Comments on: “It worked for us” – a selfish parent speaks!

By: You wanna live like Calman people, you wanna see whatever Calman people see? - Scottish Roundup

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:11:37 +0000

[...] John Connell reckons that the policy of letting parents choose the school their child attends isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. [...]

By: John Connell

John Connell — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:22:35 +0000

Hi Tony,

Good to hear from you. I’ve seen at first hand the inexorable shift towards the private sector in Australia. I’m happy to say there is no sign of a similar shift (yet) in Scotland where the private school population here is still, I believe, less than 2% of the total. However, there are signs of an increase in the habit of looking past your local school for your child’s education.

Thanks for the research tip-offs.

John

By: Tony Loughland

Tony Loughland — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:11:03 +0000

I had this very same conversation on the Manly Ferry this morning on the way to work, John. The erosion of the comprehensive in New South Wales began with the State Liberal government in 1989 who started all this nonsense with so-called centres of excellence, selective schools and the relaxing of the residential qualification rule. The result has been the creation of a second-class comprehensive high school and public school system in the perceptions of the aspirational Sydney parents (some of the middle class angst captured in a recently published book by some of my colleagues (http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/edsw/880.html?newscategoryid=102&newsstoryid=3058)

Parents base their choice of home on the proximity of popular public school or play the system so that their child gains entry into a selective high school or “opportunity class” in years 5 and 6. Private schools have benefited greatly from the splintering of the formerly strong comprehensive system of schooling.

BTW, there are many studies as you know John that support your claim of the greater efficacy of individual teachers on student outcomes than the effect of whole schools (see Rowe, 2003 The Importance of Teacher Quality as a Key Determinant of Students’ Experiences and Outcomes of Schooling Melbourne:ACER}