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The Forum > Article Comments > Are standards slipping? > Comments

Are standards slipping? : Comments

By Ross Farrelly, published 20/2/2006

It’s virtually impossible to define an excellent education system and equally hard to agree on what is a dismal education system.

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Winston Smith, yes another communist plot......

What a huge surprise, The Federal Government does not fund Public Education properly, and the standards slip, who would have thought that could happen. The Federal Education budget is roughly split as follows 70% of the students [public] recieve 30% of the funding, the remaining 30% of students [private] recieve 70% of the funding. That's fair is it not Winston...
Posted by SHONGA, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 4:09:53 PM
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By all means have "market forces" drive competition within the education sector however within business we have a body called the ACCC which oversees the market to ensure an equitable environment (see points made in previous blogs) and you can add the ridiculous situation in which state schools are forced to use state departments for school maintenance which more often than not charge 200-300% over market rates. Secondly, the states have to agree on what the educational standards are and then stick to them although this will be difficult with politicians & departmental cronies continually wishing to implement a “new” topic into the system to address a social/political/business need.
Posted by Overflow, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 7:24:33 PM
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Hmm some interesting points but maybe missing the point. What is a good education and how do we obtain it. There is one real expert I have found, he is now quite elderly. Three times teacher of the year in New York City, teacher of the year in New York State.You cannot get better credentials than that. His name is John Taylor Gatto and he is much in demand as a speaker. Despite claims to the contary there are not many experts. Some of his stuff can be found on the internet. He is a rare one whom I have found who makes real sense in the midst of of nonsense. He has done a monumental work on the history of education and schooling that makes the greatest skeptics sit up and take notice. His statistic from the past shame our modernity. If schools were turned over to the local communities to run things might get better but while the state has control there is no hope, they are little better than social engineering factories at present.
Posted by Rogo, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 7:45:32 PM
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Rogo,

I am always impressed with people who tell everyone that they have missed the point.

Your last sentence needs expanding because I'm not sure what you mean by it. The English language is such an imprecise tool especially when people don't expand their ideas properly. What do you really mean by social engineering factories... when I was at school I was not socially engineered... I was educated unbiasedly in general.

To suggest that local communities may do a better job is an hypothesis which is worth investigating. However to decry the whole of State Education with only an hypothesis as a solution is not really much help. Anyone can do that!

So please expand your last sentence to truly let us know how you have the point that in your opinion most of us have missed.

Overflow : you make a point that should be added to our list... 11. The overcharging of Educational facilities by other departments for services rendered.

Yep that one certainly drains the education budgets.

Have any other people got ideas for our list?
Posted by Opinionated2, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:40:24 PM
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Turning responsibility to local communities does not automatically lead to improvements- that assumes that each local community has enough people who are able to and willing to contribute to the management and development of the school. But many schools struggle to get enough parents on school councils, yet alone involved in more hands-on ways.

In the US, local districts manage schools, and this (from my outsider perspective at least) seems to be a disaster- poor districts have less money to spend on teachers, equipment, etc. Teachers can be offered as little as $20k at some schools. But in wealthy areas, the same level of qualification can be worth $70k. This hardly encourages anyone to work in the poorer areas, entrenching disadvantage. (figures anecdotal, from a US-based discussion board I participate in).

At least in Australia, with the larger State-based wage setting. Sure, schools in disadvantaged areas may struggle to find teachers more than middle-class areas, but at least the teachers who accept those jobs know they are not being doubly screwed over (i.e. tougher work for less pay).
Posted by Laurie, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 9:08:54 AM
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Petal claimed that the argument re privatisation of public commodities has actually been proven in favour of the negative. He referred to this article: http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/AE/Win05pp8-11.pdf

However the arguments presented there rely on at least 2 assumptions:

1. Socialism is good (each according to his need, everyone should be made equal, etc);
2. An education system is a public commodity.

Both of these assumptions are highly debatable (I agree with neither), so the points made are somewhat irrelevant. Further, the author of that article clearly has a very poor grasp of fundamental economic truths, particularly when she tries to dispute that private enterprise is less efficient than the public sector.

Because the public sector simply takes the funds it needs for its operation, and does not need to respond to competitive pressure, it must rely on a bureaucracy to make decisions about the most efficient use and allocation of the resources it needs for its operation. But without the vital feedback supplied by competition, and in particular prices, it is impossible for the bureaucrats to determine how to do this. This is known as the “economic calculation” problem of socialism, and is a point which has been proven beyond all doubt in the literature and in practice.

What that means is that the total sum required to fund a public education system will be at least as large as the total sum required to fund a private system which delivers the same educational result.

Given that, it is hard to understand why anyone would be opposed to a fully privatised education system, unless of course they personally benefited from the present system (at the expense of others), or they had some other sort of agenda, such as wanting to impose a uniform education on everyone.

Comments on this forum provide some evidence that both factors are at play.
Posted by Winston Smith, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 1:05:27 PM
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