Phil Matimein, "Your are missing the point Shadow Minister, private school shouldn't receive any subsidy from the taxpayer...they should fund themselves."

Your reasons for declaring those children ineligible for government assistance are?

You should be applauding the choice offered by the range of providers and accepting as government already does, that education has to be provided and the government relies heavily of the private sector. An additional benefit is that the private sector can often achieve economies and efficiency that is impossible in the public sector. We should be thinking laterally and setting up some private schools within the public system.

To give you an example, how would children from remote areas receive an education if it were not for private schools? In fact many of the grammar schools for example were established for that purpose and have provided excellent education for donkeys years. By way of further example, many orphans from WW2 and farming accidents would have had led impoverished lives and ended up as State wards had it not been for the privately run boarding schools throughout Australia.

Ericc,

Catholic schools get in the order of 84%, and non catholic schools get substantially less based on their SES factor, and given the larger enrolment in non Catholic schools this brings the average to to under 80%.

My point which you have confirmed is that if the cost to the government is substantially less per private pupil, the premise of the article that the subsidies are depriving public school pupils of funds is a big pile of dung.

One of the main attractions of private schooling is that issues of discipline are dealt with. Bullies and thugs can face expulsion, and generally very few are actually expelled, as a single warning to the parents is sufficient to nip the problem in the bud. The only expulsions I am aware of were of in the schools I know were of students distributing inappropriate material. As for fees, a girl in my daughter's class parents went bankrupt. The school waved the fees for the remaining couple of years.

Given that most private schools automatically take the larger proportion of pupils from their junior schools which are unscreened, some with learning disabilities fall into the lowest stream classes which have differently structured teaching programs. However, these schools are not equipped to deal with the most disabled, and for the small proportion of kids that need specialist care, there are other schools that do this better.

With JC's kids, I spent a lot of time trying to find any reference to them and failed. Her personal decisions and motivations are completely hidden from the public, and given her unrelenting publishing of emotionally based half truths, there is an underlying grievance she is hiding.

As for some of the schools getting funded above their SES ratings, this has a lot to do with where their pupils originate. Some of the best schools are situated in the most exclusive suburbs, while a majority of their pupils are drawn from other suburbs, or boarders from rural areas.

Is your premise that Labor is trying to buy votes in the "marginal" suburbs of North Sydney and Vaucluse?

Wobbles,

Considering that Family benefits is means tested, none of the range rover brigade claim this.

While some parents are significantly wealthy, the majority of parents both work, and make huge sacrifices to give their kids the best, most well rounded education they can.

Given that most independent schools are not at the top end of the fees range, the scrapping of the subsidy would not hurt the wealthy parents, but the 80% of parents for whom the subsidy makes the difference as to whether they can afford private schools. These are the voters that would react viscerally.

Not that it is anyone's business, but my daughters attended the local public primary school from Kindergarten to year 6 and a nearby co-ed, comprehensive public high school from Year 7 to Year 12. One now attends Sydney University - a distinction average student studying for a teaching degree, and the other is doing a combined Arts and Fine Arts degree at UNSW.

My "grievance" is simply a passionate belief in the primacy of public education and a commitment to doing whatever little I can to remind people that a strong, well-resourced high standard public education system open to all children, regardless of their parents ability/willingness to pay up front fees is the cornerstone of a civilised democracy. We undermine the strength and resources of our public schools at all our peril.

Calling my arguments "emotional" and speculating that I must have some personal motivation for holding them is, by the way, a classic sexist putdown often made by men about women who argue vigorously for a particular point of view.

I am always open to rigorous debate about my views, I strenuously object, however, when opponents attempt to put me down personally. If your argument is a good one, it seems to me, you should have no need to resort to snide personal insinuations.

Jane Caro

Bravo Jane Caro for your tilt at those who pretend private schools are somehow the saving grace of public education.

Now Cornflower... you must be deaf, blind, mute yet still retain your typing abilities, somehow... "setting up some private schools within the public system"... means exactly WHAT, I wonder?

There is nothing else but 'private schools within the public system', it's just that people seem inclined to believe, somehow, for some strange reason, that a 'private' schools is just that, 'private'.

When it comes to funding these social bludgers, these educational pariahs, they are happy to grasp at ATO funds, as are their supporters.

They only become private when their students are caught drug dealing, raping, 'social misfitting', 'performing below expectations', thieving, and other sundry activities, when said student is sent packing to the local public school.

Oh, forgot, they are also 'private' when it comes to taking in the 'halt, lame and infirm', who are shunted off to the public system again.

Still, should Abbott get in, no doubt we'll all end up with vouchers, to send our kiddies 'where ever we want'.

Naturally, we'll all choose to send them to Kings, in NSW, on such largesse, and thereby free-up the public system even more.

A win-win situation?

Or a load of .... rowlocks?

Shadow Minister,

It's simple really. Private schools shouldn't receive government assistance because they are going outside the government system.

That is a conscious choice, and to expect funding is trying to have the best of both worlds. Make the decision - one or the other. If you want a private education then pay for it...don't expect others to pay for it. There is a perfectly adequate system which you could use.