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The Greens get a taste of political reality…

November 12, 2012 9:46 AM

Its one of life’s great ironies that so many of the Greens  come from the more affluent strata of our society and that many of them have enjoyed the fruits of private education yet their party has been fiercely opposed to any contribution to private schooling from the public purse, Maybe its because they feel guilt about their histories  personal privilege and seek some sort of socialist atonement by becoming such fervent advocates for public schooling. One can only speculate about how the Greens supporters will react to the party now deciding to soften their position on education funding in the wake of their trouncing in state and territory elections:

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Personally I think we are seeing a rather desperate rearrangement of the deckchairs on the party liner and those of us who are happy to see this party of religious zealotry about “climate change” and deep left ideology brought low think that there may be a better way:

After-all don’t those pesky Greens believe in composting and  recycling?

Cheers Comrades

 

”So there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.”

August 21, 2012 1:12 PM / 33 Comments on ”So there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.”

I’ve been laid a bit low of late with the sadly not unusual back pain and of course it does tend to blacken one’s mood and it also tends to make me rather indifferent to some of the machinations of politics at present . The latest news poll shows that Labor have marginally improved their standing with the voters by a minuscule 2% to a 2PP  35% while some of my friends from the left see this as “The tide turning” I can’t help just feeling sorry for those poor desperate and deluded souls who think that Gillard can possibly get the voters to listen too her let alone decide to give her their votes again. Those same friends  from the left are getting very excited by this story getting a  run in the Fairfax press  and they seem to me to missing the point that Tony Abbot was making about the Government  funding per student definitely being in favour of the students in public schools. This is what he said:

Addressing a meeting of the Independent Schools Council of Australia yesterday, Mr Abbott stressed the Coalition’s opposition to the Gonski review’s recommendation to overhaul school funding.

”Overall, the 66 per cent of Australian school students who attend public schools get 79 per cent of government funding,” he said. ”The 34 per cent of Australians who attend independent schools get just 21 per cent of government funding.

”So there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.”

source

Its the old story of a politician making a factual observation of the way the figures present themselves and then being pilloried because our pals from the left  are riven with class envy and they resent the fact that the parents who want to send their children to private schools see any of the cost of doing so supported by the state.  That is the crux of lefties resenting private schools, its envy pure and simple.
Personally I send my two to state schools and I am quite pleased with the results that  they are getting academically even though I have some reservations about some of the social sciences in the curriculum they can be addressed with parental input.
So does Abbott’s observation mean that he is committing a government led by him to slashing funding for the state  sector to address the suggested injustice? Not in a million years I reckon. Now every parent or former parent who cares about the education of young Australians would like to see our children getting the best possible education but we also have to be totally real here in our expectations. Not every child is capable of being “rocket scientists” and my guess is that many have no desire to strive for  the lofty heights of a tertiary education either. Frankly I think that we are getting to the point where we face diminishing returns when it comes to sending an ever increasing percentage of our young people to universities or other institutes of higher education because all that achieves is more prerequisites for lower skilled professions (an Idea I explored here)
So what of the Gonski report I hear you thinking?
Well I am waiting to see what sort of dogs breakfast Gillard makes of that  and just where they think the  money is going to come from before I pass judgement on it. Going  by Labor’s record on getting things like this right  I won’t hold my breath in the hope of a good out come well at least not until a change of government that is..
Cheers Comrades

 

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