I find myself agreeing with Milton Friedman, and would rather see the same bucket of education money going as a means tested benefit, directly to responsible parents; always providing it was going to support students with a good attendance record.

And then as a further adjunct, I would want to see all schools given almost complete autonomy. And possible, given even state schools are the property of the taxpayers' who paid for the purchase of land, buildings, renovations and indeed, teacher's salaries.

This direct funding model, part Federal government sourced, part appropriated GST sourced, even in the face of massive self serving bureaucratic and state government objections? Would make our education dollar go far further!

This simple expediency would allow a modest budget to do far more work and as a fair and equitable distribution of finite funds, which might then also fully fund means tested tertiary education out of the considerable savings?

Moreover eliminate most of the union control; and in triplicate, endemic waste in this critical area, leaving only bench marked excellence to predominate!?

Albeit routine forensic accounting by visiting auditors would eliminate, pocket lining shonks!?

This would allow parents to send their kids where they wanted to and based on publish apples for apples comparisons, allowing the cream to rise to the top; and on the basis of natural selection, rather than over abundant parental means.

And we need to make education more interesting and guided by the natural curiosity of kids?

And where no doubt technology coupled to intensely interesting programs and much more online home tutoring, will allow a very different and massively superior education paradigm to emerge?

And given what applies and works for pragmatic public education, it can also be applied as a funding paradigm for a universal means tested public health provision, linked exclusively to outcomes rather than service models, which simply wastes massive amounts of money, lining the bulging pockets/bank balances of service providers and empire building bureaucrats?

Doing what you've always done only ever gets you what you've always got!
Rhrosty.

The problem with competition Rhrosty is that always there is a winner and a LOSER. Always! Not such a good idea for education in my opinion.

The media seem to accuse school funding is the problem with why education has many children acting badly and poorly educated.

I pose that many parents are complaining to principles, giving son reasons why education is mentioned in the media.

I have a PDF file worthy of reading which poses an entirely different set of reasons for schooling.

https://www.pdfhost.net/index.php?Action=Download&File=c3c448557994423ca8bdab9a14cb64ee

The reading is long yet the reading has worthwhile conclusions.

Hi Mikk,

Not necessarily: the eight finalists in the Olympics' 100 metres, having trained and trained, could also finish much faster than you or me. It's not so much a matter of win-lose but one of win-almost win.

In education, you're partly right - but there doesn't have to be an actual winner - entire classes can be brought up together by hard work, repetition, discussion and/or analysis. On the other hand, if some kid skives off and farts around, even though his teachers work like buggery to guide and assist him, why should he expect anything to be given to him on a plate ?

If he has useless parents, and hopefully his teachers are aware of that, they may be able, with a lot of work, to keep him on the right paths, but it would take a lot of extra work from him too, more than perhaps for some kid with very supportive parents, and appropriate social capital.

Schools can't compensate for society, Basil Bernstein wrote many years ago, i.e. for incompetent parents, but of course they should keep trying to find ways to compensate for them as much as possible, never to give up on any kid, within reason.

Joe

The last thing we need is autonomous schools. In this day & age, when the adult population is more mobile than ever before we need a national curriculum, seriously adhered to, so kids can change school & state, without too much disruption.

I went to 10 schools, & know how bad it can be. Moving from Qld to NSW I found I was a full year ahead of my age group, then a tear behind when moving back to Qld. My last 4 years back in NSW would have been disastrous, without a really great math science head of department, who worked his guts out for the kids. He was one of very few.

Again with the loss of discipline & self discipline in schools & our community, the last thing we need is airy fairy subjects being introduced. Real discipline needs to be reintroduced, & maintained. The slack principle who sweeps troubles under the carpet is one of our main problems, & another reason to keep a firm control on what each school does, & how they do it.

This should apply to all schools public & private. We do0 not need some schools becoming schools for terrorism, as is happening in some in Indonesia today.

THe only real losers here Mikk, are our kids!

And were we to instead focus on just best possible outcomes, that would ensure bureaucratic empire builders and incompetent teachers and the unions who protect them, were the only real losers?

With the aforementioned effectively sidelined by simply allowing substandard teaching (institutionalized illiteracy and innumeracy) to wither on the vine so to speak, via selective parents voting with their kid's feet and the only government supplied funding model.

Thereby making our kids and education par excellence, the real winners!
Rhrosty.