Australia, egalitarian?
After years of hardship, Scotch College finally opened its new badminton courts.
Australia fancies itself an 'egalitarian' nation whose sense of itself was forged on the beaches of Gallipoli and built on a bedrock of 'mateship' -- or some such after-the-fact romanticism. I guess all nations create a sense of who they are through stories that describe where they came from. All stories that purport to describe a national 'character' are probably two-fifths bullshit. That's the nature of foundational myths. The reality of a nation and its people is too unruly, too complicated, and too self-contradicting to be distilled down into a series of narrative-friendly adjectives or snapshots. So historians, and journalists, and the people themselves employ artistic licence.
And I guess there's a tendency among some people to quibble with these foundational myths, especially where they fuel jingoism or gloss over the sordid pockets of history that, over time, any nation accumulates. But sometimes it can be churlish to quibble, because these stories we tell about what it means to be an Australian (or a NZer or an American etc) are as much aspirational as they are factual. I reckon there's reason to hope that if a nation wants to think of itself and be perceived by others in a particular way, then it might actually embody that way of being a nation and a people. And after all, the Australian story isn't such a bad creation myth: sacrifice, camaraderie, and equality are all noble impulses.
Sorry, I don't really know where all that came from. I didn't mean to get all windy and philosophical. But today, when I opened The Age or, more accurately, when I clicked through to its homepage, I couldn't help but laugh cynically about the notion of "egalitarianism" in present-day Australia. Under the headline "$50m schools piggybank", The Age details the inequities of public vs private school funding. To wit:
Except the private schools don't like to describe the money they're swimming in as profit. According to Michelle Green, chief executive officer of the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria, "it was wrong to describe the figures as 'profits' because the surpluses were not distributed to shareholders". Thanks for successfully splitting that hair, Michelle. But the point is that, whether you call the money "profit" or "surplus", some private schools are getting shitloads more than they need while some public schools aren't getting enough.
The Age adds some more brushstrokes to the financial picture:
To the surprise of absolutely fucking no one, critics have described this funding situation as "obscene and gobsmacking". Also predictable is that this funding system was devised under the auspices of John Howard and his then Minister for Education David Kemp. These two champions of the Fair Go put in place a funding model under which "a student's home postcode is linked to a socioeconomic profile based on census data. Funding is based on that profile." Given that schools like Scotch College are turning profits, sorry, surpluses, that would do Exxon-Mobil proud, you can only assume that money is allocated per 4WD parked in the family driveway.
Andrew Blair, president of the Australian Secondary Principals Association (govt schools), notes that at the same time as some private schools have experienced 500% increase in Commonwealth funding under the Kemp-Howard formula, they've also been increasing their fees. With admirable restraint, he also points out that while some private schools have been gold-plating their desks and blackboards "We see some government schools in all jurisdictions being 'squeezed' for funds, struggling to meet growing expectations being placed on them. We see some schools simply not up to standard in the facilities and equipment they provide students."
Unlike Blair, Michelle Green, head of the Continuing Enrichment Fund for Privileged Australians -- sorry, CEO of the Association of Independent Schools of Victoria -- isn't so keen on revisiting the funding formula:
There! Did you feel that? That was Michelle Green frowning pensively and looking sensible while inserting her laser pointer up your unsuspecting arse. See how she equates redistributing tax-payer funds with reducing overall education funding. Say it with me: straw-fucking-man! What's being suggested here is taking government money from schools such as Xavier and Wesley and rerouting it to Insignificant Plebeian Secondary in Ringwood, or somewhere else where the little people live.
Convinced that her bullshit tastes like fairy-floss, Michelle then tries to befuddle you with statistics:
Which proves what exactly? I should fucking well hope public schools get more money per student than private schools! After all, they're not charging 20-large per Year 12 student as Scotch is, nor receiving donations from rich former students, and don't have financial stakes in Iraqi oilfields*. What's under discussion here, and what Michelle's trying to obscure, is finding the right ratio for that funding. Any formula that's abetting multimillion-dollar surpluses for privileged private schools needs to be revisited. Simple.
The pièce de résistance to Michelle's piece-of-shit argument is the claim that "If federal funding for independent schools were to be reduced, the education bill for Victorian taxpayers would go up". No, sorry, this does not follow -- not when the schools in question are raking in multimillion-dollar surpluses. The reduction in federal funding can simply come out of the enormous surpluses that these schools have been running up. No need for yet another hike in fees, which have been climbing at an unconscionable rate, anyway. And no need for the Victorian Govemment to step into the breach to keep the private-school trough overbrimming.
The kicker in all this is that the Rudd Government promised during the election campaign to leave the current funding formula in place for the next few years. Yep, that's your ALP government for you: knowingly perpetuating gross inequities. Cos, fuck knows, we wouldn't want to deprive those poor Geelong Grammar waifs of their heated lap pool, stretch Hummer schoolbus, or helipad, would we?
Ah, Australia, so "egalitarian" we don't even aspire to it any more.
--Hans Sebastian Fruck
*OK, I made that last one up. But you get the picture.
article, Hans. And we finally get to find out your middle name.
I find it ludicrous that private schools are funded at all. Surely what makes them private is their ability to run themselves and turn a profit, or whatever they want to call it. There's nothing wrong with that, but when they've been given my fucking money to turn out another generation of collar-popping cocksuckers who feel they are born to rule, it makes me wanna walk down to the Gee Bung Polo Club (it's not far) with a pair of cattle prods and a can of capsicum spray and unleash the fucking fury.
PRIVATE schools are using debt collectors or taking legal action to recover unpaid fees from parents. Debt collection agencies have revealed they are hired by schools to chase hundreds of fee-cheating parents each year
Source a Murdoch paper.
Is the Gee Bung still serving erect poloshirt wearing wankers Vince. I have a knuckle duster, should we pay them a visit?
I am going to turn up to Scotch tomorrow in my budgie smugglers and cut some laps. Like you say half the lap pool is ours.
Talking to a teacher from a outer-south public high school just starting his second year, and he told me he's on $47,500 a year. The kicker is, his best friend from uni (same experience) just got picked up by Cuntycunt Grammar for $65,000.
He says to me, why should I work at a public school and miss out on 3/4 million dollars over a forty year career? He wants to teach in the public system, but his materials are outdated, and his friend has about 10% of this guy's discipline problems with students. Is it because all those inner-city private schoolers are Stepford Children, or that their parents are more likely to kick Little Johnny in the ring because they're dropping 20 large for a report card full of FAIL?
Meanwhile the good teachers are sucked out of the public system, the private schools get the big TER scores, the media keep this public bad private good propaganda going and the whole mess keeps spinning until it's like American high schools, selling advertising rights to the corporates just to keep running.
Also you're right about the Geebung. That place is a dickhead retreat.
Anyone with a sense of fair play, ought to be offended by bullshit like this. I'm not anti-private schools. I think there's a place for them. But how the fuck can anyone justify pouring shitloads of taxpayer money into the Scotch College, Geelong Grammar, and Xavier troughs when there are public schools lagging light years behind in facilities? It's fucking immoral.
I remember years back the argument used to justify public spending on private schools was that the govt spent far less on each private-schooled kid than on each govt-schooled kid. Therefore, the money the govt saved by paying only a portion of the private schooling could be ploughed back into the govt-school system. And that's fine. But the onus is still on the govt to work out the right funding ratios. And if private schools are gonna increase their fees at 8% per year (way above inflation), then they should have their govt funding reduced. This double-sting of increasing fees and govt spending is just wrong and is producing multimillion-dollar profits at Scotch College while some govt schools just scrape by.
We're in danger of turning our govt schools into second-class education, which just perpetuates the cycle of people leaving the public system and going to private schools, which some people use as a pretext to further rundown public schools. We're entrenching a class system by weakening the public institutions and utilities that have an equalising effect -- in opportunity if not outcome.
I hoped that when Howard and his cronies got kicked to the curb, we'd reverse some of this user-pays mentality that's been foisted on us over the last 20 years, which have seen public transport, telecommunications, health, and education increasingly privatised. So far, we're all waiting in vain.
Normally, I'm in favour of politicians keeping campaign promises, becuase no one wants a repeat of Howard's "non-core promises" lying. But in this case, the greater good is rectifying a broken fucking system.
Hans, you did it again. A nailbomb of truth. Bravo.
Want a bullshit argument. Public schools get a shitload more funding then private schools. Not all private schools turn a profit in fact i would be led to believe that only a few do. Catholic schools make up a large percentage of private schools and they rely heavily on parish funding - money that could be helping the poor. If anything the majority of private schools need more funding.
It's an obscenity that some mega-funded private schools have their snouts in the public trough while some public schools are chronically underfunded. And public schools, which have no other source of funding, fucking well ought to get more public money than private schools. That doesn't mean, ergo, that private schools shouldn't get any funding. As I said in the piece, it's about "getting the ratios right". And, clearly, they ain't right.
I'll save my tears for the poor underfunded private schools for when we've fixed the poor underfunded public schools.
Kthnxbye.
I think I hear a toilet flushing.
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