@i-need-a-martini wrote:
I am going to suggest to you my*mum that you know very little about how it works. Well it doesn't, and it doesn't look like it is going to,
Not your fault. You are in qld and you have Newman as your leader. mmmm - to that I concede
If you were in NSW, you would have a very clear document outlining exactly what money your school would be getting and why. All the schools? What about those who did not submit applications for consideration? Who decided for them what they would be getting? What they needed? Our state got organised fairly quickly when it signed up for that money. Well yes, makes sense to do what it takes to get "free" (I use that term loosely) money when your Education system that you are Constitutionally responsible for, is in crisis. And we have a state eduaction minister who is on the ball. Oh. The NSW Education System is in a worse condition than Qld's, What yard stick of quality do you use? You have a wrecking ball of a Premier instead. That was more polite than I would have been, so thank you.
c'mon, seriously? Do you really believe that Donna (who claims her school was to receive $4 million dollars) would send her kids to a school which was significantly disadvantaged? Really?
Yes I do believe it. So Donna, who by your following statement, lives in an elite eastern suburb of Sydney, gives such importance to the education of her children, that she sent her children to a "significantly disadvantaged school" oh - ok..... ALL state schools are significantly disadvantaged - that's the point. That's just not true. And Donna may live in the elite eastern suburbs of Sydney but the state run schools in the area have the worst reputation. Randwick High School is a classic example - was in the news this week because they can't afford textbooks required by the curriculum. oh, the parents of students living in those elite suburbs can't afford to supply their kids with the textbooks to access the curriculum, now I'm beginning to understand....
And what about me? I am fortunate enough to send my kids to a good private school. Under the old system, the school was loaded up with funding. In fact our funding was 3 times as much as the nearest high school that is swimming with disadvantaged kids. Under Gonski we get barely a drop. They get nearly $4.2mill of money that is desparately needed. Fair enough. That's the way it SHOULD be. Just what does 4.2 million dollars over 4 years (or was it 6?) years do in a school of over 1000 kids? 700 families?
And if you READ the Gonski report like I keep urging you to, LOL you will see that the funding model addresses what you think is fundamental - staff/teacher training and infrastructure. LOL lets buy each school a packet of band aids from the chemist, that'll be a whole lot cheaper and they can use the change to buy their text books to access a curriculum that is not even designed to be competitive on the world stage. The leaders in education use a vertical curriculum, ours is horizontal, and has been disregarded by the education leaders more than 20 years ago, The top 7 countries never even went there in the first place. Yet we see determined to latch onto systemS that even the Brits and the Yanks have discarded. Gonski IS ALL ABOUT what you like to call "the foundations". That is the whole POINT. Well, I think it thinks it is and that's what it is trying to convince the general public of, but the foundations are far deeper than the band aid solution can provide. Education of just the student is a minimum 13 year process. And this is variable depending on the attitudes towards education that a student is exposed to in their own home. It is Not a 4 year process.
And if you had read the report then you would also know that your last line ( "If we want to compete on an international stage, we need to do what the leading internationals are doing and rework the entire structure of our education system, whilst addressing and retraining/training those who are charged with implementing it") is EXACTLY what the Gonski report aims to achieve. By doing the same things that we have always done - offer a bandaid solution....
So to be honest I don't get what you are arguing against.
There are schools that do not even have running water, or floors and walls in their classrooms. There are schools who get a teacher who speaks English 3 days a week (remember that English is the core subject of our curriculum). There are kids who don't get breakfast before coming to school or given lunch or clean clothes to wear, or their hair treated for nits.
If this isn't addressed, how are these kids given a fair and equitable education compared to their counterparts in Randwick whose carers live in elite eastern suburbs?
and teacher training in what? what will they get for 4 million dollars? We have English Teachers who don't know how to spell or use correct grammar and math teachers who do not know basic Math. There are teachers and school administrators that either don't or can't even apply for funding because they don't know how to.
Just how much infrastructure does $4 million dollars buy Martini? We know it buys a cookie cutter school hall that some schools can't even use or afford to maintain....
I'm not against Gonski, I'm against how it is being sold and what it claims to provide when it really doesn't provide anything but a band aid. I am not against giving schools money, even if it is futile, because undoubtedly it will make some difference, even if used ineffectively. But it is not an equilizer, it's more of the same class separation, more of the same sorting house that we've always had. And that is what the general public cannot see. They only see what they get and use yardsticks elite schools and upper class ideals for comparison.
Gonski does not allow for other factors which affect equitable access to an equal and just education. As I said, I am not against funding, but lets call it what it is, it's just another inequitable bandaid. And before you ask, no, I don't believe that what the current gov probably implements will be any more effective - if the purpose is to provide an accessible and equal education for ALL students, and especially those most in need.
But the general public need to realize that this money (regardless of whose program/system it is or whatever name we give it) won't make an overall long lasting difference. because whilstever the general public believes that it will, they will not take the responsibility to educate their children, they will continue to believe that the government is doing it, and let another generation of kids enter the realms of illiteracy.
If parents and care givers really want to see their children educated, they need to take on at least some of the responsibility themselves, because the bottom line is, the government is just not doing it for them.
There are two curriculums martini, the overt one which our government's want us to believe we are getting, but there is also the covert one, the one which fulfills the real purpose of school.
A meritocratic system does not WANT every child to have the same opportunities, the same education, because then there would not be an even distribution of skills base. A school is really nothing more than a socializing puppy pre school, except most of the students are already toilet trained.
The government doesn't care which kids "rise to the top", they just care that all levels of the skills base is covered so that the workforce that we desire is supplied, they are not interested in equality. Capitalist societies just don't work that way. And until parents understand this, they won't become proactive to ensure that their kids do have the opportunities to transcend sociocultural barriers. T
Randwick can't afford textbooks? Some schools can't afford teachers, not even inept ones.
BTW, if Randwick can't afford text books, after all the money that has been handed out in the last few years to schools (meaning funds don't need to be allocated to those things) then I espouse that this is because of poor management and administration. There are programs for text book hire schemes, buy back schemes and the company that publishes most of the text books recommended by the current curriculum, even provided online access to those text books for $120 per student per year (high school). But they do have other texts as well, that cover the subjects of the curriculum. So there is a whole lot more to that story martini.
anyway, whatever, I don't rely on the government to educate my kids in the way that I believe they deserve/need, so I'll leave yas to your opportunistic political pot shots, because there is nothing I can say that will help people to realize that there isn't and will never be an equitable education system where those most in need and those who are "significantly disadvantaged" (which is what Gonski claims to do) will ever happen, regardless of who is in government, whilstever the capitalist and meritocratic framework provides the foundations for our society.
Some people can go their whole lives and never really live for a single minute.
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