Dear Shadow Minister,

I get a subsidy since I buy health insurance. I buy health insurance since the public hospitals are inadequate. I can afford private health insurance, and many people can't.

However, private schools and hospitals are not public goods. They are private institutions which are subsidised so the government will not have to pay the full costs of adequate public hospitals and public schools.

It really is not a matter of choice. All people whether people are poor or not should have access to adequate hospitalisation and schooling. Every child should have access to adequate schooling regardless of the income of their parents. Every person should have access to adequate hospitalisation and medical care regardless of their income.

Meanwhile government can support venues for advertising like the Olympics and professional sports which really are not vital to our well-being like health and education.

antiseptic,

You are spot on with your assessment of public education. The people running it are completely process driven and have no desire to achieve results.

You are also spot on about women in education. There are some excellent female teachers who work very hard but there are also many more who do it for the convenience and hours. Driving men out of teaching has been a disaster for the profession. Even though we're not allowed to say it out loud, everyone knows men often define themselves much more in terms of their profession then women do. For many women their family and relationships are simply more important than work. Very few men willingly work part time, retire at 45-50 or take extended breaks from the workforce (willingly). The profession will not halt its decline until men are accepted back.

Unfortunately I can't see that happening soon. Feminists have captured the education system and use it great effect to emasculate boys and men. I remember the 7Up documentary where they quote the Jesuits "give me the boy until he is 7, and I will give you the man". Well, our radical feminists have captured our boys and society is paying the price.

The child abuse hysteria is another well worn weapon to keep men out of the profession and hence increase feminist influence. So long as it continues men will not enter the profession and the status of teaching will continue to decline.

What a load of rubbish Dane.
It seems to me that blaming women for all of society's problems is a cop out. As long as you have women to blame, then the real problems don't have to be confronted.

There are many really effective teachers out there, male and female. From what I've heard, it is primarily the low teachers pay , in comparison to other jobs, that has caused many men to look at other professions instead.
So I say thank goodness that many female teachers also don't seem to be as driven by financial rewards in such a difficult profession!

I don't see any problem with the current system of public and private schools.
There are some very good public schools that many people, regardless of the family income, will even move suburbs, to ensure their kids are enrolled there.

The difference in a good or bad public school is not the funding, as all public schools receive the same basic Government funding, but the parent's involvement in their kid's learning, and in the school as a whole.

One doesn't need to come from a privileged or moneyed background to show and demonstrate an interest in their kid's education and schooling.
No amount of extra funding to public schools will change the outcomes unless the parental involvement improves.

Davidf,

You seem to have your own personal definition of public good.

"In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others." Education is a public good in that Australia as a whole benefits from the universality of education.

Delivery of the "public good" can be either by government or by private institutions, (generally with public funding)

The job of government is to deliver universal school education, and subsidizing private schools does this far cheaper per child than if independent schools were not subsidized.

This is why Labor is not stupid enough to remove funding for private schools.

Dear Shadow Minister,

The cheapest is not necessarily the best. That is one thing wrong with not having an adequate public school system. You are right. It is cheaper to subsidise private schools and have an inadequate public school system. When you buy on the cheap you often get what you pay for. To stop subsiding non-public schools and have an adequate public school system would cost more, but it would be worth it to ensure that all children would have the chance at a good education. Our children are our future. Labor and the Libs are penny-wise and pound foolish.

Davidf,

Your post seems to be suffering from extreme logical deficiency.

If independent schools lose their subsidies and the estimated 80% of independently educated students now move to public schools, excluding the huge capital cost of building schools etc to provide places for these students, but the simple running costs would far exceed the subsidy the government is presently providing.

To maintain the same level of funding per student for public schools, the education budget would have to increase significantly, or the existing public schools would get less.

As for the "cheapest is not necessarily the best" well sometimes it is. Predominately the results from independent schools outperform most public schools.

There is no scenario where reducing subsidies to independent schools improves education for public or private students.