Kevin Donnelly has a great knack of creating something very readable by stringing together a succession of generalizations, diversions and what are really half truths.

It’s all there: private schools save public money (oh so THAT’S the purpose of education!) – government selective schools are also exclusive (true - but diversionary) – Catholic schools are better for disadvantaged kids (show us, Kevin).

He is concerned that non-government schools might “lose control of who they enrol” – yet he repeats and relies on flawed generalizations about schools created, not by their alleged achievement, but by their enrolment profile.

My favourite is his reference to Jennifer Buckingham’s claim that private schools produce better citizens – apparently based on polling which takes no account of who actually enrols at different schools in the first place.

But in repeating claims that the community profile of Catholic schools is the same as government schools he runs up against two problems. The first is that census data doesn’t support such an assertion. But forget about the ABS, Donnelly is really contradicting statements made by Cardinal Pell http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/people/archbishop/addresses/2006/2006928_17.shtml

I’d have to say that when it comes to choices I’d have to back George over Kevin

>>> -Force the government to spend hundreds of billions on capital to fund the extra places >>>

And employ more teachers, improve on capital works, provide additional funding for a wider curriculum - all this for low to middle income people's children.

>>> -Having spent the money, the annual cost to the states will be higher <<<

How? The States would benefit from public schooling receiving the subsidies normally handed to private-for-profit schools.

>>>-The average quality of education will be lower, <<<

Evidence please. If public schools received all the funding, teachers would be better paid and able to provide a comprehensive curriculum.

>>> -Parents will have lost the choice as to how to educate their kids. <<<

No. People who can afford the fees can still choose to send their children to private-for-profit schools.

Meanwhile MY taxes and the taxes of others go to benefit all children who have the right to high quality education - not just the religious (one has to question the 'quality' of teaching religious dogma) or the wealthy.

In the 80s, our uni's professor commented that non-govt students at this uni didn't perform as well as their govt school counterparts in the first year. Why?

He suggested some possible reasons...
* the non-govts had been 'spoon-fed' academically in their final year of secondary school
* they had been marshalled from class to class and didn't have the time management skills etc to adjust to uni's more self-directed style of learning
* they more commonly came from single sex schools and the uni's mixed sex environment (and all its opportunities) was a bit of an adjustment for some (goodbye 1st year)

Year 2, 3 and beyond
The non-govt students reached parity and I think he said they preformed slightly better their final year.

So what to make of it? There was very little in the earlier 'dip' down nor in the later 'pip' up. So let's just let a person's results speak for themselves and quit the stereotyping.

Severin,

Obviously maths isn't your strong point.

If the subsidy is removed, ignoring the huge public spend to create the places, the cost of educating the pupils from the closure of the 75% of lower cost independent schools that would not be financially viable would be higher than the subsidies paid for all the independent schools.

The state would have higher running costs for the same standards, and there would be less money for upgrading public schools.

The government that did this would be run out on a rail. Labor knows it.

Shadow Minister

Apart from attempting to flame me - you do not even bother to research your claims.

http://www.adogs.info/Statistics%2016.htm

>> Saves money? A further rationale for the increased public funding for non-government schools arising from the SES scheme was that it would save public money overall, when

funding from all Commonwealth and State sources was taken into account. This kind of justification for public funding of private schools has a long history in the politics of

Australian education, based on the assumption that State governments, in particular, would reduce their funding commitments for public schools, including through school

closures, when significant numbers of students moved from public schools to the private sector.



But the political and financial realities are quite different from this theoretical assumption. In 2006, for example, some 200,000 additional students were enrolled in

non-government schools compared with the 1996 level. Had these 200,000 students been accommodated instead in public schools over this decade, this would have required

additional public funding of around $2 billion. Over that same period, however, the real increase in public funding for these same students, in the non-government sector, was

more than $3 billion4, mostly provided by the Commonwealth. In other words, governments funded the additional non-government school students by $1 billion more

than would have been required for the equivalent number of students in fully publicly funded government schools.



DOGS note that it has taken billions and billions of taxpayer dollars ( a projected $9.5 billion federal funding for sectarian schools and only $3.1 billion for public schools) to encourage parents to divert their children into sectarian institutions in Australia. They have been sold a lemon, encouraged to part with more and more of their hard earned money on school fees, placing their homes at the mercy of debt collectors. Meanwhile, the choice of a free, secular and universal education is being lost, particularly in developing areas on the outskirts of our large cities. <<

Source: http://www.adogs.info/pr391.htm

Cont'd

Cont'd

>> THE FEATURES OF A SCHOOL OR SCHOOL SYSTEM WHICH CAN CORRECTLY BE CALLED "PUBLIC"

The school or school system, to be a public one must be :

Public in purpose,
Public in benefit
Public in access ( for pupils, teachers and administrators and citizens)
Public in control
Public in ownership
Public in accountability
Public in provision ( No public/private partnerships or private finance initiatives)
Public in funding

These are all essential characteristics of the free, secular, compulsory and universal system of education which we have inherited from our nineteenth century forebears. If any of these characteristics are compromised, then the public system itself is compromised.

Why is it so important to reiterate these essentials at this time in our Australian history?

Because our public systems are under threat, not only from an aggressive, well funded private system - but also from persons who claim to support public education yet who are willing to compromise some of these essential underpinnings of a strong public system.

Source: http://www.adogs.info/definition.html

Further reading:

>> Queensland State school students are placed in Religious Instruction according to the faith or denomination provided, as an option, within their enrolment documentation.

It is a fact, acknowledged in 2007 by Education Queensland, that beyond 80% of parents across the State have chosen not to disclose a faith or denomination in the space provided on enrolment forms.

Since the vast majority of Queensland children in this category can not be positively identified as "members of a religious denomination or society”, it follows, according to the Education Act, that the school principal must not allow them to attend Religious Instruction without parental “written consent”—these students are, by statute, required to opt-in to, rather than opt-out of, Religious Instruction.

Yet, throughout Queensland, more often than not the Education Act—the law—is being ignored. Children of undisclosed faith or lack of faith are being placed in Christian Religious Instruction—often nothing other than evangelical Christian worship—as the ‘default option’. <<

Source: http://www.thefourthr.info/