School Zones Debate

[Lilitu]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl...d=10861867

The school that's described in the Article, Auckland Grammar is my school. I personally think the new headmaster oughtn't to be taking obviously controversial measures to solve problems. I don't mean to be judgemental, but he seems inexperienced: every morning, he says the school prayer wrong, and is as nervous speaking to us as a student would be. He really should know better than to do something like this, the media was obviously going to soak it up like a sponge.

Anyway, rant about new headmaster over, I probably shouldn't have talked about my school, ._. you know how much schools resemble totalitarian states xD.

What do you think of school zoning? Is it a good way of controlling admittance to secondary institutions? Is it unfair, even, since it ultimately is a way of separating people by socio-economic status? What alternatives would you suggest?

I think the best way to have a fair admittance process would be tests, although that has many many drawbacks: administration costs, the pressure put under children as young as 11, and the disadvantages of standardised testing (don't even get me started on that) especially for a subjectless test as would be required.

[stu]

In the UK you can apply to any state school which sometimes results in children not being able to go to their local school.

[MisterTinkles]

Seeing as I dont understand this really.....Im guessing only certain people are allowed access to a local school, resulting in a "zone"??

If thats the case, then its pretty much the same here, except if you want to go to a school outside of your local area, you have to have your parents written permission. (unless its changed since Ive been out of school)

I wanted to go to a High School were it was told there were lots of gay kids, when I was a teen. This school wasnt too far away, but right outside of our local "zone". My mother, the self centered bitch from hell, refused to sign me up of course.

So I ended up staying where I was, with nothing in common with anyone else in the school I went too.



Most schools are always going overboard on everything they do. Hell, the high school I went too called in an entire squad of drug sniffing dogs because they caught ONE kid smoking a joint out on the football field one day!!

[Lilitu]

Well basically the way school zones work is, there is a strict zone planned on the map, where you must live within the zone to go to that school.

The main exception is a ballot entry, where some applicants can get in by luck, a random drawing names out of hat sort of ordeal.

[Pix]

If it works like in the USA then the schools get a lot of support from their zone, like property taxes, therefore an affluent community will put more money into their schools, and while that's not a guarantee of a better school it does help as it's likely to have better facilities, more teachers and thus smaller class sizes, better morale, etc. More important one can make friends with people of influential families there who can help kids (that is as they get older) succeed, find good husbands, etc, so some parents try to sneak their kids in where the best facilities are and the best people to make connections are even if they don't pay taxes into it.

The problem is that without competition schools find it easy to mess up, because what are you going to do about it? You can't choose another school, so you're stuck with what you got, unless you want to go the private route (but you'll still pay taxes into the school in your zone, so that's actually paying them without using them in their book, though the No Child Left Behind Act in America has changed that somewhat). As a result many schools care less about results and more about their own aggrandizement (such as selling corporate advertisement under "sponsorship" or accepting flawed programs for extra tax money which are corrupt kick back schemes or price gouging and other horrid things).

If it were up to me the entire education system would be radically altered, not just merely tweaked here & there. But the ugly truth is that both government & parents (generally speaking) like all the problems present, no matter how much they may pretend otherwise and/or not liking the end results.

[dfiant]

Been doing that for years in Australia

[musicislife]

I don't like the school zone thing. It's like that here. You have to live in a certain area that is mapped out and you go to that school. But, The other school you can't go to is way better then your school, education wise, it sucked. I think they should give you a chance. Like you said, take a test or prove somehow that you can make it into that school. I think they should make it fair to everyone. That happened here once, if you got caught. You were sent to a school that was basically like prison for kids.

[OrphanPip]

You could go wherever you wanted in Montreal, but free busing was restricted to a certain area. I went to a school in the next burrough over despite there being a school 5 blocks from my house. There are school board restrictions though, only the "historical English minority" members like myself are entitled to public education in English. The children of immigrants are required to go to private school or French language public school.

All schools are funded centrally by the Ministry of Education based on enrollment.

[musicislife]

I have always wondered how the schooling worked in Canada. Thank you for the educational post.