Shady oasis,

I find it offensive that I have to subsidise the public schools by far more than private schools. The more kids go to private schools the less the government will have to pay, and the less tax I will have to pay.

The probability is that the parents of private school kids are subsidising the public school kids.

I hate being lied to. I become annoyed that someone thinks I am dumb enough to be taken in by their lies, of statement or omission. It doesn't matter which, both are equally objectionable.

Obviously Tom thinks he can con most of the people, with his omissions, perhaps because he thinks they were educated in an inferior education system.

Well if it's inferior, it is so because of people like him, the teachers.

I finished high school in a NSW country town state school. We had only 12 kids in 5Th year, & 14 in 4Th year. We had a couple of advantages, all of us were there because we wanted to be, & the school had 3 great teachers.

I left with 3 honors, 2 first class, & one 2 Nd class, & I was one of the lower achievers.

Eleven of us went to Uni, or teachers college with scholarships. The other one could have, but 20,000 sheep demanded his attention. It wasn't because the town was suddenly producing geniuses, it was those teachers efforts to get us achieving near our best. We actually had kids talking about physics, in the playground, & at football training.

My kids achieved the OPs they wanted, in a large near Brisbane high school, in a less than favoured area. It was not as easy as it was for me, the teachers were definitely not great. However it is amazing how those who can, respond to those who want to. They got help from some surprising places, when needed.

My eldest says she had to grab the education system by the neck & shake it, to get what she wanted. It's a pity, but many people don't shake hard enough. We had to kick some butt at her school, after sugar failed, starting with a head too interested in nearing retirement, & the union delegate, who should have been teaching math. We may not have won friends, but we did get results.

Blue, try to find something to be happy about, it feels better.

Shadow Minister.
You may be right. It is likely that there are far more children living on welfare in the public school system then in the private school system.

So taxpayers who are paying a lot of tax, are already paying out money to get welfare dependent children into a public school, or any school.

However, with the experiences of the Blair government in the UK, and the “No child shall be left behind” campaign in US, throwing more money at the schools did little or nothing for disadvantaged children.

It advantaged some teachers, but not the students.

Flog the public schools off, and have a two tier private school system.

Maybe we should take out these welfare kids(whoever they are) and shoot them. That should save money.

Flo,
It wouldn't save that much money to remove the 612,000 disadvantaged children in the country, now a direct result of the 800,000 single parent families.

Unless other things are done, there will simply be more disadvantaged children born later to replace them.

Similarly, if teachers don't want to give the reasons why there are so many disadvantaged children, I certainly don't think teachers should be given any more money, just in case they waste that money, or don't know how to effectively spend it.