Great stuff - although I was completely distracted by the graphic skills...maybe I need to get off the Ritalin.

Hmm maybe I'm overly political but considering the headlines I can here thinking this was about the coalition breaking election promises and dumping Gonski in a nasty political double-backflip.
First they fought it tooth and nail.
Then when most of the states signed up, and they realised parents wanted it, they backflipped and said they were 100% consistent with government ("no election issue here folks! move along now")
Now Poodle's dumped it without even sitting down and reading the details.

More money for Catholics schools, and secondly more for rich private schools. Less for public schools. That's ultimately why Gonski's a goner.

Cambodge said..

Oversimplified perhaps, but Lib and Lab fundamentally different philosophies of life and society...

Lib = Fairness in public inputs. Everyone gets the same amount from the public purse, ....

In all fairness that's completely wrong. Ideologically the Liberals would prefer nothing from the public purse. They believe that everybody has the right and responsibility to work hard and make their own success. They believe that everybody should take care of themselves and that poverty is simply an incentive to work harder. If you are rich then you worked harder. If you are poor then you obviously did not work hard enough. The rich create the wealth that trickles down to the workers. The workers should be grateful that they get anything.

All the rest is simply politics to get themselves elected.

Labor/socialists believe that all profit comes from the efforts of the workers and that the rich are riding on the backs of the workers. All workers deserve a fair share of the profits and the rich should be grateful that the workers are supporting them. Traditionally there is also a social justice agenda where the poor and the less-abled (ie. disabled, sick, elderly, stupid) deserve a decent standard of living. Why should only the rich get decent health care, education etc etc.

Australia has traditionally walked the centre line and that seems to be a pretty good compromise.

The concern with the current government is that the people in power seem dedicated to a form of extreme right wing Liberal ideology. It's very scary to watch.

Sorry <hangs head>

Cambodge said..

Oversimplified perhaps, but Lib and Lab fundamentally different philosophies of life and society...

Lib = Fairness in public inputs. Everyone gets the same amount from the public purse, e.g. equal Government assistance to all and then opportunities and outcomes will be what they will be. Result => longer, fatter tails = greater disparity of wealth distribution = higher mean individual wealth but larger population of the very poor.

Lab = Fairness in market outcome. Adjust each person's allocation from the public purse, e.g. allocate Government assistance to try to engineer a more equal set of opportunities and outcomes. Result => shorter tails = lesser disparity of wealth distribution = lower mean individual wealth but smaller population of the very poor.

If you want to maximise the average person's wealth and you're ok with a greater wealth disparity/inequality across society then you're Liberal (with a capital "L").

If you want less wealth disparity/inequality across society and you're ok with the average person having sub-maximal wealth then you're Labor.

So, Libs if you care about the mean. And Lab if you care about the tails.

Some fundamental mistakes there Cambodge, my humble suggestion is that a little too much political propaganda has influenced your definitions there. You have each pointing in roughly the right direction but perhaps you have paid too much attention to some of the pc rubbish they use to hide some true agendas?

I only contribute that as education includes education of political systems, ideology and operations. Unfortunately politics has a great deal of influence over education, analogous to religion having influence over politics.....

So what was the question again?

Gorgo said..
The middle classes will mortgage themselves to the hilt to pay for private education for their children because they naturally want the best for them, and/or have fallen for the marketing that says you don't love your kids if you send them to state school hell.

Ha ha ha ha. It's true.

They have obviously never experienced the hell that a private school can be. There's far more economic disparity there than public for one. And what if you're the only kid not going to Europe for this semester's excursion?

Ja'mie - Private School Girl is not far off the mark, I am told by ex private school girls themselves. (How funny was the final episode?)

Private school kids are led to believe they are at better schools than the general public, and are therefore better people. Every day. Year after year. Of course they are just normal... so... um, therefore the public school kids must be sub-normal. Again their own superiority is reenforced every day at home and school. This attitude continues on into later life.

The biggest **** heads I have ever met are ex private school. You perhaps have no idea. One introduced himself to me as "The Prince of the Gold Coast". I've met many others where two groups of friends collide that simply do not talk to "the other people" at the party. They would isolate themselves in other rooms for the entire evening, or in one extreme case the entire holiday, not mixing with the outsiders at all. I'm not joking or exaggerating.

Hello, yes, of course these are the extreme cases, hell I'm ex Sydney Grammar myself (they're all nerds btw, many from poor backgrounds/scholarships). But in general sending your child to a private school will affect their attitude to others and themselves, may create suicidal self esteem issues (a cousin ended up shooting himself after a school camping excursion), and may set you back $100,000s to create, ultimately, a useless, over-confident little prick.

Of the dozen or so people I still know that went to a private school none of them became anything of any great standing or "success" in society. Pretty average careers. Certainly nothing greater than my public school friends. Actually quite the opposite.

Sources: Sydney Grammar, Coombabah State High, Benowa State High, Pymble Ladies College, Ascham, St Hilda's, The Southport School, St. Ives High & Kambala

If I had it over again I'd send myself to a public school (I went to both), learn to stand on my own two feet, do it myself, experience and learn from some grit... everything the right wing actually stands for, ironically.