The Federal Government is currently reviewing funding for schools in Australia, after maintaining Howard's inequitable model of funding for the first four years in office. Visit the AEU For Our Future website to make a submission. If you want to read a great critique of the current arrangements, read the column below by Catherine Deveney from her Blog
Private schools? Want em? Pay yourself. Every single cent.
I'VE wanted to write about the social apartheid and false economy of private schools for a while. And the Government's "privatisation by stealth" of the education system. So a few months ago I hunted down the speech that writer Shane Moloney made to Scotch College. Reading it, I cheered, thumped the table and yelled "hallelujah" at the sheer brilliance and balls of Moloney. I then slumped in a heap thinking, "Well, there's no point me writing anything because he's said everything that I want to, but much better."
A recent chance meeting with Moloney had me gush about the speech and explain my quandary. He encouraged me to basically "just say it all again". So Shane Moloney, if you're out there, this one's for you. And for the 70 per cent of parents who send their children to government schools. And for the 70 per cent of students who attend them.
Here's something in the budget that you may have missed: federal funding for private schools will increase from $5.8 billion to $7.5 billion over the next five years. Funding to public schools will rise from $3.1 billion to $3.4 billion over the next five years. Shame on us.
Here's where I stand: private schools should not receive funding. That's it. We have a police force funded by the Government. If you want a bodyguard or private security, you pay for it out of your own pocket.
The same should go for schools. If you want your child to go to a school where they wear blazers so you can get over your own insecurities, or the chip on your own shoulder, you should pay for it. Every single cent.
And it should be compulsory for all politicians to send their children to government schools. And use only public health care.
It's liberating not to be worried about where my young sons will be going to high school. It will be one of the closest government high schools. If things don't work out, we'll try somewhere else. It's not their education. It's their school. Not the same thing. The school a child attends has no bearing on their future success or happiness. I'm disgusted by parents' nauseating obsession with the perfect school for their perfect child. Parents panic that any "wrong" decision may mess up their kid's potential trajectory. They seem to believe that kids can simply be programmed by their parents' desires. Here's a tip: instead of both working full time just so you can send your kids to a private school, cut down your work, be less stressed, stop outsourcing your life, send them to the local secondary and be home more. Teenagers need, and want, their parents to be around.
Sending children to private schools seems to be less about parents doing what they think is best for their child and more a case of parents wanting their children to have something better than every other child. Education is the entire community's responsibility and the outcome affects us all.
I am torn between saying that the public schools desperately need more funding and writing about how wonderful they are. Both of which are true.
The lessons kids learn in government schools — resilience, motivation, community and tolerance — hold them in much better stead than hand-holding, spoon-feeding, mollycoddling and segregation.
When I think of kids less fortunate than my own, I think of kids stuck in middle-class, single-sex, white ghettos from the age of five (or four if they're "gifted").
The independent and Christian schools are divisive, discriminatory, reliant on hand-outs and implicitly teach children that some kids deserve nicer playgrounds than others. Even within their own tribe. The preps at Burke Hall surely don't deserve better facilities than the preps at St Gabriel's in Reservoir. Give me a child when they are seven and I'll show you an invoice for $12,477 (excluding uniforms, excursions and music lessons) for something they could get around the corner free.
I added up the cost of fees for what it would cost to send my three children to a middle-of-the-range private school for six years. Not counting uniforms, excursions, transport, building funds etc. And it was about $330,000, give or take. My first thought? No one can be getting value for money. My second thought? I could buy my kids a degree for that amount of money, and I might have to if education keeps heading the way it is. But I'm hoping that my kids will all be tradies. Because the happiest blokes I know are the tradies. People say, "Stop funding private schools? It's not as easy as that."
Yes it is. Like smoking in hospitals, gender-based pay and taking babies away from unmarried mothers, funding private education is something we will look back on and be ashamed of.
Comments
The rich educated people look happier
Tradies Happy Bull shit come on to a building site all they do is piss moan and whine.The rich educated people that I build houses for look happier than the blokes busting their guts every day.
We just got a way of not showing it.
Stop working to bring the entire system down
so why work for material purposes if you are unhappy? I do not agree with the growing gap of the rich and the poor but it is up to people to just bloody stop working. That is the way to bring the entire system down. Just do not work and start thinking about your own reality and the fact that all is impermanent including houses and cars and freeways and structures of all sorts.
Sometimes it's about finding the right fit
The school a student attends can have a major bearing on their future happiness. Some kids are miserable at their school whether public or private. Sometimes its about finding the right fit. I agree with almost all of your article but go easy on the broad brush-strokes. School, especially high school can have a major effect on a teenagers mid to long term engagement with both learning and their life choices.
Mainstream curriculum in public schools boring and non-relevant
Yes, exactly, go easy on the broad brush-strokes. And I wonder if you realise that alternate schools also go under the heading "private" schools. Anything from Steiner to "hippy", (if you like). Some people, like me, don't like the mainstream ciriculum awailable in public schools. We think, mostly, it's boring and non-relevant, today, and so do the kids. But my dilemma is that if I send my girl to a private alternate school, even WITH funding it'll cost me a mint. So, for now, we are home-schooling. And I feel this way not because my child is soooo special, but because in the public sector she is just bored. She wants more creative stuff. Comprende?
Alternative is still private and still elitist
Yes, I am aware that "alternate" schools are also private schools. However, this doesn't change in my opinion the argument that the government should not fund ANY private schools.
The same basic argument applies to Steiner schools or any other "alternatives", that is why should they get government funding to provide an education that only some families can afford. Your post backs this up by your statement that you cannot afford to send your kids to a private "alternative".
Why don't families who want more choice and diversity in education campaign for this to be provided within the state education system. I thoroughly support more diversity within the government system.
In addition, not all "mainstream" schools are equal. Shop around and you will find that many state schools do offer different approaches.
Lets not forget that it was the Catholic's pushing for funding for their "accessible" form of private education in the 1970's which led to Whitlam opening up the way for major state funding of private schools.
As lefties/progressive's lets not be diverted by similar claims for special treatment by the Steiner crowd in the present. Private schools are inequitable and elitist by definition. Let the rich pay for them themselves.
All of our education ought be based on secular ethics
I do not agree with private schools and the monetary system. I think all of our education ought be based on secular ethics and not on religion like the Judeo Christian approach. Many people have other or no religion. We ought have education based on REALITY meaning the science of mind and matter and then CONCEPT meaning philosophy and impermanence which is based on reality. RELIGION is the third category and ought be separate according to your own mental disposition and you go to your own community for that. That is a fairer approach to education. At the moment in Australia, the education system favours Judeo-Christianity thought.
Which aspect of Judeo-Christian thought do you object to?
Which particular aspect of Judeo-Christian thought do you object to?
Private schools: Make your own rules, get your own funding
Agreed, public schools should get all the funding as it is government based. If private schools want to be private, make their own rules, they should get their own funding.
I believe real education is public education, education where every student is free on their choices and will be able to determine the best future for themselves instead of being spoon fed.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR OUR FUTURE.
We can only progress through our private schooling system. All the funding should go towards our wonderful public schools.