A quarter of Australia’s young people are not finishing school. This is the appalling legacy of the willful neglect of our most disadvantaged kids, writes Jane Caro.
In last Thursday’s The Land newspaper, in the middle of an extravagant advertorial promoting elite private schools, there’s an ad for Knox Grammar. It lists the following “key features” on offer to students:
- A seniors hall for teaching, study and socialising;
- The KSSA Library, open till late with extra support available;
- Technology rich classrooms and science labs with “operable” walls;
- Finance and legal studies classrooms, including a corporate style boardroom;
- 150-seat lecture theatre with lab bench; and,
- The Boater Café with an on-site barista.
Nice perks if you can afford them, I guess, and I’d have no objection to such schools offering glitzy nonsense like this if they were not also in receipt of public funding.
As they are, it is galling, particularly as a report released today notes that total government expenditure on private schools increased by 107 per cent between 1991 and 2000. No wonder Knox can afford “corporate style boardrooms” and an “on-site barista”.
This funding increase was twice the size the government schools experienced in the same period and far outstripped any growth in enrollments. Government schools enroll the vast majority of disadvantaged students for perfectly obvious reasons.
Think tank Mitchell Institute’s report shows the legacy of this willful neglect of our most disadvantaged kids, and it is appalling. They claim that 26 per cent of Australia’s 19-year-olds are not finishing school.
I am not arguing we should provide “on-site baristas” for kids in public schools. However, if we don’t think kids (and their teachers) attending shabby, under-resourced schools with decades-old carpets that are torn and filthy, inadequate heating or cooling, a “Covered Outdoor Learning Area” (big shade cloth) instead of any hall at all, we aren’t getting a clear message about how little we value their education in comparison to their more fortunate peers, and we’re even stupider than I thought.
A common excuse from politicians (shining exceptions being NSW’s Mike Baird and Adrian Piccoli) is that we’ve been “throwing money at schooling” for no discernible result. Indeed, things are getting worse. But that’s because we’ve been “throwing money” at the wrong kids. When you add further luxury to schools that are teaching kids who are already doing well it is no surprise you see little return on your investment.
Invest in kids who actually need more help and I guarantee you will see a return. That is what Gonski is about — funding follows real, evidence-based needs. The objection of some is that Gonski is too expensive. You know what is galling about that? It is more expensive than it needs to be because then PM Julia Gillard tied the Gonski Review’s hands by insisting no school lose a dollar. Not even Knox.
In other words, our obsession with publicly funding the very wealthiest schools that are teaching the very wealthiest kids is being used as an excuse not to properly fund the neediest.
Frankly that is disgraceful. Talk about middle class (actually, more like upper-class) welfare. As American billionaire investor Warren Buffett says: “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Tragically, however, if the rest of the world is more equitably developing its talent (and it is), all of Australia will be the loser in the end.
Jane Caro is a writer, commentator and lecturer.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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Top Comments
So more money in public schools to be spent on....what exactly?
The real reason some kids are going to private/Catholic system is something called 'white flight' and was articulated by the ABC a few weeks ago. I took my own son out of the local public high school because it was full of swearing, rude, indifferent, disengaged students. How do I know this? Because I worked there for a term. When I saw that my son was learning in spite of his school environment and not because of his schooling, I quickly removed him and sent him to the Catholic school. His learning was no longer constantly interrupted by behaviour management and he flourished.
People choose paid education to avoid scenarios like mine. Call it 'white flight' or call it good parenting. My son's public high school was funded to the eyeballs, had laptops, brand new science block, small class sizes, SSO's in every room, interactive white boards in every room and air conditioning. It made no difference.
There is absolutely no correlation between who owns the school and the educational outcomes of the students. Socio economic status is the biggest contributor to a child's success. If private schools were done away with, all students would benefit enormously. I went to a very elite private school on a scholarship, and I can say that it made not a shred of difference to my future achievements. My parents scrimped and saved to send me there, and really, I would have done just as well at the local public. Why people think public money should fund their elitist decision to send their child to a private school to avoid mixing with the great unwashed is beyond me.
Because they want their kids to learn - and not have their learning interrupted by students who swear, throw chairs, rip up worksheets, break their laptops, damage teachers and peers' personal belongings and are unimaginably rude to teaching staff - including being physically violent. That is why. And that is not an isolated case. I saw this happen every single day at the local public high school where I taught English.
That is your choice - to send your child to a private school. However, public money should NOT be subsidising another's choice to send their child to a private school. That is like buying a house, and then expecting the government to help pay it off! And in response to what you said about classroom disruption - yes the class may occasionally be disrupted. But your child may learn something else; that not everyone is as fortunate as they are, and they may even develop a little compassion.
Its not about mixing with the "great unwashed" (that says more about you and your opinions i think...) but that the school CAN EXPEL KIDS. 99% of the time its poor parenting that produces unsettled kids, which in turn leads to poorly disaplined and continuously disruptive children in the classroom.
This is absolutely not fair on the kids who are being failed by their parents- I agree its not their fault. But its not my sons either. We play with your "great unwashed" after school and on the weekends, majority of our friends fall in to this catagory, but we take education very seriously during school hours.
'occasionally disrupted'? Try every lesson. Why should my son's education suffer at the hands of rabble? I will teach my sons about compassion from home. I send them to school to learn - not to have to doge missiles in the room or listen to vile swearing at staff who are struggling to do their job.