I’ve been concerned about the local schooling options since we moved to the Central Coast. And I realise this post might come off as snobbish. I don’t care. Some things I should embrace a certain level of elitism in. Education is one of them.

When we moved here, I couldn’t drive. So, I caught a lot of public transport. We live just a couple of blocks away from our local primary and high schools. And while I was on public transport I was often sitting next to students/teachers from this particular school. I heard one student refer to something “going in one eye and out the other”. An isolated incident perhaps, I said to myself. Or hoped. And then the teacher (on an excursion with a small group of students) used the forbidden word. And it was then that I knew I would never send Riley to that school. You’ll also note that I refuse to even type the word. I will also not acknowledge it in person. Please note retail staff: I am not necessarily ignoring you, but if you use that word I will not acknowledge it. Why? Because it is the epitome of the bastardisation fo the English language, and it is lazy. Laziness of language is like nails on a chalkboard.

And while I’m on the topic, the degradation of the English language has continued to the point where people no longer get that Jane Austen writes satire. And pretty damn funny satire at that. Or that poetry about love didn’t used to be a punchline. Check out Robert Lowell’s Man and Wife if you don’t believe me. Spelling and grammar have gone out the window because everyone has spell check, right? And everything has been abbreviated to the point that there is no room for intricacy or complexity. And if people do happen to read a book (Twilight doesn’t count by the way), they will never truly appreciate it unless they have an understanding of where it came from in the first place. And as much as I’d like to stay up here on my soap box, I’m going to get down now.

Yesterday I was reading My school site- when did “transparency” become a dirty word? and found that a site had gone live which provided performance based outcomes across both primary and high schools. Interestingly, it confirmed what I had already guessed. Our local school performed the worst in our area. Not surprising, really. I had heard that some of the recent graduates of the high school were technically illiterate.

I know that some people (parents and educators) are concerned about the ramifications of publicly displaying information that ranks schools. Particularly given that kids are supposed to attend their closest school, and not pick and choose.Because now I have this information, but what I can do with it is limited. I can move so we are in a different school district, or I can supplement the deficiencies of the local school at home. We’ll be moving. It’s not just about Riley. We’re planning on having quite a few children, and so they will all be attending whatever school we pick for Riley. If our kids are academically inclined and suited to the school environment it probably won’t matter what school they go to. But if they are not suited to the environment and need extra help, or are more gifted, then the school choice is an important one. And frankly, following the use of the forbidden word by a teacher, all trust has been forever lost.

A move in a few years is a small price to pay for me to know that I did everything possible to give Riley the most opportunity as far as her education is concerned. Yes, our local school is probably the lowest ranked because of socio-economic factors in our suburb. But the fact that last year the High School only had one person in the top 10% bothers me. Statistically, they should have between 15 – 20 people in the top 10%.

The argument may be that now people are aware of the rankings, anyone who can afford to will move to an area to get their children into better schools. Even teacher preferences may run to the higher ranked schools. And then you’ll have a situation where the poorer areas become poorer, the richer areas richer and the divide between the schools becomes even greater. Which is a fair point. But my focus has to be on what’s best for our family, not on whether our actions will cause the end of civilisation as we know it.

That being said, there is no reason why our local school should be so substantially under-performing as compared to other schools. And without transparency, there is no reason for them to change anything. Perhaps, there is nothing that needs changing within the school itself, and it’s more our area’s attitude to education in general. In which case, there would be even more of a reason for us to move. That’s not the kind of learning environment I want for Riley.

But I still believe there has to be some level of accountability for public schools. Performance levels at Universities are well published including such things as expected staring salary. Why should schools be any different – kids spend 3 times as long at school than they do at University.