The reality of school closures

The comment from Wendy (original link) is noteworthy. Her family have have moved here to ‘live in Canberra!’ – then the govt closes the local school. And now she won’t be able to get the bus to work. Stanhopeless.

darklady – i think students would be Outputs. Or praps Inputs. Or even (ick) Customers.

Oh and at Telopea there are diplomatic families, middle and upper class families as well as those on the lower side of the fence.

None pay huge fees.

Telopea has a French/English program from K-6 and then the students have a choice of either the French or English streams. All “core” subjects are taught in that language.

Telopea students are SUBSIDISED by the French Govt, that’s why the costs are down.

It isn’t $4000 to send your child to Telopea. Govt schools can’t have compulsory fees.

Aidan, it was a guess.

Take a look at this site though http://www.frenchaustralianpreschool.com.au/

Your ‘couple of hundred’ will buy you 2 weeks at the bilingual preschool.

There hasn’t been a school in every suburb for decades. There is now no school anywhere near Weston, and only the Lyons P-2 near Chifley. There is also no bus that goes into the suburb of Chifley.

I don’t see what all this talk about French has to do with anything. Although I would imagine that schools with high aspirations such as teaching languages are also very good on the basics such as the English language. And it is well known that language learning is best done when very young.

It can’t improve scholatory (!?) standards to reduce education options.

Meanwhile the much talked about ‘open day’ this afternoon (1-5pm) for all ACT Public Schools seems to have escaped the notice of one reprieved school where we rocked up to find the doors locked at 3.45. So much for us having priority enrollment status.

Maelinar,

Where did $4k come from? I just talked to someone who sent their kids to Telopea until recently and they didn’t have anything like that for a ‘voluntary contribution’. More like the few hundred as is the norm these days.

Aidan, the single mother who’s busting her ass to send her child to Telopea who gets hit for a $4k bill every year tells me another story.

Outside funds contributed to schools has a grey relationship to inside funds donated by parents. I know full well how the system works to downgrade the books.

Simto,

A sane person would think that outside funds would defray the costs to the ACT government (as calculated in their figures). In fact, all outside funds contributed to schools (for shade sails, federal government grants etc) were counted as costs in the Government balance sheets.

I know. Beggars belief.

So, there goes that theory. Care to try another?

Flog off.

I’m not about to preach the cost of buying franco dictionaries, linguistic materials etc and the added cost of hiring french speaking teachers, as it’s rudimentary.

The fact that some RA members have decided to overlook this simple issue belies their intelligence. Of course it is more expensive to enroll a child in Telopea, from the top of my head it’s something like $4,000 a year per student, not too bad for a public system is it ?

Hence I’m allowing the blind followers of their faith to work out for themselves the error of their ways.

Maelinar – I agree 100%. Get the basics right first.

hear-hear what Simto said.

This town CAN provide education for kids – it just can’t necessarily provide the same-suburb, special-treatment-’cause-we’re-all-middle-class-aspirationalists service that it’s been providing for yonks now.

I have a possible answer, by the way, aidan, to why Telopea manages to cost less per student – cost MAY Be calculated on cost to the ACT government only, excluding any payments the parents make towards their sproglet’s education. And Telopea Park’s parents might be more capable of making a contribution towards their sproglet than the average – which brings their cost to government down below the average. Now, I don’t know if that is how the maths are calculated, but it makes the figures coincide wtih common sense – which “immersive french teaching is cheaper than teaching ’em in english” certainly doesn’t.

i don’t want to live in a town that can’t provide education for kids. nor one divided into public and private school enclaves.

Nyssa, I’m not disputing teaching languages at a high school level (from memory, that’s where you teach, right), as part of a balanced program. I’m disputing running immersion-level education in a foreign language to Primary school students in a public school, which seems rather indulgent.

If public education can’t attract primary school students teaching ’em in english, then perhaps the area has enough well-heeled parents to allow them all to drift off to private education?

Maelinar,

The Govt’s (admittedly mostly discredited but *possibly* internally consistent) costs per student for Telopea (Primary) is $9325. The average cost per student (using the same figures) is $9506.

Vastly more? Not according to the Govt’s figures.

I taught at a school last year that had several languages and a French stream (gee which one).

It was Govt.

Languages in school were in the English Stream.

I taught at a school that offered several languages other than english, and yes it is more expensive. Vastly more expensive.

Maelinar,

I’ll preface this by saying I would not choose to send my kids to an immersion school.

You seem to be implying that it is more expensive to have an immersion program. Do you know this to be the case?

Regardless, there is a pressure on public schools to offer non-core programs to attract enrolments. This may or may not be a useful response to falling enrolments, but it is the current trend.

Surely some sort of school covering primary ages in thea rea would be better than none at all, Italian speaking or otherwise.

Good then, I’ll start.

I’d like the little lovelys of Canberrans to learn ENGLISH. If you want an example of the literacy skills of the Canberra youth, look at the threads involving j/jimbo/peter.

All the posturing you like regarding French/Italian/Japanese hasn’t transposed into actual real skills IN THIS COUNTRY, let alone another.

Frankly, the children who don’t have a good grasp on english aren’t likely to be off to Japan/France etc, but that’s not my point. The resources invested in a public education system teaching a blind skill are intense, and the effect is minimal.

If Canberran’s are falling over themselves to learn French, good on them, let them pay for the privilege. Until the scholatory capacity of an average student is higher than the current standard, NO FRILLS EDUCATION.

Maelinar. Evidently not.

Simto, I was just pointing out that this wasn’t some crappy public school that was failing it’s students and was better off closed. They had the motivation to run immersion italian.

Whilst Canberrans are falling all over themselves to be immersed in French (see success of Telopea School) they are not so keen on a bathing in Italian. As a result the program should probably be discontinued. Nevertheless, as I’ve said before, a merged Lyons/Melrose P-6 school on the Melrose site would better serve the kids in those areas. This was the option favoured by Melrose school.

Tarquin? Not another f****ing Roman!

is this a serious thread ?

Tarquin deserves a ‘high quality’ education in the ACT, after all it has been expected since…whenever.

I’m a lazy traveller, so I would benefit greatly if little Tarquin, care of the ACT taxpayer, converses on my behalf when I take the annual family holiday to Tuscany because I put my child through a fully taxpayer funded school.

Heavens, I thought everyone knew about the gravy train that is a public education here with all the trimmings! Oh well, seems it may have come to an end so we all have to go looking other taxpayer funded ‘programs’ to emerse our little Tarquins in…

I’m sorry, but if you think your primary school-aged kid needs to be immersed in italian, then you really should be paying for it, rather than expecting everyone else to shell out so that Tarquin can converse with the locals next time you go to Tuscany…

Areaman,

How is closing Melrose and making Lyons (the only immersion Italian Primary School in Canberra) a P-2 school going to improve the the education of kids in Chifley, Pearce and Lyons?

I’m not so sure it was a kid. Aren’t kids all ‘hay guyz i <3 myspace itz so kewl!!!!’.

In other news..

Dear Mr Prime Minister

My doggy died and I am really sad. Can’t you please bring it back because I’m sad and Santa won’t help! Mum says that he’s in puppy heaven but I think you can bring him back if you pray really hard!

Oh yeah, my school is closing too and that’s really sad.

I’m not so sure it was a kid. Aren’t kids all ‘hay guyz i

What’s sad is giving kids substandard educations becuase you can’t afford to have all the schools at a high enough level, pushing those who can afford it into the private system and turning public schools into gettos for the poor and the expensive to teach.

to be honest this isnt even that cruel… it just putting kids on par with the rest of australia.. where yes they have to travel a little before they get to school. get over it.

This is a good lesson for kids: life is cruel – get used to it!

12 comments.. thats a pretty passionate response.

What can be said? When you have irrational economic rationalism there’s no room for ‘people’. Or should we be called ‘resources’?