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!