The politics of envy. It’s an accusation trotted out every time it’s suggested we should spend less on private and independent schools and more on public schools.

It’s designed so that hard-working parents, who often work extra jobs to send their kids to independent or private schools, think they’ll lose out if the government invests in public education, and to have parents fiercely defend their parenting decisions and their children’s schools.

The school funding debate doesn’t need to be so divisive.Credit: AFR

But it also speaks to a nastiness and competition that was endemically and repeatedly evident across the recent Senate inquiry and interim report into what’s holding back our school system, where it was made clear that the funding, decision-making and entire policy debate is mired in competitive feuding.

It’s beyond time for us to ditch the competition, and with it the anchor of inequity.

On funding alone, a competitive system has landed us at the point where 98 per cent of our private and independent schools are being funded by the government well above the minimum School Resourcing Standard (SRS), a marker of what’s required to provide a bare minimum standard of schooling to the average Aussie kid.

That sound pretty good, until you learn that around 98 per cent of our government schools are funded below the SRS, and that funding to private schools is increasing at around five times the rate of public schools.

We should probably get that fixed … right?

The problem we face is that parents have been so deeply programmed in fear, envy and devotion to ensuring their children get “the best education that money can possibly buy” that we’ve forgotten schools work best when they’re designed for other kids, not just a few individuals.

QOSHE - Pitting us against each other is no way to improve our crumbling school system - Adam Voigt
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Pitting us against each other is no way to improve our crumbling school system

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25.12.2023

The politics of envy. It’s an accusation trotted out every time it’s suggested we should spend less on private and independent schools and more on public schools.

It’s designed so that hard-working parents, who often work extra jobs to send their kids to independent or private schools, think they’ll lose out if the government invests in public education, and to have parents fiercely defend their parenting decisions and their children’s........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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