The problem with many public schools is that many in them tend to have a very negative attitude about rich people and about children who are gifted. They keep saying that the rich look down on the poor, but those that are not rich have a worse attitude towards the rich and those who are by nature gifted.

If you read my blog you can see that what I am saying is true about the negative attitude to gifted children and the attitude towards those who dare to complain. The public system is cutting down tall poppies and dumbing down society and they resent and target anybody who dares challenge them.

The public system wants to present the bright student who remembers every answer that they say (and who’s parents can afford to or is able to coach them) as being the 'smart’ students and the gifted variety are either ignored or cut down to size and discredited as they ask too many questions and are hard work. The public system controls people. the tall poppy syndrome and it is rife in Australia.

Money certainly helps with education but my families issues didn't need money, my family just needed to come across someone with a bit of courage, integrity and compassion. They don't teach or practice that in the public school system. It's every man for themselves attitude and a process that covers up and denies. At least in the Private school parents care more about each other and they will support a parent who’s child is being victimsed or neglected. In the public system – everybody shows you their back.

Education – Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our Children Deserve better

I was educated at a private school that had consistently high university entrance results, even though it provided no maths tuiton to 80% of year 9 to 11 students. The local outer suburban high school had the same university entrance results for my age cohort yet 3 years later only 3 students got to university. If I had lived 1 block over I could have gone to another government school that consistently had very good university entrance results.

My experience is that parents will happily pay for private school education if it is better than the local high school. If you want a good standard of education pump money into the public system and private schools will have to lift their game to compete for students.

In Victoria where 40% of high school students are in private schools the experienced teachers in public schools bear the brunt of providing in service supervision for trainee teachers. There is a crisis looming because there are not enough experienced teachers willing to supervise trainee teachers and there are many teachers reaching retirement age in the next 3 years.

Its seems unfair that private schools that receive 70% of their funding from the federal government have no obligations to follow the state curriculum, accept disadvantaged or disabled students and are able to provide very pleasant surroundings in which to educate their pupils.

"real": I'm afraid I have to agree with you on grammar, phonics and "whole language". The folly of reducing systematic language education was adopted wholesale by well-meaning academic curriculum developers and imposed on public and private schools alike.

It had a worthy goal -- letting students get on with developing higher-level skills instead of getting bogged down in details some found very difficult -- but it also meant that people who could have learned these linguistic fundamentals with ease ended up ignorant of them.

Yet it's not only crude but also historically false of you to paint that mistake with a "left" brush and claim the "right" fixed them.

Funky ideas like "whole language learnig" worked, experimentally, with a relatively gifted population of children (those sent to private Montessori and Steiner schools and the like). They turned out to be inappropriate for 15-20% of students in public schools, who were consequently "left behind" with a poor understanding of grammar and spelling (yet with reasonably well-developed reading skills), where traditional schooling used to leave some students functionally illiterate, actively avoiding tasks that require reading or writing out of an inferiority complex.

The decline in spelling proficiency and grammatical comprehension was absolutely NOT the goal nor the policy of the "left". In fact dropping structural literacy was opposed all along by the teacher's unions and it was they, not the Howard Government, who finally recovered they baby that had been thrown out with the bathwater.

The timing of various studies criticising the results of "whole language" learning let Howard take advantage and throw in a whole lot of wedge-driving remarks critical of genuinely "left"-wing reforms like teaching critical literacy (the "bullsh-t filter" so vital for coping with today's slick media) and the demise of corporal punishment and saluting the flag.

I can't believe the comment editor told me to "remove the profanity". What a crock of ----!

HRS,

Your old school sounds particularly fortunate. Perhaps it has the ability to raise a lot of funds locally. No school I have ever taught in has had a swimming pool, a rock-climbing wall or much in the way of landscaped gardens.

The “additional” money would simply restore the spending levels of 20-30 years ago. If, instead of cutting teacher pay by around 30 per cent relative to average earnings over the last 30-plus years, society had maintained it, there would be a lot more able and independent-minded people in teaching today. If, instead of increasing teacher workload – by both higher classroom loads and additional busywork demands – over the past 20 years, society had kept in place the gains of the 1970s and 1980s, teachers would have more time to focus on their educational task. If, instead of increasing the power of poorly skilled principals and the accountability and management functions in individual schools, society had remained committed to trusting the professional judgment of teachers and to providing central support, better decisions would be made at the school level.

The billions needed by our schools would simply restore the effective level of funding to what it was 20 or 30 years ago.

Xoddam

I agree with your comments 'The principal's firm hand on the reins is the deciding factor in the style and quality of the education a school can deliver'

However, I think it's the parents that play a greater role in the above.

The school I work at now has wonderfully supportive parents. But at my prior school, there was an entrenched culture of bullying towards teachers'.

I think it developed because Admin were fearful of the parents. So the teachers' were subject to the whim of some vocal parents. And they weren't nice people.

The students hear the disrespect at home, and come to school with uncooperative and disruptive behaviour. Learning is undermined. The principal would unfairly blame the teacher rather than the child, to avoid the wrath of the parent.

Quality education is undermined in these schools. And I believe there's a lot of these types of schools out there.

Liz: In response to your post I have some questions:

a) Why would administration have to be fearful of the parents?
b) Are you suggesting that parents ‘bully’ teachers and school staff just for fun and that these bully parents controlled the teachers and the Principal?

In my families experiences the students feel the disrespect at school not at home and the bullying is happening at school and more often than not some kids do everything in their power to try stay away.

If the Principal blamed the teachers, maybe it was the teacher’s fault? If the parent complained it doesn’t mean that they are bullies or vexatious.

Of course that is not to say that there isn't unreasonable parents out there but if there are a whole lot of disgruntled parents who are turning up to school upset about their children's treatment or education then there are issues there that need to be acknowledged and addressed.

Education – Keeping them Honest
http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/
Our children deserve better