I would be more inclined to agree with the author if he was to at least agree that public funding of school transport for pupils should be limited to the cost of getting them to the nearest public school's gate, with any excess to be met by either the school or the pupil. There is no social need which justifies spending social budgets (public money) for such private purposes.

Spending hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds annually in a manner which clogs peak hour roads and trains is socially unjustifiable and economically stupid. In a time and energy-constrained world, it is entirely irrational for public money to be wasted in this way. Costs, including environmental, financial and loss of public amenity through clogged transport systems in order to satisfy private goals and needs are only going to escalate with time and must be curtailed quickly and eventually stopped entirely.

If independent & Catholic (private) schools don't want so much government regulation, then perhaps they should not accept government (taxpayers') funding. And this ongoing argument about 'choice' really annoys me -- having choice in what school to send your children to is only available to those who can pay private school fees. They can then choose an independent, or faith-based, or government school. Those who don't have access to a spare $15-$20K per annum, have the local government school or, if their children are very academically gifted, a selective government school. The only 'choice' we have is the local government school. Don't get me wrong, that's OK by us. But could the private school sector please stop complaining!

The hypocricy of the closet communists on private schools is amazing. They bemoan spending while secretly sending their children to private schools because they know our public schools are a recipe for failure & illiteracy.

I don't see any attack on private schools. For eg, many did very well out of the school halls program. But does the general community get access to private schools as they do to state schools? Not in my experience. I recently approached private and state schools to ask if they would allow a local playgroup use their new school hall (built with public funds) when not being used by the school. The state schools were all open to the idea, but not the private school. Then there is the thorny issue of choice. Even if I wanted to send my child to the local Catholic or Anglican school there's no chance they'd get in. In reality I have no choice, but to send my children to State schools. Luckily, there are lots of great State Schools out there, but you wouldn't think it from the vitriolic attacks on them from some quarters. What I see is that State schools generally have less resources, older buildings, and don't discriminate against students with behavioural or learning difficulties like private schools do. But what they lack in smart boards and sporting facilities that many private schools take for granted, they make up with a generousity and openess of spirit from hard working teachers and parents. Private schools, even the most humble ones are elitist. They pick and choose who goes to their school, and they exclude children (as is their right) because of the family's financial inability to pay higher fees, the family's religious background or because a child has behavioural or learning problems, or even if the family recently moved to an area and wasn't able to get their child's name on a waiting list. Yes, they let in small numbers of exceptions, but let's get real, we don't all have equal access or choice when it comes to sending our kids to private schools.

Formersnag,
"public schools are a recipe for failure & illiteracy", what complete and utter rubbish!!

There is no threat to private schools from the Gonski Review.

The current funding system is absurd. It pays schools on the basis of the wealth of the other people who live in the streets where their students come from. It thus underfunds the majority of low-fee Catholic schools, which is why they need top-up funding to achieve the same level of resources as applied under the Hawke Labor government. It includes the cost of base funding that any school must have (which it is inefficient to duplicate by having two schools in the same locality when one will do) and the extra costs of students with special needs (e.g., ESL, disability, low family income) whether or not they actually attend the school being funded.

The problems with the Allen Report are that it spends 112 pages working out it is possible to work out a national resource standard without actually bothering to do so and that the methodology it proposes for someone else to do the job is not based on an explicit staffing formula for schools but on looking at the current funding of so-called successful schools.

The Allen report wants to work out a national resource standard by looking at the existing expenditure of what it calls “reference” schools. This is crazy. It is easy to work out a national resource standard as the major cost (c80%) in a school is teacher renumeration and the number of teachers is determined by a formula based on teaching loads and class sizes, all of which can be made subject to explicit decision at the policy level.

It is so easy to do that I did it in my own submissions to the Review of Funding for Schools, which can be found at:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Pages/GeneralSubmissions.aspx/
and
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubEip/AtoF/Pages/AtoF.aspx.

The Gonski Review is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to devise a rational system. I have calculated the marginal recurrent cost per mainstream student of a properly staffed, high quality education system at $6,993 for years 3 to 6 and $8,320 for all other levels. This is in addition to a base amount of around $1,000,000 per secondary school and around $250,000 per primary school.

All schools, whether privately or publicly owned, ought to get these per student amounts (and additional funding for special needs students) provided they meet the same public purposes, including a cap on fees of, say, $1,000 pa, so that we do not underwrite an education system that is segregated by wealth.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12596#217716

Shadyoasis, i witnessed this personally during my own chilhood. All through my time in primary school it was successful. i was the oldest in my family. Several years later in the mid to late 1960's "reforms" began happening & the literacy rates have been declining ever since.

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm read ALL of it, but pay particular attention to #17. SOFTEN THE CURRICULUM. They did & it worked, our education system has been worsening every year, while costing more money.

http://www.americandeception.com/index.php?page=searchkeyword down load a free pdf of this book "school of darkness", dont believe me read it for yourself.

Don't you love this quote:

"...properly funded and autonomous non-government schools..."

In other words, 'give us your money and leave us alone!'

Maggie Thatcher couldn't have said it better.

Formersnag, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time on strange American conspiracy theory websites. Show me something relevant that contains some real evidence. I didn't do too well at a government selective school during the 1970s either (managed to gain undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in adulthood), but many others since have done just fine. Yes, there's been a lot of messing with the whole notion of pedagogy - it's unfortunately become a huge discipline that has money thrown at it, but with little substance. Still, I'm hoping my children, who are both bright (albeit relatively privileged) and have good skills in literacy and numeracy gained in a public primary school, will manage OK at a public high school. Perhaps the curriculum has been dumbed down in the past 30 years, but NSW school kids today all sit the same exams, and will probably attend the same dumbed-down university.

I think it should be part of any elected representatives conditions that they must send their children to public schools, and use public transport and public medical care.

It would be amazing how quickly these public facilities would be fixed.

I love the 'framing of the debate' here, where private schools are 'under attack' by...

'The paper’s statement, “Australia is unusual in that it provides public money to non-government schools but does not place such restrictions (related to school fees and enrolment practices) on the sector”, implies that there should be increased government control and regulation over non-government schools.'

Very amusing. Under attack! is defined as stating a fact that implies ' should be increased government control and regulation'. How frightening! A 'vicious' attack even?

Simple solution: Don't accept money or accept less money for less regulation. Cant believe nobody thought of that before.

'government monopoly over education is counter-productive '

Woah woah woah! Where is this government monopoly 'implied'? You can have the money, or you can have the freedom from regulation.

Dare I say it, you have 'choice'.

I take it that when Formersnag departed from his public school, the average IQ and literacy levels improved immediately, in like manner to the oft-heard story about the IQ of NZ and of Australia being improved by New Zealanders migrating westward.

I've heard that story so many times that it must be true... just like FS's story about the poor literacy levels in Primary School, as assessed and determined by his own self, at the age of 11 or so.

As the eldest child of the family, Formersnag certainly didn't refrain from pouring scorn on his(?) younger siblings, who presumably were part and parcel of the perceived decline in standards.

Well done, Formerslag. Beautiful own goal.

Pouring more money into State schools is like pouring more money in Aborginal affairs. The reasons for failure are never addressed. Now the social enginners want successful indepenant schools to adopt the same recipes for diaster. They never ask why so many parents are voting with their feet and wallets even after paying tax to fund the public system.

Runner, not all state schools are basket cases. In my local area, we have 2 state schools with catchment areas. There are people who would like to send their kids to these schools, but can't because of their popularity. I personally know of 3 people who have left the private system and sent their children to state schools. Not all private schools, are all they are cracked up to be. I went to private and state schools as a child, and I have to say there were good and bad schools/teachers in both systems - making state schools out to be failed schools is simply wrong and a massive overstatement.

Like it or not, we need a strong state school system to ensure ALL children have access to a great education. If we underfund them they will certainly fail, and we'll worsen any issues of social disadvantage we have. Not all children would be accepted in a private system - that's kind of the point of them isn't it? Their exclusivity is part of their cachet.

It is all very well saying that non government schools have a greater percentage of students entering university. What percentage of these students actually finish their courses, compared to the government schools. My experience was that the ex government schools students did better. What say, Kevin.

My suggestion is that all parents pay fees based on percentage of taxable income (eg 10%)to schools where their children attend; govt or private, for their childrens education. Then be given tax deductions and credits for volunteer work done in the school. This is the way parent controlled schools work. Parent representatives interview staff to employ and dismiss. They pay above the award and get better teachers.

I am so relieved that at the end of this year I can at last turn my back on this argument.

My view is that I have been fortunate, in that I have been able to determine my kids' education on the basis of what best met their academic needs, and at the same time provided the best possible spectrum of opportunities for them to progress in the direction they chose.

It has been expensive, of course. I'm sure that I could have used that money to buy a second car, or a bigger house, or some more exotic overseas holidays. And yes, of course I have the advantage - that I have worked hard for - of being in a position to make those choices in the first place.

But to me, it still comes down to the availability of those choices. I would hate to live - correction, I would certainly not live - in a country that was so mean-spirited and envious of success, that it would not permit its citizens to choose where to spend their after-tax earnings. That tax, of course, having already made a contribution towards the State education system.

The obvious answer, which would immediately illuminate the barrenness of the "kill the private school" argument, would be a voucher system. But of course, that would not bring about the lowest-common-denominator system that the control-freak levellers have in mind.

They also have the greater number of parents that can assist their children to go to university.

Philo you are obviously commenting on religous schools, where the child has been placed by their parents in order to follow the parents beliefs. Thus not allowing the child to develop a broader understanding of life, as an indivudual human being of whom the parents have no right to control or assume to own.
Formersnag your mate regularly quotes, those who are not of his thinking as communists, well controlling the minds of children is on a par with Facism.

Kipp,
What utter rubbish! All schools teach the State curriculum so any other influences will come from family, social and personal views of teachers outside the curriculum.

Are we to subject children against the views of parents to some crackpot teachers? Parents have every right to teach and influence their children. Obviously you believe the Communist doctrine that only the State has right to teach and has all the answers. I suggest you refrain from reading the Green"s Socialist agenda and broaden your education. From what I have seen of Children they need encouragement and guidance given by parents and that is not given by the State.

'I would hate to live - correction, I would certainly not live - in a country that was so mean-spirited and envious of success, that it would not permit its citizens to choose where to spend their after-tax earnings. '

I really don't think that is under threat Pericles, no matter how much Hyperbowl the author splashes around.

Are you against a simple transaction of money for regulation? I am happy with a sliding scale of no money for no regulation, to equal funding with public schools for equal regulation.

The debate to me seems to be involved in the mix here.

I can fully understand the government is happy for parents who are willing to pay tax, yet reject the government provided school, and then pay for their own school. Nice saving for the government there, though I reject the cries of altruism from the parents who claim to be 'subsidising' those poor heathen public school pikeys.

Yet I am not so sure that people who choose to reject the schools provided by their taxes, should see it as an 'Attack' on them or their schools for the governmnet to put conditions on money it donates to their school.

To me, the price of true and total independence is paying your own way. It wasn't my shcool that gave me these values.

They also gave me the confidence that the cream always rises to the top, and that $20k a year could be spent on many other very worthwhile things, and to ponder whether one education is truly $120k better than another.

But surely that would exacerbate the problem, Houellebecq.

>>I am happy with a sliding scale of no money for no regulation, to equal funding with public schools for equal regulation<<

The question is not really a sliding scale of regulation, since regulation is binary, on or off. Nor would "no regulation" be acceptable either to government or the electorate.

I assume also that you mean that to be truly liberated, the full cost of private education should be borne by the user. Which as a principle is just fine and dandy, but misses an additional dimension, the relief of pressure on the public system.

If the idea is to eliminate their funding entirely, schools would close, private school teachers would starve, emigrate or go into business. But the end result would be a lot of folk with nowhere to send little Tobias or little Evangeline.

So the present system seems to be a happy-ish balance, that uses a basic cost-avoided methodology to measure how much the State has "saved" on each pupil not being a drain on the public purse.

Mind you, I know some very rich people who would be absolutely delighted if all the tacky middle-class parvenu riff-raff were excluded from their School because it had become too "expensive" for them. Huh! That'll teach them to try and mix with the elite. Now we can get down to the serious business of playing rugger, getting drunk and snorting coke.

Only not at the same time, that would be silly. That's the sort of thing we pay our fees to learn.

The argument for choice of school in accord with religious beliefs is a killer argument. As far as who pays goes, anti-private school folk need to constantly remind themselves that parents paying fees at private schools are double-dipping - their tax dollar goes to the public sector too.
As a teacher in a Govt school for 20 years it is my view that no amount of money, in and of itself, can magically create good teachers or good schools. I've seen fantastic educational results from financially strapped schools and extremely ordinary results from schools where literally millions of dollars have been poured into them (both in Private and Government schools). Good teachers are born, not bought. Good schools are educationally right, not just financially well-endowed.

TAC,
You are absolutely spot on - Right!