Great stuff - although I was completely distracted by the graphic skills...maybe I need to get off the Ritalin.
It was really good but aside from getting the kiddies off dexies and removing age based year groups he didn't really offer up much in the way of practical alternatives (but that might be expected a bit much in a 12 minute presentation).
Sounds like he's advocating a Steiner style system which I would seriously consider for my kids if all the parents weren't such sanctimonious hippy twatbags.
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. 
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.
Select to expand quoteCambodge 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.
This post has gone from discussing education straight to a political topic... again!?
Select to expand quoteCambodge 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.....
It's not really possible to discuss education without getting political. The developed world we live in was created by politics. The industrial revolution and the rich created the wealth, and the socialists forced them to share it with the working classes who did all the hard work.
I agree with most of the images portrayed by the cartoon. There is only one problem: Who pays for it? Everything else flows on from that.
The right wing are happy to provide private education to their young to allow them to reach their full potential. They are not happy to pay taxes to support the spawn of the working classes in reaching their full potential.
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.
The left wing perfectly reasonably want their progeny to have the full benefit of a rich and modern education system but there is no way they can afford the fees of private schools.
All of this will fall at the hurdle of how do you work out if the kid is learning stuff?
Select to expand quoteGorgo 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.
Select to expand quoteGorgo said..
It's not really possible to discuss education without getting political. The developed world we live in was created by politics. The industrial revolution and the rich created the wealth, and the socialists forced them to share it with the working classes who did all the hard work.
I agree with most of the images portrayed by the cartoon. There is only one problem: Who pays for it? Everything else flows on from that.
The right wing are happy to provide private education to their young to allow them to reach their full potential. They are not happy to pay taxes to support the spawn of the working classes in reaching their full potential.
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.
The left wing perfectly reasonably want their progeny to have the full benefit of a rich and modern education system but there is no way they can afford the fees of private schools.
All of this will fall at the hurdle of how do you work out if the kid is learning stuff?
Struck a chord here. That's been my experience also.
I went to the same private school as Bob Hawke's heroin addicted daughter on the peninsular. Politicians, Left and Right will send their kids to private schools. They preach one thing but when it comes to their own flesh and blood will do another. One of the most Leftie friends, who I've known my whole life, became a school teacher and specialised in teaching the disadvantaged in public schools, she went on to send her own daughter to a silly private school. (We don't speak anymore, largely because, I wasn't able understand her backflip)
I experienced both private and public schools growing up. I made my mind up that my kids would go public, but we made sure, and even moved house to be within a zone so they would go to the best possible one.
There are some exceptional public schools around - you just have to match them up with your kids. I think I made the right decision.
