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Liberal doses of in/equality: Advance Australia where? : Comments
By Linda Graham, published 28/5/2007Australian schools and teachers have so far been plugging the gap between increasing expectations and decreasing resources: they can't do it forever.
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Some of us actually see the benefit to the child and to the nation of a broad social mix in a person's schooling. These parents exercise real choice but are increasingly challenged to keep the faith in the face of constant Government denigration of state school teachers and failure to provide adequate resources for the majority system.
Under the Howard regime, vast amounts of taxpayers' funds have been transferred from the state systems to the private sector, and 'choice' has been the camouflage for this unfair strategy. A number of these schools are hard-pressed to find ways of spending their windfall. Any decent self-respecting citizen with children in wealthy private schools would be honour bound to advocate the cessation of the Government's generosity to the wealthy and its mean-spirited approach to state schools.
Moreover, they would pressure the Howard Government to get out of the game of funding minority parental 'choice' on the grounds that good education is a public benefit and ultimately a national asset. Linda Graham is right to assert that - to the extent that governments can intervene - all Australian schools should be equally good. Imagine that!