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The Forum > Article Comments > Whose education revolution is it? > Comments

Whose education revolution is it? : Comments

By Linda Graham, published 19/11/2007

We must invest now in a universal education system to ensure we do not wave goodbye to the prosperous futures of the majority of Australian children.

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Wizofaus, your maths is completely wonky. If you remove children from the state system, but the amount of money available to state schools remains the same, then there is an increase in the per capita funding available. Federal funding is in addition to state school funding, as are the school fees that the parents pay. So, if the state governments had kept their funding constant in real terms there would be more money for state schools, not less, and significantly more money in absolute and relative terms across the whole sector.

But they haven't kept their end of the deal and have been happy to shuffle costs off onto the federal government by under-investing in education.

Not sure where you are going with your argument about the GST. It replaced an ad hoc system of tied Commonwealth grants, and the states were happy to sign-up to it because they got a better deal under it than they were getting before.
Posted by GrahamY, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 12:31:44 PM
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Hi Graham,

Your logic makes sense but it doesn't actually work like that. Public schools are funded on an enrolment basis. Declining enrolments are a real problem for the public system because you cannot achieve the same economies of scale as you otherwise would... for example, a school with 300 students gets allocated 9 teachers. A small drop in those enrolments can mean a drop to 8 teachers, which may mean increased class sizes and declining parent satisfaction and so on. Chris Bonnor and Jane Caro go into the economies of scale issue in more depth in their book "The Stupid Country" but one thing to remember is that the public system has other difficulties; ie. difficulty shutting small schools down due to parent backlash etc. If forced to compete with an independent system that is allowed to run the race according to a different set of rules, the public system is effectively running with one leg tied behind its back. In other words, it is not a fair race.

In the end, it boils down to one question: the kind of education we provide for our kids reflects the values of our nation. Is the current situation really what we want? Are we ready to say goodbye to egalitarianism in Australia?

Regards,
Linda
Posted by Linda Graham, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 4:30:36 PM
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A timely article. And as Linda stated, we should carefully think about how we educate our children impacts on our society.

These debates generally degenerate into a public vs private school slanging match. It's lovely to see so many people very loyal to the schools they chose.

My three children have had experiences, excellent and less so, in both public and private schools. It is a myth that private schools are so much better at delivering good educational outcomes. The best school for your child is the one that has programmes/subjects that are of particular relevance to your child.

This is the only arena where choice should come in and this is one area where choices can be limited to parents based on their ability or willingness to make 'sacrifices'.

Australia must be the only modern Western country where there is such an emphasis on and obsession with 'private' schooling. I've never come across it anywhere else. I often suspect it has more to do with being able to show that one has 'arrived' in society and be able to publicly demonstrate this. The natty uniforms next to mum are a dead give away.

I wonder if school uniforms where no longer required that there would be quite such a run to private schools.
Posted by yvonne, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 6:03:29 PM
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Petal says the taxpayer could save $2b a year by not funding private schools.

The taxpayer could also save $6b by not funding public schools.

The duty of the state is to educate its children. To do this it needs to establish minimum criteria and provide this for all children. In doing so it provides value for the tax it receives.

Likewise if a parent chooses to educate his child elsewhere, the duty of the state is being performed and there is a subsidy towards this. The detractors of the independent school system say that there should be no subsidy and that if you choose a different path you deserve no value back from the taxes you pay.

The same argument could be applied to the health system. Many doctors charge at the bulk billing rate, but some who might provide additional experience etc charge slightly more. The medicare system pays a standard fee, and the patient pays a premium.

If the same logic were applied, medicare would pay nothing and the patient would pay the full amount.

In both cases the state is paying no more per student / patient, and its responsibilities are being discharged, and both the state and the patient / student are winners.

While there are some parents who cannot afford any more for education, they are a small minority. There are many parents who choose a new car or bigger house over additional funding for education, and I would suspect that most of the detractors fit this mould.

While railing at the private schools and wanting their funding diverted to public schools I guess that they want a better education for their children, but they are just not prepared to pay for it themselves.
Posted by Democritus, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 4:16:35 AM
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Filip. I agree with you with regard to tests. They control our children by their test results and many of those tests you don't even get to see what they got wrong so basically they can do whatever they want including punish children if their parents speak up or if they do not like them.

We have had issues since the Year 2000 with test results, some schools and external, after I made some public complaints about the neglect of the education of my gifted children.

My two eldest children couldn’t get into Opportunity Class (OC) and Selective High Schools (SHS) despite having measured IQ’s of 161 and 154 on the SB4 and despite being ‘obvious’ very highly gifted children who were obviously many years advanced. They were always getting top marks in tests, even when they did tests years up as the tests were too easy, yet after I complained, as my kids didn’t go to school to get high marks, they went to school to learn, suddenly something started happening to their marks and when they did these Selective School tests they didn’t get enough marks to get in. It was so out of character for them that the kids became confused and upset and they wanted to see what they had done as they thought the marks they got were impossible as the tests were not that difficult. After they missed out twice each I requested documents under FOI and the documents showed alarming evidence of bias, tampering, omissions, deletions, manipulation, changing of test scores, misrepresentation of facts and misconduct. The DET would not investigate the complaints instead they turned it on me. My kids suffered so much from being marked down in class and externally so as to discredit them, they felt humiliated and scared and they feared their tests it impacted significantly on their health. All they wanted to do was learn.
Continued.
Posted by Jolanda, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 6:53:55 AM
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Then my youngest daughter was sitting for OC in 2004. Given the fact that we knew we were being victimised we requested that she be exempt from sitting the test. She had been identified gifted by the UNSW on the SB4 with a measured IQ of 147 and on the WISC by DET's Psychologist who confirmed her IQ was between 145 and 150. She had been accelerated and started Year 4 at the age of 7. The public comprehensive school put her in a 4/5/6 composite so as to better cater for her needs, as she was an obvious gifted child but the school said that they didn’t’ believe that they would be able to cater for her the next year in Year 5 as she had already been exposed to the curriculum above. So she applied for Opportunity Class. Her school marks presented to the Selective Schools unit by the school was 95% in Maths and 95% in English. She won the presentation day Award for Excellence in Literacy and Numeracy and her report showed her to be ‘beyond stage outcomes’.

We had requested that she be exempt from sitting the test and that she be processed on the basis of her identified needs. The SSU said that if she didn’t sit the test, they wouldn’t process the application. We requested that the persons about whom we complained not be permitted to have anything to do with our daughter’s application. They ignored us and they permitted them to process her application again. She was unsuccessful and lost her appeal. Then it happened again to her for High School. The documents are alarming. They recently did it again to my younger son.

So yes, the system focuses on marks because they can destroy a person by their marks and there is no avenue available to get justice and protection for your children. My children only ever wanted to learn. Sadly I know of other children who have been dealt with the same way and have similar documents produced under FOI.

Education - Keeping them honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our children deserve better
Posted by Jolanda, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 6:57:25 AM
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