Dear Shadow Minister,

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

That is proof by assertion. As long as there are subsidies to non-public schools there will not be the pressure to provide adequate public education.

My wife went to a private school. At a class reunion a few years ago the headmaster told the assemblage to be sure and vote for Howard because "the school desperately needs a new performing arts centre."

As long as that sort of mentality prevails well-heeled private schools will continue to get subsidies and public schools will continue to be deprived. The article is spot on. The present system is unfair to the public schools.

you are spot on Dane.

'Driving men out of teaching has been a disaster for the profession. '

It would be hilarous if it was not so sad to see classrooms of boys being screamed at by female teachers. 'Teachers often baby sitters (albiet big kids). The feminist dogmas have resulted largely in the mess we have. Thankfully many of the private schools have not swallowed the dogmas and hence perform much better. Strange how the secularist then sprout their envy blaming funding when their zoos still receive much more. The old mantra more funding more funding yea yea yea.

Good idea - let's pretend all private schools are like Knox and then use that "fact" to compare them with public schools. A majority of independent schools are, in many ways, more or less indistinguishable from their public counterparts down the road. If we are going to have this argument, at least compare apples with apples.

The next person who mentions Finland as the example of what we are to do needs to do a lot more research before doing so. I have studied, in depth, the Finnish system and while it does produce excellent results, the changes required to bring Australian schools into line are absolutely impossible. It would involve a whole scale change to everything educational, from Preschool through to post university qualifications. Not to mention a whole lot more money. Ain't gonna happen...

Dear rational-debate,

You are right. It isn't going to happen. If Australians wanted it enough it would happen, but they don't.

Davidf,

" As long as there are subsidies to non-public schools there will not be the pressure to provide adequate public education."

Quite the contrary, I am sure the main reason the public schools want to get rid of the independent schools, especially the low fee ones, is because they consistently get better results with similar resources, and because the growth in this area is 7x that of public schools as parents vote with their feet.

Dear Shadow Minister,

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

The statement is false since I conceive of such a scenario. As a nation we are increasing the division between Australians by having a subsidised private school system where the better off are aided to increase the gap between them and the unwashed. This is both stupid and immoral.

Parents vote with the feet because they are encouraged to do so to escape a deprived public school system. The solution is to stop depriving the public school system by keeping an unfair system.