'Public Education, It's Time To Give It More'

We all remember that little song they'd play to accompany the pro-public education ads a few years back yes? The guy strumming his guitar and singing 'public eduuuucaaattiooon...' with the smiling faces of little kids in blue uniforms . Of course these children all came from diverse backgrounds - it WAS a government endorsement after all.

Just a slight issue...

Public schools are not filled with kids in perfect little uniforms, they are not pretty colourful places with extensive resources (much to the shock of the ad's director I'm sure).

The other week I scoffed at the public high schools endorsement brochure lying upon my dining table. It showed all these happy kids using brand new computers and sparkling science equipment.

Please

My brother goes to a public primary school and will be starting high school next year, my parents have been tying themselves in knots trying to work out what to do with him, he certainly can't go to the local high school, they don't know if he'll get into a selective high school and private schools teach religion - something my parents don't really approve of.

Why all the fuss? What's wrong with going to a public school? Didn't yours truly complete 13 years of public education?

Indeed I did.

I am a strong supporter of the public system, so when I picked up the Sunday paper last week and read that Ruddy boy was going to give the old private schools a boost I was ever so slightly miffed.

RUDD MY MAN! I THOUGHT WE WAS TIGHT!

Clearly not.

An 'Education Revolution' is not much of a 'revolution' if all you're doing is giving the schools with the most even more. What exactly do you propose they do with this money? Invest in super fertiliser to make their sweeping lawns even greener? Meanwhile public schools struggle to maintain the sad and sorry dirt patch that passes for an 'oval'.

Try sharing 30 textbooks between 180 people and using these same textbooks year after year, regardless of the amount of graffiti they accumulate , it doesn't matter that they have turned into outlets for teenage boys to release their feelings of masculine inadequacy, we must attempt to decipher the words beneath them nonetheless. Well that is of course if the book isn't missing pages or if it doesn't have chapters falling out. Every lesson there would be a rush to the textbook basket, no one wanted to get the ones that barely resembled 'books'.

< --- a geography textbook


< --- the overhead projector not working, a frequent occurance, note the state of the blackboard

While you're at it have a go at working with this textbook on a table that keeps sliding off its legs. That's right, the wooden top of a table would frequently lift itself and send all your prescious items all over the mouldy carpet if you were not careful to keep your legs (or your neighbour's legs) from bumping into the posts holding it so delicately together.

< --- table tennis tables breaking

Also have a go at learning anything when you're subjected to a string of substitute teachers or, even better, no teacher at all. The senior classes were always given priority and always had teachers but the year 7s and 8s would often end up in the 'Outdoor shelter' where they'd be under minimal supervision. Teachers would yell at them to do work but this wouldn't always happen.

Maybe I should also mention that my school, which used to pride itself on being an 'agricultural high school' had to sell off most of it's agricultural land, sheep and tractors because it was so badly underfunded.
Similarly our neighbouring/rival school is currently facing the possibility of having to do the same, thankfully their ex-students and current students seem a little more politically motivated and are lobbying the Rees government to stop this from happening and I support these guys 100%, why should more public schools have to suffer? Is it any wonder parents scrap and save to send their kids to private schools?

< --- the last of our animals

The pond and it's little surrounds are our 'ag plot' the houses and grass outside it are what was sold off.

I also suggest that everyone tries using the computer facilities in a public school, up until my final year we had to use computers built for Windows 95 and yes they eventually managed to run Windows Xp but it was at an excruciatingly slow pace. The computers were yellowing and you could see and feel the grime on the keyboard and mouse. Whenever a teacher would remark that we were going to the computer lab we would scoff because we all knew that 40minutes of the 80 minute period would be spent starting up and signing in, and there would always be SOMEONE whose computer wouldn't work. Often we would share one between two or sometimes even three.

When we finally did get the new computers it wasn't much better because the government decided to censor the internet. Trying to do an assignment for art? Good luck with google images, English? Don't look up anything as controversial as Shakespeare now! Imagine the fun I had trying to research anything for extension 1 (our topic was 'gendered language')

< --- laptops with our grant

So how did we get these computers? Our school managed to recieve a 'grant' something about being in a disadvantaged area but trying really hard anyway...geez...thanks...

We kids would joke about the fact that we didn't have mirrors, soap or anything that passed as toilet paper in our bathrooms.

<-- senior toilets, these were the 'good' ones

We'd joke about the state of our 'ag plot' and the fact that the little money the school DID have seemed to be spent on things like vollyball courts and not on EDUCATION. Or it would go to making the fences taller, spikier and adding barbed wire to them.

< --- our canteen

Our humanities teachers would go on rants about life under Whitlam, the need to abolish the Howard government and the days of free university education. My yr 10 Australian History teacher spoke of marches against war, Aboriginal rights and Medicare, as did most in the history/social sciences/English faculties.

< --- one of my teacher idols, note the shitty computer

The reality is that private schools have parents forking out because they can afford to. Those who can't afford to are doing it anyway, but wouldn't life be so much easier if parents DIDN'T have to break their backs working extra hours to put their kids through private schools? Selective schools are the only form of public education worth receiving so is it any wonder that desperate parents are trying to bribe these schools*? That parents force their children to study their guts out in primary school so that they can receive some quality education?

My local high school doesn't offer Advacned English, the concept of an 'extension course' is unheard of, 60 people finished year 12 in 2007 and approximately 10 of them went on to tertiary education - half of whom are at UWS.

My high school (A half selective one) had 160 people finish yr 12, at least 100 people went to university, many of them at USYD, UNSW, UTS. Some of those going to UWS were offered scholarships and are completing courses like Law and Medicine. We also had two people top the state and the school ranks in the top 150. A dramatic contrast wouldn't you say?

I think that says it all.

< --- when they have that

we have this:

< --- portables as permanent classrooms

< --- it'd be nice to have some real plumbing

*http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25046192-5001021,00.html