More anti-private-school rubbish from Ms Parker

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/hypocrisy_undermines_public_schools

In her weekly column in yesterday’s Sydney Daily Telegraph, education writer Ms Marilyn Parker has put together another diatribe against the private school system. The basis for this latest rant is (partly) the notion that, by offering scholarships luring talented public school pupils into the non-government sector, private schools are thereby harming the educational prospects for the less talented pupils who remain in government schools. Hence the article’s print edition title of “Take the cream and the others will curdle” and Ms Parker’s contention that

As [public] schools lose such families [middle class families with academically successful children] they become more marginalised. Just one or two high achieving families leaving a school can trigger a spiral effect.
(my emphasis)

But what evidence can Ms Parker adduce in support of this assertion? She provides no data to which the reader can refer, so one must infer that the only evidence that Ms Parker has for this is anecdotal. Now I will concede that there is probably a grain of truth in the notion that the loss of high-achieving pupils will have a negative effect on other pupils, but I think that it is a preposterous exaggeration to say that it will produce a “spiral effect” (unless those one or two pupils come from a school population of no more than a handful!) since one would expect there to be a critical mass that needs to be reached; in a grade of a hundred or more pupils it seems highly unlikely that the tipping point would be one or two. And even once this critical mass has been reached (if such a tipping point even exists) there is still the question of balancing the improvement in results for the departing pupils with the deterioration of results for the remaining ones, but Ms Parker only looks at it from the point of view of the remaining pupils. Now I’m a strong believer in Catholic social teaching and hence acknowledge that an authority can impose a disadvantage on an individual if a proportionately greater advantage is expected thereby to be conferred on the community, but it’s hard to imagine that the loss of one or two, or any small number, of pupils will have a catastrophic effect on the remainder, and any deleterious effects have to be weighed against the gains—not just short-term financial, but long-term career prospects and so on—made by the scholarship recipient.

Later in the article Ms Parker goes on to say that

We already have an elite minority of well educated medium and high socio-economic families. What we need is a majority of well educated Australians.

And the only way to get that is to have a quality public system that has not been stripped bare of all the easy to educate students and any who have potential of some kind.

But Ms Parker completely ignores the fact that the public system practices élitism itself by designating some schools as ‘selective’ schools that only accept the more talented pupils! She is happy to inveigh against what one might called mixed financial-educational incentives (scholarships, with their accompanying promise of better marks) but fails to be even-handed by criticising purely educational incentives (the enticement of better marks that one expects at a selective school), despite the fact that both produce the effect (by her logic) of harming results for pupils in the so-called ‘comprehensive’ (non-selective) schools, which was Ms Parker’s focus in this article.

A while later Ms Parker alleges another unethical aspect to the situation:

But offering St Spyridon type scholarships is immoral on another level. As the Greens education spokesman John Kaye pointed out St Spyridon is taking twice as much for each student from governments in subsidies than it is offering as a scholarship. [… ] [I]f the scholarships are being used to fill classes in classrooms that are already paid for, taught by teachers that are already paid for, it is hardly an act of charity.

(Once again we see Ms Parker taking her cue from the notoriously anti-Christian Greens.) So here we are reminded that one really cannot win with these secularists: if the private schools had retained the money that would otherwise go into scholarships then the secularists would be condemning the schools for selfishness (spending the money on 'another swimming pool', or some silly attack like that), yet here we have schools offering scholarships for families who might not otherwise have been able to afford admission for their children, and the schools are accused of immorality.

I conclude by noting that Ms Parker seems to be mistaken about the very case that provoked her reflections, the case of a Greek-Schismatic school’s $3000 scholarship—which, it appears, is not even paid for by the school! See what a reader, ‘Jonah of Sydney’, has to say at the on-line edition of Ms Parker’s article:

Firstly, get your facts straight: the scholarship is parish funded, not paid for by the school. The money needed is raised by the St Spyridon parish in support of its community school, and not paid for by taxpayers, so therefore your linking of public and private school funding issues to this scholarship is completely irrelevant.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
27.III.2009 A.D.

Follow-up to 'Another anti-religion beat-up'

I note with gratitude that my comment at Ms. Parker's blog was indeed published, and elicited the following clarification from her:

"Yes the program is taught by the designer of the course, Bruce Coleman.Public school parents did not know they were sending their children to a class that was"upfront Christian.” It appears nor did some teachers in the public schools where it was taught."

I posted one last comment:

"
“Yes the program is taught by the designer of the course, Bruce Coleman”

Thankyou for clarifying that. Why, though, did you fail to mention it either in your original article or your blog post? I understand the difficulties of the news cycle but it was a fairly crucial piece of information to miss.

“Public school parents did not know they were sending their children to a class that was"upfront Christian."”

This is the fault neither of the parents nor of the programme’s presenters. Nor, for that matter, of the Department. What did the school Heads of Curriculum, or whoever examines teaching content, have to say for themselves?

Reginaldvs Cantvar "

Now, I should point out that I do not approve of 'sex education' in the classroom, since an education in chastity is a duty of parents that they must discharge directly rather than by delegating it to schoolteachers. There is also, in co-educational classes, the additional risk of serious embarassment, even humiliation. But clearly there is a place for learning about the pre-birth development of babies in the context of high school biology classes.

Furthermore, true 'personal development' comes from conforming oneself ever more closely to the example and teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not by idle talk of 'self-image' and 'self-esteem'.

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Another anti-religion beat-up from The Daily Telegraph's education writer

The following is a comment that I submitted for Ms. Marilyn Parker's blog (see here). Whether it will be published is another mattter:

• "Bruce Coleman sees his lessons on a growing fetus and “scientific facts’’ about abortion as fitting very nicely into current school programs"

But according to your print edition the programme make no reference to abortion. Which is it then? And why the scare quotes for ‘scientific facts’? Even if we examine abortion from a purely secularist point-of-view it is a major medical procedure, the artificial termination of a natural process in the human body, even, potentially, at a late (and therefore all the more risky for the mother) stage of that process, with drastic implications for future health and fertility.

• "it was presented as part of the school’s Personal Development, Health and Physical Education lessons on human sexuality to Year 6 children"

Now I have no familiarity at all with the State school milieu, but one presumes that this programme is presented by the teachers, not the designers of the programme. Teachers presumably read their material before class and can vet any glaringly partisan elements. And in any case, although you assert that we need another bureaucracy (“The NSW government needs to urgently set up [sic] a clearing house for all programs presented in public schools by outside organisations and interests”), surely each school would have examined the programme for potentially controversial material and can modify it accordingly. Is permission to present the programme conditional on it being presented verbatim? I doubt it, and in fact you quote someone affiliated with the programme as saying that “[t]he programme is readily adaptable”.

• "The trouble is it appears the public schools running this “free’’ program were doing so not fully aware of the deceitful religious agenda"

I beg your pardon? Not “fully aware” because of ‘deceit’ on the part of the programme’s backers, or because of the inadequacy of the school’s Head of Curriculum and his or her underlings in scrutinising the material in question? Deceit is a fairly serious allegation Ms. Parker, especially in such a sensitive matter. How can you allege deceit when a man who styles himself ‘Reverend’ approaches the school, unsolicited, and offers a programme entitled ‘Choices of Life’ rather than, say, ‘Human Reproduction, Module 3A’? Or, to put it more succinctly, “[h]e told me the Choices of Life program was “upfront” with its Christian pro-life views.” Where, then, is the deceit?

• "The Education Department is totally culpable"

Really? When it had no involvement in the production or reception of this material? Have you any proof that the Department signed off on this?

• "The Greens MLC Dr John Kaye said today…"

One can predict all too easily what Dr. Kaye had to say. What did Her Majesty’s Opposition have to say? It’s a two-party system, Ms. Parker. One might have expected to hear firstly from the alternative government, especially since its policy on these matters would no doubt be unknown to many of your readers, including me. Why jump straight to a radically secularist party? Oh, of course: because it buttresses your own argument, without you having to assert it as an unsubstantiated personal opinion.

Finally, in one of your follow-up comments you say that “[b]ut the Choices of Life program pretends to be a balanced program about human sexuality”. Is that so? Balance, Ms. Parker, or objectivity? ‘Balance’ would mean getting a pro-abortion and an anti-abortion point-of-view in the classroom. But objectively, the newly-fertilised ovum is a living human body (it has its own metabolism, it is male or female, its cells are dividing, &c.). Furthermore, it is an elementary truth of philosophy that the human being is a unity of body and soul (the body is the enfleshment of the soul, the soul is the principle of animation of the body). Objectively, abortion is, therefore, the murder of a human being. And note that I speak of ‘pro-‘ and ‘anti-abortion’, not ‘pro-‘ or ‘anti-choice’, since choice is a mere faculty, and a faculty is oriented towards its operation. One judges a choice by its operation, not merely the possession of the faculty for choice. Perhaps it will only be when you come before Christ the Judge that you will understand how feeble the ‘I’m not pro-abortion, just pro-choice’ line is.

Disgraceful, Ms. Parker. Simply disgraceful. It seems to me that you owe Mr. Barnes, Mr. Coleman and the Education Department an apology. Not to mention your readers.

But of course you won’t even let this comment be published will you? It would remind your readers that, despite the rantings of the occasional ‘religious nut’, logic is on God’s side.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com