Good try, but I see no hope that the ideological divide on private vs. public schools can ever be bridged by rational analysis and argument. Let’s face it, in some 60 years of observations since I went through state schooling I doubt whether I have struck a single person who changed their view on the basis of such sensible debate. But there is no reason to despair. Ideological divides have always been at the heart of every major political issue and the sky has still not fallen in.

With education, the issue will eventually disappear as the population of ex-private school students, their parents, their children and so on steadily grows to become a majority of the electorate. To that majority, the proper answer will look as glaringly obvious as it does to me now. The level of funding provided by government out of the taxes paid by the population should be totally decoupled from the nature of the provider of educational services. That is, every student should be supported at an equivalent level of public funding regardless of who runs their school. A necessary concomitant is that parents be allowed, as now, to contribute additional funding to their children’s education according to their means and wishes. Of course, some will still cry ‘unfair’, but they will be a minority. And no child will be deprived of the opportunity for a sound education

Scott Prasser says there is no evidence that there is “a campaign to undermine the public education system”.

On the contrary, there is a mountain of evidence (all but one from The Australian alone):
“extensive over-staffing of teachers, inefficient work practices and ‘union’ capture of education expenditure” (IPA, Schooling Victorians, 1992)

Australian education suffers from “provider capture, where the education system, instead of meeting the needs of parents and students, is run for the benefit of the teachers unions and bureaucrats” (“Brave words, but Labor’s policy offers more of the same”, Kevin Donnelly, 28-29/4/2007)

“our schools are owned and run by… militant leftist education unions” and Labor has not used any of its state or territory governments to show that “it has better education policies” (“So much for economic conservatism”, Sinclair Davidson and Alex Robson 26/10/2007)

“provider capture” in which education is run for the benefit of teacher unions (“Brave new words for education revolution”, Kevin Donnelly , 24/12/2007

“provider capture” (“And another thing…” (editorial), 15/2/2008)

“militant” teacher unions (“Performance ranking is key to reform” (editorial, 26/3/2008)

Schools need “rescuing from provider capture” (“Debate will stick to ALP script”, 10/4/2008)
“provider capture” (“Seize day on reform” (editorial), 16/4/2008)

Making Australian education “world-class” requires freeing it from “provider capture” (“Nothing but talk about the revolution”, Kevin Donnelly, 18/4/2008)

Lowering the remuneration of the public sector is one necessary measure (“Recovery lies in savings and public sector wage cuts”, Alan Moran, 14/1/2009)

Spending more money on education makes no difference to student achievement (“Private schools a public good”, Scott Prasser, 22/12/2011)

There are more examples and some useful links here:
http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/462500.aspx

Throw in all the references to the supposed “rivers of gold”, “windfall” GST revenue that the states have supposedly “squandered” on supposedly “excessive” wage rises for the public sector, and you get the picture.

There is a fundamental contradiction in “the right’s” approach to education funding. On the one hand, it rails against excessive spending in public schools and tell us that spending money makes no difference. On the other hand it remains silent when private school fees double public school expenditure. Surely, if spending money made no difference it has a duty to warn private school parents not to waste their money.

Private schools are increasing their fees by as much as 9.5 per cent, with one school charging $30,820 per student (“No need for school fee hikes: Garrett”, Justine Ferrari, 23/12/2011). Meanwhile, the Institute of Public Affairs, which argued that Victoria’s expenditure of $8,742 (in today’s dollars) per secondary student in 1990-91 was excessive and needed to be slashed (Schooling Victorians, 1992), remains silent while private schools charge almost four times that amount. The Australian and the IPA do not rail against “provider capture” and “militant” private school teachers unions.

(Expenditure per Victorian secondary student in 1990-91– $5,5165 (“Schooling Victorians”, IPA, 1992)
CPI increase from December 1990 to September 2011 – 69.2 per cent
(http://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/quarterDecimal.html)
1990-91 expenditure in September 2011 dollars – $8,741.52)

There is also a campaign being run by the Coalition and its allies to frighten private school parents by making them think there is a threat to private school funding (again from The Australian):
“Catholics will rise”, 29/4/2011
“Howard wanted to wean schools off funds deal”, 7-8/5/2011
“Gonski review’s search for a problem to solve in Catholic education”, 12/9/2011
“State slams schools’ fund model”, 5-6/11/2011
“Private schools a public good”, 22/12/2011

Everybody who pays attention knows that there is no threat to private school funding. The Gonski Review will recommend a federal-state cost-sharing needs-based system, probably along the lines of the existing Victorian government system and with the funding more closely linked to the needs of the individual student, and the argument will be about the details; e.g., should the phase-down rate be 40 per cent or 50 per cent? The Coalition will end up with egg on its face.

Might it not have been wiser for Chris C to have read the article by Prasser before exploding a couple of diatribes of ideological confusion?
I must admit to some grudging admiration for anyone who has such a comprehensive and ready supply of material on observations of the 'provider capture' in education.

However, if the confusion presented in these two responses to the Prasser analysis, represent the opposite view to '“the right’s” approach to education funding' any “ campaign to undermine the public education system” would hardly be necessary.

The point is that too much of the debate on performance of Australian education is lost in a fog of right or left ideology.
The clear evidence from Australia and abroad is that large inflexible state run monopoly education systems do not perform as well as locally managed schools - who are more directly accountable to parents and local communities.

Parents are not fools and this is why so many are reluctantly prepared to meet the extra cost of sending their children to non-government fee paying schools.

The pressing debate is around how to give children in government schools a better education.

Clearly parents who opt for the expense of school fees are saying that the problem is about how the schools are managed not how they are funded.Indeed, reducing numbers in the non-government sector would result in a funding crisis for government schools. Parents who pay fees already reduce the overall education cost to the community by about 40% per pupil - and they pay taxes,which in part go to funding government schools they do not use.

I would also be interested to know how Chris C is so confident in what the Gonski report will say. What does Chirs C know that has not been revealed for those of us among the great unwashed? Or it Chris C giving us the further benifit of more uninformed opinion?

CARFAX,

I read the article before I composed my responses.

They were not diatribes, though the attacks on teachers over the last several decades could be so described. The diatribes are those that use untrue and derogatory language:
“The schools are simply a racket and a rort for teachers who use it as a fully salaried system of outdoor relief.” (Peter Ryan, “Teachers fail to get the point”, The Age, 1/8/1992)
“The perks and privileges of this cosseted profession were absolutely sacrosanct.” (“A lesson in anarchy”, Herald Sun (editorial), 19/11/1992)
“Schools…appear to be run more for the benefit and convenience of their employees than for their users.” (Claude Forell, “A reckoning unions had to have”, The Age, 25/11/1992)

I submit many letters to the editor, and it was fairly easy to search my computer for the phrases “provider capture” in the letters I sent and thus find the titles and dates of the articles to which I was responding. I also did some research years ago on the campaign against the government sector by the IPA and its allies. I could find hundreds of examples, but that would be overkill.

There was no confusion in what I posted. I gave evidence of the ongoing attacks on public education and the ongoing silence regarding private school fees by those who say money makes no difference in public schools and spending on public schools is excessive.

We do not have a “large inflexible state run monopoly education system” in Victoria, and have not had one for over 40 years. So much of the discussion on education assumes NSW is Australia. It is not. Our schools gained curriculum autonomy progressively after 1968. We have had locally elected parent-majority school councils since 1975. We have had locally selected principals since the 1980s. We haven’t had a state zoning system since the 1980s, except that schools without room to take all-comers are allowed to impose a zone. We have had locally selected senior staff since 1992. We have had locally selected teachers since the 1990s. We have had local budgetary control since 2005.

I agree a lot is lost in the “fog of right or left ideology”. That is why I put “the right” in inverted commas because things are a lot more complex than left and right, but sometimes shorthand is needed.

If society wants a better education system,
1) it will pay at least the best teachers as well as it did 35 years ago in order to keep them teaching; (http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/449991.aspx?PageIndex=31)
2) it will restore teachers’ professional judgement in the running of schools that existed 30 years ago;
3) it will provide the class sizes and teaching loads that allow them to get on with their jobs as it did 25 years ago;
4) it will abandon the building of mega education factories of 2,000-plus students in which the individual student is lost;
5) it will halt the recycling of the failed 1970s fad of the open classroom behind the slogan of “flexible learning spaces”;
6) it will not fall for fads like SOSE, introduced by the Liberals in the 1990s, but will maintain separate academic disciplines like geography and history (restored by Labor in 2005) in schools;
7) it will cease placing educationally unqualified people with six weeks training in sole charge of disadvantaged classes under the slogan of “Teach for Australia”.
That’s not the full list, but it is a fairly demanding one to be getting on with.

I am confident that I know what the Gonski report will say, not in detail, but conceptually, because I can read the policy signals, the political signals and the spirit of the age, which has been going in one direction for 40 years. Society has been “freeing up” over that time. My Funding Review Submissions give more detail:

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris_Attachment_1.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubGen/Documents/Curtis_Chris_Attachment_2.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubEip/AtoF/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/SubResearch/AtoM/Documents/Curtis_Chris.pdf

I agree with Prasser's premise. Another policy point, as the GFC revealed, the financial sector reward system renders it incapable of self-regulation in the public interest. It has become over leveraged and interconnected collapse of one threatens all.

This sector does not serve us well. Rewards go not to those who enable others to create wealth, but to those most skilled in expropriating the wealth of others. To justify their actions, they turn logic on its head, treating growth in the size and profitability of the sector as an end in itself, and a measure of increasing efficiency.

Because financial services are a means, not an end, they are properly treated as an overhead cost to be minimised. Growth in the size of this sector as a percent of GDP changed from an efficient one percent in 1890s to an inefficient 8-9 percent today.

Market advocates correctly note markets have an ability to self-regulate in the public interest. When market advocates go on to argue that the solution for market failure is to get government out of the way they demonstrate ignorance of basic economics. Markets self-organise in the public interest only if incentives align with public interest.

It is straightforward. The purpose of the financial sector is to serve the real economy on which everyone depends for daily needs, quality of life, opportunity to be creative, contributing members of their communities.

Corrective action falls to government, which can deal with the failure to self-regulate in one of four ways, continue to bail out banks at taxpayer expense, build an external regulatory system equal to/greater than the size of the financial system, spell out prohibited behaviours and impose disinsentives for each violation to ensure good behaviour is more attractive than bad, implement a system of taxpayer funded financial incentives for good behaviour to achieve the same outcome or create a system of incentives that drive reorganisation of the financial system and a realignment of its internal rewards to favour transparency, accountability, and public service.

A basic framework for such reorganisation is not too difficult if financial policy is investigated.

Man and here's me thinking a think tank WAS an engine for class warfare or lobbying for political ends. 'Frequently'?

'acolytes of enlightenment.'? Hahahahahaa OLO really has some Friday funnies today.

Think tanks are instruments of deception used by the elites,to subjuate the masses.

Read the book "God under Howard the rise of the religious right in Australian politics". Every Liberal party pre-selection,institute, foundation and society is controlled by the Liberal party religious right faction. Did the Lyons forum ok this article, or did they have any input into it, you didn't say? Did it possibly come straight out of their puppet Abbott's three word slogan office? Or could it have come from his and your boss Pell himself?
From the few paragraphs you could see where this diatribe came from the usual suspects of the religious right. Just how much money are you and your confederates making per year from religious superstition? Do you really believe these myths or just pretend to like most do, for profit? Just why do you all persist in calling these tax payer funded religious schools, "private schools", can anyone name any private school that is not run by a religious cult?
Remember the high court ruling, Charlatanism IS the price we pay for religious beliefs and if ANY religion was ASKED to prove ANY of their beliefs ALL would FAIL.
Religion is basically organized superstition and these ridiculous superstitions are open to charlatanism and these religious schools are funded by Tax payers, this is illegal in almost every other country in the world, why is something open to charlatanism and illegal every where else being allowed here in Australia, 18 billion dollars being wasted at current costing!

people would not spend their hard earned money on sending kids to private schools if the social engineers of the public system had not failed so dismally. Secular humanism dogmas have been a pitiful failure that produces animal like behaviour from some teachers and many students. Parents want to send kids to learn and then get a job. They also want their teacher to have some sort of morality. Unfortunately the public system has proved a huge failure despite the billions thrown at it. People vote with their feet.

CARFAX,

Today’s news reports that the Gonski Review has recommended a per capita funding system for all students (with extra for special needs), just like in Victoria, and a federal-state cost-sharing for both public and private schools. So my confidence of 9 February seems well placed.

Details are here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/push-for-one-funding-model-for-all-schools/story-fn59nlz9-1226271230974
and
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/education-report-to-tackle-school-money-divide-20120214-1t46c.html.

I have a few issues with how the "Schooling Challenges and Opportunities" has been characterized here. You describe it as a consultant's report as distinct from something that a think tank or other institution could produce. It is in fact the product of a consortium including Nous Group, the National Institute of Labour Studies and the Melbourne Graduate School of Education – involving a team from each partner. We also engaged with internationally renown experts (Ben Levin and John Hattie) to provide input and criticism.

You said the research was “selective”. The report drew on around 100 references including several OECD reports and and discussed them at length in appendices as well as the main report. You make an arguement also for more "real-world evidence". I wonder if you looked at the four regional case studies in the report that were based on extensive interviews with principals and teachers from the three sectors in each location?

You assert that the findings were predicated on a belief that “non-government schooling exacerbates educational disadvantage” when our point was that selective schooling does this, noting that public schools are becoming more selective.

You refer to the “fallacy that private schools discriminate”. They do, as do a lot of public schools who have the luxury to prioritise applications from out-of-zone students. But the universal nature of public schooling means that they are the last resort, or the only option or the only free option. This is not to deny the fact that many schools, particularly in the Catholic sector, provide fee relief and other help to ensure that lower income people who want to have their kids attend are not barred from doing so.

Finally, on your point that “factors like expectations and the school environment are important if we cared to look at this”, we did look at it extensively which is why we said that investment should be focussed on those schools – regardless of sector – that did not have those attributes.