I know the wealthy like to condemn the Bolshy sorts who object to private schools getting Federal funding. They like to call it class warfare and that they think the Federal Government should fund private schools because they pay taxes, and some of that should go to private education. It's a lousy argument but they have had their way for some time now and the results are beginning to look a little obscene.
Twenty of Sydney's wealthiest private schools received $111 million in taxpayer funding last year, new data has revealed, allowing the institutions to subsidise plans for tennis courts, flyover theatre towers, and Olympic pools with underwater cameras.
The schools, including The King's School, Trinity Grammar and SCECGS Redlands, have offset parents investments through the public purse courtesy of an $11 million increase in combined state and federal funding since 2012, according to MySchool data.
On Friday, Fairfax Media revealed that the oldest girls school in Australia, St Catherine's in Waverley, had won a battle to build a $63 million auditorium complete with an orchestra pit, a water polo pool, and a flyover tower for state-of-the-art theatre productions.
It is one of several multi-million dollar developments underway at schools across Sydney, where five of the most expensive institutions have received more than $92 million in state and federal government funding since 2012, equivalent to the total cost of building up to three new public schools.Because I don't have kids, it's not really my immediate problem except I can't help but wonder how these people live with themselves. As I pointed out a few days ago, the Finnish educational system does not have any private schools. They had the good sense to ban them - and they explicitly say that it is important for the children of the wealthy to grow up with the children of the poor. If the wealthy want to spend on education, they can spend it on improving their local public school. This business of private schools entrenches inequality our society.
According to the NSW Department of Education it costs taxpayers $17,000 a year to educate the average public high school student, while taxpayers contribute about half that for each private school student. Sydney's wealthiest schools charge parents up to $30,000 a year in school fees.
Of course, it would fall on deaf ears with this government that is working very hard to shore up the division and inequality, but it needs to be said that this inequality is going to tear this society apart. It amazes me they can't see that is what they're doing.
Speaking Of The Finnish Schools...
The clarion call is, of course, "we need better teachers".
Better teachers? Better at what? Filling in forms? Disciplining oversized classrooms? Raising standards with inadequate resources? Does this imply that teachers like me aren't any good?
Hot on the heels of this comes the lament that we are falling behind the rest of the world: "why can't we be as good as the Finns?"
I'll tell you why. The Finns don't spend their time arguing about who should fund their schools. They don't waste any ink on public versus private arguments. They don't bag their teachers.
As Doyle discovered they regard their teachers as "the most respected and trusted professionals next to doctors". That's not the case here.
I have yet to find out what is wrong with the training, just that it needs to be "better".
Finnish teachers complete masters degrees. Our unis and colleges are lucky to receive adequate funding to enable them to complete any sort of training. They are forced to lower entrance scores to attract students who will pay the HECS fees that fund the courses. It's Pythonesque.
We want "better" training but we don't want to pay for it.
Not only are Finnish teachers respected and trusted, they are recognised as being the experts when it comes to education because they actually work at the coalface, not in an office.
I haven't even mentioned comparable pay rates because a country that can't find the will and resources to implement a report that every educator in the land backs is never going to pay teachers what they deserve – let alone the kind of salary that will attract the "best and brightest".
We may as well be frank about this. Our government's nowhere near serious enough to be talking about raising standards when it won't put its money where is mouth is.
Quite bluntly, it doesn't even look like they know what they're talking about.
The Very Fast Train That's Slow In Coming
Here's a depressing little article.
Thus it has to be understood that if we are to have a Very Fast Train, like say Japan and Europe, it's going to be some tough lobbying to get it over the line with the politicians. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how the rural sector votes for the Nationals and the nationals should be championing a VFT, networked deep into rural areas, but you never hear a peep from them about it.
The usual argument is that Australia's population density and distribution augurs against it, but that assumes two things - firstly that the distribution as it exists is not because of the transport available, and secondly that land use pursuant to public transport is demand-driven. The truth of the matter is that the land use we have exist because of our over-reliance on automobiles, and this has created the population distribution pattern we have as well as contributed to the Property Bubble. That the use of land pursuant to public transport is in fact supply-driven, seems to be a fact not well understood by our governments. If you put a trains station in the middle of nowhere, but if the train can access the CBD in 30minutes, that land suddenly has tremendous value. If it's a VFT that 30minute distance could be as far as Mittagong from the Sydney CBD. Or suburbs south of Wollongong , or north of Gosford.
It's not as if the expertise or technology isn't at hand. Japan's Shinkansen have had an office in Sydney since the 1980s for the day Australia would want to build a VFT. They've been waiting patiently for the day that Australia would build a VFT. As with the submarines - but probably more beneficial to a greater number of people - there are also builders from Europe who could put in tenders.
Amazing Things Happen Every Day
Amazingly it's John Alexander who is championing the VFT amongst the Coalition MP ranks.
If Australia's high speed train is as reliable as the rate at which it is promised by politicians, it will be a truly remarkable service.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is expected to soon flag plans to once again pursue a high speed rail link down the country's east coast - a veritable favourite for Australian pollies under pressure.
It's a bit like our version of the Springfield monorail from The Simpsons - a transport project sold with great fanfare to an adoring public that turns out to be a bit of a pup.
Over the years, politicians have promised high speed rail with such alarming regularity that SBS Comedy's The Feed predicted this very occurrence only weeks ago, jibing that it was "like a tired old lover teasing their partner with a sex toy they're too scared to open".
Indeed, the elusive fast train has now cropped up for three elections on the trot - great fun for headline writers and satirists, but doing very little to inspire public confidence in politics.Not many people know this, but the busiest air corridor on the planet is between Sydney-Canberra, followed by Melbourne-Canberra. We are flying two of the busiest air corridors in any part of the world because we don't have a Very Fast Train connecting our capital cities. As it turns out, there is a duopoly (and historically sometimes a monopoly) that earns big money from these congested air corridors and they form a powerful lobby group with the Federal Government.
Thus it has to be understood that if we are to have a Very Fast Train, like say Japan and Europe, it's going to be some tough lobbying to get it over the line with the politicians. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how the rural sector votes for the Nationals and the nationals should be championing a VFT, networked deep into rural areas, but you never hear a peep from them about it.
The usual argument is that Australia's population density and distribution augurs against it, but that assumes two things - firstly that the distribution as it exists is not because of the transport available, and secondly that land use pursuant to public transport is demand-driven. The truth of the matter is that the land use we have exist because of our over-reliance on automobiles, and this has created the population distribution pattern we have as well as contributed to the Property Bubble. That the use of land pursuant to public transport is in fact supply-driven, seems to be a fact not well understood by our governments. If you put a trains station in the middle of nowhere, but if the train can access the CBD in 30minutes, that land suddenly has tremendous value. If it's a VFT that 30minute distance could be as far as Mittagong from the Sydney CBD. Or suburbs south of Wollongong , or north of Gosford.
It's not as if the expertise or technology isn't at hand. Japan's Shinkansen have had an office in Sydney since the 1980s for the day Australia would want to build a VFT. They've been waiting patiently for the day that Australia would build a VFT. As with the submarines - but probably more beneficial to a greater number of people - there are also builders from Europe who could put in tenders.
Amazing Things Happen Every Day
Amazingly it's John Alexander who is championing the VFT amongst the Coalition MP ranks.
I say amazing because based on John Alexander's career as a tennis commentator, I never thought rational analysis was his strong suite. In all the years I watched tennis on Channel Seven, he would always be the one impugning the motivation of the athletes. Yes, he'd be the one to offer that a player missed a shot because they weren't trying hard enough. And I'd groan at the idiocy of suggesting for a moment that a professional athlete earning busloads of money playing tennis would decide in a crucial spot that maybe they didn't really want to be there and throw a point. But that was John Alexander, year after year - a man to induce face palm moments while watching tennis. He had so little to offer on technique, or tactics, or even statistics. He just offered his analysis of motivation as his commentary. It was terrible, so much so I stopped watching. Then he turned into a politician and a Liberal Party one at that AND he beat out Maxine McKew! Imagine my triple-decker horror.
Anyway, here's JA's input.
Anyway, here's JA's input.
"The real purpose of high speed rail is to be able to develop regional areas," said Mr Alexander, who chairs the standing committee on infrastructure, transport and cities.
While Sydney and Melbourne were straining to accommodate their growing populations, regional centres were "dying" with very cheap real estate, he said.
"It would appear there's a perfect storm of opportunity to liberate those cities through high speed rail," he said.
New train stations would sit near but outside existing townships, including the Southern Highlands, Goulburn and Shepparton, with the areas around those stations rezoned for higher-density development.
Mr Alexander suggested property in Goulburn now worth $200,000 could be worth $600,000 if it were just a 30 minute train ride from the Sydney CBD. Meanwhile, the newly-connected regional growth centres would act as a "pressure release valve" on property prices in Sydney and Melbourne. Under conservative estimates, 50,000 people could move into towns along the rail line each year, Mr Alexander said.
"You will push up prices enormously around Goulburn, people will be delighted," he said.
I guess the take-home message there is that the VFT would be good to spread the Property Bubble to far-flung places. The idiocy of wanting to spread the Property Bubble is absolutely in line with the kind of stupid commentary he used to offer Seven's Summer of Tennis every year, but he's got his basics right - the 30minute travel time window is critical, and yes, supply of public transport determines the ensuing land usage. It's amazing, really, that he gets that. Really, really amazing.
If a chimp rolled into your office on a Segway and could explain General Relativity, it might not be as amazing as John Alexander espousing this position.
Amazing.
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