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This is a good article. I wish I could force everyone who pontificates on schooling in Australia to read it. We have an enormous private school system (part go

This is a good article. I wish I could force everyone who pontificates on schooling in Australia to read it. We have an enormous private school system (part govt-funded, which is gross) that can get rid of students as they please. Then they go on to verbally dump shit on the public system, where they get to dump their problem students. Nice. We also have a real fetish for selective schools, which are essentially selection bias driven to a huge extent. Any suggestion that this isn't a good idea is met by an chorus of "you must hate smart people".

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
schoen 9y ago
As I read this article, it didn't suggest that selective schools are bad or improper, but that they may greatly mislead us about causality or what particular institutions and methods are or aren't accomplishing.
uiwldiowd 9y ago
Very similar in the US, actually, although maybe not with quite as large of a private system (although some would like to change this). Very similar problems. I've had friends who work in the US school system who complain about this same issue--that private schools are immune to many problems because they can just pass the buck onto someone else. The linked piece is very nice, and illustrates the selection bias problem extremely well. One additional comment I might have is about variance. That is, in the figure with red and blue plots, those means are hiding within-school variance. In data I've seen, what often happens is that the lower-status schools often have more variance in them. So in some ways the problem with selection bias is maybe even worse than what the author suggests, because people not only tend to attribute to schools what was pre-existing, but they also tend to stereotype. E.g., you went to a school on the left side of that figure, so you're lower in ability and/or learning than on the right, even though you might be at the upper end of the distribution of the whole figure. This pertains to vocation too: people tend to assume certain vocations are signals of lower cognitive ability than others, when the reality is that uncertainly only increases for some. The other thing I might mention is some social benefits to attending selective schools. The author at times seems to imply that "talented people will end up doing well regardless of where they go" somewhat dismissively. I think this was probably unintentional, but I think that's not exactly true in the way that people care about, because the studies that are done are kind of coarse. That is, if you study outcomes, they tend to be things like general income, or terminal degree attained (undergrad, master's, doctoral), or whatever. In that sense, things are fine. But because of social connections, people might not get into the particular job they want, whereas another person is given a free pass, or might be at a state-level position rather than a federal-level position, or whatever. That is, there are real consequences to overlooking selection bias, that have real importance for people, but tend to get fuzzed over in studies because it's difficult to study.
sien 9y ago
The private school system in Australia saves the government money. Per student funding in the private system is lower than per student funding in the public system. This money is then available to spend more on government schools. It also keeps the government system honest because people can and do leave schools that don't work such as many of those in poor areas in the outer suburbs of the big cities and regional areas. If there were no private system the only way to get into better schools would be to own very expensive houses. Meanwhile, the selective schools show that the government can provide a good education for highly able students as well. In NSW ~18 of the top 20 high schools are government schools. Personally I think most people are unwise to send their kids to expensive private schools and they would help their kids much more if they put the money toward investments. But they are free to waste, in my mind, their money to reduce the cost to the tax payer of education.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  > The private school system in Australia saves the government money. Per student funding in the private system is lower than per student funding in the public system. This money is then available to spend more on government schools. Isn't this selection bias again? More difficult (expensive) students may get shunted into the public system.
  - sien 9y ago
    A number of private schools roughly kick out people in the bottom 10-20% of results. They aren't necessarily that more expensive to teach, the private schools just don't want them. The really expensive kids (say 20K+ per year) are those that are seriously disabled and they almost all go into the government system. But, if the government only has to pay ~1/3 of the cost of about 1/3 of students who are in the private system there is more money available for them.
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      There is a weird situation in Texas in the USA. The state is limiting the amount of funding for each local district to 8.5 percent for special education with the end result that families end up going to private schools to get special education. The one family in this school ended up paying 50,000 per year for private school for two kids with a readi ng disability. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/7/ http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/7/
oldandtired 9y ago
First, let me ask you a question - Are you a teacher in any Australian school? Secondly, you have just pontificated on schooling in Australia - so, my second question is, if an article came out with different conclusions (with which you disagreed) would you be amenable to being force to read it as you are in the class of people who pontificates on schooling in Australia. There are good private schools and there are good public schools. There are bad private schools and there are bad public schools. What makes them good or bad is a function of the school administration, teachers and families involved in those schools. All are interrelated and how they handle "problem" students is very dependent on the three groups. I have seen both private and public schools that do not handle such matters well and the result is that everything (in time) goes to hell in a handcart. But I have also seen schools completely turned around by a change of administration, change of teachers and a more involved family community. This has affected both public and private schools. You negativity toward private schools (comment about partial government funding) doesn't seem to recognise that if private schools closed down the public school system would be so overwhelmed that it would no longer have any hope of coping. My own children have been at both public and private schools. I have even been on the school committee for the public school so I got a direct management insight into the operation of the school and the processes required for dealing with "problem" children. At times, it was more problems with parents than children, at other times it was problems in the families which could be mitigated by giving them appropriate help and at other times it was just related to recalcitrant and stubborn children that their own families had difficulty with and the families were supporting the school actions in relation to their children and finally there were problems with the teachers themselves and their interactions with specific children. If there is no cooperation between schools and the families involved in wanting to develop the children to be their best, then failures will increasingly occur. Your comment about selective schools misses one salient point, children are not all the same. In Victoria, we used to have trade oriented schools, which were done away with. We now have little opportunity to have students who are interested in practical fields to be specifically educated in those areas. The education model is to have all students head for higher education and big debts. I have a grandson who is autistic and is being educated in the private school sector where there is facilities for him to progress. The local public schools don't have those facilities and hence he would be on the scrapheap. However, there are public schools around who only take the "best" students and pride themselves on having great education standards. If you don't qualify, you'll have problems getting in. What the solutions are is contentious and many just blame one sector or another for the problems (private/public) without thinking about the broader community aspects and the benefit to students. Teaching is not a highly regarded profession and that in itself brings about structural problems of all sorts. We then have various political interferences that want to control the specific social education across all schools, irrespective of any school community feedback.
thundergolfer 9y ago
What's the problem with selective schools? I think mostly everyone is aware that selective schools are successful because of selection bias. I went to Melbourne High in Victoria (all boys academic selective), and think my peers and I benefitted from leaving our original (mostly public) schools to go there. Do you think the education system overall suffers from the 'extracting' of these students out of their original schools?
- glangdale 9y ago
  I went to North Sydney Boys High (all boys academic selective, like you). I think we benefited. I think the schools we were taken out of did not. Back in the era of narrower catchments for selective schools, it was more like losing the top 10-20% for a bunch of nearby schools rather than skimming off a few people from every school in Sydney.
mmirate 9y ago
Having been through the U.S. public school system (plus an IB diploma; too little, too late) ... your description of the Australian system makes me very much regret that I was not born+raised in Australia, as I am probably dumber for it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

schoen 9y ago

As I read this article, it didn't suggest that selective schools are bad or improper, but that they may greatly mislead us about causality or what particular institutions and methods are or aren't accomplishing.

uiwldiowd 9y ago

Very similar in the US, actually, although maybe not with quite as large of a private system (although some would like to change this). Very similar problems. I've had friends who work in the US school system who complain about this same issue--that private schools are immune to many problems because they can just pass the buck onto someone else. The linked piece is very nice, and illustrates the selection bias problem extremely well. One additional comment I might have is about variance. That is, in the figure with red and blue plots, those means are hiding within-school variance. In data I've seen, what often happens is that the lower-status schools often have more variance in them. So in some ways the problem with selection bias is maybe even worse than what the author suggests, because people not only tend to attribute to schools what was pre-existing, but they also tend to stereotype. E.g., you went to a school on the left side of that figure, so you're lower in ability and/or learning than on the right, even though you might be at the upper end of the distribution of the whole figure. This pertains to vocation too: people tend to assume certain vocations are signals of lower cognitive ability than others, when the reality is that uncertainly only increases for some. The other thing I might mention is some social benefits to attending selective schools. The author at times seems to imply that "talented people will end up doing well regardless of where they go" somewhat dismissively. I think this was probably unintentional, but I think that's not exactly true in the way that people care about, because the studies that are done are kind of coarse. That is, if you study outcomes, they tend to be things like general income, or terminal degree attained (undergrad, master's, doctoral), or whatever. In that sense, things are fine. But because of social connections, people might not get into the particular job they want, whereas another person is given a free pass, or might be at a state-level position rather than a federal-level position, or whatever. That is, there are real consequences to overlooking selection bias, that have real importance for people, but tend to get fuzzed over in studies because it's difficult to study.

sien 9y ago

The private school system in Australia saves the government money. Per student funding in the private system is lower than per student funding in the public system. This money is then available to spend more on government schools. It also keeps the government system honest because people can and do leave schools that don't work such as many of those in poor areas in the outer suburbs of the big cities and regional areas. If there were no private system the only way to get into better schools would be to own very expensive houses. Meanwhile, the selective schools show that the government can provide a good education for highly able students as well. In NSW ~18 of the top 20 high schools are government schools. Personally I think most people are unwise to send their kids to expensive private schools and they would help their kids much more if they put the money toward investments. But they are free to waste, in my mind, their money to reduce the cost to the tax payer of education.

Paul-ish 9y ago
> The private school system in Australia saves the government money. Per student funding in the private system is lower than per student funding in the public system. This money is then available to spend more on government schools. Isn't this selection bias again? More difficult (expensive) students may get shunted into the public system.
- sien 9y ago
  A number of private schools roughly kick out people in the bottom 10-20% of results. They aren't necessarily that more expensive to teach, the private schools just don't want them. The really expensive kids (say 20K+ per year) are those that are seriously disabled and they almost all go into the government system. But, if the government only has to pay ~1/3 of the cost of about 1/3 of students who are in the private system there is more money available for them.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    There is a weird situation in Texas in the USA. The state is limiting the amount of funding for each local district to 8.5 percent for special education with the end result that families end up going to private schools to get special education. The one family in this school ended up paying 50,000 per year for private school for two kids with a readi ng disability. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/7/ http://www.houstonchronicle.com/denied/7/

oldandtired 9y ago

First, let me ask you a question - Are you a teacher in any Australian school? Secondly, you have just pontificated on schooling in Australia - so, my second question is, if an article came out with different conclusions (with which you disagreed) would you be amenable to being force to read it as you are in the class of people who pontificates on schooling in Australia. There are good private schools and there are good public schools. There are bad private schools and there are bad public schools. What makes them good or bad is a function of the school administration, teachers and families involved in those schools. All are interrelated and how they handle "problem" students is very dependent on the three groups. I have seen both private and public schools that do not handle such matters well and the result is that everything (in time) goes to hell in a handcart. But I have also seen schools completely turned around by a change of administration, change of teachers and a more involved family community. This has affected both public and private schools. You negativity toward private schools (comment about partial government funding) doesn't seem to recognise that if private schools closed down the public school system would be so overwhelmed that it would no longer have any hope of coping. My own children have been at both public and private schools. I have even been on the school committee for the public school so I got a direct management insight into the operation of the school and the processes required for dealing with "problem" children. At times, it was more problems with parents than children, at other times it was problems in the families which could be mitigated by giving them appropriate help and at other times it was just related to recalcitrant and stubborn children that their own families had difficulty with and the families were supporting the school actions in relation to their children and finally there were problems with the teachers themselves and their interactions with specific children. If there is no cooperation between schools and the families involved in wanting to develop the children to be their best, then failures will increasingly occur. Your comment about selective schools misses one salient point, children are not all the same. In Victoria, we used to have trade oriented schools, which were done away with. We now have little opportunity to have students who are interested in practical fields to be specifically educated in those areas. The education model is to have all students head for higher education and big debts. I have a grandson who is autistic and is being educated in the private school sector where there is facilities for him to progress. The local public schools don't have those facilities and hence he would be on the scrapheap. However, there are public schools around who only take the "best" students and pride themselves on having great education standards. If you don't qualify, you'll have problems getting in. What the solutions are is contentious and many just blame one sector or another for the problems (private/public) without thinking about the broader community aspects and the benefit to students. Teaching is not a highly regarded profession and that in itself brings about structural problems of all sorts. We then have various political interferences that want to control the specific social education across all schools, irrespective of any school community feedback.

thundergolfer 9y ago

What's the problem with selective schools? I think mostly everyone is aware that selective schools are successful because of selection bias. I went to Melbourne High in Victoria (all boys academic selective), and think my peers and I benefitted from leaving our original (mostly public) schools to go there. Do you think the education system overall suffers from the 'extracting' of these students out of their original schools?

glangdale 9y ago
I went to North Sydney Boys High (all boys academic selective, like you). I think we benefited. I think the schools we were taken out of did not. Back in the era of narrower catchments for selective schools, it was more like losing the top 10-20% for a bunch of nearby schools rather than skimming off a few people from every school in Sydney.

mmirate 9y ago

Having been through the U.S. public school system (plus an IB diploma; too little, too late) ... your description of the Australian system makes me very much regret that I was not born+raised in Australia, as I am probably dumber for it.