Good article. Much the same message about the better academic performance of the Catholic and independent school sectors is illustrated by ATAR and NAPLAN data.

Much of the anti-nongovernment school rhetoric is based on the idea that such schools are elitist. The same can be said to a large extent about selective state schools and state schools in affluent suburbs, which (in general) are by far the best performing schools in the government sector.

What we need is a better mechanism to enable poorer students to access non-government schools. Some sort of market mechanism to better allow parents/students to "vote-with-their-feet" between schools of any system would also be desirable, though it would be impractical outside larger population centres.

Instead of knit picking over specific funding/equity issues could commentators agree to focus attention on most governments' inability to adequately address the many qualitative issues and professional development requirements that educationalists agree can improve classroom/student outcomes.
Bren: 'What we need .. non-government schools.' There is a mechanism already in place. Its called an SES funding classification to lower tuition fees but really represents a government subsidy payment which ChrisC will argue needs to be reviewed. The other mechanism is called scholarships and bursaries although these are always limited as independent schools cannot totally absorb any excessive financial impost.
You may care to read my latest comments on PISA/funding/educational inequity on www.edueducators.com.au

bennery,

The reason commentators focus on funding/equity issues is that they are never regarded as settled. In some areas of life, progress is made and built upon. In education, when some progress is made, the forces of darkness try to reverse it, so we can’t move onto other issues. Thus, Victorian teachers had reasonable working conditions by the 1980s. Instead of moving on from them, the Coalition government elected in 1992 tried to destroy everything, so the issue became winning back what had been stolen.

The qualitative and PD issues are important, but there is currently a battle over funding, so those issues do not get much attention, particularly when they are put up as alternatives to spending money as if PD were free.

The reason the SES model does not lower tuition fees is that the level of government support bears no relation to the fees charged. The way to lower tuition fees is to base government support on the level of fees charged. My initial submission to the Gonski panel was that the student learning entitlement would be paid in full to all government schools and all private schools that charged no more than $1,000 in fees and would reduce as fees rose. The private school fees (which I recalculated in a later submission) replaced the base funding of $250,000 per government primary school and $1,000,000 per government secondary school. I would direct you to my submissions but the Abbott government has “disappeared” them and all Gonksi material from the department’s website.