As such, private school kids are fed everything by their teachers, and public school kids are taught to rely on independent learning. It is absolutely ridiculous.
I wanted to get in Medicine, but even though I achieved an atar score of 97, this is not good enough for unis such as MOnash.
It is unfair that they do not give special consideration into our UMAT scores, its not my fault, I couldn't afford UMAT coaching like any other private school kids.
It so unfair, that private school kids have greater opportunities to achieve their full potential. For example, they have examiners as teaechers, generally more well-equiped teachers and facilities, and most tend to get higher ATar scores than students in poorer performing public schools. As such, private school kids are fed everything by their teachers, and public school kids are taught to rely on independent learning. It is absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to get in Medicine, but even though I achieved an atar score of 97, this is not good enough for unis such as MOnash. It is unfair that they do not give special consideration into our UMAT scores, its not my fault, I couldn't afford UMAT coaching like any other private school kids. At least the Melbourne Model gives us working class kids a chance into getting into a medical profession.
I never went to anything but a Govt school, but that's a big assumption to make.
thush,
This topic should not have been moved to Rants and Debate.
It deserves better.
OP is right on the money, and he is backed up by the findings of the Gonski Review last year.
thush,
This topic should not have been moved to Rants and Debate.
It deserves better.
OP is right on the money, and he is backed up by the findings of the Gonski Review last year.
Rants and Debate topics are not necessarily not credible - debates are held here as well mate.
Say the school I used to go to (before Scotch). Teachers were generally fairly decent. But think about it. Many of the people come from family backgrounds that may not take education as seriously as some. I myself had a student whose family denigrated her because she wanted to go to uni. That, and it was also perpetuated by what is 'cool' at school. Those in power set the rules, and quite often it is this: Studying was, quite simply, not cool.
Socio-economics are at the centre of it.
And at the worst schools, the teachers are too busy trying to deal with the innumerable fights going on (I have this from a couple of people who came to my chem talk last year) - and those fights stem from family problems and being taught that violence solves problems. Achievement disparity is not self-contained - it is interconnected with all sorts of other socio-economic factors.
Socio-economics are at the centre of it.
Say the school I used to go to (before Scotch). Teachers were generally fairly decent. But think about it. Many of the people come from family backgrounds that may not take education as seriously as some. I myself had a student whose family denigrated her because she wanted to go to uni. That, and it was also perpetuated by what is 'cool' at school. Those in power set the rules, and quite often it is this: Studying was, quite simply, not cool.
And these guys enforce the rules. Nerds get picked on, ostracised, even bashed up after school. Being a smart ass and treating the teacher like shit makes you popular (at this age, the distinction between 'popularity' and 'respect' is minute). So what happens? People are conditioned that study = negative, and those who DO want to study are often left unmotivated without a strong support network.
And at the worst schools, the teachers are too busy trying to deal with the innumerable fights going on (I have this from a couple of people who came to my chem talk last year) - and those fights stem from family problems and being taught that violence solves problems. Achievement disparity is not self-contained - it is interconnected with all sorts of other socio-economic factors.
This furthers Mr Study's point - I would say to that that the 'good public schools' and the 'private schools' have one thing in common, and that is a supportive school culture.
If you want to solve this issue, you have to go to the absolute core of the problem, and it's a mammoth task. You are talking changing an entire social system. If we could actually perform that task, it would be amazing.
Socio-economics are at the centre of it.
This furthers Mr Study's point - I would say to that that the 'good public schools' and the 'private schools' have one thing in common, and that is a supportive school culture.
Until my family’s move to the foothills of Mount Buffalo, I’d been a student since kindergarten at a parochial private girls’ school in Geelong. At this school, crotchety but effective schoolmarms coddled their barbarian, middle-class charges in small, calm, girl-filled classrooms, an environment privileged by the school’s bourgeois values and the entitled bullishness of its parents.
I’d been introduced to literature, to Greek and Roman history, to chemistry in its science labs, and to new languages; I’d acted the best male parts in its pompous little theatre productions, become good at tennis in its sports ‘academies’, and taken up the piano with gusto. My spare time was spent in its brand spanking new library, my dirty little shoes up on its soft furnishings, consuming whatever the librarians, plural, had produced that week for me to peruse. I had, in short, thrived on the nauseating principle that, as a product of patrician entitlement and its money, I would be handed countless openings into bookishness, into learning and experimenting and knowing and doing, and feeling as though I was achieving something. I was a confident and outspoken child, often deliriously happy, who felt purposeful. I had adored the school’s focused, industrious, high-functioning atmosphere. - http://www.themonthly.com.au/public-versus-private-schools-across-great-divide-catherine-ford-4835
:3, Is this the report?
http://www.monash.edu.au/access/assets/pdf/high-quality-high-access.pdf
Either way, it's an interesting read. :)
The ATAR and socioeconomic status: Most significantly, achievement measured through ATAR reflects social patterns of advantage. Within the Australian school system, socioeconomic status continues to be correlated with school outcomes generally, and ATAR in particular: broadly speaking, students from lower SES backgrounds are likely to achieve lower ATARS than students from higher SES backgrounds. In particular, top ATARs are disproportionately concentrated in the highest SES deciles, reflecting the educational, financial and cultural resources of professional families.
Do you have support the point of view that any student has the potential to achieve very high ATARs? Alternatively, do you support the view that every district, arbitrarily drawn, has a population of students whose potential to achieve is the same as any other district?
Also, it is commonly believed that Asians and Jewish students tend to be overrepresented at the top end. (I have seen reports showing this, but I cannot find one right now) If you support the above views, what are your views on performance variation between racial and cultural backgrounds?
So out of the whole "nature vs nurture" debate, you believe that our "nature" is irrelevant and has no effect on who we are?
Regardless, we should have a much better public school system and a much better welfare system irrespective of any racial theories. What are the policy implications of what you're advocating (it seems you are anyway, lets not hide behind hypothetical shields) anyway? Should we just throw black or poor people to the wolves just because they happen to be black or poor, rather than improve public schools in the area or give them welfare to bring them up to an equal and humane standard with everyone else?
Having tutored literally hundreds of kids for 6 years now, I feel that I can confidently posit that it all comes down to academic environment. If you're supported in your learning from a young age, you will almost certainly do well. Obviously people with genetic mental disorders or learning disabilities are not addressed here, but the following applies to everyone else.
Supportive academic environments correlate with socio-economic status. That's where the disparity truly lies.
Sure, you'll find an occasional diamond in the rough who will perform anywhere, and in any academic environment. There's that kid who makes everybody's eyebrows pop "he got 99.WHAT at THAT school?!" That kid is a genius who will succeed anywhere.
What you miss is that that school had a median of 27. You miss the hundreds of kids who all got below 80. How is that possible? Out of a year group of 300 kids, why aren't 60 (20%) actually in the top 20%?
I see a lot of talk about Jews and Asians. Right now, you could possibly point to the Jewish community and say "hah, affluence pays". But you'd be disregarding history. The large majority of Australian Jews came to Australia 60 years ago with nothing. Their communities had been utterly destroyed in the holocaust. The Nazis robbed most of them of all their property and any wealth accumulated there. They rebuilt. They went to school and studied hard. You think MHS is overflowing with asians and sub-continentals these days? Go back 40 years and I believe 50% of the enrolments at MHS were Jews. And their parents were dirt poor. My dad tells stories about how he and his mates from MHS would sneak into the MCG because they couldn't afford the "2 bob" to get into the ground.
And what about asians? Many migrant parents from Asia come with nothing. They're dirt poor, working 3 jobs to support their kids. But boy do they support their kids. They make sure they're learning, they make sure they're going to develop a work ethic and study.
That's the important thing, here. Socio-economic status correlates with a supportive academic environment, but it does not cause it.
I see so many similarities between the migrant cultures of Asians and Jews. It's very much the same story. Both covet education and social status, so that's what they instill in their children. Nothing to do with genetics. As kingpomba pointed out, despite stark phenotypical differences, genetic variation between ethnic groups is tiny. It's all about the culture. Migrant cultures see academic success as a way out of economic hardship. Rich people generally see academic success as the way to maintain their excellent quality of living.
Culture of learning = culture of academic success. That's where kids succeed or fail. Support in home environment is the main factor, and then support from your learning environment at school is also huge. If you have neither of these, you are almost guaranteed to fail. If you're lacking just one, you're at a major disadvantage.
Carefully curated notes help. Extra practice exams will give you a slight edge. Nothing will prepare you better than having classmates who want to learn and parents who will be upset if you're not trying.
Where will a kid learn to value academic success if his parents are bogans who never got educated, never wanted to be educated and don't ever instill any sort of academic curiosity in their children? And then when they get to school, they get to hang out with all their mates who are just dying to drop out of school in year 10 because "fukin skool blows ull never lern nethin useful"
It. Won't. Happen. You could give them state-of-the-art everything and they wouldn't learn. They need to be nurtured towards that success.
These new selective schools popping up all over the place are fantastic, and I'd like to see quotas imposed such that socio-economically disadvantaged areas have more kids going to these schools. Doing this will save many, many young students from the academic wastelands that their circumstances force them into.
No amount of funding of schools is going to change a community that devalues education. That requires a consciousness raising exercise that will happen generationally. But you can save the individual students for sure.
It has nothing to do with their genetics. Nothing at all. It has everything to do with the social forces influencing them. Leave them in the mire, and watch them struggle. Get the ones who want to learn into classrooms with like-minded kids and watch them soar. It is truly as simple as that.
These new selective schools popping up all over the place are fantastic, and I'd like to see quotas imposed such that socio-economically disadvantaged areas have more kids going to these schools. Doing this will save many, many young students from the academic wastelands that their circumstances force them into.
Having tutored literally hundreds of kids for 6 years now, I feel that I can confidently posit that it all comes down to academic environment. If you're supported in your learning from a young age, you will almost certainly do well. Obviously people with genetic mental disorders or learning disabilities are not addressed here, but the following applies to everyone else.
Supportive academic environments correlate with socio-economic status. That's where the disparity truly lies.
Sure, you'll find an occasional diamond in the rough who will perform anywhere, and in any academic environment. There's that kid who makes everybody's eyebrows pop "he got 99.WHAT at THAT school?!" That kid is a genius who will succeed anywhere.
What you miss is that that school had a median of 27. You miss the hundreds of kids who all got below 80. How is that possible? Out of a year group of 300 kids, why aren't 60 (20%) actually in the top 20%?
I see a lot of talk about Jews and Asians. Right now, you could possibly point to the Jewish community and say "hah, affluence pays". But you'd be disregarding history. The large majority of Australian Jews came to Australia 60 years ago with nothing. Their communities had been utterly destroyed in the holocaust. The Nazis robbed most of them of all their property and any wealth accumulated there. They rebuilt. They went to school and studied hard. You think MHS is overflowing with asians and sub-continentals these days? Go back 40 years and I believe 50% of the enrolments at MHS were Jews. And their parents were dirt poor. My dad tells stories about how he and his mates from MHS would sneak into the MCG because they couldn't afford the "2 bob" to get into the ground.
And what about asians? Many migrant parents from Asia come with nothing. They're dirt poor, working 3 jobs to support their kids. But boy do they support their kids. They make sure they're learning, they make sure they're going to develop a work ethic and study.
That's the important thing, here. Socio-economic status correlates with a supportive academic environment, but it does not cause it.
I see so many similarities between the migrant cultures of Asians and Jews. It's very much the same story. Both covet education and social status, so that's what they instill in their children. Nothing to do with genetics. As kingpomba pointed out, despite stark phenotypical differences, genetic variation between ethnic groups is tiny. It's all about the culture. Migrant cultures see academic success as a way out of economic hardship. Rich people generally see academic success as the way to maintain their excellent quality of living.
Culture of learning = culture of academic success. That's where kids succeed or fail. Support in home environment is the main factor, and then support from your learning environment at school is also huge. If you have neither of these, you are almost guaranteed to fail. If you're lacking just one, you're at a major disadvantage.
Carefully curated notes help. Extra practice exams will give you a slight edge. Nothing will prepare you better than having classmates who want to learn and parents who will be upset if you're not trying.
Where will a kid learn to value academic success if his parents are bogans who never got educated, never wanted to be educated and don't ever instill any sort of academic curiosity in their children? And then when they get to school, they get to hang out with all their mates who are just dying to drop out of school in year 10 because "fukin skool blows ull never lern nethin useful"
It. Won't. Happen. You could give them state-of-the-art everything and they wouldn't learn. They need to be nurtured towards that success.
These new selective schools popping up all over the place are fantastic, and I'd like to see quotas imposed such that socio-economically disadvantaged areas have more kids going to these schools. Doing this will save many, many young students from the academic wastelands that their circumstances force them into.
No amount of funding of schools is going to change a community that devalues education. That requires a consciousness raising exercise that will happen generationally. But you can save the individual students for sure.
It has nothing to do with their genetics. Nothing at all. It has everything to do with the social forces influencing them. Leave them in the mire, and watch them struggle. Get the ones who want to learn into classrooms with like-minded kids and watch them soar. It is truly as simple as that.
^ would LOVE to upvote.
Also, I don't see the problem with investing in education, if you can afford it. Sure there's a disparity, but that doesn't mean that the people who can afford to invest so much more in education should be put off doing it - they should be encouraged, imo.
Good idea in principle, but how would you test if someone were academically-minded?
From a pragmatic point of view, since resources are scarce, we want the best possible outcome out of investment in education.
aren't parents from higher socioeconomical backgrounds more able to provide further support beyond education, and thus maximising the chance of success after education?
Wouldn't this mean private education is an attempt to maximise return from an investment in education?
| Median SS | % of Study Scores over 40 | |
| Brighton Secondary College | 31 | 6.7 |
| Kew Highschool | 31 | 8 |
| Thomastown Secondary College | 26 | 2.4 |
| Dandenong Highschool | 25 | 1.2 |
| Lalor Secondary College | 27 | 4.3 |
These new selective schools popping up all over the place are fantastic, and I'd like to see quotas imposed such that socio-economically disadvantaged areas have more kids going to these schools. Doing this will save many, many young students from the academic wastelands that their circumstances force them into.
Re - the new selective schools. My SLIGHT beef with selective schools being the SOLE way of taking academically minded people into a good environment is that there would be a fair few kids who are hard-working and academically-oriented, but fail to make the cut to the selective schools. A way to get around that is to introduce more selective schools, which would lower this cut - because selective schools select based on academic achievement and skill, rather than being academically minded, which does not fully correlate. Anecdote - know plenty of kids in my old school who were quite academically minded and wanted to study, but couldn't make the Melb High/Macrob cut (this was before Nossal/SC/JMSS opened).
However in terms of the public/private debate i solely believe that the result you achieve is accomplished by your own intiative and not by the reputation of the school....
.....
Ultimately it comes down to how much you want a great score. and what your willing to do to get it!
I think that Australians definitely in general don't value education as much as it should be.
I think that Australians definitely in general don't value education as much as it should be.
Are you not happy with the education system Australia has built for you?
Being thankful isn't the same as ignoring problems and there are definitely problems.
I know there are problems, and the OP has clearly said that he thinks the system is non-egalitarian and I totally agree with him.
But it's a bit rich for the beneficiaries of the system to say that the 'builders' of the system do not value education.
We must always remember who the EDUCATORS are.
I'm a little confused on what you mean and i dont think i saw anyone say "that the builders of the system do not value education" (also a little confused on what this means). Care to elaborate on your views?
I think a separated system is the best. Not tiered, simply differently purposed. It's up to your value judgment whether you think academia or vocational training is superior. But that's a personal choice that you make.Yup. 100 times over.
kingpomba (:3, for those unaware of the namechange), I fundamentally disagree with you that good students should be held in the mire.
You write that you want them to be held in those underperforming schools because it's "unfair" to the other students.
What is more unfair is thoroughly disadvantaging those students who would perform well in a better environment. For most people at those schools, they're already lost. They've already had a decade of societal disenfranchisement and it's game over.
As everyone else has pointed out, and as I wrote in my post (perhaps you missed it). The key to fixing those schools is not funding or better teachers. It's a generational attitude shift from the community surrounding the school. We are not going to achieve that in the short term. So while you most certainly correctly identify the selective schools as a band-aid solution, I view it more as a stopgap solution.
Until the communities are fixed, there is no need to keep bright students in schools which will prevent them from realising their potential.
Not to mention that if everybody went to university, who would perform labour tasks? Some people really just do not want to study. They should be identified and given vocational training, as VCAL already attempts to do. Who are we to judge and say that that life is inferior? So long as they're happy, we should support them in their endeavours. I'm very thankful for those who take on the physical tasks of society. I know that my pasty white ass isn't cut out for it.
I think a separated system is the best. Not tiered, simply differently purposed. It's up to your value judgment whether you think academia or vocational training is superior. But that's a personal choice that you make.
As everyone else has pointed out, and as I wrote in my post (perhaps you missed it). The key to fixing those schools is not funding or better teachers. It's a generational attitude shift from the community surrounding the school. We are not going to achieve that in the short term.
What mechanism will bring about mass cultural change, particularly to the most disenfranchised and dismissed areas of society?
HOW you're actually going to bring this into practice. What mechanism will bring about mass cultural change, particularly to the most disenfranchised and dismissed areas of society?
If we make rappers rap about school, then studying will become cool.
One simple way would be that CSP University places should only be available to non-selective Government secondary school VCE students.
Discuss :)
That's a LITTLE extreme.
Problem is that the rappers will be seen to be uncool then because it will sound very contrived.
corse it is, my friend.
But we have a big problem to solve :)
But that wouldn't be a good way to go about it. Especially given you're hitting the wrong place as I said before.
One simple way would be that CSP University places should only be available to non-selective Government secondary school VCE students.
Discuss :)
I pay for private school education, I get the ATAR I need, I get into my prestigeous Uni course, I get my life-long advantage. All well and good. But 100% of my Uni costs goes to my HECS debt.
What's the purpose of this though?
Lets face it. thush. Would you think of me as a better person if I had instead said,
'I want to pay for my private education only for as long as necessary to gain my advantage. But as soon as I eliminate my opposition and get into Uni, I expect the government to immediately start supporting me'
That's not too nice :)
What other chance does the system have of becoming fairer, if local government schools and communities were not gutted by their best students/families deserting them for private schools and selective schools ?
Hmm. Honestly, I don't have a response to that - I can't intuitively agree with you - perhaps because it's a personal thing because you're saying that I should really be paying $265,000 for my medical education when I really haven't done anything wrong except accept a lucrative scholarship from an amazing private school. Are you saying I should be punished for this?
Hmm. Now the next question is - what are they doing right that we are doing wrong? How does their socio-economic system work? What kind of policy do they implement? Is it viable here? Or are circumstances very different there?
Yup, yup - but I'm just using myself as a personal example to rebut your point.
I was at a public school at Years 7 and 8, and I didn't like it very much. I didn't HATE it, but I did not particularly like the culture there (especially in hindsight). I was a nerd at school, but I tried to fit in with the cool kids. Now that's something that's really really hard to do. Ended up a weirdo, a mess. An opportunity presented itself to me to move to one of the best schools in the state - I took it with both hands. Are you saying I should have stayed where I would have almost certainly succumbed to the culture in the school and ended up...god knows where?
Personally, as i stated earlier, it's my belief there's absolutely no reason why the graphs found on the previous page should not be equal. In a country like Australia, there is no way we should have nor allow such a huge disparity between rich and poor. Land of the fair go? Bullshit.
We've been talking about culture but i still believe poverty and SES have a lot to do with it. The graphs quite clearly show a trend. I know people will rattle off the whole stats class cliche that correlation doesn't imply causation but it's obvious something is going on here. What i'd really love is to see a graph of how well public schools do in low SES areas Vs High SES areas, that'd clear up a lot of things.
TL;DR I think our target should be low SES areas to maximise our bang for buck and improve social mobility. Our entrenched poverty and social mobility certainly aren't as bad as the USA, i'm not screaming the sky is falling but surely we can do much better than that hugely skewed graph.
That's not the issue. The issue is the rest of the school. Are we to simply pluck out the already gifted students and ignore the vast majority of the student body who has untapped potential? Do you want to simply ignore the majority of students who could improve if only we gave them better resources and chances? That's not justice, thats elitism.
Perhaps we should stop looking at ATAR's as the only measure of success, especially considering that for anyone who does not seek tertiary education it is essentially meaningless. Instead, they should be better supported by our education system.
Now, there's a very important point which needs to be stressed. Intelligence is a lot broader than that stupid measure called IQ. Intelligence refers to any and all of our mental capabilities, which are much broader than what can be tested on paper - especially not with a rather specific paper like an IQ test (or something like the UMAT, for example). They test specific elements of intelligence, which most certainly do not encompass the entire concept of intelligence. I don't think intelligence could ever be fully and accurately measured. What we can say though, is that we certainly have evidence certain elements of intelligence are genetic.
Slightly off topic point here, but I find this point very interesting:I disagree with the conclusions which you have reached. There factors other than intelligence involved in predicting success, with just plain luck being one of them. I find it hard to believe that you would in any way be able to quantify that 'natural pecking order'. And seeing the wonderful job which we have done so far at quantifying intelligence, I don't see us even managing that any time soon, especially not in a way which would be correlated with success.
I don't believe anyone would disagree that ATAR/IQ or any of these specific tests only look at specific aspects in 'intelligence'. However, no matter what metric we choose to measure 'intelligence' (or aspects of intelligence, or a weighted sum of different aspects to represent a total, or anything you can imagine), we would still obtain a ranking of people. This can only lead to two conclusions: 1) there is a 'natural pecking order', or 2) intelligence should not be quantified and people should not be ranked.
While it is nice, I don't think it's right to assume that everyone is good at something.
And if we follow this train of thought, and that assume that like attracts like, then we will naturally arrive at a society where there is a separation by SES, where certain 'intelligence' metrics (ATAR/IQ) would be exaggerated in certain communities.
PS. I use the term 'intelligence' loosely to mean a measure of someone's abilities, and I use the term 'natural pecking order' to loosely mean a rank of people's successes, these successes which are correlated with some measure of 'intelligence'.
One simple way would be that CSP University places should only be available to non-selective Government secondary school VCE students.
Discuss :)
I disagree with the conclusions which you have reached. There factors other than intelligence involved in predicting success, with just plain luck being one of them. I find it hard to believe that you would in any way be able to quantify that 'natural pecking order'. And seeing the wonderful job which we have done so far at quantifying intelligence, I don't see us even managing that any time soon, especially not in a way which would be correlated with success.
It's a false dichotomy - some people are more intelligent than others, especially if you limit it to types of intelligence which are generally good predictors of success. But from there to saying you would be able to measure that or that there even is a 'natural pecking order' is a bit of a stretch.
I believe that what good government and good private schools have that bad government schools like the one I went to dont have is the strong concern and encouragement that the school must give to enable its students to highly succeed. For example, every time I told my careers teacher that I was aiming for a 90+ atar, he used to put me down all the time by telling me that it's going to be nearly impossible for me to achieve such a score. I was also put down and sometimes ridiculed by other teachers...it seemed as though they didn't want me to achieve my goal. For example, when I achieved my B+ in chemistry mid year exam, for some odd reason my biology teacher came up to me after class and started talking to me as if my score was bad or something..when everyone else in my class achieved lower than me. So yeah, if the government schools were able to to apply a lot more encouragement towards enabling their students to academically succeed, then maybe this disparity between public and private schools will lessen or possibly disappear.I hope you showed them who's boss.
Hehe yeah I think I did as I achieved exactly 90. :p
Hehe yeah I think I did as I achieved exactly 90. :p
Look, I'll be honest and say that Monash's $12,000 + Other Benefits, or University of Melbournes HECS Free + $5,000 + Benefits, is a load of shit for these students. I do not know these individuals personally but I really feel as though they would not benefit from this money/benefits. I feel as though they have already benefited enough with their education already, and these Universities are neglecting individuals who are in serious need of this money.
Life's unfair is a terrible phrase for inequality in society.
I didn't necessarily mean it like that. As I said earlier, there are thousands of people in the world who will NEVER get the same level of education that VCE offers, so there are occasions where people need to appreciate the little things instead of worrying about the smaller superficial things that could be considered as challenges to overcome, such as going to a not so good school.
Limiting CSP places to public school students would be a long jump in the wrong direction
Life's unfair is a terrible phrase for inequality in society.
If what's concerning us is inequality
It is basically SEAS with a quota of 100% instead of 25%
I know it is impractical. I know it's against my own personal interests.
But I am not here to discuss my own personal interests. I am here to discuss the issue which the OP brought up.
And the issue is about fairness and equity in Australian society. Don't we call this the Australian Way ?