If you get the socialist and feminist brainwashing out of public schools you might start getting students back into them, then you'd have more people thinking about improving them. Presently with so many people opting out and into private schools, nobody except the die-hard public school propaganda machine cares very much.

Stop social engineering and start educating. People vote with their feet. Right now, they're going elsewhere. And who could blame them?

Public schools have always been underfunded.Has the Dept of Education considered reducing the number of Bureaucrats and spending some money on maintence?Michael Coster said we have 20,000 too many in NSW.This is easily $1000 million pa in wages excluding all the other costs of office space,super,workers comp etc.

The money has been there,but just it's just been wasted and misused.

Hey, right on, Maximus. Parents distrust the present "outcomes based" teaching methods now being rammed down their children's throats by our out of touch Teachers Federations and who openly defy the people's parliamentary representatives who have urged them to mend their ways.

The failure of present modern teaching methods has been adequately displayed by the fact that NSW universities are holding separate examinations for entry because they know that present "outcomes based" examinations hold little comparison to reality.

Anyone wondering why so many parents are fleeing the public education system need red no further than the book "Boy's In School" , by Rollo Browne and Richard Fletcher. The level of violence directed at teachers by at least one notorious ethnic group (especially towards female teachers) has to be read to be believed.

No wonder the NSW Education Department can not get teachers to work in the "troubled" South West of Sydney, and no wonder parents do not want their children to go to these schools.

Your are right Redneck as to the collapse of the leftist ideology,Labor with it's soft options has failed us dismally and is now a rotting carcass.We do however need to temper some of the Coalitions policies since big business pays the bills of the coalition and they have an obligation to their masters.The pendulum can swing too far and destroy the notion of a fair go upon which this nation was built.

I don't want to live in a country of walled cities where millions of poor beg and steal at the the perimeter.

What's the difference between a dole bludger and a capitalist?

Ans: Nothing,they both want to ride on the back of the worker.

Redneck and Maximus, how about you have an informed comment, the figures are 70% of students attend public schools 30% attend private schools. Howard Government funding for same as follows public schools 30% private schools 70% this is why public schools are run down, because of Tory ideology that everything should be private. In other words 70% of the students recieve 30% of the funding. This is fair if you support John {bonsai} Howard, bonsai is a little Bush

Shonga - I know we don't agree on this mate but I do have significant experience in the teaching profession. I've worked in both private and state schools in 3 different cities and what I see in state schools is deplorable. I now refuse to work in them due to never-ending abuse from students and poor disciplinary standards for those students whose behaviour is 'ruining' it for everyone else.

A private school can expel the clowns causing all the trouble but state schools have their hands tied. As for the uneven funding schemes - who knows? I think the stats lie more deeply than what you might think - John Howard attended state schools himself as a kid.

From a teacher's perspective, if you can afford a private school then go for it. If not then just hope for the best. Regards, Tubs.