Imagine a school that organises itself in the following way:
The children from wealthy families are put in separate classrooms to those from poor families.
The parents of the wealthy children donate money to improve their children’s classrooms. The principal agrees with this, so the children in the wealthy classrooms have nice furnishing, great technology, climate control, maybe even some additional teaching support.
The children in the poorer classes have basic furnishings and outdated technology.
And then, to raise student achievement and cater for individual needs, they divide the school even further. The ‘gifted’ kids are separated from the others. Those with disabilities are also taught separately.
Yet what we find (I hope) absolutely unacceptable for a school is the way we Australians run our education system. We need to THINK about this. Really really think.
