The Private Schooling Myth
Middle NZ is wasting its money
Over on Kiwiblog I have made some comments regarding private schooling that need further clarification because it is one of my favourite topics I use to differentiate myself from the average right winger.
I do believe that for most of the population private schooling is a complete and utter waste of money.
Not going to apologise for this belief.
Nothing leftist. Nothing anti-choice. The choice is there, as it should be. Just if you choose to send your kids to a private school and it costs a lot of money, don’t whinge about the price. Don’t complain that you need more money for health, housing and the taxpayer should pay for your “Working For Families”, the ultimate middle class welfare program.
Thanks to zoning, “nice” children end up at “nice” local schools. That is, zoning is elitist already. There is no need to worry in Auckland that your little coddled Remuera or Mt Eden school boy is ever going to come across someone bad from the hood in Otavegas, unless of course they are sent to Kings College and stray outside the grounds. Ironic really considering socialist Labour could do away with zoning and have chosen not to.
I went to a public school. In third form we had gangs. Of the pale persuasion it took a while for me to realize what the red and blue hankies on the darker persuasion children really meant. On the basis that I stood up for myself one day and whacked another kid rather publicly with an offensive weapon, being a cricket bat, I never felt in any danger. Quite the contrary, the gangs provided lunchtime entertainment as you would gather in a crowd to see which of the red gang would pummel the blue gang today. This fun ceased when knives were introduced to the fist fights so local Maori had a huge hui and decided that they would end the violence at the school and that was it. Some old geezer was wheeled in and spoke in Maori then in English telling them to stop. So they did.
The local private school was inferior to our public schools. And we frequently reminded them of it by pummeling their 1st XV, debating side and 1st XI cricket team. In one of the most infamous victories in local sporting history, our Intermediate Schoolgirls cricket team lead by yours truly defeated their Intermediate aged boys team.
The problem with the NZ education system really is that middle class nice white people are not staying in the public system and are electing to go private. This has lead to a drop in standards, expectations and resources over all public schools. The “white flight” as they call it, ruins the local public schools ability to fundraise, have parental involvement and such. The busy body parents who stress daily about their little Johnny are usually the ones most likely to sit on Boards of Trustees and PTA’s. Schools need them to support teachers and function.
I hate to burst the bubble of parents, but in the main if your child is average then no amount of $10,000-20,000 a year private school fee is going to turn the child into anything other than average. Worst of all once that child hits University and is not molly coddled with private tuition and 15 to a class, he or she will hit the skids and be unable to cope.
A friend of mine has a daughter who is average. She’s not thick, she’s normal. She’s never going to win awards or set records of achievement but she’s a pleasant, nice, chatty kid who can hold a conversation with me. In itself an achievement. The parent however is hell bent on creating wine from water and has sent her to every learning factory in town. She has been diagnosed with everything from ADD to dyslexia. It’s all ballocks. One night I spent some time with the kid doing her homework (in between Mum providing every possible distraction known from being on the phone, cooking dinner, turning on the TV) and diagnosed her simply with being average for her age, reading and doing maths like a nine year old and being nine, whereas her classmates were reading and doing maths at eleven. Of course being told your kid is “average” is not what a white middle class obsessive parent wants to hear and the sky starts to fall in. Thanks to modern day education, she will end up getting a BA or similar, thousands of dollars of debt and live happily ever after.
Private schools may have better exam results but they cheat. They invite only the top children applying to join their school. The results are manipulated by wealth and fees. My old public school “manipulated” their exam results recently and the Principal was deemed satan and a witch hunt was conducted for her head. In essence she did what private schools have done for years.
Private school chuck out a few scholarships to kids that can’t afford to attend, but they then get the genetically modified “against all odds” genius child, who up until then has been educated in a public school environment or more often than not at least one of their parents are home schoolers. Public schools zoned in wealthy areas also cheat but the government sanctions this cheating on their behalf. It gives them the children of the upper crust for free. The very children that receive after hours tuition, behavioural learning monitoring and so much parental motivation that a parent becomes obsessive with their learning. Very little of the success is to do with the school, it is the parent and their ability to provide extra assistance outside of school that is the key factor. The pushy parent is usually one who is now vicariously living the education they never had through their child.
There is little credibility in classroom teachers directly influencing children’s learning prospects. Witness those educated with you that are now teachers. Top students never became school teachers. Teaching students are without exception, very average or below average themselves. Nice, caring salt of the earth people, but most are incredibly slow to grasp concepts. Their clock learning is at least a time zone behind, sometimes a date line. Most are “by the book” learners. Whereas once I was taught something from a teacher, I thought about it and learnt it in a different, usually far simpler way so to remember it. So why do we expect these nice, caring salt of the earth people to create more wine out of water? These people, many of whom scrapped through exams, or even worse if they filled some racial quota.
Our teachers these days are by definition, complete and utter bastions of the term "average" themselves.
Private schools work for “special” children. That is, ones with learning disabilities who need extra hugs. They work for children who are bullied in a public school environment due to unfortunate circumstances or physical characteristics. They work for children who are musical or incredibly artistic. They work for children of the wealthy, and $100,000 a year parents are not wealthy when they have 2 kids and 20% of their gross income is going on schooling. Private schools are an unnecessary extravagance for everyone else. On David’s $360K statistics base value it’s rather like a middle class, middle income person buying a Ferrari.
Don’t believe the hype and fluffy PR private schooling promotions. Formal education is not an investment in the future, it is simply another line item of expenditure. It is a product, just like everything else. Lowering higher education standards to what we have today has made it a crude objective product. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The purpose of modern day schooling is to prepare children for entrance to University or Polytech or provide a base level of learning for the few children who stop there. The purpose of University or Polytech is to prepare students to get a job. The purpose of a job is to provide income for you and your family to live off, part of which is education again. The fluffy “learning for life” and "love of learning" University ideal is gone.
We now simply learn to earn.
So in this revolving production circle of income generation WHY oh WHY are parents so hung up on the child’s primary and secondary education? It does not bloody matter as thanks to falling standards, it is so easy to get into University or Polytech now. Ultimately an employer never checks School exam results once you have an academic transcript at University or Polytech. Once you reach the next level your prior history is in effect wiped from consideration. No one cares you got a Scholarship in Bursary or 6 A’s in Fifth form past introductions to each other at first year University orientation. And now with NCEA no one over age 20 actually understands what the grades mean anyway.
The nicest thing parents can do for their kids is send them to a public school, back off, chill out and let them be a friggin’ kid. Teach them how to fight so they can defend themselves in the public school battleground. Then when they are ready to go to University or Polytechnic, tell the kid how much money was saved by not attending private school and if you can afford to then pay their University fees so they don't collect student debt.
That’s what a nice parent would do.
Public education is not like public health, where people die on waiting lists and are ultimately forced into insuring for private care. No one dies on a waiting list attempting to get into a school. Nor did they die because they attended a public school.
The bubble has burst on formal education being the way out of poverty as well. Many graduates cannot even pay off their student loans. Loans caused by allowing access to University and Polytech for absolutely everyone, even 70 year olds, bored housewives and others who have no intention of entering the workforce. When workers pay off their student loans, their pay rates are so low and taxes so high that they cannot afford a home for another decade. “Degrees for Everyone” (c) Bob Jones has devalued formal education to such a level that it is now not enough to have one degree, you need two. Soon only professional degrees will be of any use at all.
For many having a formal education has not only kept them unemployable, it has forced the qualified person into more poverty.
The expectation of a fantastic job with this pricey education has meant there is a huge ambition-ability gap in New Zealand graduates with such a small economy.
So let’s start looking at formal education differently, less can actually be more. The leftists wont agree as more people in formal education provides them with their own self generating industry of idle uselessness through the PPTA, unions and University lectureships where they can press their outdated ideals forcibly on the students of today under the guise of "education".
As time witnessed again and again ultimately formal education is only a small factor in success as an adult. Regardless of what your Principal said you won't die if you don't get a complete formal education. It's not the end of your existence. You can recover....and even nice girls like myself shag guys without degrees, as long as there is something between the ears.
Formal education is just not as important as we are making it out to be so best we stop wasting our money and actually go back to the drawing board with a cost-benefit analysis and think hard about the public taxpayer and private household money spent on it.
I do believe that for most of the population private schooling is a complete and utter waste of money.
Not going to apologise for this belief.
Nothing leftist. Nothing anti-choice. The choice is there, as it should be. Just if you choose to send your kids to a private school and it costs a lot of money, don’t whinge about the price. Don’t complain that you need more money for health, housing and the taxpayer should pay for your “Working For Families”, the ultimate middle class welfare program.
Thanks to zoning, “nice” children end up at “nice” local schools. That is, zoning is elitist already. There is no need to worry in Auckland that your little coddled Remuera or Mt Eden school boy is ever going to come across someone bad from the hood in Otavegas, unless of course they are sent to Kings College and stray outside the grounds. Ironic really considering socialist Labour could do away with zoning and have chosen not to.
I went to a public school. In third form we had gangs. Of the pale persuasion it took a while for me to realize what the red and blue hankies on the darker persuasion children really meant. On the basis that I stood up for myself one day and whacked another kid rather publicly with an offensive weapon, being a cricket bat, I never felt in any danger. Quite the contrary, the gangs provided lunchtime entertainment as you would gather in a crowd to see which of the red gang would pummel the blue gang today. This fun ceased when knives were introduced to the fist fights so local Maori had a huge hui and decided that they would end the violence at the school and that was it. Some old geezer was wheeled in and spoke in Maori then in English telling them to stop. So they did.
The local private school was inferior to our public schools. And we frequently reminded them of it by pummeling their 1st XV, debating side and 1st XI cricket team. In one of the most infamous victories in local sporting history, our Intermediate Schoolgirls cricket team lead by yours truly defeated their Intermediate aged boys team.
The problem with the NZ education system really is that middle class nice white people are not staying in the public system and are electing to go private. This has lead to a drop in standards, expectations and resources over all public schools. The “white flight” as they call it, ruins the local public schools ability to fundraise, have parental involvement and such. The busy body parents who stress daily about their little Johnny are usually the ones most likely to sit on Boards of Trustees and PTA’s. Schools need them to support teachers and function.
I hate to burst the bubble of parents, but in the main if your child is average then no amount of $10,000-20,000 a year private school fee is going to turn the child into anything other than average. Worst of all once that child hits University and is not molly coddled with private tuition and 15 to a class, he or she will hit the skids and be unable to cope.
A friend of mine has a daughter who is average. She’s not thick, she’s normal. She’s never going to win awards or set records of achievement but she’s a pleasant, nice, chatty kid who can hold a conversation with me. In itself an achievement. The parent however is hell bent on creating wine from water and has sent her to every learning factory in town. She has been diagnosed with everything from ADD to dyslexia. It’s all ballocks. One night I spent some time with the kid doing her homework (in between Mum providing every possible distraction known from being on the phone, cooking dinner, turning on the TV) and diagnosed her simply with being average for her age, reading and doing maths like a nine year old and being nine, whereas her classmates were reading and doing maths at eleven. Of course being told your kid is “average” is not what a white middle class obsessive parent wants to hear and the sky starts to fall in. Thanks to modern day education, she will end up getting a BA or similar, thousands of dollars of debt and live happily ever after.
Private schools may have better exam results but they cheat. They invite only the top children applying to join their school. The results are manipulated by wealth and fees. My old public school “manipulated” their exam results recently and the Principal was deemed satan and a witch hunt was conducted for her head. In essence she did what private schools have done for years.
Private school chuck out a few scholarships to kids that can’t afford to attend, but they then get the genetically modified “against all odds” genius child, who up until then has been educated in a public school environment or more often than not at least one of their parents are home schoolers. Public schools zoned in wealthy areas also cheat but the government sanctions this cheating on their behalf. It gives them the children of the upper crust for free. The very children that receive after hours tuition, behavioural learning monitoring and so much parental motivation that a parent becomes obsessive with their learning. Very little of the success is to do with the school, it is the parent and their ability to provide extra assistance outside of school that is the key factor. The pushy parent is usually one who is now vicariously living the education they never had through their child.
There is little credibility in classroom teachers directly influencing children’s learning prospects. Witness those educated with you that are now teachers. Top students never became school teachers. Teaching students are without exception, very average or below average themselves. Nice, caring salt of the earth people, but most are incredibly slow to grasp concepts. Their clock learning is at least a time zone behind, sometimes a date line. Most are “by the book” learners. Whereas once I was taught something from a teacher, I thought about it and learnt it in a different, usually far simpler way so to remember it. So why do we expect these nice, caring salt of the earth people to create more wine out of water? These people, many of whom scrapped through exams, or even worse if they filled some racial quota.
Our teachers these days are by definition, complete and utter bastions of the term "average" themselves.
Private schools work for “special” children. That is, ones with learning disabilities who need extra hugs. They work for children who are bullied in a public school environment due to unfortunate circumstances or physical characteristics. They work for children who are musical or incredibly artistic. They work for children of the wealthy, and $100,000 a year parents are not wealthy when they have 2 kids and 20% of their gross income is going on schooling. Private schools are an unnecessary extravagance for everyone else. On David’s $360K statistics base value it’s rather like a middle class, middle income person buying a Ferrari.
Don’t believe the hype and fluffy PR private schooling promotions. Formal education is not an investment in the future, it is simply another line item of expenditure. It is a product, just like everything else. Lowering higher education standards to what we have today has made it a crude objective product. Nothing more. Nothing less.
The purpose of modern day schooling is to prepare children for entrance to University or Polytech or provide a base level of learning for the few children who stop there. The purpose of University or Polytech is to prepare students to get a job. The purpose of a job is to provide income for you and your family to live off, part of which is education again. The fluffy “learning for life” and "love of learning" University ideal is gone.
We now simply learn to earn.
So in this revolving production circle of income generation WHY oh WHY are parents so hung up on the child’s primary and secondary education? It does not bloody matter as thanks to falling standards, it is so easy to get into University or Polytech now. Ultimately an employer never checks School exam results once you have an academic transcript at University or Polytech. Once you reach the next level your prior history is in effect wiped from consideration. No one cares you got a Scholarship in Bursary or 6 A’s in Fifth form past introductions to each other at first year University orientation. And now with NCEA no one over age 20 actually understands what the grades mean anyway.
The nicest thing parents can do for their kids is send them to a public school, back off, chill out and let them be a friggin’ kid. Teach them how to fight so they can defend themselves in the public school battleground. Then when they are ready to go to University or Polytechnic, tell the kid how much money was saved by not attending private school and if you can afford to then pay their University fees so they don't collect student debt.
That’s what a nice parent would do.
Public education is not like public health, where people die on waiting lists and are ultimately forced into insuring for private care. No one dies on a waiting list attempting to get into a school. Nor did they die because they attended a public school.
The bubble has burst on formal education being the way out of poverty as well. Many graduates cannot even pay off their student loans. Loans caused by allowing access to University and Polytech for absolutely everyone, even 70 year olds, bored housewives and others who have no intention of entering the workforce. When workers pay off their student loans, their pay rates are so low and taxes so high that they cannot afford a home for another decade. “Degrees for Everyone” (c) Bob Jones has devalued formal education to such a level that it is now not enough to have one degree, you need two. Soon only professional degrees will be of any use at all.
For many having a formal education has not only kept them unemployable, it has forced the qualified person into more poverty.
The expectation of a fantastic job with this pricey education has meant there is a huge ambition-ability gap in New Zealand graduates with such a small economy.
So let’s start looking at formal education differently, less can actually be more. The leftists wont agree as more people in formal education provides them with their own self generating industry of idle uselessness through the PPTA, unions and University lectureships where they can press their outdated ideals forcibly on the students of today under the guise of "education".
As time witnessed again and again ultimately formal education is only a small factor in success as an adult. Regardless of what your Principal said you won't die if you don't get a complete formal education. It's not the end of your existence. You can recover....and even nice girls like myself shag guys without degrees, as long as there is something between the ears.
Formal education is just not as important as we are making it out to be so best we stop wasting our money and actually go back to the drawing board with a cost-benefit analysis and think hard about the public taxpayer and private household money spent on it.
posted by Cactus Kate at 11:52 PM
11 Comments:
Bloody well written, I have one daughter who topped the intermediate & the other her NCEA year ( 5th form ) in English & Maths. My mother has been in my ear about private schools, but my arguements whilst less verbose are in essence the same as yours.
The really scarey thing is I fear my eldest is a budding Cactus, all the signs are there ( including desired occupation & acerbic toungue ) :(.
In the end motivation can't come outside, the kids have to have it themselves, otherwise as you say come uni/work it's a collapse, not to mention the drugs they have to keep away from are more lethal & affordable ( relatively ) at private schools.
Couldn't agree more. I went to a public school and got a good education. Your point about students from private schools not coping at University is valid. In my first year the students from private schools couldn't cope with the fact they had to do all the work themselves and a disproportionate number of them failed. You can only protect kids so much.
Some random thoughts as I read your article:
* Public schooling is fine, but for fucks sake - stream the classes. I had a mix of unstreamed & streamed classes in form 6, and the unstreamed classes were a waste of time - eg. in english where we were to read shakespeare, and were held back by people for whom 'See spot run' might have been more appropriate. No shit.
* Agree re teachers not being the sharpest crayons in the toolbox. Friends cousin failed 5th form, but was easily enrolled into teachers training college.
* re Universities: Agree that secondary school is primarily to get people into Uni, but I think a lot more people should seriously question *why* they are going to Uni. Case in point: These people who go to Uni, rack up a student loan and then decide to be a housewife and complain that they can't pay off their loan. Nothing mysogynistic in this comment, but I do wonder WTF they thought they were at Uni for if thy didn't want a career. Same goes for people doing useless degrees.
* Trades: If your career is about money, you don't have to go to Uni. Trades pay fairly well, if you are prepared to do the time to learn it.
*On a similar theme, this bulshit about people not being able to pay-off their student loan irks me. For those who get jobs (and for those that don't, they shouldn't have been at Uni anyway), my recommendation is that instead of spending all your paycheck on beer, clothes & toys, actually start paying-off your loan. If you can live on $150 - $200 per week as a student, then it follows that you can live on a similar amount when you get your first job, and put the surplus into paying-back your student loan. Back in the day, I paid back my $16,000 loan in 3 years whilst earning about $25k. Because I wanted to.
* Finally, with an 11.2 billion surplus, I think its fairly ridiculous that schools have to fund-raise for may things that I would consider 'core business'. Fund raising for sports trips, new gymnasiums etc are fine (although the latter is borderline). But when our local school is fund-raising to support the base activity plan, that's stupid.
You nailed that so well C.K
My family is classic example of this. I went to a local high school that most middle class parents would rather swallow razor blades than send their kids to, but I passed my courses then went to university. My brother is being put through a very expensive private school and is failing.
Having been out in the teaching workforce for awhile, I'm convinved that part of the reason that teaching doesn't attract qualified candidates is that no matter how hard you work, you're going to get paid the same as someone who isn't.
The only way to increase you're salary is take on management positions which takes talented teachers out of the classroom. This is a big part of the reason I don't want to stay teaching once I'm out of Asia.
Those educated almost entirely in private schools are not prepared for the real world - the environment is so sanitised and sheltered. But then a lot of the kids never leave that environment their entire lives - they leave school and marry into it and so it goes on...
And agree totally that one's happiness and success in life depend on a lot more than academic qualifications -- the very best money market/FX dealers in the world are former barrow-boys from East London. They have the balls to takes risks and don't suffer from 'paralysis by analysis' like the university educated types.
Couldn't agree more!
You have to do your homework and assess the schools yourself. Contrary to popular opinion, not ALL public schools are shite!
I send my kids to a Catholic school as that is the best school in the area IMNSHO. A little religion is not a bad tradeoff for a school that promotes achievemnet, discipline and good manners (those 'old-fashioned values some of us still believe in)
Being a small town, I also personally know half of the teacher and approve of them. (They are blue, not red!)
They also have a uniform, which makes life for parents much easier!
My personal circumstances aside, as you point out- you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs arse. Most kids are average (thats how we get averages) and there is absolutly no need to over-educate them.
They are only prodigies in there parents eyes...
I am surprised by your "grasp" of the system considering your childless miss fortune,I could not state it better David
Nigel
The great thing about raising a Cactus is that it requires very little maintenance at all. In fact the less you interfere with both it and its surrounding the more it will amaze you. Look forward to the easiest worry free parenting experience available on the market. Plus she will leave home the day 7th form finishes. Just make sure you give her a cheque for the University fees if you are going around telling your mates how clever she is, there's a good boy :). It is fun being me in the most part so don't worry at all.
Spam
Agree re streaming. Do they still allow that?
Stef
You are sounding more like an ACT voter everyday.
Ruth
"Bovver boys" they call them I think. Formerly weekend football hooligans. Mad beasts with balls of steel...of course its not their money.....People who come from nothing have nothing to lose etc... Its a fine balancing act in that game. Madness seems to help as does gamblers luck.
Oswald
Isn't that silly line they used to trot out against School C, about how if the 2 smartest people in the world sat School C, one would fail?
David
The very reason I have a composed balanced view about this is that I DON'T have the misfortune to have kids so there is no over-reactional emotive precious shit. If you think I am suffering misfortune however just send me a cheque to compensate.
I served 2 years as a student on the Board of Trustees including getting to choose the Principal, my mother is still a school teacher in her 60's and I spent 17 years of my 31 (ie. over half my life) in public education. I should know more about it than the average parent.
You think?
If the uptight sister in law sends my niece is sent to a private school there will be great shame in the family that's for sure.
It's the IQ, stupid. I went to a shitty public school, wagged and smoked pot, got top of my 6th form class, went onto uni of auckland, didn't go to any lectures, came top of my major.
Because I'm smart. My school, my uni, didn't matter for shit. Even if highschools did differ drastically in quality it wouldn't matter. There's no barrier of entry to uni, and anything you learn in HS you can easily learn better in the first semester or 2 of uni.
Reassuring since I'm following the same philosophy. My oldest starts at your HS next year. I reckon it won't be as easy as my gen had it - 5yrs free tertiary ed, set ski day record before graduating, the OE, all the toys, no HP, and house dep before 30. Looks like you agree advocating for help with the study. Nah ! Keep em keen, lean and aspiring.
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