Here we go again… The socialist deconstructionists are flagging one of their favourite ideas, at least, that is the impression I have been left with last week. Their strategy appears to be to test ideas by ‘letting something slip’. If it goes well, it becomes a public talking point to drive the agenda. If not, it is quickly withdrawn, with some kind of appropriate retraction to take it off the agenda.

This time the issue is independently run education in New South Wales. The last eyebrow-raising comment came from NSW Department of Education Secretary Murat Dizda who said, with reference to privately run schools:

‘I’m not sure that when you look at the facts around the globe, you need that provision. We’ve had countries across the world that have been successful on their educational path with one provision, and that’s been a public provision. It needs to be debated and discussed.’

Dizdar distanced himself from his own comments, saying, ‘I recognise and value the important role the Catholic and independent schools play in our education system in NSW, now and into the future … my comments on Australian Story regarding public provisions were not intended to disrespect the good work of my colleagues in other sectors.’

So, was this a ‘misspeak’ moment, or a considered thought at the wrong time and place? I believe it is the latter.

It is not uncommon for the Left to hunt after independent education. Peter Hitchens described the constant war against private schools in his A Revolution Betrayed: How Egalitarians wrecked the British education system. This book is full of historical detail, including direct quotes from the main players against private education in the UK, and of lists of what kind of schools were developed and which ones died after which decisions.

Hitchens explains how in the UK it was the incoherent and hypocritical Labour and Tory members who saw the demise of one program that actually helped some poorer working-class students have access to better education. The Grammar School program was based on entrance by merit, as measured through testing. He also explains in great detail how the idealistic promotion of ‘comprehensive’ schools (like much of NSW in the state-run sector) ran the previously more successful program into the ground, which meant that eventually fewer students were helped. Here is Hitchens’ explanation:

…their dislike of grammars is ideological and so beyond reason … their destruction served a utopian aim: the re-ordering of education, knowledge, and authority. But the immediate effect was to hurt the poor. The modern left accepted this because it was at that time ceasing to be a working-class or trade union movement, aimed at bettering the conditions of industrial workers. It was becoming instead the movement of the social, moral, and cultural left, a largely middle-class tendency. (pp. 160-161)

Mr Dizdar is in stark contrast to my local Labor member from some 35 years ago. That member came to the opening of the new Christian Community School building. He started to read the speech prepared by his minder – but stopped soon after starting, threw it aside, and spoke from the heart. He simply told those gathered (about 1,000 on an outdoor basketball court) that this ‘kind of school is what we need to help our communities be stronger’.

Much research since those times have supported this Labor member’s insights. Schools that support a family’s beliefs and values are much more likely to help develop strong citizenship, particularly if the school has the same beliefs as the family’s beliefs (see Ilana Horwitz’s Gods, Grades and Graduation as an example).

Despite the Premier’s and Education Minister’s disagreeing with Mr Dizdar – consider this… They appointed him and he is strongly supported by the NSW Teachers’ Federation. That was the same group that oversaw the betrayal of the learning of students during Covid.

What does genuine socially liberal conservation look like with regards to education? JS Mill, in his On Liberty, wrote the following – noting that this is probably the least quoted section of Mill’s essay:

If the government would make up its mind to require for every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of providing one. It might leave the parents to obtain the education where and how they pleased, and content themselves with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of children and degrading the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them … a general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another… (pp. 176-7)

Leave alone the parents of all kinds who choose schools according to what they believe is best for the child. Give them all a voucher of equal amount to spend at the school of their choice. And let educational enrolment decisions be made on merit – of both the capacity type and the moral ethical type if that is what parents want. Get out of our lives.

I write these thoughts sitting up in bed in Poland, after visiting Austria and Lithuania. I was invited to help low-fee independently run faith-based schools in those countries. In each place, I am reminded by those present what it means to have social controllers run their lives, including their schools. They do not want to go back to that.

Why should we go there?