It’s a topic middle-class parents never tire of debating, but when we’re talking about selective schools, we should all watch our language.
A ferocious online debate is erupting over Tiger parenting, entry exam coaching, and the so called ‘Asianisation’ of Australian public selective schools.
The furore was triggered by a piece published in The Good Weekend, where journalist Anna Broinowski made the claim that Anglo parents are now “ambivalent” about sending their children to selective public schools (despite the low cost and high quality of education represented by these schools), due to the fact that enrolments are “overwhelmingly dominated by children of Asian backgrounds”, many of whom may have had special coaching to help them pass the entry exam.
In her piece, Broinowsky claims that most of the Anglo mums she speaks to view exam tutoring as a “crime that sends you straight to bad mum jail” and that Anglo parents are now so fed up with Asian parents “cheating” the system through tutoring, that they are no longer interested in even trying to get their kids into selective schools.
In support of this ‘white flight’ theory, Broinowsky quotes a series of ‘I’m not racist, but…’ type mothers from her kid’s school pick up, who drop clangers like this one:
“My daughter won’t go to a selective even if she gets in. They’re 98 per cent Asian, full of kids who rote-learn. I’d hate her to be [part of] such a tiny minority.”
Read more: Amy Chua, Tiger Mother is back. And this time? No one is safe.