Why the school system is fucked

Just to set the record straight, I am not one of those wingy "I could have been a brain surgeon but the system failed me" types. I did reasonably well at school given my modest talent and even more modest efforts in applying said talent. Nor am I one of those "where's the Latin" curriculum conservatives that try to stifle any developments in learning new sciences. My 11 year old son is doing much harder work than I did at his age across maths, history and English.

No, my problem is with the system of local versus selective and private high schools.

Parents have a choice of up to four options for their children, depending on their ability.

Option 1: Private School
Private School parents come in two types - those who harbour fond memories of their own private school days, the thrill of watching fellow students publicly spanked for doing a four-in-the-hand knot instead of the regulation half-windsor, the character building exercise of having to lick the sweat off the scrotum of their sadistic year 11 Cadet Sergeant during military camp, attending old-boy reunions to compare merchant banking career profiles and the like; and those who didn't attend private school but who are scared shitless that unless they sent little Sebastian to a private school he will end up a drug addict, or, even worse, a tradesman.
For a small investment of anywhere between $4000 and $25,000 per year (which equates to somewhere between $21 and $131 per school day not counting cheering on the First 11 on Saturdays), plus uniforms, 'voluntary' building funds (to help refurbish the stadium overlooking No 2 Oval), non-refundable application and waiting list fees, excursions ("but Daddy everyone else is going to the Louvre"), parents ensure that little Sebastian is given an edge over his poorer cousins not only academically but from being instilled with the values that will ensure success and happiness.
Which is great, because it means it is no longer parents' responsibilities to stop their kids growing up into complete fuckwits. And what values do they gain? One exclusive school for boys covering a sizable percentage of Sydney's inner west, claims to be centred on motivating boys "to be well-rounded individuals, fully prepared for the rigours of adulthood in the twenty-first century." Apparently, they "are a diverse community and ... celebrate the fact that our College truly represents the cosmopolitan nature of our modern society ... this means a genuine experience of the ‘real world’ that they will work and live in after school."
By diversity we mean ethnic, rather than economic, and I can only assume 'real world' refers to the train trip to and from school in which the lads, weighed down by immense baggage including sports gear, laptops and servants, take the seats of full-paying passengers; a wonderful lesson in entitlement within the real world.
Fees at the upper end of private schools range from only $12,468 at Kindergarten where little Sterling can learn how to wear a Boater hat at an appropriately jaunty angle and grow to up to $23,454 in years 11 and 12 where he can benefit from a wide curriculum choice plus staff paid to assist with applying for scholarships at universities. Add to this a $3908 enrolment fee (but to be fair this is a one off) plus various levies and that leaves you with a cost of $261,236 at 2010 prices to ensure your boy's success, not counting excursions, uniforms, bags, sports gear, new car ("you can't seriously expect me to drive into the school car park in that junker can you?").
Of course, the grounds and facilities are impressive; there are European Principalities smaller than the sprawling grounds of Kings, located in the geographic centre of Sydney. The smartness of the boys' braided uniforms make officer cadets at Duntroon look like extras from a mob scene in a Frankenstein movie. And the Principal, Dr Timothy Hawkes is one of the most respected minds on adolescent boy education. But then I remember as a child being part of my local public school band and beating The Kings School band in a state-wide competition. Not sure if their music program has improved since then but there you have it.
Fees here include lifetime membership of the Old Boys' Union. Wonderful.
Young ladies aren't ignored, with Ladies' Colleges of every denomination dotted around Sydney. Here young impressionable females are cocooned away from the spoiling influences of young boys and are instilled with a God-given expectations of success.
There are a tiny number of coed private schools, IGS, SCECGS Redlands for instance, that allow boys and girls to grow up together, bucking the trend towards single-sex schools. This is just one of the 'innovative' new takes on private education that provide 'real world' experiences for rich kids.
Those wanting private schools but who don't love their kids enough to invest a quarter of a million dollars in their education can go to the second tier of private education, provided they can pretend to be Catholic for a sufficiently long time. Then there are also other Christian denomination schools, from Greek Orthodox to Pentecostal. These may not give your kids a good education but it at leasts saves them from having to question their religious beliefs with messy topics like history, science etc. And growing up with a good clean Christian ethos means your daughter is less likely to lose her virginity in high school. Apparently.

Option 2: Selective Schools
Here's a novel idea. Set up a test that identifies both the most academically gifted kids and the one's whose parents have hot-housed them to pass the selective school test. Then take all these kids away from all the other kids who either didn't sit for the exam or didn't quite make the cut. Then, when the HSC results come out six years later, you can claim it is a result of brilliant teaching, rather than the fact that these bright kids would have performed anywhere.
Sydney has a number of selective schools to choose from. James Ruse Agricultural College is the one to beat in terms of arrogance and HSC results. Others include Fort Street, North Sydney Girls, Sydney High, Manly and more.
Some schools have a selective stream, so they are like local schools but half the students are not local but have demonstrated excellence academically (Sydney Secondary College), arts (Dulwich High, Newtown High) or sports (Narrabeen) etc.
Now, I seem to remember when I went to school, you were streamed into a year 7 class based on your results from year 6, but went to the same school as everyone else, regardless of relative ability. You didn't get cocooned away and if you reached your potential after year 6, you still managed to get into a top class, based on your ability, in later years.
Now parents are bludgeoned into thinking that the Selective High Schools exam is their only hope. If your child freaks out in the exam, held in March in their Year 6, then its all over. He or she will go to a the shit local school and never excel because everyone knows how shit comprehensive schools are, right?
So smart little Kenneth, whose parents put him through years of coaching on how to pass the various skills tests that form the Selective High Schools Exam, gets to leave all his other public primary school mates behind as he boards the bus or train to a selective high school miles from his home. His uniform tells all around him that he has been marked out as special, gifted no less. So again he feels happy in not having to stand up for pregnant women on buses because everyone knows he's been studying all night and way too tired for such niceties.
And when Kenneth, does do well at school, his school can take most of the credit, and ignore the fact that he would have scored well regardless of where he went, especially if all the local schools still had bright kids he could learn and play dungeons and dragons with.

Option 3: Local comprehensive schools
The remaining parents are left with sending their kids to local comprehensive schools. More and more of these are single-sex, which is great because it stops young boys from creating friendships with girls and ensures they will see them as sex partners only (although to be fair, most boys will see all non-related girls as potential sex partners regardless of whether they are school friends or not).
Now, just imagine what comprehensive schools are like, given that the wealthiest and most talented kids have been creamed off. That's right: they are a hotbed of drugs, vice, and disrespect where your child will just be trying to stay alive, rather than focused on learning.
Or, maybe they are a reflection of the broad cross section of your local community. It depends on the area and the parents. In the inner west of Sydney, there are so many selective and private options that 'caring' parents hardly even consider the local schools. Further out, where any non-local option will involve a one-hour commute, you could be forgiven for sending your child to the local school.


My solution
It is a bit radical, but my solution is to abolish selective schools, and remove federal funding for private schools. If your child is smart, they get streamed into the top class of the local high school, and then they have to keep earning their place in that class every year. Similarly, if you have a bad year, you get another crack at it, but at least your child will be learning with other similarly driven students.

Private schools can go fuck themselves. If they want to provide an alternative to government run and funded schools, good on them, but they should get no funding from governments. That extra funding should go towards supporting government schools instead. Of course this means fees will get even higher, which will kill off some demand for private school, especially from middle class parents double-mortgaging their house to pay for fees. But this is good. First, they will save their money. Secondly, it limits private school attendance to the truly financially elite (the ones who probably pay a lower percentage of income in tax because they put it into trust funds etc, thereby killing off the argument that their taxes are paying for other kids' education) who will then know that their child is mingling with the top, not in some muddied water washpool of the upper half of society.


Just an idea anyway...