You say that “you don’t need an educational degree to work in a private school, so your claim they necessarily do the same training is simply wrong” (4.52:42pm, 26/2). Under the legislation establishing the Victorian Institute of Teaching, you do require an educational qualification (whether a degree or a diploma) to be registered as a teacher in any school in the state, whether public or private, so I am right - again. The New South Wales Institute of Teachers has the same requirement for registration, which it calls “accreditation”, in both public and private schools, though its scheme applies to teachers starting from 2004. The Queensland College of Teachers requires the same from teachers in both public and private schools. So does the Western Australian College of Teaching. So does the Teacher Registration Board of South Australia. So does the Teacher Registration Board of Tasmania. That covers the states. Teach for Australia student teachers are given “permission to teach” by VIT, as are a few other persons, such as instrumental music teachers, but the general rule makes no distinction between public and private schools. Other states have similar exceptions, but nothing I have found on their registration authority websites provides any general exemptions for private schools

You say, “Thirdly, has the workload of a teacher increased since 1975. You never really tried to prove this” (4.53:48pm, 26/2). You are correct – at last! I have not tried to prove that. What I have tried to prove is that the improvement in PTRs since 1975 has not led to a commensurate fall in workload because of other factors, but we are straying from correcting your misstatements, so I will leave that point for the time being.

You say, “It’s also unclear to me why we should hire more teachers for schools that are increasingly empty” (4.54:04pm, 26/2). Indeed! Let’s leave aside the fact that a school is either “empty” or not. After all, a school that was “empty” would have no students and therefore need no teachers. I don’t believe I have made an argument one way or the other about exactly how many teachers we should employ. If a school has a particular number of teachers for a particular number of students, that may or may not provide a reasonable ratio, irrespective of whether its enrolment is falling or rising.

"You say it makes me look ‘stupid’. Nothing has ever done that"
I confess when I read that I chuckled so hard I almost fell off my chair. Sure, let's play big boy.

Easy stuff first; when I say killed off "in MOST schools", your response that they still teach it in your school is no response at all. You can’t read... moving on.

So your new point about Catholic schools is that they achieve better results with less money? So the government should give them more money, yes? Come to think of it, the very study you quote tells us that the student-teacher ratio (table 16 btw) is much lower in public schools than other varieties like catholic schools, which makes me wonder why the workload they have is apparently too high. Under the logic you advanced earlier I can only assume you think the private schools are working even harder, and deserve more Government money under that logic too, as well as for superior results (but on reading further I see you actually concede a better PTR! And you think this helps your argument!). By the way, as a hint for future arguments, when you are trying to refute a (unimportant) point about whether Catholic schools have more revenue than publics, and the study you cite does not contain the revenue for publics, it is not a useful refutation (and no, you can't extrapolate the revenue from the expenditure, do you know anything about economics at all!). By the by, it's a terrible indictment on public schools for you to argue they spend 20% more (the difference between 10K and 12K) per student than Catholic schools, but are putting out such a bad product in comparison that they can't give it away.

More to the point, you continue to use dishonest figures ($10,826 is a total that includes primary schools, which I was very clear was not what I was arguing, and bears no relevance to the subject under discussion... the actual figure for catholic expenditure per student is $12,735, though this is also lower, it’d be nice if you could use the correct stats). The $15K stat doesn’t distinguish between secondary and primary education either!

I never thought the day would come where I would be quoting Wikipedia, but here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_teacher#Australia
It’s a shame much of Australia has recently abandoned the sensible policies of the ACT, but my claim that “you don’t need an educational degree to work in a private school, so your claim they necessarily do the same training is simply wrong” still holds because the overwhelming majority of teachers at private schools at the present (and at the time of these studies) did not require it, it was introduced in NSW in 2004, Qld in 2005, WA in 2005, etc. So the new framework, already riddled with exceptions, while contemptible, doesn’t mean the overwhelming majority of teachers at private schools were affected by it. In addition, the “training” required is in no way uniform, and is incredibly varied, so I’m right again. Back to less tangential arguments…

The rest of what you say is a collection of dodges and irrelevancies. Let’s summarise the actual base issues you’re supposed to prove to date, for anything you’ve said to matter:
1) That there has been a pay decrease for teachers since 1975, and flowing from that,
2) That the figures you are using, which are not the conventional or recognised (or sensible) way of indexing salaries, should be applied here
3) That the time period of 1975 is the appropriate one to begin at
4) That teacher performance justifies an indexed salary (particularly given the shocking exodus from public schools, some of which is noted in your recent link)
5) That there is a causal connection between the (supposedly) lower salary, and the (conceded) worse performance of teachers (since the time the supposed drop occurred)
6) That the way to remedy this claimed problem requires more funding, as opposed to readjustment of the current funding (particularly as the AEU supports and implements a policy of tenure based salary, and you concede many teachers who have been around a long time are of a lower quality, which means they’re being overpaid)

Astoundingly, you have yet to prove a single one of these, or even advance a sensible argument for one of them. And in response to your latest missive, that you’d be shocked if the wage fell and performance didn’t, this has been answered repeatedly, and in different ways. Mining salaries have soared in recent years, does it logically follow that the miners suddenly began working much harder? Conversely, if we increased the wage of an Indian call centre worker from $4 an hour to $20 an hour, would it logically follow that his performance would increase by a factor of 5? You don’t understand causation, just as you don’t understand economics.

You say, “$11,400 in 1983 on the RBA inflation calculator comes up with a value of $25,470 in 2003… don’t you look foolish” (4.51:49pm, 26/2).

Your calculation, using the annual calculator, is correct, but there is no reason for putting $11,400 in for 1983. Teachers were not paid $11,400 in 1983. In January, 1983, teachers at the top of the unpromoted scale, which they reached after seven years, were paid $24,1999. Using the RBA calculator, we find that the salary of $24,1999 in December, 1982, is equivalent to $55,983 in December, 2002 dollars. (We use December of the previous year because inflation is calculated in quarters ending March, June, September and December and December is the nearest quarter to the following January.) In January, 2003, teachers were paid $49,820 after seven years, meaning that they had a real pay cut of $6,163 (11.0 per cent). Teachers at the top of the unpromoted scale, which took longer to reach in 2003, were paid $54,202, meaning that they had a real pay cut of $1,781 (3.2 per cent). So, not only did teacher pay fall relative to other occupational groups between 1983 and 2003 (as the Andrew Leigh study says), but it also fell in real terms. My argument is reinforced. I’m not looking foolish at all.