August 20, 2025 • 17 mins
Private school rankings are splashed across the headlines, and parents everywhere are left asking: Am I failing my child if I stay public? With fees soaring above $45,000 a year, the pressure is real — but what does the research actually say? In this episode, Justin and Kylie cut through the marketing hype to reveal what truly matters for your child’s learning and wellbeing — and why “better” doesn’t always mean what you think.
KEY POINTS
- The truth about test scores
- What parents are really buying with high fees
- Why teachers matter more than facilities or class size
- The “proximity principle”: belonging, friendships, and community trump prestige
- How investing school fees differently could transform your child’s future
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“You can’t buy inspiration. It’s not about school fees — it’s about the teacher who lights up your child’s curiosity.”
RESOURCES
- Research on school belonging (Kelly & Allen, University of Melbourne)
- https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/singlesex-schools-as-australias-top-100-private-schools-named/news-story/78fc2ed6b3807cbf6f44035d768c5c87
- Harvard economist Raj Chetty’s study on teacher impact
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The private school rankings from around the nation were released
just over a week ago, on two or three weeks
ago now actually, and the papers have been filled with
stories about how each school hits, how each school is
serving our kids. Now, I'm going to be really clear,
I don't like this stuff. Parents are scrolling through lists,
they're calculating fees, and they're wondering should I be doing
more for my child's education and we failing by staying public?
(00:27):
What can I do to put myself into greater financial
debts so that I can give my child the opportunity
to go to a school that has this ranking or
this particular outcome. Today we're cutting through the marketing hype
to look at what the research actually says about school choice,
and you might be surprised by what really matters for
your child's future. Stay with us, Hello and welcome to
(00:50):
the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on
Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Colson. Kylie, incidentally,
we received via a Happy Fani do I use? Somebody
sent us a voice note asking a question about what
to do about choosing a high school for their kids.
Is what Joseip, Good morning, Happy families. Joe here from Canberra.
I was hoping for some advice about what to look for,
(01:12):
what kind of questions to ask, or what research to
do when looking for our high school for children.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you. I feel like we've gone through this conversation
maybe a handful of times in our home, more than
a handful, because our children haven't stayed at the same school.
This is a really hard question for parents to.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Grapple with, yeah, all the time, really really frustrating, and
there's so much information out there as well. I'm not
a big fan of these school rankings, what about you, No.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I feel like it creates this this idea of exclusivity
and it's competitive, right, and the more competitive a school is,
the more they can charge. And then families find themselves
in this position where they want their children to have
the best possible outcomes that they can give them and
they're willing to do anything for that. And having been
(02:05):
in that position where we put our children into a
school that we probably really shouldn't have been able to affward,
and the emotional, mental and financial stress that we sat in,
oh yeah, for that two years was ridiculous, and it
didn't benefit anyone in the long run.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, it was really, really, really a heavy load to
carry and pulling the kids out of that school simply
from the anxiety reduction that it created for us. I mean,
we went backwards financially for a couple of years, and
pretty soon you get to a point where you've got
nothing left and you're going, we can't keep on doing this.
It's very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And interestingly, the contrast to that, we put our children
into the public school system and they.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Thrived, they were really happy there. Yeah, so let's have
a quick chat about this. In a nutshell, single sex
schools are dominating. Based on these recent rankings, fees in
some of these schools are approaching forty five thousand dollars
a year. That doesn't include if you're boarding, because the
numbers go up even more for boarding and.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
The mark How do families afford this?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I don't know. The marketing promises sound really compelling. Here's
what I want to explore today. What does the evidence
actually tell us about school choice and what should parents
really focus on? So let's kick off with a conversation
about private versus public quick reality check recent Australian research following,
thousands of students found that napland scores of kids in
(03:20):
private schools were no different to those in public schools
when you account for socioeconomic background. So let me say
that again, because statistically this can sound a little bit
confusing for some people. When you control statistically for family circumstances,
private schools aren't actually producing better outcomes.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, just so I'm clear, what you're suggesting is they're
kind of they're looking at families from the same socio
economic in both public and private. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's exactly right. So what we know is that public
schools generally draw from a broader socioeconomic catchment. That is,
you've got people who can't afford private school, so they're
much lower on the socio economic scale, as well as
plenty of people who can afford but choose not to
spend their money on private schools, so they've got a
much broader range. So when you look at the overall
outcome of the public school compared with the fancy private
(04:10):
school down the road, the private school wins hands down
on napland scores, Right, they just win. But once you
partial out on once you account for statistically, the socioeconomic
circumstances of some students. So you start to compare like
against like, yep, no difference. And this I mean, I've
always said, you show me the postcode and I'll tell
you what the napland scores are. It's got nothing to
(04:32):
do with the school. It's got everything to do with
the post code. That's why there's a post code premium
that real estate agents really leverage because if the home
is near a school in the right postcode, people will
pay a premium because they want to be in the
right postcode. Why because the catchment. Well yeah, and you're
in a school where a whole lot of families are
saying we value education because we're earning the money because
(04:54):
we've got our good educations ourselves. That's how that kind
of works. Study after study after study, including in that
of sixty eight education systems that are participating in the
international PISA tests, shows that private school attendance is not
consistently related to higher test performance. There was also an
analysis recently in Victoria. The VC results showed public schools
(05:14):
are actually outperforming private schools when you compare schools with
similar socioeconomic rankings.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So what are parents really buying for forty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So what I'm going to say may sound really cynical.
I'm going to say it anyway. They're purchasing the illusion
of superiority, and they're purchasing the comfort of social segregation.
It's a class system. Private schools have become luxury brands
and they deliver status rather than outcomes. Right, private school
it's like walking through the airport and you've got the
LVMH bag, You've got the fancy bag with the Louis
(05:47):
Vuitton bag with the logos, right, and you just get
to feel a little bit superior. That's one thing that
private schools provide. Now, am I saying that every family
who sends their kids to a private school therefore gets
to feel superior. No, I'm not doing that at all. Well,
what I'm saying is that the private schools now market
themselves as luxury brands, and in so doing they become aspirational.
Everybody wants their kids to have the luxury. We all
(06:08):
want the very best for our kids. So this is
not a slight on the kids. This is about the
class system that we've built in education around this. We're
so invested in the promise that we spend the dough
and we don't look at what the statistics actually show.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I know that when we've gone through this process a
handful of times, the schools have basically told us that
it's not us choosing them, it's whether or not they
choose us.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, you know that notion of exclusivity absolutely absolutely, Colin.
Let me say this. I get to work in a
lot of these schools, and maybe after today's podcast, I
never will again. I don't know, but these schools are astonishing.
I mean, they've got these incredible Olympic level pools, they've
got green fields, they've got beautiful views and grounds. I've
been in some schools where the views you literally cannot buy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So state of the technology.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, if you've got forty five k a year to spend,
you're going to get smaller classes, you're going to get
more resources, you're going to get broader subject offerings. The
co curricular programming is exceptional, and you will get a
very different school culture. And I would even go so
far as to say that these things matter for the
school experience, even if they don't necessarily translate to better outcomes.
And when I'm in those schools. Generally speaking, the kids
(07:20):
are pretty happy. They're not worried about the same sort
of things that kids in maybe the public school down
the road are worried about. But here's the thing we're
only talking today about. Academics and public schools are achieving
comparable results while serving a vastly different population. Disadvantaged students
account for forty six percent of public school enrollments compared
(07:40):
to only twenty percent in private schools. Public schools are
doing more with less, and frankly, they're doing it well.
So is private better? I think that it just depends
on how you measure better, what better means to your
better resourced. Absolutely, it's undeniable better for your child's learning.
The evidence suggests it's probably not, at least not in
(08:02):
ways that show up in academic achievement. The question that
I ask myself is this, would I pay forty five
thousand dollars a year? I think the local private school
down the road from US is about twenty five or
twenty eight thousand here on the Sunshine Coast, and that's
one of the highest fee paying schools on the coast.
Would I pay that thirty grand a year if I
had the money. I can't say for certain that I
(08:25):
would or I wouldn't. We don't have the choice, so
I don't have to make the decision. But based on
the research, I'm not convinced that would be the best
use of our resources. After the break, I'll tell you
what is the best use of your resources when it
comes to your children and education. Okay, it's vexed, it's emotional,
(08:48):
and people really struggle when they're making these decisions. Here's
what the research says about children and education outcomes. I
want to talk about two ideas. One is the teacher
factor and one is known as the proximity principle. Teachers
matter more to student achievement than any other school related factor, and.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I wish every teacher understood that.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I think I think many of them do. I want
to make this point really clear. Whether I'm in private
or public schools, or Christian schools and on denominational schools
or alternati schools, it doesn't matter what school I go to.
The overwhelming majority of teachers that I work with, they
love their work and they love the students. They struggle
with the system. Most teachers will tell me the system
(09:32):
is not fair on us or on the kids. But
they love their work and they love the students. I
get goosebumps talking about it because you can just tell
the professionalism, the enthusiasm, the desire. For the overwhelming majority,
I'd say eighty to ninety percent of teachers are just
in it for all the right reasons. But when you
look at school factors, teachers are estimated to have two
(09:55):
to three times the effect of any other element, including
the facilities and the resources and the leadership. You get
this students assigned high value added teachers are more likely
to graduate from high school, go to university, be employed,
and earn higher wages. I found this study from Harvard
economist RAJ Chetty. Now this was a controversial study that
he published and it was in the US, but I
(10:16):
think that it's enough for us to at least have
a conversation about. He and his colleagues found that replacing
a bottom five percent teacher with just an average teacher
would increase student's lifetime income by more than a quarter
of a million dollars. In other words, teachers make a
huge difference.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
As you're talking about that, I'm thinking about so many
different teachers in our children's lives who were so instrumental
in sparking our kid's curiosity. And one teacher in particular
comes to mind. His name was mister Cotter. He was
a science teacher. And Chanell, our eldest, she hated science.
And one day she came home and we were talking
(10:58):
and she said, I just love sigeience. I just love
it so much. And I looked at her and I went.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What is going on here?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
When did that change? Yeh, yep, yep, And she said,
my teacher just brings it to life. And what's amazing
is all these years later she's actually gone science based
and she's in Midwiffrey. I just I love that this
teacher sparked in her something that she never would have
gone to had he have not shared with her his
(11:26):
passion and love for all things science.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yep, yep. You can't buy it, you can't guarantee. It's
got nothing to do with school fees. It's all about
relationship and inspiration. So let's bring this home and wrap
it up. What should you be looking for? If we
would answer our cambermum's question about trying to select a school,
what should you be looking for? This is my list?
Number one. I'm going to say, focus on school proximity
home and I'll tell you why. Students who feel more
(11:51):
connected to school have higher tendance rates, they have higher
academic outcomes, they have better mental health. Kelly and Allen,
from a University of Melbourne, has done a whole lot
of research on school belonging her and her colleague Diana
Vella Broderick, and what they find is that when kids
feel like they belong in their school, they just do
better both inside school and outside of school. Plus, when
you choose a school inside your local community, your kids
(12:13):
are much more likely to have friends nearby. They're more
likely to participaid en after school activities with those friends
and feel genuinely connected not just to their school environment,
but to their home environment as well.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
What we've found over the years is our kids have
gone to different private schools. Is often kids are traveling
fifty minutes an hour and a half.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Let's catch up on the weekend. Yet we live like
on the other side of town. It's nuts and it's.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
So hard, and kids have basically said, yeah, my parents
won't drive me. Yeah, and it's really really challenging.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And you know what, the parents won't drive them because
the parents are exhausted because they're absolutely smashing themselves, so
they can pay the school fees to get the kids
the best opportunity they can when the school down the
road could help Australia as public education system is actually
really good by international standards. So unless you've got really
strong values based reasons for avoiding public schools, and I
think that's a legitimate consideration, child is likely to do
just as well academically an equality local public school. We've
(13:04):
always said, don't look at results, resources and reputation, instead
look at fun, friends and the philosophy of the school.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I was about to say that for me, it's a
values based thing. What are the things that I value
most and then go from there, And for me, relationships
are high on the list. I wouldn't be sending my
children to a school because their best friend goes there, necessarily,
I would be sending them to a school where a
number of their friends go. As we know, relationships change
(13:33):
can be really transient and if there's only one person
that they're counting on, that's going to be challenging. But
if they have multiple kids who go that they enjoy
spending time with, they're going to feel a lot better
because they already feel a sense of belonging.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
All right, we're out of time, but I want to
do some maths with you really quickly. Yeah, no, no, I
got really excited about doing this. I was just thinking
about how much money we spend on school fees as
an Australian community. Right, So first of all, let me
again emphasize look for the great teacher and stay in
your local community if you can, Like, if you send
your kids still a good local school, and then you
invest the time that you save on commuting in family
(14:08):
activities and community connections and sleep, and you're just going
to have a better life. Research shows that students feel
supported by teachers and peers just have better outcomes. But
if you determine to spend that forty five k each year,
this is the maths that I did. Let's say instead
of a high fee paying school, we're just going to
go with a low fee paying school, which is usually
somewhere around about ten thousand dollars. So if you were
(14:29):
to invest ten thousand dollars per year and an index
fund from age twelve through to eighteen your child's high
school years, that's sixty K that you're investing with conservative
seven percent returns, your child at the age of thirty
five will have two hundred and seventy three thousand dollars,
and if you have an optimistic ten percent return, you're
going to have half a million bucks at the age
(14:50):
of thirty five. That's a significant head start in your
mid thirties when you really need the dough. But then
I got really ambitious. So let's say you're going to
spend twenty five thousand dollars a year that a lot
of elite private schools is actually cost when you're factor
in all the extras. If you invest that same amount,
so I still haven't gone to the forty five thousand,
but let's say it's twenty five k because it's an
expensive private school. Let's say you invest that in the
(15:12):
market instead, and your child walks into adulthood at the
age of thirty five that twenty five K year. Over
six years, it's one hundred and fifty k. But because
of the way compounding works, once they're thirty five, that's
six hundred and eighty three thousand dollars that it will
have become. Or if you get those teenp center returns,
it'll be one point two million dollars, like we are
literally talking about giving your children enough money to buy
(15:35):
a house outright, or start a business or never worry
about money again. So that's not giving them an education.
They'll get the education of the public system anyway. What
that is is generational wealth transfer. But I mean, we
can keep on obsessing other school uniforms and Latin programs
if we want. I don't know, that's my cynical take
on it. Or you can do what we've done and
(15:55):
choose home school and use targeted tutoring because it gives
us maximum flexibility and allows us to tailor education our
children's needs and cost a fraction of private school fees
while it potentially delivers great outcomes because of the personalized learning. Anyway, Joe,
thanks for the question. Maybe I've gone too far, maybe
we've said too much, But hopefully the whole idea of
(16:16):
this conversation is not to tell you that we're right.
It's to provoke thinking around the education decisions that we're making.
The rankings in the marketing are always going to try
and convince you that more expensive equals better, but I
think the research tells a different story, folks. I'm finding
good teachers build great school connection, create a learning rich
home environment. I think those factors are going to serve
(16:39):
you kids far better than any school ranking ever.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Will Well, for now, I'm just grateful we don't have
to make any decisions around school. It's home school and
all the way.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, although she's been making some noises, I know. We
really hope this's giving you somebody to think about it.
Thanks so much for listening to the Happy Families podcast.
If you know somebody who would benefit from this conversation,
please forward share the podcast episode with them. We'd love
to be able to make a difference in as many
families as we possibly can. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Rulon from Bridge Media and Mim Hammond's
(17:08):
provides additional research and admin support. If you would like
more information and resources to make your family happier, visit
us at happy families dot com dot a you
The private school rankings from around the nation were released
just over a week ago, on two or three weeks
ago now actually, and the papers have been filled with
stories about how each school hits, how each school is
serving our kids. Now, I'm going to be really clear,
I don't like this stuff. Parents are scrolling through lists,
they're calculating fees, and they're wondering should I be doing
more for my child's education and we failing by staying public?
(00:27):
What can I do to put myself into greater financial
debts so that I can give my child the opportunity
to go to a school that has this ranking or
this particular outcome. Today we're cutting through the marketing hype
to look at what the research actually says about school choice,
and you might be surprised by what really matters for
your child's future. Stay with us, Hello and welcome to
(00:50):
the Happy Families Podcast, Real parenting Solutions every day on
Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Colson. Kylie, incidentally,
we received via a Happy Fani do I use? Somebody
sent us a voice note asking a question about what
to do about choosing a high school for their kids.
Is what Joseip, Good morning, Happy families. Joe here from Canberra.
I was hoping for some advice about what to look for,
(01:12):
what kind of questions to ask, or what research to
do when looking for our high school for children.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you. I feel like we've gone through this conversation
maybe a handful of times in our home, more than
a handful, because our children haven't stayed at the same school.
This is a really hard question for parents to.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Grapple with, yeah, all the time, really really frustrating, and
there's so much information out there as well. I'm not
a big fan of these school rankings, what about you, No.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I feel like it creates this this idea of exclusivity
and it's competitive, right, and the more competitive a school is,
the more they can charge. And then families find themselves
in this position where they want their children to have
the best possible outcomes that they can give them and
they're willing to do anything for that. And having been
(02:05):
in that position where we put our children into a
school that we probably really shouldn't have been able to affward,
and the emotional, mental and financial stress that we sat in,
oh yeah, for that two years was ridiculous, and it
didn't benefit anyone in the long run.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, it was really, really, really a heavy load to
carry and pulling the kids out of that school simply
from the anxiety reduction that it created for us. I mean,
we went backwards financially for a couple of years, and
pretty soon you get to a point where you've got
nothing left and you're going, we can't keep on doing this.
It's very, very difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And interestingly, the contrast to that, we put our children
into the public school system and they.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Thrived, they were really happy there. Yeah, so let's have
a quick chat about this. In a nutshell, single sex
schools are dominating. Based on these recent rankings, fees in
some of these schools are approaching forty five thousand dollars
a year. That doesn't include if you're boarding, because the
numbers go up even more for boarding and.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
The mark How do families afford this?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I don't know. The marketing promises sound really compelling. Here's
what I want to explore today. What does the evidence
actually tell us about school choice and what should parents
really focus on? So let's kick off with a conversation
about private versus public quick reality check recent Australian research following,
thousands of students found that napland scores of kids in
(03:20):
private schools were no different to those in public schools
when you account for socioeconomic background. So let me say
that again, because statistically this can sound a little bit
confusing for some people. When you control statistically for family circumstances,
private schools aren't actually producing better outcomes.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, just so I'm clear, what you're suggesting is they're
kind of they're looking at families from the same socio
economic in both public and private. Is that right?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's exactly right. So what we know is that public
schools generally draw from a broader socioeconomic catchment. That is,
you've got people who can't afford private school, so they're
much lower on the socio economic scale, as well as
plenty of people who can afford but choose not to
spend their money on private schools, so they've got a
much broader range. So when you look at the overall
outcome of the public school compared with the fancy private
(04:10):
school down the road, the private school wins hands down
on napland scores, Right, they just win. But once you
partial out on once you account for statistically, the socioeconomic
circumstances of some students. So you start to compare like
against like, yep, no difference. And this I mean, I've
always said, you show me the postcode and I'll tell
you what the napland scores are. It's got nothing to
(04:32):
do with the school. It's got everything to do with
the post code. That's why there's a post code premium
that real estate agents really leverage because if the home
is near a school in the right postcode, people will
pay a premium because they want to be in the
right postcode. Why because the catchment. Well yeah, and you're
in a school where a whole lot of families are
saying we value education because we're earning the money because
(04:54):
we've got our good educations ourselves. That's how that kind
of works. Study after study after study, including in that
of sixty eight education systems that are participating in the
international PISA tests, shows that private school attendance is not
consistently related to higher test performance. There was also an
analysis recently in Victoria. The VC results showed public schools
(05:14):
are actually outperforming private schools when you compare schools with
similar socioeconomic rankings.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So what are parents really buying for forty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
So what I'm going to say may sound really cynical.
I'm going to say it anyway. They're purchasing the illusion
of superiority, and they're purchasing the comfort of social segregation.
It's a class system. Private schools have become luxury brands
and they deliver status rather than outcomes. Right, private school
it's like walking through the airport and you've got the
LVMH bag, You've got the fancy bag with the Louis
(05:47):
Vuitton bag with the logos, right, and you just get
to feel a little bit superior. That's one thing that
private schools provide. Now, am I saying that every family
who sends their kids to a private school therefore gets
to feel superior. No, I'm not doing that at all. Well,
what I'm saying is that the private schools now market
themselves as luxury brands, and in so doing they become aspirational.
Everybody wants their kids to have the luxury. We all
(06:08):
want the very best for our kids. So this is
not a slight on the kids. This is about the
class system that we've built in education around this. We're
so invested in the promise that we spend the dough
and we don't look at what the statistics actually show.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I know that when we've gone through this process a
handful of times, the schools have basically told us that
it's not us choosing them, it's whether or not they
choose us.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, you know that notion of exclusivity absolutely absolutely, Colin.
Let me say this. I get to work in a
lot of these schools, and maybe after today's podcast, I
never will again. I don't know, but these schools are astonishing.
I mean, they've got these incredible Olympic level pools, they've
got green fields, they've got beautiful views and grounds. I've
been in some schools where the views you literally cannot buy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So state of the technology.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, if you've got forty five k a year to spend,
you're going to get smaller classes, you're going to get
more resources, you're going to get broader subject offerings. The
co curricular programming is exceptional, and you will get a
very different school culture. And I would even go so
far as to say that these things matter for the
school experience, even if they don't necessarily translate to better outcomes.
And when I'm in those schools. Generally speaking, the kids
(07:20):
are pretty happy. They're not worried about the same sort
of things that kids in maybe the public school down
the road are worried about. But here's the thing we're
only talking today about. Academics and public schools are achieving
comparable results while serving a vastly different population. Disadvantaged students
account for forty six percent of public school enrollments compared
(07:40):
to only twenty percent in private schools. Public schools are
doing more with less, and frankly, they're doing it well.
So is private better? I think that it just depends
on how you measure better, what better means to your
better resourced. Absolutely, it's undeniable better for your child's learning.
The evidence suggests it's probably not, at least not in
(08:02):
ways that show up in academic achievement. The question that
I ask myself is this, would I pay forty five
thousand dollars a year? I think the local private school
down the road from US is about twenty five or
twenty eight thousand here on the Sunshine Coast, and that's
one of the highest fee paying schools on the coast.
Would I pay that thirty grand a year if I
had the money. I can't say for certain that I
(08:25):
would or I wouldn't. We don't have the choice, so
I don't have to make the decision. But based on
the research, I'm not convinced that would be the best
use of our resources. After the break, I'll tell you
what is the best use of your resources when it
comes to your children and education. Okay, it's vexed, it's emotional,
(08:48):
and people really struggle when they're making these decisions. Here's
what the research says about children and education outcomes. I
want to talk about two ideas. One is the teacher
factor and one is known as the proximity principle. Teachers
matter more to student achievement than any other school related factor, and.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I wish every teacher understood that.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I think I think many of them do. I want
to make this point really clear. Whether I'm in private
or public schools, or Christian schools and on denominational schools
or alternati schools, it doesn't matter what school I go to.
The overwhelming majority of teachers that I work with, they
love their work and they love the students. They struggle
with the system. Most teachers will tell me the system
(09:32):
is not fair on us or on the kids. But
they love their work and they love the students. I
get goosebumps talking about it because you can just tell
the professionalism, the enthusiasm, the desire. For the overwhelming majority,
I'd say eighty to ninety percent of teachers are just
in it for all the right reasons. But when you
look at school factors, teachers are estimated to have two
(09:55):
to three times the effect of any other element, including
the facilities and the resources and the leadership. You get
this students assigned high value added teachers are more likely
to graduate from high school, go to university, be employed,
and earn higher wages. I found this study from Harvard
economist RAJ Chetty. Now this was a controversial study that
he published and it was in the US, but I
(10:16):
think that it's enough for us to at least have
a conversation about. He and his colleagues found that replacing
a bottom five percent teacher with just an average teacher
would increase student's lifetime income by more than a quarter
of a million dollars. In other words, teachers make a
huge difference.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
As you're talking about that, I'm thinking about so many
different teachers in our children's lives who were so instrumental
in sparking our kid's curiosity. And one teacher in particular
comes to mind. His name was mister Cotter. He was
a science teacher. And Chanell, our eldest, she hated science.
And one day she came home and we were talking
(10:58):
and she said, I just love sigeience. I just love
it so much. And I looked at her and I went.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What is going on here?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
When did that change? Yeh, yep, yep, And she said,
my teacher just brings it to life. And what's amazing
is all these years later she's actually gone science based
and she's in Midwiffrey. I just I love that this
teacher sparked in her something that she never would have
gone to had he have not shared with her his
(11:26):
passion and love for all things science.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yep, yep. You can't buy it, you can't guarantee. It's
got nothing to do with school fees. It's all about
relationship and inspiration. So let's bring this home and wrap
it up. What should you be looking for? If we
would answer our cambermum's question about trying to select a school,
what should you be looking for? This is my list?
Number one. I'm going to say, focus on school proximity
home and I'll tell you why. Students who feel more
(11:51):
connected to school have higher tendance rates, they have higher
academic outcomes, they have better mental health. Kelly and Allen,
from a University of Melbourne, has done a whole lot
of research on school belonging her and her colleague Diana
Vella Broderick, and what they find is that when kids
feel like they belong in their school, they just do
better both inside school and outside of school. Plus, when
you choose a school inside your local community, your kids
(12:13):
are much more likely to have friends nearby. They're more
likely to participaid en after school activities with those friends
and feel genuinely connected not just to their school environment,
but to their home environment as well.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
What we've found over the years is our kids have
gone to different private schools. Is often kids are traveling
fifty minutes an hour and a half.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Let's catch up on the weekend. Yet we live like
on the other side of town. It's nuts and it's.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
So hard, and kids have basically said, yeah, my parents
won't drive me. Yeah, and it's really really challenging.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
And you know what, the parents won't drive them because
the parents are exhausted because they're absolutely smashing themselves, so
they can pay the school fees to get the kids
the best opportunity they can when the school down the
road could help Australia as public education system is actually
really good by international standards. So unless you've got really
strong values based reasons for avoiding public schools, and I
think that's a legitimate consideration, child is likely to do
just as well academically an equality local public school. We've
(13:04):
always said, don't look at results, resources and reputation, instead
look at fun, friends and the philosophy of the school.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I was about to say that for me, it's a
values based thing. What are the things that I value
most and then go from there, And for me, relationships
are high on the list. I wouldn't be sending my
children to a school because their best friend goes there, necessarily,
I would be sending them to a school where a
number of their friends go. As we know, relationships change
(13:33):
can be really transient and if there's only one person
that they're counting on, that's going to be challenging. But
if they have multiple kids who go that they enjoy
spending time with, they're going to feel a lot better
because they already feel a sense of belonging.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
All right, we're out of time, but I want to
do some maths with you really quickly. Yeah, no, no, I
got really excited about doing this. I was just thinking
about how much money we spend on school fees as
an Australian community. Right, So first of all, let me
again emphasize look for the great teacher and stay in
your local community if you can, Like, if you send
your kids still a good local school, and then you
invest the time that you save on commuting in family
(14:08):
activities and community connections and sleep, and you're just going
to have a better life. Research shows that students feel
supported by teachers and peers just have better outcomes. But
if you determine to spend that forty five k each year,
this is the maths that I did. Let's say instead
of a high fee paying school, we're just going to
go with a low fee paying school, which is usually
somewhere around about ten thousand dollars. So if you were
(14:29):
to invest ten thousand dollars per year and an index
fund from age twelve through to eighteen your child's high
school years, that's sixty K that you're investing with conservative
seven percent returns, your child at the age of thirty
five will have two hundred and seventy three thousand dollars,
and if you have an optimistic ten percent return, you're
going to have half a million bucks at the age
(14:50):
of thirty five. That's a significant head start in your
mid thirties when you really need the dough. But then
I got really ambitious. So let's say you're going to
spend twenty five thousand dollars a year that a lot
of elite private schools is actually cost when you're factor
in all the extras. If you invest that same amount,
so I still haven't gone to the forty five thousand,
but let's say it's twenty five k because it's an
expensive private school. Let's say you invest that in the
(15:12):
market instead, and your child walks into adulthood at the
age of thirty five that twenty five K year. Over
six years, it's one hundred and fifty k. But because
of the way compounding works, once they're thirty five, that's
six hundred and eighty three thousand dollars that it will
have become. Or if you get those teenp center returns,
it'll be one point two million dollars, like we are
literally talking about giving your children enough money to buy
(15:35):
a house outright, or start a business or never worry
about money again. So that's not giving them an education.
They'll get the education of the public system anyway. What
that is is generational wealth transfer. But I mean, we
can keep on obsessing other school uniforms and Latin programs
if we want. I don't know, that's my cynical take
on it. Or you can do what we've done and
(15:55):
choose home school and use targeted tutoring because it gives
us maximum flexibility and allows us to tailor education our
children's needs and cost a fraction of private school fees
while it potentially delivers great outcomes because of the personalized learning. Anyway, Joe,
thanks for the question. Maybe I've gone too far, maybe
we've said too much, But hopefully the whole idea of
(16:16):
this conversation is not to tell you that we're right.
It's to provoke thinking around the education decisions that we're making.
The rankings in the marketing are always going to try
and convince you that more expensive equals better, but I
think the research tells a different story, folks. I'm finding
good teachers build great school connection, create a learning rich
home environment. I think those factors are going to serve
(16:39):
you kids far better than any school ranking ever.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Will Well, for now, I'm just grateful we don't have
to make any decisions around school. It's home school and
all the way.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, although she's been making some noises, I know. We
really hope this's giving you somebody to think about it.
Thanks so much for listening to the Happy Families podcast.
If you know somebody who would benefit from this conversation,
please forward share the podcast episode with them. We'd love
to be able to make a difference in as many
families as we possibly can. The Happy Families podcast is
produced by Justin Rulon from Bridge Media and Mim Hammond's
(17:08):
provides additional research and admin support. If you would like
more information and resources to make your family happier, visit
us at happy families dot com dot a you
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