The author sees post WWII schooling through a very rose-coloured and distorted prism. I am a product of that system, and I can definitely affirm that "children from all walks of life" may well have shared the same school there was a well recognised difference in educational outcomes - for this was the time where there were good high schools and better high schools. I can, of course, only speak for Newcastle NSW in the early '60s. Parents who cared about educational standards sent their boys to either Newcastle Boys High or Newcastle Technical High and their girls to Newcastle Girls Hgh or Hunter High. The catholics also had the choice of Hamilton Marist Brothers (my alma mater) or a couple of girls' schools whose names are lost in the mist of time.

These were what might be disparagingly be referred to today as elite schools. Standards were required, and were enforced! The suburban high schools were where this tosh about levelling seems to have started. No elite schools, just drag everythig down to the lowest level. Going to these schools did represent a considerable burden for parents. In those days perhaps comparable to the burden faced in sending a child to a Public School.

I certainy observed on going to university that almost all my new fellow scholars had gone to one of the schools mentioned. Perhaps if elite schools were to reappear in the public school landscape less parents would find the private system so attractive.

Thanks to supporters and constructive critics alike. I'll just take this opportunity to address some of the creative misinterpretation of this article, as there are certain inaccurate remarks on matters of fact that I will not let stand.

Duncan, people aren't leaving the public education system in droves, period. The last few years have seen a strengthening of public enrolments and a slowing in the growth of other schools. Things seem to be stabilising around a 2:1 public:publicly-subsidised school ratio.

There is plenty of accurate testing of school students. Today students are tested by external exam for basic skills more frequently than at any time in Australia history - usually every other year, and at big high-stakes exams in Years 10 and 12. To this is added continual in-school assessment where nearly every assignment and weekly in-class test also adds to their final mark. Ours are the most tested students in history and if anything some exhibit signs of test-fatigue. And basic skills are on the increase once more - a point that Julie Bishop tried to make prior to the election.

As for unions, I've never attended a union meeting or engaged in dialogue of any kind with a union. If simply having an opinion that is favourably disposed towards public schooling is enough to get me labled a union "shill", how Duncan should we describe you and your impassioned defence of separatist schools?

Perseus, I'm 32 years old. I didn't make the world the way it is. Look to your own life and actions if you don't like the way the bed's been made.

Leigh, I'm not an academic. I'm a teacher and I just finished my first and only degree. Before that I worked in marketing 12-13 years. I've done a few casual research assistant contracts this year to pay the bills. I've never held an academic post and I don't aspire to. Perhaps in your fevered imagination it's Leigh vs. the academics, but since I'm not one, I'll thank you to take your shadow-boxing elsewhere.

(continued)

(continued) Nor have I any envy, as anybody who has dealt with me personally could attest. Despite being a public schoolboy from rentsville, my own upbringing could be reasonably described as well-heeled. I envy nobody their honestly-earned wealth, nor do I think it right or fair to envy children who by an accident of birth receive wealth. I do however have an implacable disdain for snobbery, which still drives much of the drive for separatist schooling, despite all the rhetorical fig-leaves about "standards" and "values".

Leigh, as for the phrases which you describe as "lunatic", go back and read those paragraphs again. Read. Every. Word. You'll see that the claims I make about 'cultural suicide' and 'undermining social stability' are precisely the opposite of what you accuse. I wonder whether you have the intellectual honesty to admit that?

By the way Leigh, your running mate Perseus seems to have embraced the label 'separatist' and positively to revel in it. Does that make him a lunatic too?

HRS, your questions are intellectually dishonest. The concerns about performance pay are related to many other valid issues other than teacher quality, as five minutes' casual online reading would tell you. And I am sure you would decry a common curriculum as "one size fits all" and therefore inadequate, yet here you claim it to be "inclusive". And the public has plenty of say about what happens in public schools. Through P&Cs, through MPs, through lobby groups, and through direct input and consultation into curriculum & policy. There are numerous formal and informal opportunities for any member of the public to have input if they so choose. The essence of public is that many voices are heard – not just yours. However, despite all the public money that goes to separatist schools, the public are there denied a voice – so what gives? BTW, I attended a public school when I was a boy, and I was treated equally to anybody else, as it should be.

Mercurius

Welcome to the OLO casualty station. Don't worry, yours are just superficial wounds. I've seen much worse. Luckily you weren't writing about multiculturalism (q.v. Islam), refugees, Indigenous Australians, women, John Howard or unions.

It's de rigeur here to abuse the messenger, to distort the message (consciously and unconsciously), to create straw men for mindless savaging, to deny any facts that don't suit and to manufacture 'facts' that do suit, to shadow-box, to jump at shadows, to sling around disparaging labels, to exaggerate with wild hyperbole, to shoot your mouth off without having read anything (including the article under discussion), to be called un-Australian and and to be offered salvation by the god-botherers (you've been spared the last so far - they must have used up their posting limits today).

But occasionally you get an intelligent, perceptive and contrarian comment that advances the debate. And it's worth the wait.

Change your bandages every day for three or four days. You'll be as right as rain (especially if the pack hear the word 'right').

What a great article. A couple of points to mention. Firstly the public schools I have seen aren’t hung up about secularism. Many go a considerable way towards offering a spiritual dimension for kids. Chaplains in schools weren’t dreamed up by Howard. Many public schools have chaplains funded by combinations of local churches. Makes a joke out of the cultural warriors who like to paint public schools as anti-religion.

The essential issue is that faith schooling by definition is about bonding like with like. Sure you’ll get the Christian school which takes Moslems and the Anglican school which will take middle class anyone-who-can-pay-fees. But bonding is an easy call – anyone can do it. As Putnam indicated, BRIDGING is by far the most important process, reaching across social and cultural divides to bring different kids together…..just we always did until 30 years ago.

Mercurius is right: we are cruising for a bruising if we use schooling to further religious and cultural divides. The socio-economic divides are just as critical and have been mentioned by others in Online Opinion.

He is also right about solutions. It should be possible to accommodate private schools into an inclusive framework. And it is possible to fund them according to the extent that they are inclusive and take on the tough end of schooling. The fact remains however that they wouldn’t be interested. Why would they want to give up their right to discriminate in who they enrol? They gain so many advantages in being able to “choose”.

I hope this article generates more discussion, even if it might require some people to take a cold shower! Don’t worry about the water restrictions, Leigh

Mercurious
P& C’s are a joke. I’ve been to many P&C meetings, and they are normally run by the teachers, and the principal only tells the P&C what the principal wants the P&C to hear.

I left a P&C after the principal let it slip out that they did not want too many boy students going to university, as male university graduates could earn more money than female university graduates.

Normally the schools just want P&C’s to raise money for the school, but don’t want any other involvement by the P&C in what the school does.

It is also not wise for a mother or a father to say too much at a P&C meeting, because the teachers may not like it and could take it out on their children.

Most MP’s are a joke also. In states such as QLD the local MP is not much more than a clerk, and everything is decided in Brisbane.

In a private school, the mothers and fathers can have very direct say about what is occurring, because if they don’t like what is occurring, they can always take their children out and enrol them elsewhere. Its called voting with their feet.

But with private schools, the public school system is now less of a monopoly. Maybe that is what teachers are afraid of.