Education and poverty: Desperately seeking a ladder

The restructuring of the public secondary system reflected a recognition that comprehensive education was no longer (if it had ever been) “common”. Government schools not only differed from private schools, they differed from each other. In total, the selective, specialist and multi-campus colleges represented approximately 25 per cent of all NSW public secondary schools. The notion of a comprehensive education was no longer synonymous with public education.

There is no doubt, that in making the decision for private, selective or specialist education, parents believe they are choosing a better education for their children. But what happens with the rest and how is it all linked to poverty?

The remaining “comprehensive” secondary schools are becoming increasingly depleted of money, other resources and, perhaps most importantly of all, of a diverse student body.

In the 1970s funding to private schools was determined on a basis of needs. This system of funding was effectively redistributive. Private schools, predominantly struggling systemic Catholic schools, were provided with government funds to ensure students were not disadvantaged.

In the 1990s there was a philosophical shift in the rationale for education funding which saw the “needs” based system move to one of “entitlements” and “tax-payer rights”. The “entitlements” argument is that private school parents are tax-payers, and as tax-payers they have the “right to” and indeed “deserve” public funding for the education of their kids; irrespective of their own private wealth or income. Thus private schools - all private schools, including those that have twice the amount of funding available per student than their nearest public school rival - were as “entitled” to government funding as public schools.

In NSW, the estimated funding to private schools has seen an increase of 128 per cent in the decade since 1995. Over the same period, however, public school funding only increased by 50 per cent.

In the public system, restructuring has introduced two-tiers. By design, selective schools attract the more able students away from comprehensive schools. While these schools may have prevented some students from moving into the private system, they are also attracting the more able students away from the remaining comprehensive schools.

At one level the growth of selective schools and specialist schools can be seen as an attempt to reinvigorate the public system. It can also be argued that the growth of selective and specialist schools provide enhanced educational opportunities for all students; including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

And this may well have been intended. However, the popularity of these schools and the competition to get into them is building inequality income into the system. In the academic selective schools in particular, the brightest kids are chosen based on specific entrance exam marks. Parents are wise to the competition and are after a “competitive” advantage for their kids. Enter into the mix coaching schools and private tuition. The result, money wins again and “gifted and talented” kids living in poverty are again faced with missing rungs on their ladders.

At the junior levels, the flow of students to private and selective schools leaves comprehensive schools with a greater concentration of less able and less motivated students. At the senior levels comprehensive schools struggle to offer a range of elective subjects and extra-curricula activities typical of the selective, specialist and private schools. All of these factors combine to discourage students from staying on to complete Year 12.

The increasing flow of students into private schools and the restructuring of public education does worse than nothing for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who are living in poverty; it makes their situation worse.

In a true comprehensive system, there is one educational ladder for all students. All students are offered a complete range of learning experiences from subject choice and extra-curricula activities to interaction with a diverse student body and community involvement. In the fractured secondary system that has emerged from the 1990s there are many different education ladders - some with distinctly more rungs than others.

Rather than assisting in alleviating poverty, the bifurcation of the secondary education system is contributing to it. Education is supposed to be a ladder out of poverty, and yet the system is actively discouraging the neediest students from staying on to complete Year 12. Choice can be a wonderful thing, but do some of us really have a right to more choice than others, when it comes to something as fundamental as education?