DOGS support Public Schools because they integrate students

From its foundation in the 1960's DOGS has promoted social cohesion through the integration as opposed to the segregation of students at the primary, secondary and tertiary level. The only way this can be achieved is through a public system which is open and accessible to all students regardless of their colour, class, culture, creed and geographical location. Such a system must also be openly accessible to employment opportunities for citizens regardless of colour, class, culture, and creed.

 When Angelo Gavielatos, the President of the Australian Education Union, the union for public school teachers, opposed home schooling as inconsistent with the philosophy and importance of schooling itself' he is merely being consistent with his opposition to segregation of students in private, segregationist schools.

 Gavrielatos 'Statement indicates the Folly of Segregation and the Necessity of Social Integration for Social Cohesion.

According to the Australian, June 19, 2009, in Á Class of their Own', Angelo Gavrielatos is quoted as saying:

Schooling is a very important socialisation agent, the socialising is just as important as learning... it's about students learning together and, just as importantly, learning to live together ... the trend (separating students) in the Muslim community is a cause for further concern, given the types of enclaves that can generate. Schooling aims to break down segregation. Education should ameliorate rather than exacerbate social divisions.

If we're on about the development of a genuinely socially cohesive society, any move that acts against that should at least be questioned. When we start to enter the realm of educating along ethno-religious lines, that should ring some serious alarm bells for us as a society.

Reaction to Gavrielatos' Statements from the Independent Education Union Australia ( IEUA)

A reading of three Media Statements on the website of the Independent Education Union of Australia (IEUA) in reaction to various statements made by Gavrielatos is of interest. The following statements are extracted:

* The IEAU spokesperson said: We have the suggestion that non-government school funding is tantamount to State sponsored segregation which was just exacerbating class, religion, and ethnic divides, according to Mr. Gavrielatos from the AEU which ignores for example 150 years of Catholic education in this country.

* What is nonsensical is to have a contribution to the debate that seeks to introduce a Trojan horse in the form of the schooling funding debate.

* The IEUA is most disappointed at the head-high tackle on non-government schools by the Australian Education Union.

*Commentary suggesting that these schools somehow create enclaves is misguided and divisive.

* The only alarm bells that should be ringing are those that alert us to an attack on people of faith in our community.

* Recent comments attributed to Mr. Gavrielatos, federal president of the AEU are misleading and offensive.

* It is ridiculous and offensive to make a blanket statement that private school teachers and support staff educate the cheapest and easiest to teach students.

* The IEUA hopes that the future of the school funding debate are more broadly the structure and role of schools in our communities can be noted by considered opinions and not punctuated by the divisive debates of the past and certainly not to demean the profession.

* We also need to unpack, sensibly and factually, the apparent contradiction between the simultaneous white flight' and emergence of 'monocultural private schools'.

* ...it is time that fantasy opinion is replaced by sensible analysis of the facts.

* The first step in this is to put the facts on the table and stop dealing in visions of the past that never existed.

DOGS merely note that in the real world, if you segregate students on the basis of class, colour, culture, creed or geographical location, then you practice segregation of children on those criteria. If the State pays you billions of dollars to do so, then you are practising State-sponsored segregation. The segregation of students in Northern Ireland and elsewhere has long been recognised as exacerbating tribalism and lack of social cohesion.

All the IEUA's spin doctoring and projection of evils of segregation onto those who wish to integrate Australian children can't change the word 'íntegrate' to mean the word 'segregate' or vice versa. All the attempts to push the consequences of an ethno-religious education system under the political carpet will be futile when reality bites back. The Australian Labor Party's elephant in the room is growing larger every day, and Julia Gillard is fast developing into an empress without any clothes.

The IEAU finally Stirs the State Aid debate against a 47 Year Old Policy of Softly-Softly and Advice of Influential Roman Catholics in the 21st Century

1...The 47-Year-Old-Policy: The Editor of the Catholic Weekly

DOGS quote from a work of an ex-Roman Catholic priest, Michael Charles Hogan entitled The Catholic Campaign for State Aid, Sydney 1978, at page one. Hogan quotes James Kelleher, the editor of the Catholic Weekly

* The great lesson of the Catholic Federation's struggle for justice is that in a pluralist society such as our own, we must make friends rather than enemies, that we must offer an out-stretched hand, not a clenched fist.

2   Advice from Influential Roman Catholics in the 21st Century.

*   Professor Patrick O'Farrell, University of NSW

In an article entitled,  'A time to talk, a time for quiet political lessons for the Australian Church'. published in The Catholic Weekly of 9 January, 2000, Professor Patrick O'Farrell said:

Enthusiasts are often their causes' worst enemies...There are times to shut up. Times to decline to speak and direct the media to another person.

* Bro. Kelvin Canavan FMS, Director of Catholic Education, Archdiocese of Sydney

In an article entitled 'From no Funding and Classes of 80 to Funded Classes of 25: Transforming Catholic Education', The Catholic Weekly, 9 January 2000, Bro Kelvin Canavan said:

There is a realisation that the arrangements in Australia are better than those existing in most, if not all, other countries. In order to maintain widespread community support for non-government school funding, the leadership of Catholic education has to manage skilfully the occasional debate in the Press on the funding of non-government schools.

The ABC Broadcaster and Influential Roman Catholic Commentator: Geraldine Doogue:

In a printed draft of a speech delivered 10 March Geraldine Doogue said:

So my heroes are those in public life who watch their language...who stretch the Australian people while simultaneously realising long-standing Gothic fears of both a rational and irrational kind.

(I wish to) ensure that no public commentary or behaviour risks the harmony and cohesion that can  never be taken for granted in most societies but particularly those of the modern pluralist type; that rather than assuming there's great depths of confidence, far better to work on the basis that the consensus is real but brittle...

I can just imagine some of the nameless fears gripping some of the people walking down isolated, poorly-lit streets in a place like Bradford or Tower Hamlets near London, knowing that people who should know better and who don't live in such places themselves are tapping Achilles heels about insiders and outsiders that should never be considered.

State support for Ethno-Religious Schools Stratifies, Fragments and Ghettoises Society

Public schools bring all children together

but

State support for ethno-religious schools leads to students being segregated in their formative years. If students cannot associate in their educational years, they will tend to be separated for the remainder of their lives. Nothing causes divisiveness, ignorance and bigotry more than denominational systems of education which stretch from the kindergarten to the university. The promotion of such systems mean that for every generation there are groups of students and citizens growing up ignorant of others. Such an education develops a fortress mentality and eventually leads to tribalism along the lines of class, creed, culture, and even gender. It leads to segregation in later life and it is not surprising that in the Australian society, since State Aid was given in the 1960's, there is now State subsidisation of religious kindergartens, health funds, aged care facilities, and even religious insurance societies and funeral parlours. Church buildings themselves are now being built and maintained from the State treasuries.

The Fundamental Difference between Public and Private Church Schooling

The private interests of those seeking a private education is summed up by a New Zealand born, Muslim convert called Mrs Flint. She was quoted in The Australian of 19 June 2009.. She said:

I found they ( an established network of Christians who were home-schooling their children) were very well educated, well mannered, and had very close family ties, a very strong sense of identity and strong religious beliefs.

DOGS note that there is no mention here made of the public good or the contribution of home schoolers to the common good. There is only mention of their private attributes and belief systems.

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