perhaps strategically, would make policy-bedfellows of Chris Bonnor and Kevin Donnelly on this question, when Chris at least, if not Kevin, might concede that neither a return to Howard's policy nor to the anti-state aid ALP position of the 1950s will resolve the reopened state aid debate?
* Do we not then have a civic responsibility in favour of the common good if not the public good to ensure that in bringing all schools to the inclusion party none are disadvantaged (in terms of state aid) by the outcome, so that our focus should be on widening the curriculum and pedagogy rather than on deficits, such as fear of loss of identity and on the sacrifices to a positional advantage politics that will inevitably have to be made in favour of the common good?
*Indeed what school ethos that applauds a positional advantage politics is worth proclaiming? What values would such a view be transmitting to our kids? And should not matters of ethos and identity be embedded in values of social inclusion, especially if an entitlement to state aid is asserted?
* Bearing in mind that this is a new policy discourse in a polity in which pirvate versus public divisions run wide and deep, should those who occupy the common ground not pursue the kind of ameliorative attitudes and strategies that Lyndsay Connors famously linked with the love of strangers?
*By this I mean should not those of us who seek a new start now begin to think creatively about recognising the difference between a Government's allocative formula, and a system's distributive formula. Both need to be clear, transparent, inclusive and just, and while the Government's approach needs to be common to all schools in Australia, the systems could well develop unique formulae that meet the Government's required guidelines and auditing procedures.
Through following Tony's excellent and insightful analysis of the Government's new initiative, and working patiently and generously with one another, current historical, geographical, cultural and sociological differences in systems can be accommodated under a broad rubric of social inclusion and equity, without relentlessly hammering home an insistence on individual schooling that may well run counter to the common and public good.
If such a system can work elsewhere, why can't we who acknowledge that not all is right with us, try it overhere?
A Real Education Revolution: Revised to what?
One of the real problems with this debate is the lack of expertise that people bring to it. Everyone has gone through the education system and therefore everyone has an opinion. Nonsense if they do not have an informed opinion!
As I do not have an informed opinion I will inflict my comments on anyone who cares to read on and limit my comments to the simplistic.
Politicians have evaded their responsibilities to the education system since the late 1970s, and not just here in Australia. This first happened in South Australia when then Premier Don Dunstan uttered those immortal words "There are no more votes in public education." Public education spending has been in decline ever since, all over the world. Dunstan was more influential than even he thought.
Most Federal politicians in this country have now been educated in the private system. They believe it is far superior, therefore fund it better. After all, it is the private system that is going to supply the next generation of leaders, not the public system. The states go along with this nonsense because it is cheaper for them to have more students in the private system.
Unfortunately, even after a decade of Howard's inequitable funding, there is still less than 33% of the Student population in the private system, which suggests it is at saturation point. But that does not seem to matter, the Right is still trying.
The lack of commitment to public education displays the confused approach to publicly funded authorities of the Right, in both our main political parties. There is no bottom line - i.e. no profit to be made - from education. Education does not respond to competitive free market forces, which confuses them. The concept of social capital is alien to the Right, and this is where public education really profits us all.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of recognition of any difference between the training of future workers and the education of future citizens. This is Thatcher's real legacy. We live in an economy, not a society, but public education does not fit in that scenario, which simply undermines the whole "economy" concept.
The inability of government to privatise education has been a slap in the face for those leaning to the Right. They punish public education by continually reducing its funding and increase public funding to private schools. They then claim that education spending is actually increasing, but they do not say it is only to the private sector.
Furthermore, the "awards" teachers are working under today are further distancing the students from the reality of an education. Class sizes are getting larger, even though class rooms are not. Public schools are falling apart, while private schools win huge Federal grants to upgrade their swimming pools.
These latest whiz-bang, "you-beaut-bonzer" education theories are imported from the US. They and are implemented into the public system then fail almost immediately in the face of the Australian reality. However,the theory is perfect, so it must be that reality is wrong. Teachers get the blame - no wonder the system is failing. I could go on, but I am sure you get my drift.
There are a couple of solutions that can be tried. How about all funding is shared equally amongst all students, $10b amongst say about 5 million students nationally. That is, say, $2,000 per student to all schools, directly paid in four installments according to enrollments on a given day in each term. Conditional of course: if a state reduces funding to education in real terms, then there is no federal money. Nah, too simplistic, not gunna happen.
Public schools need a strong and cohesive focus and the old state based systems are failing us in this regard. We actually have dozens of different education systems, one for each state and territory and a different system for different private schools. We need some rationalisation of the entire concept of education, a more Federally based approach.
We cannot force an education upon anyone, but if someone wants one, then we, as a society, should be falling over ourselves to ensure they actually get one, to whatever level they can get to. This is our responsibility, and achieving this would be a real education revolution.
Colin Fraser
I’m glad that Tony’s
I’m glad that Tony’s contribution has been placed in this forum - it might attract some thoughtful responses.
His suggestion to have public and private operating in the one system is the norm in a large number of countries. It is Australia which is the odd one out and we have paid a multitude of prices, from the beginning, for our botched and deal-ridden approach to state aid. This doesn’t mean that such an integrated system would be the solution for Australia – for good or bad his suggestion won’t work, mainly for two reasons.
Firstly most public educators don’t want faith or church schools in the secular tent. While it doesn’t keep me awake at night I just don’t think schools in what is otherwise the universal, free and inclusive education system schools should be underpinned by a commitment to one faith.
The other reason is that private schools won’t be remotely interested. Why should they be? At the moment they have the advantage of public funding while being able to make decisions about which parts of the public they serve. This is what fees do, and it explains why fees had to be abolished when church schools integrated in placed such as NZ.
I wrote a report on this about 18 months ago. It is at http://thestupidcountry.com/wp-content/uploads/200...
It is interesting though – I suspect it is on Julia (the debate is over) Gillard’s agenda. Bronwyn Pike (the Victorian Education Minister) wants to trial it in a few places in Victoria. The first thing the Catholic school authorities did when it was reported was fire a shot across her bows. Believe me, if we were to ever have an integrated system it would be a long and tortuous process, always with the likelihood of special deals and exemptions. After all, that is the track record of state aid in this country, AND the compliance of faith schools in many overseas jurisdictions is sometimes suspect.
I would love to respond to Tony’s other points but don’t want this to be too long. I think that, along with others who have floated similar ideas, he tends to gloss over the fundamental differences between a system which is free and inclusive and schools which charge fees and (both by default and design) are exclusive to varying degrees. They are not identical players on a level playing field.
Public schools don't just form another sector; they are an integral part of what we are as a society and nation. To believe this is not to take any "side" in a debate. Nor does it give public education any protected status. What it does mean is that you can't diminish the size, distinctiveness and effectiveness of the inclusive, secular and free sector without serious individual and collective consequences. As I recently discussed in Online Opinion (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7...) I really don’t think Julia Gillard gets this – or maybe she does and she is sticking to the script…I can’t really tell.
Of course in the light of all this, the acid test for me is whether I would support a system of secular, inclusive and free PRIVATELY run schools. I guess I would, as long as they could assume all those obligations. It is a safe position to have, because it certainly isn’t going to happen.
So what is the solution? I hope others contribute their ideas. Jane Caro and I have done so (with acknowledgement to others) in Chapter 11 of The Stupid Country.
Chris Bonnor
Public/Private school salaries vs Weekend sports/activities
A generally very positive article but unfortunately I think most of the reforms suggested will upset the private school lobby.
One point - Tony says...
"Most importantly public school teachers’ salaries should be increased to parity with independent sector in exchange for working comparable hours, including involvement in extra-curricula activities and meeting accountability benchmarks."
In my experience many private schools have between 3 and 5 weeks extra holidays per year on the back of teachers and students being required for weekend sports and other activities. This makes their teachers higher salaries less justifiable in my view.
Also longer holidays mean the magnificent taxpayer-funded facilities they build stand idle even longer than the public schools which are run on a shoestring budget.
'Working families' can't afford the holidays required to care for younger children on extended holidays so really the idea of weekend sport/activities should go and private schools should be required to operate for longer periods.
This would also benefit local communities where junior sporting clubs (the main outlet for public school kids) sometimes struggle for team numbers when there are large private schools nearby that require their students to turn out for the school on weekends.