Public V Private Schools: the cultural war fails everyone

There is a legitimate debate to have on the distribution of funding for the education and effectiveness of the reforms of Gonski in the new South Wales, but the incendiary suggestion of the leader of the state system that the Catholic and independent schools may not have placed almost Trumpian in its isolationism.

Secretary of the Department of Education NSW Murat Dizdar Put your foot in the mouth If mentioned in an article in preview of the ABC Australian history To say that the existence of private schools “must be discussed and discussed”. Hours before the episode transmitted on Monday, seemed to make madness and improved his comments, saying that they had no intention of lacking respect for colleagues in Catholic and independent schools and recognized their role in the education of the new South Wales.

But the two sectors that Dizdar had not treated were not amused.

The CEO of Catholic Schools NSW, Dallas Mcinerney, questioned Dizdar’s vision, saying that he put a question mark on the role and future of non -governmental schools. The CEO of the Association of Independent Schools of the New South Wales, Margery Evans, said that she was “not constructive to crave an abroad education model that never existed in this country”.

Trying to cancel independent and systemic schools has a sad record. The Council for the defense of government schools opposed private schools to private schools until he lost a case of reference of the high court of 1981 after erroneously supporting the financing of religious schools violated the Constitution.

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While almost all the financing of the state schools come from the States and almost all the loans of private schools come from the Commonwealth and the commissions, the scarcity of funding continues public schools with states and territories that have not implemented the reforms of Gonski based on the needs that have signed until 13 years ago.

A consequence in the new South Wales is that the public system has to face the decline in enrollments while the parents, many of whom have just arrived with aspirations for their children, leave the public school system more and more for private and Catholic schools, pushed in part by better academic results, more severe discipline and concerns about violence. With the opening of new suburbs to absorb the increase in the population, private and Catholic schools have moved to fill the void left by the failures of state governments in providing adequate infrastructures, including primary and secondary schools. The NSW recorded its worst year for enrollment in public schools last year and has lost about 25,000 enrollments in the last three years.

Discussing private education will not help to recover 25,000 registrations, to build confidence in the state system or to report the inscriptions lost in the public system.