Enforcing the Class Structure
Education AGE Saturday, May 31, 2003
[Every year, after the federal budget, the state school industry intensifies its ongoing media campaign against non-government schooling. The same deceits are used each year – such as citing only the amount of the “federal” grants (which are the main channel of funding to non-government schools), omitting all reference to the far greater channel of taxpayers’ money to state schools, namely, the “state” grants. Occasionally a letter is published revealing the truth, but this is forgotten by the next year when the same old deceits are used all over again]
You have invited letters commenting on the school funding system. But I have not had much luck with the Education Age over the years. My letter usually gets ignored, delayed or cut. I hope you will agree this time that my letter is concise, relevant and logical. I realise it is opposed to the normal Age position of more for the state system and less for the private. But for the sake of balance, I believe it deserves to be printed.
Your elaborate article "A Difficult Choice" (Education Age 28 May), trying to justify socialists using using private schools for their own children, totally presupposes that government departments are the only legitimate providers of an equitable schooling service.
There is an alternative philosophy which is both democratic and socialistic. It is simply that funding for children's education should be based on family means. At present what we have is that millionaires get 100% funding if they choose a state-run school, and poor people ger much less funding if they dare to choose a non-state school.
In other words, school funding today is not based on individual needs, it is based on the political clout of the sector you choose. The media love to concentrate on the really expensive schools, but most non-government schools actually spend no more than the state sector on each child. Denied equal funding, they are forced to charge fees. Thus what class structure there is in Australia is actually enforced by our funding system. It keeps lower-income families out of private schools.
When the funding is reformed onto a truly socialistic basis of family means, then parents can be granted the dignity of choosing who shall educate their children. And parent choice is the only force that will raise schooling standards across the board.
[Once again, this letter was suppressed. A page of letters was published. But once again, crude propaganda tactics were used. The letters spread was dominated by two larger articles supporting the Age bias. And no letters with “teeth”, such as mine, were published. For several years now, the Age has simply been a tool of the state school industry. Despite its parading as the educated persons’ paper, the Age has not let its readers have the chance to question the way schooling is provided in this country.]
Philip O'Carroll