I could make criticisms of the simplistic use of tables and data, but I'm not going to. The funding argument is, and always has been, a distraction from the real principles in this debate. Even if critics of the public education system agreed to some minor tinkering of the SES system, and current funding levels (assuming the fairness of the portrayal above for a moment), it doesn't change the other failures of the public education system.

The public system is bleeding students, and it is not because of funding. I have spent a long time around the schools Tom teaches (and remember, Canberra is an artificial bubble community which is a poor comparison for most of Australia), and the problem is not a lack of books, computers, etc. Most of these things the schools have aplenty (in fact I'm often shaking my head at the way these schools waste money on needless things, like Canberra High School's decision to purchase a large number of new chairs, despite the old chairs being fine, and then leaving all the old chairs out in the rain next to the school for months on end), they are not expensive commodities. And to hear the Teacher's Union tell it, the teacher's soldier on despite their (supposedly) poor pay, giving their best, and doing a great job. So while Tom and the Union may feel (wrongly in my view) that Teacher's are underpaid, by their own narrative it is not the cause of the problems.

What are the real problems? Among them:
1) The teacher's union. This is the biggest problem. They insist on a pay scale that rewards time spent in the service, not based on merit. They resist the flexible workloads (I've heard tell of teacher's who are good at teaching level 3 math, but bad at teaching levels 1 and 2, in which case why don't they just work as a casual at 2 or 3 different schools teaching level 3 math?). They resist teacher's being sacked. Principals are told to improve schools, but they're not even able to pick their own teachers. It's a joke.
2) There are no meaningful benchmarks for success or improvement, the very same things Teachers in the Union are chuckling at, while watching Yes Minister at home with a cafe latte in hand, are being resisted by their union. The data released is pitiful, and they oppose even the meagre data myschools offered, even though it was obviously desired by parents. Teacher's don't criticise their colleagues either.

3) The Education Department and Union suck at education. They've eliminated classics, grammar, etc, from most schools. They insist on a stultified and rigid curriculum. The one ACT public school who has done well has done so through a) having a good feeder system (and being able to take the cream from other areas), and b) ignoring the dictates of the Union. They kept trimesters, which the union insisted on scrapping. They have the diverse and advanced curriculum that the Department also got rid of. It's what one expects from a union and government department full of cronies I suppose.
4) The schools lack a voucher style system, which rewards schools who can attract students, but attaching funding per student, but allowing total freedom to move from school to school. If Bundah has education down pat, let them open another campus in place of a poorly performing school who can't retain students.

Deep blue

"no"....they would definitely NOT befefit from a one size fits all school system.

It would be abused so badly by social engineers that we would end up as Zombies.

See Orwells 1984... it's more real than you think.

I have seen many, many poor teacher's, and the average teacher's wage is now very healthy indeed. It would be easy to offer less to poor teacher's, who are not sought after in the workforce, so the schools can offer more to the students who are sought after out of Uni. This doesn't happen.

To be sure, there are good teachers, and there are teachers who do it for the love of the job. But that is as true of sewage workers or plumbers. It does not mean they should get an artificially high wage, and the current salary structure definitely ensures payment above market value. Besides which, any sensible analysis of the behaviour of the teacher's union shows they are as self interested as the next union or group of employees. In the last union agreement some years ago they traded off the right to be paid for running extra curricula's for higher pay, and in response many (though not all) teachers stopped running as many EC's. They didn't care that their decision went against student interests, because there is nothing magical about being a teacher.

"Drugs, poverty, mental health come as a result of being fatherless not the other way around."

So are we saying as well as the single mother is filling the prisons, they are also responsible for drugs, alcohol and mental illness. We should while we are at it, blame them for the dole bludgers, con men, the homeless and everyone else that annoys us. .

It might surprise you to know the causes mentioned are generally behind the breakup of the family in the first place.

Sorry, I do not have my head in the sand. Simple causes are generally that, simple and of no use.

I was forced to bring up my family on my own. I spent most of my life after I separated studying and looking for the reason for the situation I found myself. I also spent many years working in the field. There is one thing I learnt that there is no easy cause or solution. I also know that if there is not appropriate intervention, history will repeat itself. I also would like to point out the numbers of very young girls having babies has declined over the years. Most women had their children after either being married or in a stable relationship.

Most children with single mother’s have many other influences in their lives, such as uncles, grandfathers etc. This can be the one factor why they succeed.