Instructive article. Nonetheless, we need to stop listening and or reacting to, this or that expert, and simply rely on common sense.
If the Finnish do it better or best, in less school hours, then let's adopt their model.
Lets also follow their lead with universal state funded education. And just like them, let the religions go back at doing what they were created for?
Church services, Sunday school and social events for believers and their guests.
No radicalising Madras here please, and arguably, that's where privatised or religious based education is taking us?
We with our limited and contracting taxpayers' dollars, need to start means testing all education assistance/outlays. Charity is for the needy not the greedy!
If that puts the more privileged or fundamental zealots offside?
Tough whatsits!
We need to refocus on outcomes and advancing all our students; and merit based funding models; that enhance ability/critical thinking, rather than further/mindlessly entrench completely undeserved privilege or advantage and or, empower pompous fools?
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty,

You raise a very valid point: let's stop listening to the 'experts' and start doing what works. It seems that education is one of the most reactionary branches of government. Perhaps this is because it is a very visible area of government and an opportunity for new leaders to show that they're 'making a change for the better'. Unfortunately, this means that education works in 3-4 year cycles, with new programs developed, rolled out and promptly abolished.

As for your use of Finland as an exemplar in your argument against religious schools, this might offer some further information on that matter:

http://www.suol.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=75

If, like me, you tend not to open too many links, it simply states that religious education is compulsory in all Finnish schools, right up to senior level. Finnish Lutheranism is mainstreamed; there is even an evangelical program available to those who haven't yet 'seen the light'. There's hardly an exclusion of religion from Finnish schools.

As for the pecuniary arguments, MySchool offers an alternative viewpoint there. Consider the following schools, with their allocations of funding at the state/federal level (per student):

Macgregor State High School, Greater Brisbane: $9433; $1348 ($10,781)
Clairvaux-Mackillop College, 1.4km away: $2522; $6051 ($8573)

And, for the more affluent:

Brisbane Grammar School: $1751; $3080 ($4831)
Brisbane Girls Grammar School: $1820; $2878 ($4698)
Brisbane State High School: $7397; $1328 ($8725)

http://www.myschool.edu.au/MainPages/SchoolFinances.aspx?SDRSchoolId=47408&DEEWRId=0&CalendarYear=2011&RefId=xK0Q8oNiB2YSOgW0UVCPuQ%3d%3d

Obviously, the parents at the non-government schools 'top up' their school funds with fees and levies. And I'm not going to run the argument that schools should all be privatised, because that's unreasonable and would disadvantage those who can't afford it. What I will say, though, is that the parents who send their students to those non-government schools are easing a burden on public funds. Like private health cover, those who can afford to pay are not harming the state coffers by doing so.

Well cherry-picked by Otokonoko.

He has managed to highlight one of the failures of Myschool, in that its raw figures permit only raw comparisons. There's nothing about the real circumstances of either the school or its students and the families which they come from.

John Winston Howard was nothing if not cunning - his adoption of postcodes as a comparator for social disadvantage was mean and tricky because it says nothing whatever about social disadvantage or the actual needs of the schools, yet it lives on in education funding formulae. Did the kid travelling to the distant private school come from the cheapest house in the worst street of postcode 9999 or the converse? It matters not, because the model doesn't count it. The kid's needs are clearly irrelevant - what matters is the political "fix" which comfortably hides the truth and denies many the opportunities given to the few.

In Otokinoko's comparisons of public Vs private, there was no accounting of the thousands upon thousands of school buses and coaches which add to peak hour traffic as they wind across cities and along highways. Why not? They are also publicly funded.

For mine, if there is a school down your street, every metre past that school is private travel, but not to John Winston Howard, Otokinoko's and their supporters. If those who choose this lifestyule for their offspring paid their way, another very large pot of gold would be freed up for Gonski.

School funding formulae do not "work in 3-4 year cycles" as Otokinoto states. They are determined on the basis of opportunism, greed and politics and thereafter are cast in stone, no matter how unfair and socially divisive they may be.

What's Otokinoko's proposal for improvement? More of the status quo?

Thanks for your reply, John. Unfortunately, I'm just not sure what you're talking about.

I addressed two key concerns I had with Rhrosty's otherwise insightful post. I'll be looking forward to Rhrosty's reply, if one is forthcoming. Rhrosty gave an opinion, I gave a different opinion and the reasons for that opinion.

The first concern was the perceived absence of religion from Finnish schools because they have no religious schools. Alas, religion is still present.

The second was the argument that the government cannot afford to fund student places in non-government schools. I presented a different interpretation. I selected inner-city independent and state schools to compare (being within walking distance of each other); I also selected a suburban pairing. Apparently this is cherry-picking (which is the usual cry of someone who cannot otherwise refute an argument). In each case, it was found that the per-student funding from state and federal sources (the sources of funding of concern to Rhrosty) is less at each of the non-government schools than at the state schools. Thus I offer an alternative point of view (but won't go so far as saying that Rhrosty is categorically wrong) - that a parent who has the means to 'chip in' for his/her child's education and, as a consequence, sends him/her to a non-government school is not receiving 'handouts' or overburdening the public purse.

Rather than talking about John Howard (relevance?) and putting words into my mouth, perhaps you could explain how my reasoning is flawed - addressing my evidence and the point I have set out to prove.

Nice attempted put-down by O.

Unfortunately, O is tilting at windmills.

If the claim is that it can be shown, on the basis of a sample of a couple of schools drawn from a data set of thousands, public schooling is more expensive than private, then it is clear that the reason for ignoring more than 99.9% of the data is significant.

Yet, O has intentionally and determinedly stuck to a minute, carefully selected sample which, to put it kindly, lacks statistical relevance. Besides which and as I pointed out, the MySchools web site does not contain information which is adequate for informed comparisons.

Since O has made the claim that private is cheaper than public, is it not up to O to back that up with fact?

As for the religious stuff - religion is not my bag. I simply couldn't give a toss about imaginary friends in the sky, whether State-sanctioned or otherwise, Norwegian or otherwise.

That leaves us with the buses. Care to suggest that the daily additional millions of bus-kilometres are irrelevant, or that they aren't adding to peak hour traffic, or that they don't cost taxpayers anything? I raised them because of the huge waste of public resources that they represent which, if directed towards implementing Gonsky's recommendations, would be cost-neutral.

O has not brought any arguments for the additional resources which are involved in running parallel schooling systems within our communities, or for those to be provided, as at present, largely at public expense, nor has he argued against any of Gonski's recommendations. Why does he bother? Is the basis for his contributions private gain (greed) or is it personal prejudice? Are his kids really worthy of special treatment at public expense?

I am sorry if I have given the impression that I am attempting to put you down, John.

You do raise an important point and, indirectly, clarify your accusation of 'cherry-picking'. Yes, my sample is tiny. As you know, however, the words with which we are allowed to express our opinions in this forum are limited. I could exhaust my quota of words per post AND my quota of posts without covering a 'significant' sample. As a result, I DID carefully select my schools to ensure that I covered urban and suburban, state, Catholic and independent schools. I also ensured that the schools in both case studies were within walking distance of each other. If you are suggesting that I dug around in the data to find schools that supported my argument, ignoring those that didn't, then you are wrong. Those were the first five schools I looked up.

As for the buses, I cannot really speak for all states or regions. I can say, however, that it has been my experience in Hornsby, Brisbane and Townsville that buses do not serve schools exclusively: they serve several schools from an area. The drive from Macgregor to Clairvaux adds less than 3km a day - and that's assuming that the trip to Clairvaux was actually out of the bus's way in the first place.

All of this returns me to my point, which was limited in scope to questioning the suggestion that our government cannot afford to support places in non-government schools. All other factors being equal, which costs our government more: a student at Clairvaux-Mackillop College or a student at Macgregor SHS? And, were the government to cut funding to Clairvaux and consequently cause it to close its doors, what would be the cost of building facilities for and continuing to educate its 1147 students at the nearest state high school?

There are certainly many other reasons to argue against non-government schooling. I have questioned the financial argument, though I am sure that Rhrosty had good reasons for offering it. I'm happy to hear why I am wrong.