Sucky schoolie semantics

More proposed legislation: the Victorian Coalition government wants to give teachers and principals the right to force students to open their bags or lockers or turn out their pockets if said teacher or principals “reasonably believed” they might contain harmful items. What’s more, the government proposes that teachers would also be authorised to search any vehicle used for a teacher-supervised student activity.

So far, so authoritarian. People can argue the pros and cons of teachers going through the car boots of parents who are dropping off the kids according to their own fears, beliefs, political inclinations, and paranoia, whatever. The bit that many find interesting is that these laws will only apply to government schools.

The reason given by the Education Minister Martin Dixon for authorising these new search powers is a wonderful piece of backhanded spin: “Violence in our schools escalated under the Brumby Labor government. The Coalition government is determined to improve the safety for our children in government schools.”

So all in all, what our present government is saying is:

1) State schools suck (it’s not our fault).
2) State school kids suck.They’re rowdy, ungrateful little beggars who need to be kept in line.
3) Private school kids don’t suck. They’re inherently better, brighter and more upright than state school kids. The government trusts them implicitly.
4) Parents who send their kids to state schools suck. State schools are dangerous places. Parents who really love their children would mortgage the house or work four jobs to ensure that their kiddies go to a nice, safe private school.
5) Fixing up the state school system sucks. It’s boring, and it’s hard work, so let’s come up with a whizz-bang, media-attracting solution full of innuendo that will pit the haves and have-nots against each other to distract from the fact that the government won’t hire good teachers and pay them what they’re worth, invest in infrastructure and technology, or engage in other such commitment-heavy solutions.
6) Being the Education Minister sucks. Sometimes you actually have to go to state schools (yuk) and pretend to care about them.