Alternatively, lockhartlofty, one could argue that to generalise, as you clearly have, is what you do when you don't have the facts to support your argument.

I have worked in education for 25 years, including time in independent schooling, and the schools I have worked with look nothing like what you have described. I can stand by my statements with hard facts and experience. You are offering what exactly?

David F - the schools I have worked with do not force anyone to believe anything. Yes, the school has a doctrinal basis but students, and their families, are given the integrity to believe what they choose. Children are not forced to say, or do, things which they are not comfortable with. Children are not enrolled on the basis of faith/belief.

More generalisations from people who simply don't know.

generalisations from people who simply don't know.

rational-debate,
Ok, what then do you attribute the poor standard of education to ?

State schools are poor, fixated on the latest secular fad or religion. We had to send our little one to a small Catholic school to repair the years of failure by the State system.

Individual, not sure how to link the disparate thoughts in your comment but I'll have a shot. Quick answer (my thoughts only) as to current poor education standards (your words) would be, to list a few:
- Dumbing down of the syllabus in some areas and overt political/philosophical influence re the content
- Ditto re overt political/philosophical influence via teacher's unions, etc
- Low marks required to get into teaching. I have worked with staff who can barely string a sentence together, let alone teach others how to do it.
- (over)reaction at school level to the "fear" of NAPLAN results
- Decreasing parent engagement with schools and schooling

Researchers, such as John Hattie, see parent influence and teacher ability as probably the biggest factors.

On a broader scale, and these are really just my thoughts, you have:
- Technology and how schools work with it.
- A shift in the relationship between students and teachers. I know this makes me sound 100 years old, but I would never have spoken to my teachers the way kids try to today. Coincidentally, it's the same way I see them speak to their parents.
- The increasing divide between haves and have nots
- etc

I do not see funding as the big issue the media would make out. A concern certainly but not the be all and end all. I have been in the position where all I had to teach fractions was a piece of paper that I just kept folding different ways. The class did fine and all passed the test with flying colours. You don't need an i-Pad or interactive whiteboard to teach well!

As I said, just a few thoughts. Any wisdom re how to address them will be gratefully received!

Let’s be clear why there are more than 3,000 losing school sunder the Gonski proposals.

Imagine if when you went to hospital you were charged a fee based on your neighbours’ average income. This is the Howard government’s SES model for school funding. It is also the Gonski panel’s SES model for school funding, though the Gonski panel suggests using a smaller number of neighbours. The Howard government’s SES model was so bad for private schools that half of them get compensation to be as well off as they were under Labor’s education resources index model, which based funding on the level of fees of the school. The Gonski panel’s SES model has produced a list of 3,000 losing schools, partly for the same reason: it takes no account of school fees. The SES model punishes low-fee private schools that take students from middle class areas.

There is another reason that the list is so long. The states have generally had staffing formulas for their schools, not funding formulas. Thus, a school with lots of experienced teachers can cost a lot more than a school with exactly the same number of teachers, who are less experienced. The Gonski SRS is a de facto voucher, so it ignores the current differences in costs between schools due to different salary rates and thus automatically adds to the list of losing schools.

The final relevant fact is that the list contains lots of government schools, which would not make sense to some people. It does to me. Given that the Victorian per capita amount under its student resource package is thousands of dollars below the Gonski indicative school resource standard, it should not be possible. I have had a look at the list of losing schools in Victoria, my home state. Almost all the losing government schools are country schools or disadvantaged schools; i.e., schools that get extra funding now. This tells me that the loadings for disadvantage under the Gonski plan have not been included. They could not be included because they had not been worked out.

It’s a pity that not single report on the losing list of those that I have seen has mentioned this explanation, just as it is a pity that not single report on the losing list of those that I have seen has mentioned the key role played by the Gonski report’s continuation of the SES model. In fact, not a single report I have seen since the Gonski report was released has mentioned that it has endorsed the Howard SES model, albeit based on a smaller area. The only mentions of this fact that I can find are in the very few letters to the editor from me that have been published - in The Australian, The Canberra Times and The Sunday Age. The Age has not published even one of the 41 letters to the editor I have submitted on the Gonski report, and no one who relies on the print edition of The Age can even know that the Gonski report endorses the Howard government’s SES funding model because The Age will not reveal this fact.

If you want a much more informed account of the Gonski report, go to http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/576719.aspx.