A Class System
Herald Sun, The Australian Thursday, September 21, 2000
A large number of people have missed the point regarding the new funding scheme for independent schools. There is an illogical assumption that only state-run schools can service lower-income families.
In fact, most well-heeled families — those over $78,000 per annum — use the state system. That’s okay: such people can afford to choose, and most prefer state schools.
But it is the lower-income sector that are being denied opportunity. As long as we keep saying “Poor state schools, they should get the funding, not the private,” we make sure that low-income families are locked into state-run schools.
The old funding system forces the disadvantaged together, and maintains a class system. By funding independent school places according to the family income of the students they take, the new scheme widens access to lower-income parents.
We should be talking about meeting children’s needs, not trying to prop up one or other provider of school education. The state system minders are fighting to retain their monopoly — and they’re prepared to reduce equality of opportunity to do so.
Philip O'Carroll