I'm sure Mao would be pleased by this logic. If parents without the money for good private schools want to send their children to the best public school they can, I can't see any reason to stop them (and for that matter, are you going to stop people moving to neighborhoods with good schools, as already occurs, for instance?). We should applaud governments that try and set up schools that allow gifted children to reach their maximum potential.

In addition, I find it amazing that people would want to use young children in a game of social engineering. If bright children excel more with other bright children (which we know is true), should they be socially obligated to help those not as bright as themselves at their own expense?

"Remaining schools will be left behind, drained of students and resources, exposed to greater gaps in academic achievement..."

I seriously doubt the impact will be that bad. So there's a few less brainiacs in the other schools, so what? Maybe it will be a good thing, maybe the other schools can remove some of the emphasis on science and maths being the be all and end all of academic achievement, maybe it will create room for the other kids whose abilities and talents in life lie in other less recognised areas so that they can achieve and shine and feel validated.

I went to Albert Park College (the third lowest performing high school in Victoria) in years 7 and 8 and then went to a selective school for the rest of high school.
During my time at APC, I would’ve killed for a decent education, but unfortunately couldn’t afford one. So I sat the entrance exam and was accepted into the selective school- not on the basis of my bank account, ethnicity or anything else but on the basis of my academic ability.
Saying that bright kids who can't afford a private school education should be forced to stay in local, crappy high schools to make other kids feel better is a total farce. As a student, it isn’t my responsibility to educate others students. It is however my right to be educated. If students aren't performing well (and this is dragging the teaching standard down), is this the teachers' responsibility, or mine?
I enjoyed my years at APC in a non-academic way. I played lots of soccer and made some good friends I’ve stayed in touch with. But in no way was the academic component of the school work appropriate. In year 8 I found myself taking year 10 mathematics, just to get a bit of a challenge. In English, I would write essays that I'd had two months to complete, 10 minutes before they were due in, and received an A+.
At the selective school, I was challenged, and I found this so freeing! I met people from all over Melbourne, with very multicultural backgrounds. The one thing we had in common was a drive for learning. So in history/geography classes, I actually learnt history and geography. In LOTE, I picked up some Indonesian. In English, I had to work really hard for a B+. Similarly for the other subjects.
No, I didn't become a snob. I just realised that some people are academically driven and some people are not. As a person, I'm happy to associate with everyone. But as a student, I want to be educated with the driven.

The tragedy is of course that there are still people in the twentyfirst century who believe this stuff about holding back intelligent people in the name of social engineering. Has the chequered history of educational experimentation been entirely in vain?

It does however bring into the limelight once again the eternal questions: what is the purpose of school-based education? who should pay for it, and how? and encompassing the first two in one universal question... what should be the role of Government in education?

As it stands at present, parents who would like their children to receive a traditional, challenging, emphasis-on-the-intelligent education are obliged to explore the private sector. If there is no alternative in the form of a selective school with a strong academic background, they must either pay up or miss out.

To redress the balance somewhat by Government encouraging an expansion of the selective school concept can only be a good thing for these people, except that it is paid for by the population at large. Who, it might be argued, will eventually become less inclined to provide these advantages to only the bright kids.

Ideally, of course, the standard of all schools should be raised to the point where there is no discernible difference in the opportunity provided. Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile objective than dumbing down?

The article's conclusions are statistically valid.

The thing about educational achievement is that (even allowing for other factors) it is proportional to family background and socioeconomic status. This has various consequences:

* Selective schools are socially selective AND academically selective. The cases brought up here are valid, but are exceptions to the general trend: students moving to selective schools after Year 8 are often either coming from private schools and high-performing public schools. There is a cap (2%) on the number of students that come from any one school: the schools not meeting that are the under-performing ones. That doesn't mean that there aren't many students who benefit from selective schools, but the article wasn't arguing for total abolition anyway.

* Only a certain number of people will really benefit from a selective education anyway. This is shown by the SEALP schools in Victoria, which run selective classes within government schools. Some of these programs are comparable to actual selective schools (like Balwyn High's), some barely make a difference at all. The difference is in the social background of the students; a selective school/class isn't a magic bullet that inherently helps anything. Two big central selective schools might be more effective than more local selective schools.

* The biggest problem in government education in Australia is small, under-performing local schools. Albert Park is a good example (it's been forced to close). The situation's even worse in Sydney where there are more selective schools. These schools are targeted for weak academic performance. People constantly leave them for other schools (selective, non-selective, private) and they end up with only the worst students. Government often tries to intervene, but if the local community doesn't support the local school, it tends to die. Four schools are closing in Victoria at the end of this year for this reason.

I'm not totally convinced how much selective schools help the students that attend there (1% improvement on ENTER score? who knows?) but I agree that they potentially create problems for local schools, and risk endangering educational opportunities for all students, not just the intelligent ones.

Thank you for the offical line.
Perhaps you have noticed from the forgoing, we just don't buy it.
In fact we reckon that you have damaged more than you have helped with that load of BS.