How “school local” can bridge our real divide – the social one

Our local college is a decile 5 school – a five because it’s a catchment of extremes, neighbourhoods that are either wealthy or poor with not much in-between.

It’s not a bad college, and is on the rise, but mostly the kids from the feeder upper decile primary schools skip it. Around these parts you don’t “school local”.

The kids are bused and ‘trained’ north, south and east to what are obviously judged to be better schools.

You can’t criticise this choice because these parents know what’s best for their children. And the choice can be seen as the safe one, like buying a product with a trusted brand.

But their decisions, however unintentional, are bad for the school, bad for the neighbourhood and bad for NZ society.

It’s probably not going to be bad for the kids – most will be successes in life, though as we shall see, that depends on your definition of success.

Maybe “school local” remains a better choice for everyone concerned: the school, the neighbourhood, society and ultimately the kids.

That’s because the wealthy, by turning their backs on local schools, are widening a social divide that’s in a way much uglier than the wealth divide which seems to get all the attention.

Perhaps it’s because the social gap is seen as a consequence of the wealth gap. Reduce income disparity and all will be okay. I’m not so sure.

This social divide is, I figure, feeding inequality because there’s no empathy or understanding of how the other half lives.

I’m pointing at the occupants of the smarter city suburbs here. The divide belongs to them (umm us, though I don’t live in this type of suburb). We created it and only we have to power to fix it.

We are the ones with the choices – we have the money and the power.

From cradle to the grave, the more privileged among us often unconsciously (but sometimes not) widen this social divide. We trip through pre-school care, primary, college, parties, sport, university, our offices and friendships barely casting a shadow on the other side.

NZ schools were once mixing pots. So was rugby. Now we have flight to “better” schools and football.

An example of where this leads is US Republican millionaire presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s ‘what planet’ statement that he was “not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there”.

I can’t find any public statement by a Kiwi with a similar sentiment, but (my white middleclass readers) you wouldn’t have to look very far among your colleagues and friends.

But maybe it’s just ignorance. When the TV3 documentary on poverty screened before the last election, the reaction seemed to be outraged surprise that this was happening in God’s Zone.

These people need to get out more. This response was the social divide revealed.

There’s a hell of a lot of mythology around NZ’s egalitarianism, but there was a time when the myth was more honoured in the observance than in the breach.

Now it’s more honoured in the breach.

We all need to be big and brave about the choices we make.