Hoo Haa

There is an ongoing media row that is also happening over dinner/lunch tables around Sydney about schools. "Good schools". The MySchools website was released with fanfare last year (?) as a way of ranking every school according to its academic performance in the external exams that occur in year 3, 6, 10 and 12 or at least that is when I think they happen I might be wrong on the 6. This week it also includes the funding levels - usually a mix of fed gov't, state gov't, fees (for private schools) and others (like fundraisers and benefactories etc).

The community response is very much driven by ideology. Elite private schools have superior resources. 'Private schools' those that are not charging fees in the nature of $20 000 or so and Government Schools. I have friends who are committed to a public education for this reason. They cite the diversity of students, and the responsibility of gov't as part of their ideological views. There are a number of people who believe that their child should go to the local public school for primary but then on to an elite private school for HS. Some people simply think in terms of expensive schools all the way through for their children. It turns into a battle of haves and have nots, of for universal and diverse student populations or not - although our public system has responded to some of the elitist issues by creating a series of specialist and selective schools - and within the public shcool vanguard there is a fair amount of elitism over these streamed placements where children must sit for an examination and achieve entry into the 'creme de la creme' of the public school system. Some of our top schools in the state are our gov't selective schools.

I have always been scepitcal of this level of streaming. It certainly isn't for everyone. Is it because our school system fails bright students if it has to provide a qulaity education for a range of students - much better to group them so we can adopt a one size fits all approach? No children are one size fits all  and so the brawl spills over into the My Schools website...