bunyip: "...But the way private schools are structured and funded in Australia makes them a disproportionate part of the problem."

I think bunyip's hit the nail on the head. Over the past decade or so we've seen an increasing amount of the Federal education budget diverted from the public school system to the plethora of private - mostly religious - schools that have sprung up under the Howard government.

Of course parents should have choices about where their kids are educated, but if they want to send them to private schools they should be paying for them, not taxpayers in general. Most of these schools wouldn't survive without public subsidies.

This article, and replies, have ignored one of the aspects of 'white flight' covered by the SMH.

This is what could be better called 'white exclusion' rather than white flight.

There are only a certain number of student positions available in state selective high schools. When some parents abuse their children by denying them a normal childhood, by forcing them in their pre-teen years into many hours of academic coaching in order to gain entry into a selective high school the system effectively punishes those other parents who provide their children with a more balanced preparation for life.

The school featured in the SMH was unnamed; - it is of course Sydney Boys High School, a school of traditions of academic, sporting and individual achievement. It is now 90% Asian, and has to provide remedial English classes for some students. Last year its 1st XV was thrashed by all opposition, not for want of trying: those young men were simply out of their depth.

Perhaps its time for Sydney Boys to be split into two schools - a Sydney Academic Boys High School, which would not bother with the tradition and not pretend to be "Sydney Boys", and a Sydney Boys High School, with a balanced academic, sporting and cultural basis.

Some friends of mine live in Carlingford. Their children go to the local public high school. The daughter was one of only two non Asian kids in the class. The only foreign language offered was Mandarin from which they were excluded, as they could not keep up with the rest of the class for obvious reasons. In addition, they found themselves socially unable to mingle.

My friends are now planning to send their kids to an independent school. I personally cannot fault them in any way, It would appear that tolerance and inclusion is not a two way street.

Epping high, in a relatively wealthy suburb is nearly 75% Asian, so the issue is not only about the low income underprivileged areas. It probably has more to do with not wanting to be part of a shrinking minority group, and parents are voting with their feet.

All good that whites want to stick to their own, as do many others. My only worry is the effect on the workforce... the so-called "skills shortage" where there is an abundance of skills but difficulty in matching them them with the ethnic preferences of employers.
All people, school age or not, should, one day per week, be coerced mingle with a random person of a different race, with some intelligence factor being the only factor allowed for matching.

Leftist social engineering has created the problem.It is not just about the skin colour.It is about values,cultural attitudes,and in many instances intelligence.Malcolm Fraser threw caution to the wind,against all the advice of his depts, when he took immigrants from southern Lebanon a lawless Anglo hating tribe of Muslims.
Now this group alone has created more ethnic friction than all the other groups combined.It was a disaster.

There are many good Lebanese and they are suffering from the fallout as are other ethnic groups.

My son goes to a private school, we pay the fees, no government asistance.

But it is as racist if not worse than public schools.

The arguement that GY and wants to believe that there is no connection between income and racism proves how ignorant he is on both counts.

The sensationsist headline 'White Flight" assumes that a system of aparthied is only relevant and in existence when whites abandon schools for fear of other so called races.

When Aboriginal or other kids are in the minority at a school they always get blamed for "creating racism".

Apparently it has nothing to do with the majoirty and those who administer the school