We’re looking at expanding upon the education policy at Congress this year. The current policy can be found at http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Education_and_Skills
The proposed additions are here http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/education_insert
Feedback and discussion would be appreciate appreciated! It’s very much in draft form at the moment, so if you find spelling or grammatical errors please feel free to correct them.
What would we forsee happening to, say for example, Catholic schools?
I’m reading our policy that withdrawal of federal funds (we’re just talking federal for now arent we?) would be a gradual affair, ie over a matter of years?
Would such schools convert into public schools? or would it be forseen that they become fully private schools and entitled to no federal funding? In which case, are they reliant only on state funding to survive (untilsuch time as our policy says also that they should get to state funding), or do they close.
I ask since a lot of these schools would not be able to survive on fees alone as most families attending such schools would not be wealthy enough to pay enough money for them to be entirely privately funded (let’s leave out the argument of any other wealth held by the church for matters of simplicity)
In which case, if catholic schools for instance close down, then there is a larger influx into local public schools, increasing the burden on those existing public. We’d need to make sure any eventiual funding regime took that into account. (obviously money freed up from private schools would go to public schools, but is in practical for existing schools to absorb whole cohorts from private/religious schools - in whatever timeframe it works out to be)
In which case, in all of this, I do have a concern.
Public schools tend to be, as far as I know, locked in depending upon where you live. (ie you dont get to pick and choose)
Now in one regard this restriction is important to have, lest schools get imbalanced amount of students etc if parents do pick and choose based on reputation or slightly better areas etc… However, there may be various reasons where someone may have… reasons… for not wanting to go to the particular local school for that area, or continue going to the local school after events or occurances at that particular school.
Some of the less expensive private options, such as a catholic school, can be the alternative schooling option in this case. I would forsee with contraction of certain non public options, that these instances could result in leaving certain kids ‘trapped’ in a certain school unless there was some option accounted for that gave parents an matter of choice in which public school they sent their kids to… but without having to resort to “special schools” etc that would have some type of stigma attached.
Obviously having to send kids to a relgious or other private school in these cases is not ideal anyway, and im not sure i have a solution, but i feel it is something that should be addressed, especially if the policy will cause a potential contraction in such alternative options.
Also where do we stand on schools that may follow other teaching methods such as Montessori schools? (I have no idea where they fit in the public/private funding models)
Any policy that would have an impact on the education of children really needs to have robust transitional provisions to ensure that there isn’t even a temporary dip in educational outcomes.
Catholic and other private schools managed on fees for most of their history. Taxpayer subsidy is a very modern innovation and hopefully they aren’t already so addicted that they couldn’t go back to their traditional funding model.
I think you’d need to allow an option for private schools to transfer into the public system and retain some semi-autonomy for a year or so to avoid huge disruption. You’d also have to have special consideration for those who didn’t wish to attend a particular public school for a good reason. They could go to another one.
Montessori education could happen in private schools or after hours in public schools, through the alternative education options. Let a hundred flowers bloom, or whatever.
There’s also limited evidence that Montessori education has any impact on educational outcomes from what I’ve looked into it after reading this thread.