“
Sumptuary laws (from Latin
sumptuariae leges) are
laws that attempt to
regulate permitted consumption…
In
the Late Middle Ages, sumptuary laws were instituted as a way for the
nobility
to cap the conspicuous consumption
of the prosperous
bourgeoisie
of
medieval
cities, and they continued to be used for these
purposes well into the 17th century.
“ –
Wikipedia entry
The Straits Times ran an article today on funding cuts for six
independent schools, as well as requesting that schools moderate fund-raising
activities.
I agree with
Bertha Harian. The article was poorly reported
and instead of informing the reader, left him or her with more questions.
It’s not hard to see where the motivation behind these cuts
(and the accompanying loud but incoherent publicity) come from. Income and
wealth inequality have become sensitive topics, and the government, in an
effort to convince the citizenry that it’s behind the little guy (and hence not
lose votes in the next election) is suddenly draping itself in socialist vestments.
Leaving aside how genuine the sentiment behind wanting to narrow
inequities is, as opposed to merely a cynical exercise in electioneering, one
really must tease apart how effective such measures are in achieving their
purported goal. This post also aims to address other peripheral issues.
My thoughts:
1.
Even with official frowning over fund-raising for
lavish new swimming pools and tennis courts, “good” schools will always find a
way a differentiate themselves, just as the wealthy subverted sumptuary laws in
centuries past. Latest example:
five star hotels in China seeking to “de-star”themselves (but probably finding some other way to up the luxury ante) so that corrupt
Chinese officials can continue to stay there. Gold leaf mooncakes are so passé.
Who knows what elite Singapore schools will spend on,
now that conspicuous consumption is out?
I can think of a few ideas. I attended Anglo Chinese School
in my salad days years ago on government largesse. I was in the school band for
a year, and the set-up in the ACS band then was that new recruits had to sign
up (and pay) for a few months of private group lessons with instructors. These
lessons were held by section (e.g. clarinets, flutes, trumpets etc.)
The conductor for the band was an active member of
the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (he played the trumpet), and the instructors
were his colleagues from the SSO. While lessons were mandatory only for the
first few months, we were strongly encouraged to continue having them on an
ongoing basis to improve our abilities. I doubt any other secondary school band
in Singapore back then (and perhaps even now) enjoyed the advantage of having
musicians from the SSO as regular instructors for all their band members.
The lessons were paid for by students ($50 per
student per month if I recall correctly). So, as far as I know, ACS didn’t
finance the extra training. But that’s not to say ACS couldn’t have chosen to
do so.
The experience of how the ACS band operated sure put
the Singapore Youth Festival into perspective for me. Early on in life as a
student, instead of knowing the SYF as a celebration of a well-rounded
education, I instead learnt the importance of the role of money behind
excellence and achievement. And school rankings needless to say.
(Post script: As a lower middle class student in the
GEP paying just $12 a month in school fees, my father found it ridiculous that
he had to pay $50 a month for private music lessons when education under the
GEP was supposedly subsidized. There were a few ugly scenes in school, and after
some wrangling between my parents and my teachers, to save myself embarrassment
and long awkward conversations with my teachers, I left the band of my own
accord and joined another CCA. On hindsight, this negative experience with
money and education probably influenced me signing up for a government scholarship
later in life.)
2.
Any curtailment in legacy admissions, which the
article highlights as one of the measures to be imposed, is bound to elicit
howls of protest or at the very least, grumbling from disgruntled alumni.
Which may not be a bad thing from schools’
perspective. Scarcity goods enjoy a premium. Expect even bigger and fatter
donations from alumni parents anxious to get their kids into their alma mater. You
know the Chicago song, “
When you’re good to Mama…”? Exactly.
All this sort of makes the funding cuts and
restrictions on fund-raising moot.
3.
So, what’s to be done if we really want to
narrow inequalities in the educational system?
One way is to increase funding to lower ranked
schools. One of the ironies in the Singapore educational system is that it is
precisely the most advantaged students who receive the most funding, like the
Gifted Education Program for instance. Although as a GEP alum I am grateful for
the funding, the fact is that even by my time 20 years ago, the majority of the
kids in my GEP class in ACS were indistinguishable from the regular ACS kids
when it came to socio-economic background. I was one of the rare kids in my
class who lived in an HDB flat, something really unusual in ACS. (I was odd in
other ways too, such as walking to school and only entering the program in
Secondary 1 instead of Primary 4, the so-called ‘supplementary intake’).
The article doesn’t go into specifics as to whether redistributing
funding is what MOE is going to do going forward. A related measure is to make ‘bonus’
funding conditional on improving academic outcomes for incoming cohorts of
students rather than on absolute achievement. This would favor schools with a
lower base of achievement that prove that they can produce improved outcomes.
As for breaking open the “closed circles” that our
elite schools have evolved into, encouraging kids from lower income households
to apply to higher ranked institutions could be one solution. However, affirmative
action or income diversity quotas may have very mixed results. Speaking as
a formerlower income student in an elite institution, I can categorically state that
psychologically, it’s tough to be a kid from a lower income household in a good
school.
And I was one of the top students in my cohort. Without
having private tuition which is ubiquitous today. Academics has always been low
stress for me (compared to social interactions), but I can imagine that being
lower income and struggling academically in an elite institution could be potentially
an enormous source of stress.
My preferred strategy for leveling the playing field
if I was in charge of setting education policy? Teachers. Sending the best
teachers to the most disadvantaged schools.
A conversation with a teacher in my NS platoon during
one of our interminably boring ICTs revealed to me that MOE scholars, the crème
de la crème of the teaching profession, typically get assigned to the better
schools after graduation. Again, this feeds back into the irony that the most
advantaged students in our system receive the most and best resources, and you
can’t get a better resource than a good teacher.
Ostensibly, the rationale for this is that MOE
scholars are being groomed for leadership positions in the educational system
and perhaps the larger civil service. So, exposure to opportunities is
important for their career development, and what is true for students is just
as true for the teachers. Good schools simply have more to offer teachers in
terms of resources, interesting projects and resume-building opportunities.
While I understand that there is a master teacher
career track for teachers who wish to specialize in *gasp* teaching, I
don’t think it’s a terrible leap of imagination to realize that between the
management and the teaching track, one track enjoys far greater prestige and
money. Ergo, that’s where the talent gravitates to.
Which is why the
Equity Project in New York City is so interesting.
In this charter school, teachers are paid USD125,000 per year, twice as much as
other public school teachers, and the idea is that the quality of the teaching talent will make a real difference in student outcomes These teachers are literally a ‘dream team’ – the
Physical Education teacher was Kobe Bryant’s personal trainer. Given the
longitudinal nature of educational outcomes, it’s hard to know if this
experiment will pan out the way its supporters expect it to. But it certainly
bears watching.
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