John MacDonald: Are private schools really any better than state schools?

Do you really think kids get a better education if they go to a private school?

Parents at St Cuthbert’s, a private school in Auckland, think so because they’re backing the school’s decision to drop NCEA Level 1.

A quick reminder how the NCEA system works. In Year 11 (which is the old Form 5) the kids can do NCEA Level 1 (which, if you need to think about it in the old ways - is the equivalent of School Cert).

And then in Year 12 (which used to be Form 6), they do Level 2. And then in Year 13 (the old Form 7), and they do NCEA Level 3.

So St Cuthberts in Auckland is ditching Level 1 and is going to be doing its own thing in Year 11, and then its students will pick up NCEA in Years 12 and 13.

But is this just posturing by this private school? Because NCEA Level 1 is actually voluntary. Not all schools have to do it. For example, Lincoln High School in Canterbury doesn't do Level 1. I’m not sure if it’s never done Level 1 - but I know it hasn’t done it for a number of years. Because it’s voluntary.

And so what St Cuthbert’s is doing is not unusual at all. Like Lincoln High, it’s choosing not to do something that it’s not obliged to do.

Nevertheless, the parents at St Cuthbert’s are right behind it.

One, who has a daughter who is at intermediate age and will be going into Year 9 next year, says she had been looking at sending her daughter to a state school for her high school years, but isn’t so sure now.

She says: “I had always thought my kids might go to university in Australia and it just concerns me that they might turn up and be so far behind the eight-ball that they can’t catch up.

“I believe in public education. I don’t want to be sending my kid to a private school. I want them to go to the local government school but it just doesn’t seem that it’s good enough."

I know a thing or two about state schools and private schools.

I’ll start with my own experience from when I was at school. I was at a state-integrated Catholic high school in Dunedin which, for all intents and purposes, was a state school. And I hated it.

It was violent; I thought the principal, especially, didn’t give a damn; I was failing miserably; and, as it turned out, it was rife with sexual abuse. So my parents let me leave and I worked for them for a year but then they had an offer out-of-the-blue to buy their little business and they took it.

Which left me without a job and that was when they suggested I go back to school and - despite them not having a lot of money - they sent me to John McGlashan College which, at the time, was fully private. These days it’s integrated - but, back then, it was full fees. So my parents sacrificed a lot to get me back on track.

And that school turned my life around. Within 18 months I had UE and a job at the local paper as a cadet reporter. I was exactly where I wanted to be.

So, on the basis of that experience, I could say that private schools are definitely the way to go. But fast-forward a few years and we found ourselves with three kids approaching high school age. So which way did we go? State or private?

Well, the bank-balance decided pretty much. Because we were never going to be able to afford to put three kids through private schools. But, do you know what? We’ve never regretted it.

Sure, when I went to that private school in Dunedin it opened doors that had never been open to me until then. But I can honestly say that, when it came to our kids, going through the state system wasn’t the roadblock to opportunity that some people might think.

Which is why, despite having my own life turned around by going to a private school for just 18 months, I don’t buy the argument that private schools are better than state schools.

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