Hi Bugsy,

Smithfield Plains. I could be wrong, my information is some years out of date. It might even have had its name changed, that is usually a really big help. Maybe it's called Davoren Park now.

I don't fully understand what you mean by this:

" .... As is what you think of the poor little dears of today, what a conceit you have over your own descendants. That's the codger coming out again."

Have you been taking English classes while you are at secondary school ? You could be the poster-boy in support of compulsory logic, ethics and philosophy (LEP) to be taught in all schools: "See what happens when you miss out on LEP !"

I'm not even sure which side you're coming down on: that there IS inequality in Australia's schools; or: there ISN'T inequality in Australia's schools. You need to write a bit more coherently :)

Just suggesting: even young snots can benefit from advice :)

Cheers,

Joe

OK, so you don't understand some of my comments, that's ok. But you are certainly conceited against the younger generations with your comments about them and the current school system seeming to coddle them.

Smithfield Plains eh? Looks like that closed down a number of years ago, so I'm not surprised that they haven't had a year 12 graduate in ages. They apparently merged with Mark Oliphant college, which currently has a 95% completion rate at year 12 and of those that finished, 98.6% of them got their SACE.

So yes, I believe your information must be out of date.

Oh, are we arguing about inequality in schools or the elitism of teachers?

I think first you have to define what you mean by 'inequality in schools'.

My position is that whatever perceived 'inequality in schools' (yet to be properly defined), would not be entrenched by the schools themselves but merely reflect the socio-economic problems of the local area. Teachers are certainly not responsible for that. Most are trying to improve their students lives, but they aren't the kids parents.

It's about time we started talking about fairness and equity.
West makes some useful points.
How can the posh schools pretend to be independent when they are getting so much money?

Independent, yes, when they want to be.

And see this-

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australias-real-education-problem-is-the-equity-gap-20161206-gt5jwh.html

Peter, I would make your title "3 Nations". One of these nations is the State School system of each separate state, the second contains the faith-based schools [Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and 'Christian] which can be, and often are, organised into a system for funding and administration, and the third contains the truly independent ( and usually expensive) private schools.
It is interesting to see the usual suspects talking about the usual stereotypes their myopic vision and dimming memory of their own time at school has left them with.
I started teaching in 1968 and retired from teaching in 2012, having taught in State, Catholic and Independent schools in New South Wales and Queensland. I was glad, in my last few years, to be able to work as a supply or casual teacher as I was able to decline work from schools where I had not been adequately supported in previous calls to that school.
Teaching is getting harder. Syllabi change with fast monotony, parents are becoming more demanding of teachers, pupils are much less respectful, principals and administrators are increasingly disclosed as powerless in enforcing reasonable behaviour and public opinion of the teacher's job has plummeted. This is much more evident in State schools which are increasingly the school of last resort in their locality.
No wonder there are so few experienced teachers, no wonder that less than 15% are still teaching in State schools after their first five years.
State schools are increasingly denied funds for essential purposes.,

Hmm.
Methinks the schools are more complex than this.
What of the schools whose funding was taken away because of money that mysteriously vanished into consolidated faith based revenue?

Some schools seem Christian etc....
but really aren't terribly and contain many e.g. Jewish or Chinese kids who don't care much for the faith values

High time religions were taxed too. Many of the posh schools are really business aimed at pushing 'their' kids ahead of the rest

Hi Bugsy,

Boy, didn't I get that wrong ? But for all that, it appears that the low-SES component of university entrants has barely lifted, by maybe 1 % in the past seven or eight years. It's possible that urban Indigenous people are participating at universities at a greater rate than non-Indigenous working-class kids.

So something is still going wrong with education for working- an welfare-class kids. As you suggest with the latter, some of that may be due to the quality of parental involvement, but one would think that such a factor would be built into teachers' and schools' methods of coping.

After all, those kids probably need high levels of education more than even their parents did, given that - especially in working-class areas - jobs have vanished in the past generation. God, even twenty five years ago, I used to talk with Indigenous kids in schools and point out that labouring jobs - even then - were vanishing, being automated, computerised, and now of course robotised.

Why did I suggest that often teachers are elitist ? Partly because many teachers are middle-class (or aspiring middle-class) and may not believe that working-class or welfare-class kids can (or deserve to) succeed in the higher levels of education. Even amongst Indigenous graduates, including teachers, there is sometimes a sort of 'pull up the ladder, I've made it' philosophy.

Cheers,

Joe