Jane Caro - Rich Kid Poor Kid

Name: Jane Caro - Rich Kid Poor Kid
Start: 2026-05-12T18:30:00+11:00
End: 2026-05-12T18:30:00+11:00
Location: Upstairs at Gleebooks

About

6pm for 6.30pm Tuesday 12 May

Jane Caro in conversation with Helen Proctor

For decades, Australia has been pumping money into private education while public schools struggle. Whether it’s crumbling classrooms, overworked teachers or cuts to music and STEM programs, the system is reaching breaking point. At the same time, with higher rates of private school attendance and the marketisation of education, parents have increased anxiety when faced with the decision of where to send their child. The current system contributes to greater inequity, decreased integration of different communities and even traffic jams as parents are more likely to drive their kids to a private school further from their house.

How did we get here?

Jane Caro walks through the decades of policy decisions that have created this situation and identifies the choices that have created the current education crisis. With her trademark no-nonsense analysis and drawing from her personal experiences, Caro lays out the steps that brought us to this point and what Australia can do to get a public education system worthy of a such a wealthy country.

Jane Caro AM. Walkley award winning columnist, author, novelist & social commentator. She occasionally appears on TV, regularly on radio, makes a lot of speeches and writes often in SMH, Age, The Saturday Paper. She is on the board of the Public Education Foundation. She was awarded the B&T Women in Media Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. She is a feminist and an advocate for public education.

She’s written 14 books, including The Stupid Country. How Australia is Dismantling Public Education and What Makes a Good School both co-authored with Chris Bonnor. Her two latest novels The Mother and Lyrebird are bestsellers

Helen Proctor is a professor of education at the University of Sydney, who uses historical methods and perspectives to examine the making of contemporary educational systems. Her publications include A History of Australian Schooling (Campbell and Proctor, 2014) and the 2022 Griffith Review essay, ‘Climbing the Opportunity Ladder’.