Ok, I can't access that website, so I'll just content myself to saying what my original point was. One of the obstacles to good teaching currently is the absence of teacher choice by schools, and to the extent that it doesn't exist now (which is in most places) then that's a bad thing. The AEU doesn't agree with me, I suggest there are obvious reasons for that.

You haven't answered by point about classics and grammar, and it seems like you're mentally unable to follow the point about teacher pay. You keep quoting this figure claiming pay has gone down, and then act like that matters, even though it has been explained to you at great length why it doesn't. In related news, slave owner stock has plummeted in the last 200 years... is that a bad thing though?

Riddler,

The website opens for me, so if it does not for you, I suggest you go to the Maralyn Parker Blog and look at the thread “The nation’s report card is G, for Going backwards”.

Just for fun, I’ll repeat the point I have made about grammar. It was taught in every school I taught in. If that’s not good enough for you, so be it.

Just for fun, I’ll repeat the point I have made about teacher pay. The decline in teacher pay has been accompanied by a decline in the ability of people entering teacher training as measured by entry scores. If society wants that decline in ability to continue, it will continue to cut teacher pay relative to the pay of other occupations. If it wants to increase the ability of people entering teaching, it will, among other things, reverse the decline in pay. Nowhere have you answered this point.

If there is evidence that one obstacle to good teaching is “the absence of teacher choice” by schools I’d like to see it. It is often asserted, usually by people who claim educational standards have fallen but who ignore the fact that the period from which the fall has allegedly occurred was the period on which the administration side of education was far more centrally controlled it is now, but never proved. My experience of teaching began in a system in which schools had no say in which teachers were appointed, yet the principals of the time seemed able to lead whomever they got to produce good education. They did not need to select their own staff.

The local selection in this state was brought in initially at the advocacy of the teachers union. I attended many meetings of the VSTA committee that helped devise it. It’s so long ago that there is probably nothing on the web I can to link to for the history of the matter.

Chris C. I simply dont get how you can make the ridiculous unsubstaniated allegation that teacher salaries have dropped 30%. That is sheer nonsense. Can you imagine the industrial action by any major group of salaried professionals in this country if their pay was cut by this huge amount? As parent of one teacher on $86,000 I struggle to imagine how she should be paid $115,000pa under your fantasy scenario. It simply DID NOT HAPPEN.

You are obviously ideologically opposed to private schools which is why you can up with some rather silly statements. The outcomes of private schools IS vastly superior to public schools and no amount of socio-economic levelling or other pseudo-statistical methodology will change that. When the vast majority of university entrants are privately educated, where most senior execs and community leaders such as MPs etc are privately educated them it is a bit hard to pretend otherwise.

This thread was about the FUNDING of private schools yet you have turned it into you own rant and rave about the worth of them and in the process revealing little more than your own ideological opposition.

If you want to argue against private schools try some REAL objections. By no measure has even your jaundiced assessment been able to counter the primary argument that private schools represent outstanding value for the public dollar. Around half the public money is spent educating private as against public students. Even ignoring the outcome issue, the decision is obvious. Private schools schould continue to be funded in similar fashion to that currently. To do otherwise would be economically foolish as it would cost government a fortune.

If you want to compose an actual rebuttal using AUSTRALIAN facts then go ahead, but it will be a little hard to do so when public students cost us twice as much as private ones.

"The outcomes of private schools IS vastly superior to public schools"

Evidence, please. Our two selective high schools in Victoria came top of the VCE results. State schools. Better than private schools results.

And please don't use the "but they are selective so they get the best" argument. Elite private schools do the same. And even with the massive fees parents have to pay at these schools, the kids at the free school up the road do better.

Your rubbery figures re schools funding have been disproven time and time again. An excellent site that shows this is http://www.saveourschools.com.au/

Anything the private school organisations try to tell you on this matter conveniently leave out tax breaks and grants.

First of all that website is no more than a highly selective, very biased site for a LOBBY GROUP. It is only considered valuable for people who cant tell the difference between analysis and lobbying. Every now and then a public school student tops the year 12 results and the predictable remarks come from people like yourself. Then for the intervening 5 years when 9 of the top 10 coem from private schools you are quiet. Social outcome studies have long recognised the superior life outcomes of private educated students. You dont have to like it and clearly dont, but that doesnt entitle you to ignore it.

But as previously stated, the argument is not even on OUTCOMES but on funding and in particular, value for dollar. Do you even dare to suggest that paying HALF as much to educate a private student as opposed to a public student is somehow BAD policy?

I have found that most opponents to government subsidy of private schools primarily employ side-argument, factually deficient positions or plain out fantasy posturing. So far you are covering all three. Keeping them on the primary argument proves difficult and sometimes impossible.

The principle argument in all of this is one of CHOICE. Parents should be allowed free choice in basic things like health and education and in both cases, 'private' saves the government money. And in both cases the outcomes are indisputably superior but cost the participant significantly more. With choice comes cost. You seem to be demanding that there be NO choice, because for a majority of parents, removing the subsidy would be exactly that.

Private schools are only good while the employment is ok.
Private schools are good for snot value.
Private schools are good for just that, it's up to you.
Ever increasing funding is wrong.
It will force the sale of public schools.