Selective schools (grammar schools in the UK, I'm not sure of the US equivalent) are public schools where entrance is based upon academic merit. There are numerous arguments for and against such schools. Here is a selection of articles/opinions from the Sydney Morning Herald from the last several months about selective schools in Sydney.
Migrant pupils top the entry tests for selective schools
The chosen ones
Selective schools offer big benefits, for some (Letters to the editor)
Selective schools should open their doors wider
Top school's secret weapon: 95% of students of migrant heritage
To be continued in next post...
Migrant pupils top the entry tests for selective schools
Spoiler :
CHILDREN of recent Asian migrants are dramatically outperforming students from English-speaking households to dominate the ranks of the top selective high schools.
A Herald analysis shows 42 per cent of children from non-English speaking backgrounds who sat the annual selective high school entrance test last year won a place in the elite system.
Fewer than 23 per cent of students whose families speak English at home were successful.
Letters and emails were sent this week to inform 4133 year 6 students that they had won a place for next year at a selective high school.
The percentage of students from migrant families entering the selective system has risen dramatically from 29 per cent in 1995 to as high as 62 per cent in 2008. The component is sharply skewed towards children from Asian-origin families.
Students whose families speak other languages comprise a little more than one-quarter of the total public school population.
Many of the successful students are graduates of the burgeoning network of private coaching colleges which gauge their success by their ability to secure places in the selective system and who tailor courses towards the ''opportunity class'' and selective exams. Coaching colleges are dominated by children of recent migrants.
''Anglo families have a different sense of what a child's life should look like and they are really concerned about narrowing a child's life down to passing the selective school entrance test,'' says Craig Campbell, a Sydney University academic and co-author of School Choice, a book on how parents negotiate the school market. ''But they're having to change because of the competition.''
High school principals, worried about losing students and prestige, are said to be pushing hard to establish selective streams in their schools, according to Associate Professor Campbell.
At James Ruse Agricultural High, the state's top selective school, an overwhelming majority of students are from families that have migrated from Asian countries.
The selective system was expanded this year with 600 more places created through the establishment of 14 partially selective high schools, where a high-achieving stream has been added to a comprehensive high school.
The students from migrant families also win up to half the opportunity class placements available for years 5 and 6 at specialised public schools. These classes are designed to provide ''intellectual stimulation and an educationally enriched environment for academically gifted and talented children'', says the Department of Education.
Anecdotal evidence suggests some parents avoid selective high schools because of the extent of Asian domination. The former head of the NSW selective schools unit, Bob Wingrave, recalls his surprise to hear a colleague had decided against sending his child to James Ruse ''because there were too many Asians there''.
''All kids who go to a selective high school will benefit from going,'' Mr Wingrave said. Coaching might gain students a few marks at the most.
Children from a non-English-speaking background answered more questions in the selective schools entry test than other students, he said.
''The Anglo kids won't answer it if looks too hard and they are less likely to finish than the non-English-speaking background kids,'' Mr Wingrave said.
The chosen ones
Spoiler :
Imagine a world where your child's academic future could be determined as young as five. It's a world in which entrance to kindergarten is by competitige tesiting, and those children who miss out learn the meaning of failure an spend the rest of their childhood at after-hours coaching colleges chasing a precious place in one of the selective schools from which the best universities draw their students.
Already some Asian societies approach this level of competitive tension, which would onece have been considered inconceivable in Australia. But for how long?
It is already the fashion in some NSW public schools to stream their smartest students into selective classes at the end of kindergarten. A high proportion of those students then move into Opportunity Classes in year 5 to 6 to mis with their elite peers and prepare themselves for all important selective high school entrance exam.
This sorts the wheat from the chaff - more than 4000 students being guaranteed a high - protein intellectual diet in a challenging and competitive environment. If they can keep up, an excellent HSC results is inevitable - an with it a place in the school of choice at the state's top universities.
Recent migrants to Australia, most particularly those from east Asia, have capitalised on the opportunities presented through the selective school system, their children significantly outperforming their English-speaking peers at every level of the system.
Fear and opportunity are transforming the pointy end of the NSW public school system the fear of being left behind in an increasingly marginalised comprehensive high school system, and the opportunities for success presented to those who win places in an expanding selective stream.
Coaching colleges that train students like academic athletes to achieve outstanding results are flourishing. Students are drilled in the art of mastering the selective high school entrance exam and coached students are greatly over-presented among those winning places in the selective system. Three college chains claim to have coached 2500 of the 3500 successful students in recent years
A huge majority of those being coached are from non-English speaking backgrounds; many Anglo-Australian middle-class families remain deeply suspicious of coaching. We came across families who saw it either as cheating or as an unreasonable organisation and surveillance of the child, says Craig Campbell, the co-author of School Choice: How Parents Negotiate the New School Market in Australia.
Often there was a criticism of Chinese families, that they were making the live of their children a misery, that it was unreasonable to put all that pressure on them.
Another co-author of School choice, Helen Proctor, says Chinese families think differently. The question about coaching was not about whether to sign up for it or not but about how much was the right amount and when to start the kids.
The coaching and pressure has been rewarded. NESB students are gaining more than half of the places in the NSW selective highs school system, which sees them represented at twice the rate in selectives compared with their proportion across the school system. In those schools, such as James Ruse, Baulkam Hills, Fort Street and both Sydney and North Sydney Boys and Girls, which demand the highest entrance test scores, NESB students win the overwhelming majority of places.
In 15 years these elite selective schools, which now dominate the state's HSC results, have been transformed.
The former Liberal MP Ross Cameron says that Anglo-Australians are either too dumb or too complacent to make the same commitment to their children's future as Asian parents have made.
Leaving aside the question of whether to coach or not, the value ascribed to a selective education and the consequences of having schools dominated by particular ethnic groups strike sharp nerves in the community. It resonates so strongly because the decisions taken capture essential truths for different groups which are culturally pre-determined. If society is a competitive venture, you better get your kids on the academic treadmill as early as possible; if you see co-operation underpinning societal relationships, then the benefits of team sport on a Saturday will outweigh several hours swotting.
There's a surface admiration of merit-based entry, but when the social consequences are that a different ethno-national group does a bit better than your group, people start to get worried about it, Campbell says.
It is not as if Anglo-Australians and longer established migrant communities completely reject coaching. They are happy enough to watch their children spend hours swimming at the crack of dawn or train every day for soccer they just cringe at the thought of their children spending hours studying over a weekend. Price in academic achievement comes from scoring highly without too much effort; raw ability is highly admired.
But for Asian cultures there is no shame in working hard. Education not only empowers the child of a migrant to succeed in a new country, it is also associated with immeasurably social status. More than money a measure of success for earlier waves of migrants Asian migrants tend to see academic achievement as the factor that can raise an individual's status above one's peers.
While many English-speaking families who can afford private schools choose them, Proctor says some Asian families prefer selective high schools even over a scholarship to a private school, in part because they are not supportive of the focus on pastoral care and extracurricular activities.
Could it also be a fact that Asians are smarter? It is the sort of question that sends academics screaming from the room, so widespread is fear of racial theory. But in this case it may be true - at least up to a point - with the act of voluntary migration in effect selecting parents of talent, intelligence and ambition.
Dianna Kenny, an academic researcher at the University of Sydney, says: "The Australian demographic is spread right across what's possible in a democracy - from very high achievers to people on welfare and drug users - whereas the Asian cohort are very highly self-selected, and they've come to Australia for a very particular reason. There's very few garbage collectors, hairdressers or unemployed people among their parents."
The schools themselves - with the explicit and complicit help of many parents - have an intense focus on academic results. Kenny says some Asian children "are kind of automatons; some of them don't have a rounded education, some of them have not had sufficient socialisation experience".
In a letter to new parents at North Sydney Boys, the principal, Robyn Hughes, stressed her "school is far more than a mere 'academic factory' - indeed, a student who participated only in the academic program would be missing out very sadly". Yet the fact remains that many do.
The principal of James Ruse, Larissa Treskin, is keen to point out the school's production of the musical Crazy For You and student involvement in sport and social activities. But Joanne McMillan, a head teacher of creative arts, admits to a relatively low participation rate in art classes for the HSC, despite much talent, and some parents are concerned if their children spend time on artwork at the expense of other study.
Annetta St Louis, a year 7 teacher and head of English, says most of her students prefer maths.
"With maths you get it right or wrong. Some of our students don't think they are good at English [in fact they are outstanding], and they are very frightened to make a decision on their own unless they have the exact pattern."
A former James Ruse student, Helen Stasa, who did her HSC in 1998, says she felt it was "almost shameful' when she enrolled in an arts degree, such was the level of expectation.
"Some people might do well in a competitive atmosphere. But I felt that as much as I did, I would never be good enough. For me it was depressing and I always felt inferior," she recalls. "To be exposed to that from age of 12 or 13 is toxic. Selective schools make you see yourself as someone defined by academic success."
Normanhurst Boys High was turned into a selective school in 1994 in response to falling enrolments. Ross Storey, a social sciences teacher since 1984, has watched the school community change away from its Anglo-Saxon base yet retain a passion for sport.
"The expectation and approach to doing well academically is stronger. [But] they are still adolescent boys maturing into young men, and they are still very keen on their sport."
The shift into the selective system had changed the focus of teaching. "In many respects it is harder because the students are a lot more capable. In the pre-selective days we were dealing with discipline issues more often, [but] to say these kids are pressure cooked academically is not true, because they embrace a lot of things. They enjoy all the things in life most young men enjoy ... They obviously have high expectations about their career."
Louise Robert-Smith, a former principal of North Sydney Girls High School before she was poached by the exclusive private girls school Ascham, says selective schools are vibrant places to teach because of their concentration of talent and ambition. But in two decades in the selective system until 1998 she believes the schools' charter was compromised by "expectation and demand".
"It wasn't coached for [initially]. It attracted a quirky mix of kids, some of whom never hit their stride in formal examinations. It was like a haven for the nerdy kid who would have been bullied or overlooked in the comprehensive school. It was a place where it was OK to be obsessed by quantum physics."
But by the time she left, getting into a selective school had become "big business".
"It is a very cost-efficient to get your kids in with a bright cohort. You are buying a sure thing with the HSC results. I think that is regrettable. There are probably a lot of young people who would not get into a selective school, who don't have the coaching to get there."
Coached or not, those who do get in are as smart as tacks and many flourish in an environment in which excellence is expected rather than scorned. Michael Quinlan, a former principal of James Ruse, says: "In a selective high school the tall poppy syndrome doesn't exist, academic achievement is heralded and recognised."
Modern migrants are better educated, better off financially and better able to take full advantage of the education system. Some even come especially for it. The principal of Ray White Carlingford, Joe Josephs, says James Ruse and Carlingford West Public, which hosts an Opportunity Class, are major selling points, and Felton Road, on which both sit, is the No. 1 draw.
"My Asian and my Indian buyers absolutely love it there [near Carlingford] while James Ruse is always very, very popular with my Asian clients."
Quinlan argues that migrant communities have raised the achievement bar for Australians first in the work force and now in schools and universities. "In the post-war years, we had a large influx of Greek and Italian migrants. They would work their backsides off. The Aussies said ho-hum. The Aussies then decided they had to compete in the workforce." A new generation of migrants is throwing down a new challenge.
"The No. 1 thing they value is the family. The second, third and fourth thing is education. They realise they can't get anywhere without education."
Selective schools offer big benefits, for some (Letters to the editor)
Spoiler :
''The chosen ones'' (Herald, July 3-4) was right about the lengths and pressure some parents go to to ensure their children a place in an elite selective school. It was also correct in identifying the high number of children from non-English-speaking backgrounds who attend selective schools. But there is nothing wrong with that. These demographics show the way in which different cultures value different things.
Many ''Anglo-Australians'' place a higher value on balance and being a well-rounded individual than high academic achievement, and that's OK, too.
I am in year 11 at a comprehensive non-selective high school and although I was successful in gaining entry into an opportunity class in primary school, I decided not to apply for a selective high school. I have no regrets and feel that I have only benefited from attending a school where I am able to get a taste of the cross-section of society, as well as experience a range of opportunities and experiences outside the classroom. The extreme focus on academic achievement only and the competitive environment in many selective schools may benefit some, but I do not believe they are the only way to be successful or excel academically.
That being said, I have utmost respect for those who attend selective schools and spend their weekends at coaching colleges. Some may think this is cheating, but I would argue it is hard work, and anyone who puts that much time and effort into their studies deserves success.
Micaela Bassford Kirrawee
Just imagine thousands of children and teenagers giving up hours with their Playstation or Wii each day to prepare for the possibility of selection into the ranks of the elite (''Migrant pupils top tests for selectives'', July 3-4). This happens in our sporting and cultural spheres, so why does it seem out of place in our schools?
Migrant families around the world have, for almost a century, seen education as the great hope for a better life for their children. While ''Anglo'' families may see things differently now, preparation for testing will become more and more mainstream as NAPLAN and the My School ranking become economic sorting tools.
And it will be even more so with the introduction of a national curriculum that has less to do with the mobility of military families and more to do with copying the economic miracle of Asian countries such as China.
Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls
If there is concern in the community about the selection process for selective high schools encouraging a culture of ''coaching'' to the detriment of a well-rounded education, perhaps it is time to assess the selection process.
We were very happy to have our two daughters attend a local selective school in the 1990s and then it had a population of at least 40 cultural backgrounds, reflecting the society in which we live.
The school was very successful in areas other than academic, such as debating, sport, visual arts, public speaking etc.
If this is changing because of the coaching culture, why not have additional criteria for entry?
The selective high schools could follow in the footsteps of some of our universities when choosing students for prestige courses such as medicine. Once students have proved their academic prowess, an interview could be arranged during which they could demonstrate the other skills they feel would benefit the school. This might be in sport, debating etc. Everyone would then benefit, the school, the students and society.
Mary Lawson Mortdale
That the children of Asian migrants are outperforming those of English-speaking parents should come as no surprise to any members of the community having encountered both groups on public transport.
On a recent visit to Sydney I was obliged to share a bus one afternoon with a group of rowdy ''Australian'' teenagers from a suburban public school whose expletive-filled conversations centred on DVDs, TV shows, ''porno'' websites and Twittering.
What a change two days later when a number of ''Asians'' from Sydney Boys High School boarded. From there to the city they discussed a science project, how to research it, where to obtain assistance and how to present it.
Their school may not be topping any GPS sporting competitions but its present and future old boys will show that it is truly the geeks who inherit the earth.
John Murray Fadden (ACT)
Reading of selective school cramming reminded me of a boy at boarding school who swotted so much he had a nervous breakdown. It was a timely reminder to the rest of us that daydreaming of heroic exploits on the rugby field and penning imaginary love letters to the girls in the nearby convent school was the way to go.
Eddie Raggett Mosman
Selective schools should open their doors wider
Spoiler :
As thousands of year six students and their families receive good or bad news regarding their acceptance into government selective schools, recent articles in The Sydney Morning Herald highlighted a number of important policy issues relating to the growth in such schools and the intense competition for places. Whatever the numbers, opinions on selective schools are going to be heavily influenced by one's own school experience.
I attended a comprehensive public school in Western Sydney and am suspicious of the effect selective schools have on the opportunities of those that do not attend. My wife, on the other hand, attended one of the state's largest selective schools (yes, I married up) and is keenly aware of the positive and negative aspects of attending the schools themselves.
In setting public policy we need to be aware of people's views and prejudices. However, we also need to also try and set them aside and make decisions based on the best available evidence. With regards to selective schools, there are three main questions that need answering.
1. Is entrance to selective schools based on academic potential alone or are there barriers to selection for certain segments of the population? At first glance, it would appear that there are barriers to children from certain backgrounds attending selective schools. As noted in one of the articles, a disproportionate share of the selective school intake comes from a non-English speaking background. It is also interesting to note that, according to the MySchool website, every single one of the top 10 selective schools according to NAPLAN results has zero per cent indigenous students (despite indigenous Australians making up 4.3 per cent of public school students across the state, according to the most recent census). However, it is not clear whether this reflects specific barriers in terms of access to coaching or whether it reflects a variation in preferences.
2. Do the students who attend selective schools have better outcomes than if they attended a comprehensive school? There is no doubt that selective schools dominate Year 12 results and NAPLAN rankings. However, it is not clear if this is because of the selective intake or because these schools somehow "value add". And we won't really know until we have tracked students through NAPLAN testing over time.
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that there is pressure on selective school students to avoid subjects such as art, music and drama that are perceived to not score as well in Year 12 but, arguably, are part of a well-rounded education experience.
3. Do the students that attend a comprehensive school have worse outcomes because of the existence of selective schools? This is perhaps the most difficult question to answer, but the one that has the most policy relevance. As has been pointed out, there is a sense that selective schools take the top children away from the comprehensive schools in the area, leading to a lack of peer support from high-achieving role models. As far as I can tell, research on this issue has not been done in the context of the NSW school system. However, if used creatively, the administrative data could be exploited to get some answers. Until the research has been done, we must rely on some of the international evidence, which suggests that these peer effects can be positive, but are generally small.
I have some sympathy for the "rip it up and start again" view expressed by the principal quoted on Monday. However, that is not going to happen. Instead, I suggest a few changes to the way in which students are admitted to selective schools to reduce the impact of coaching and to allow for rigorous evaluation of their effect.
First, I think selection into these schools should be based on state-wide examinations of all students. This may result in some additional students being selected who would otherwise have doubted their ability. Opting-in may have been appropriate when there were only a couple of schools with selective intakes. With more than 4000 students entering per year, however, it makes sense to cast the net as wide as possible.
Second, selection into these schools should be based on exceeding a particular threshold in the state-wide test. Places should then be allocated randomly to a proportion of those who meet the threshold. A benefit of such random allocation would be that it reduces the potential reward from intensive coaching who'd want to spend that much money if it only gives you a 50/50 chance? More importantly, it would allow us to test the effect of selective schools by comparing the outcome of two students with the same test score one who was randomly allocated to a selective school, the other who was allocated to the comprehensive school system.
My final modest reform would be making government funding of these schools conditional on them providing opportunities to students from the surrounding comprehensive schools. This could be through opening the school gates to other high achieving students in the area during part of the school day or, perhaps, after hours. By focusing on the brightest and most motivated children, selective schools need to spend less government money on remedial classes and disciplinary problems. This surplus should go to the whole school system or at least to the local area, not to extending socio-economic inequalities.
Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with a school system that allows the brightest and most motivated students to reach their academic potential. It is only a problem if this is done at the expense of the rest of the student population.
Top school's secret weapon: 95% of students of migrant heritage
Spoiler :
The best performing school in the state, James Ruse Agricultural High School, is also the selective school with the most students from a migrant background.
New figures obtained under freedom of information laws show that 95.2 per cent of students list a language background other than English in their entry application.
Only 41 students from an English-speaking background are studying at the school - an average of seven in each year.
Children of migrants fill almost 80 per cent of the places offered at the state's top 10 selective high schools, which are all ranked in the top 20 HSC performers.
On average only 20 per cent (or 320 students each year) are from an English-speaking background.
The dominant cultural group is Chinese, with the most applicants and the highest success rate in the entry test. Last year, 2361 applicants were from a Chinese background and 1242 were successful.
The second most represented group was Vietnamese followed by Korean. In total, 3912 students were awarded a selective school place last year, with 5516 applicants from a non-English speaking background - 42 per cent (1828) of whom were successful.
The co-director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Bob Birrell, said the successful students largely represented middle- to upper-middle-class families from Asia who put a heavy emphasis on education and professional achievement.
He said selective schools were not providing assistance to the vast majority of families. ''In NSW we are entrenching advantage within one particular ethnic group. If the NSW government was serious about equal opportunity, it would put some geographical boundaries to ensure better access to [top] schools.''
A specialist in schools systems from the University of Melbourne, Richard Teese, said that the pooling of high achievers in selective and private school systems had raised the performance bar beyond the reach of students in mainstream schools.
''When you pool resources like that you multiply their impact and you give the students who have access to that distinctive advantages over everybody else,'' Professor Teese said.
''You are setting up a situation in which you [create] extremes of advantage and extremes of disadvantage. If you took those students out of those hot-house environments they would still do well. But by combining their resources you multiply their advantage. It is a zero-sum game: some win, but others must lose.''
To be continued in next post...
Of course, that might be me projecting my personal attitude onto everybody else there.
