Editorial: Public schools make strides
ONCE upon a time, parents who wanted the best for their children would have to either hope their kids passed the entrance test for a selective school or pay hefty five-figure fees to put them in an elite private college. But nowadays it if often public schools outperforming private.
Opinion
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ONCE upon a time, parents who wanted the best for their children would have to either hope their kids passed the entrance test for a selective school or pay hefty five-figure fees to put them through an elite private college.
But that’s starting to change. According to the latest results from NAPLAN (or the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy) it is often public schools that are outperforming expensive and well-resourced private schools.
To take a few examples, on the north shore, Year 5 students at Hornsby North Public School bested their counterparts at nearby private Barker College. Government comprehensive Cheltenham Girls High School shows similar results to the high-fee Loreto Normanhurst. And overall, government schools make up just under half the NAPLAN list of 17 “high-flyer” schools that have made substantial gains in the their test results, with Catholic and other religious schools making up the balance.
Naturally, teachers and principals at the successful public schools are thrilled, as are parents who are able to give their children a top-quality education at a low cost.
When NAPLAN was introduced, it was not without controversy, and there are still many who worry its narrow focus on a limited number of literacy and numeracy skills is skewing the nature of education by forcing teachers to teach to the test.
But in an era of increasingly crowded curriculums and schools that are asked to cover a whole range of social issues and subjects in the classroom, NAPLAN helps to ensure the important skills from which all other disciplines flow are still being taught.
Ironically, the tests are implemented by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. This body also delivers the national curriculum, which has been roundly criticised for both overcrowding and an unnecessary politicisation through so-called “cross-curricular priorities”.
But while the system is not flawless, and the shift to move NAPLAN testing online has been nothing short of shambolic, NAPLAN remains a useful tool for understanding what is going on in the classrooms.
And, as this year’s results show, the stories they tell are often surprising — and heartening.
Let the buyer beware
Music fans, take note. That deal you just found for great Ed Sheeran tickets may just turn out to be too good to be true.
As The Daily Telegraph reports exclusively today, the problem of fake, doctored, or resold tickets is becoming an epidemic in the concert industry, with punters often left locked out at the gate and hundreds of dollars poorer thanks to scalping scams.
With as many as 10 per cent of tickets for big-name shows thought to be doctored, and authorities still with no solution, it remains for concertgoers to be aware of who they’re dealing with.
Breaking the silence
It is hard to know what is the more shocking fact: That an estimated one in four Australian pregnancies end in miscarriage, or that despite the widespread nature of the tragedy, most women who suffer the loss of a pregnancy feel they have to go through the pain virtually alone.
In an attempt to break the taboos around the subject, Australian actor and Vampire Diaries star Claire Holt has spoken out on Instagram of her own experience.
Speaking to her four million followers on the social media site, Holt said she debated making a “private struggle public” but realised that “so many people go through it” that she should share the story of her own heartbreak.
It wasn’t long before tens of thousands of women shared and commented on her post, including fellow Australian celebrity Teresa Palmer.
In bravely speaking out about her experience, Holt has given some measure of comfort to the estimated 103,000 Australian women who suffer through the ordeal each year.
The message is an important one: You are not alone.