Louise Roberts: Why I’m not ashamed of sending my kids to private school
Attacking parents who privately educate their children is misguided class warfare. We only have one chance to give our sons and daughters the best education we can source and afford, writes Louise Roberts.
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If your children attend private school, they still deserve taxpayer funding.
After all, a key platform of a caring and democratic society is allocating cash to educate our youth.
In fact I would argue that every Australian child should get the same amount.
And if you are paying school fees, you don’t deserve contempt.
As parents we are all on the same trajectory here; we get one chance to give our sons and daughters the best education we can source and afford.
But the noxious and confected issue of private school brats versus ordinary kids has reared again this week because of a letter sent to parents of students at the prestigious Catholic girls school Loreto Kirribilli.
Following independent Planning Commission approval for a $97 million makeover including a seven-storey learning hub, parents got a building donation form with a tick box for cash amounts — including one for an eye-watering $1 million.
Loreto’s annual fees start at $15,000 but the school hierarchy is obviously comfortable putting its hands out for more. And, frankly, why shouldn’t they? It’s called resourcefulness.
That doesn’t sit well with critics who dub it the arms race — elite schools competing with each other to lure wealthy families with five-star learning, arts and sports facilities.
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All at the social expense of other kids not enrolled there, we’re told.
And of course there are those, like public education advocate Jane Caro, who argue that all government funding for elite private schools is an utter waste of taxpayer dollars.
According to recent department figures, the average combined federal and state government funding per student in 2016 was $13,023 public school, $10,956 Catholic school and $9036 in the independent sector.
But it doesn’t take much for the private school bashers to rear their self-righteous heads.
They think we’re all a bunch of airhead Ja’mies, the parody private school girl character created by comedian Chris Lilley.
But they discredit themselves by attacking Loreto for its entrepreneurship and the proverbial whip-around to inquire as to whether parents want to contribute.
I hear you ask, who would ever tick the $1 million box? But the reality is someone already has.
The donor, a man who left the school at the end of Year 2 in 1954, has insisted on anonymity and doesn’t want any buildings named after him.
Last time I checked Australia was free and democratic and allowed parents the choice to send their children to private or public school.
And those who choose the private system are not just looking for a cushy leg up for their princes and princesses.
Many work second jobs to pay the fees because they believe this is the best education for their children.
It’s their fundamental right to make that choice and to suggest that this is motivated purely by elitism is both insulting and ill-informed.
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In an ABC opinion piece, Caro was scathing of the private system.
“Universal, secular, public education provided by taxpayers, open to all children regardless of their parentage, religion or circumstances, remains the best mechanism any society has ever come up with for narrowing the gaps between kids and their opportunities,” she wrote.
“Yet Australia is an outlier when it comes to governments, particularly federal governments, doing all they can to encourage the parents of the luckier children to desert the public education system. It seems to be government policy to create ghettos of privilege and under-privilege, to the detriment of everyone.”
As a parent of children who attend schools in the private system, I am not fostering a life of privilege in them.
I work hard to send them to these schools and as a family we make many sacrifices.
And I certainly don’t set my family apart from those who choose to educate their kids in the public system, because I have done that as well.
Plus I am not alone in Sydney by having friends who are wealthy enough that private school fees wouldn’t even make a dent in their bank accounts.
They choose to send their children to school in the public system.
Should they be hung out to dry because their children are taking public places when they can afford to pay?
No.
It’s pertinent to remember the Goulburn strike in 1962, when 600 Catholic students enrolled in local public schools in protest at the lack of government funding.
Our Lady of Mercy Primary School got its new toilet block and it set the precedent for infrastructure and recurrent funding for independent and Catholic schools.
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Ultimately, whatever the system that educates your children, as a parent you still have to be involved. That’s the thing that really moves the needle on academic performance.
I welcome robust debate about the best ways forward in education but I reject those who base their opinions purely on a platform of haves and have-nots.
They are the ones who divide our society and foster social profiling, not hard working parents who are proud of the choices they make for their children’s education, either public or private.