Black & White
Vay Wilson (31)
So we have 82% who want an excellent sporting program and you'd be content with 10% of the recruited ascribing a positive influence to the school.
As I say, of the 10 I know I can see no different outcome, and some worse - in the sense that they were forgiven their sins by the school and betrayed a very strong sense of entitlement in their attitude.
Be all that as it may - there is a weird sense of social justice in your rants: this is a rugby site so I'm not debating academic or vocational outcomes. In your world it is better that one male child should get to play in the NC 1st XV than that the public high schools should still be playing the game or that the district clubs be able to field under age teams between 13 and 18.
I grew up in Mosman in the 60s and 70s. They were able to field teams full of public school boys from 13-18: that does not happen any more.
A reason why it does not happen is the obsession in the older private schools with the marketing potential of rugby premierships - that was actually the reason that NC started recruiting in the mid noughties: they had vacancies and were hit hard by the GFC and they saw that they could attract fee payers by bolstering their lack lustre rugby program with recruits: all of whom are back playing league.
The proof of the truth of that proposition lies in your 82% - so don't play the social inclusiveness card, recognise it for what it is. And I say that having booked my sons into Newington when they were born.
Many issues there IS and we could spend a lot of time discussing them, which regrettably i don;t have. But one issue that has caught your attention is that of Social Justice.. Social justice has many faces and names.It will differ with a Marxist, a Socialist or a liberal. It vary between even between such groups. It has no one meaning, but it will have certain core components amongst them. My interpretation is access to a quality education that as a teacher I know from first hand experince, not does exist in many parts of this nation. Many of our schools are blackboard jungles, where teachers are baby sitters for undisciplined and unmotivated classes. Learning is minimal and of a poor quality. So offering places at Newington is indeed an act of social justice.. Sydney Grammar as a school of outstanding excellence should I believe should be embarking on a program of inclusion and social justice by offering places to academic inclined boys in large numbers from Western Sydney. They may not have the advantages of the boys in the Eastern Suburbs or the North Shore. But if given the opportunity such boys could exceed our expectations beyond belief. So IS, that is from a educational perspective and a ever so brief one as an explanation, as to my belief of what constitents social justice.