Those who seek change by diluting or dismantling selective schools surely bear the persuasive burden of showing compelling reasons in favour of such a proposal.

In their report Institutionalised Separation, university lecturer Christina Ho and retired school principal Chris Bonnor aim to show that selective schools benefit the privileged. The problem is the conclusions in the report are based on defective criteria. The authors rely upon the proposition that 73 per cent of selective school students came from the highest quarter of “socio-educational advantage”.

Students sit the selective high school test. Credit:Andrew Taylor

Not socio-economic advantage, but socio-educational advantage. Just what does that mean? “Socio-educational advantage” refers to the “Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage” for which schools are given a score that is reported on the federal government’s My School website. Crucially, that index does not measure parental income or wealth. Rather, it is calculated based on parental education, parental occupation and school geographic location.

Plainly, this is a deeply inadequate means by which to assess equality of educational opportunity. As is well known, many parents of children at selective schools are immigrants. Those parents often hold tertiary qualifications. But many arrive in Australia with limited English, very little wealth, and in effect start from scratch. Many such parents initially work in difficult jobs which do not allow them to use the qualifications they hold from their former country.