brats from Xavier school rioted in Argyle St in Kew causing damage to property. These are the future leaders of our society. Their parents must be so proud. See http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24525932-421,00.html

I personally think the media has beat this thing up in a huge way. No one was hurt, in fact no one was even close to being hurt, and i think that only a few idiots ruined it for everybody. This stuff happens all the time in public schools!

Could AJ give some links to those "all the time" incidents?

Hi DavidDon,

I don't have any specific links to public shcool violence, but i have a lot of friends who went to some pubic schools in Melbourne, and they laughed at all the media attention this was getting. If this was a public school out in the burbs, it would not have gotten much media attention at all.

AJ

Actually AJ it would have. I'm glad in a way this incident happened because the focus was finally on private schools and parents are starting to question whether it is always the best education for their children. Sure there are some excellent private schools as well as public, but I'm so tired of listening to parents competing over where their child is going to go without giving much thought to their child's individual needs or even their financial situation. Some parents work two jobs each or live on credit just to tell their friends that their child is at such and such school . This incident at Xavier may have been hyped up and Xavier probably isn't a bad school just because there are a few idiots, and face it most of us were idiots at that age. I just believe the community should stop this classing system and listen more to our children......

ahh now this is very interesting. Private school VS Public School BUT in the eyes of the parent.

I don't have children, but I wouldn't send my child to a Public school for the sole reason of Private schools being the only thing I know and can relate to. BUT that being said, I have never and will never look down on public schools. I honestly think that education, motivation and career choice is heavily influenced by the family unit...NOT the school type. Too much responsibility and blame is placed away from parents imho. i.e. Fat kids - Up until the age of 16, parents have 90% control over what your son\daughter eats. Same with schooling...give them a good base to work with, and they will achieve what they want out of life, regardless of public vs private.

One final thing, I think we all know that ten years down the track after the matter of schooling, no one cares whether or not you went to private school or a public school.

Are there any concrete studies to suggest Private Schooling results in better students over Public Schools?

AJ

Never say never AJ because once you have kids the way you see the world is so different. Especially after reading some of your comments you seem llike a very intelligent, well informed , open minded guy who is able to think for himself. I went to a public school, my kids went to public school, and I know many parents who have sent their kids to private school . What I can say in my experience is that above all else, family is the most important factor. I could go on about this topic forever and bore everyone to tears but my advise to parents is to communicate with their kids and not dictate to them to live the lives that they wanted to.

One more thing I wanted to add is that the only results we hear about each school is the successes they have had. Don't forget there are those students (and they are many ) that don't do as well for whatever reason and once they reach Year 10 are told by the school that it's probably best they go elsewhere. Even some public schools are behaving like this, e.g Balwyn High, Melbourne High, Macrobertson, etc. That is the reason their VCE scores are so high.