No parent or grandparent, at least any interested in the future of their offspring could sensibly vote against the benefits that will flow from the Gonski based education funding scheme and the new Australia wide curriculum.

I, for one, do not trust Mad Monk Abbott or Christopher Pyne on any educational matter.

Pity there is no move to follow the Canadian policy of introducing a compulsory subject which covers the beliefs of all main religions and the basics of ethics. The Quebec Roman Catholics ran a test case as far as the Canadian Supreme Court but thankfully lost.

The Supreme Court decided that the need for students to understand the influences impinging on their peers took precedence over other cultural influences including that of each child's parents. I have read the decision (Case number - 33678). It is a breath of fresh air.

Kevin Rudd did not “rebadge Gonski to assume a more politically neutral epithet – Better Schools.” The government has called the program Better Schools since detailing its response to the Gonski report last year, as anyone who visited the Better Schools website then would know. All Kevin Rudd did was remind people of that fact by eschewing the shorthand term, “Gonski”.

The fact that so many think he did what he did not illustrates yet again the pathetic standard of commentary on the Gonski plan. By adopting the Gonski plan, Labor is gradually moving schools off its own socially just education resources index model of the 1990s and onto the Coalition’s socially segregating socio-economic status funding model of the 2000s. It is achieving what John Howard could not - a greater social stratification in our education system. But no newspaper, journalist or commentator will report this fact.

The SRS amounts make up 83 per cent of the total extra spending. The loadings make up 17 per cent, so the overall spending per student will increase above the current AGSRC amounts.

The calculation of loadings is not in the slightest bit difficult. Victoria has been doing it for eight years. The Gonski plan of SRS plus loadings is just an inferior copy of Victoria’s system, inferior because it does not provide additional funds for early years and it does not provide base funding per school.

Agree with Foyle, but then I usually do.
However, the most important level of education is preschool, with a recent survey suggesting many would change their voting preference, if one or the other party threatened preschool funding.
That said, the area most likely to influence most undecided voting intentions, is affordable housing and its planned return!
If either party has a plan to promote that, then they stand to gain a 20-40%+ swing. (The hard pressed renting community.)
How could it be done?
Well, the age of entitlement is over, and the welfare for the rich measure, referred to as negative gearing, could be rerouted into affordable housing indefinately.
This money could be paid into a pool, which would fund a number of annual public housing projects.
And those obtaining a "means tested" lease, would have an option to say, turn the first three years rent, less costs, into a deposit.
The fund could also underwrite very low cost loans for that same purpose, say at 2.5% fixed interest.
The repayments could then be fed back into the pool, which would continue to receive former negative gearing funding, say out to 20-30 years, by which time the repayments, would swell it out to at least double; and or, well ahead of the population curve?
We are the only western democracy that has negative gearing!
And most other economies would raise their collective eyebrows at this largesse, and think of a hundred thousand better uses, for this government charity.
Negative gearing was supposed to create affordable housing!
Instead, it has contributed to the housing shortage and the highest median house prices in the English speaking world, and is therefore, indefensible on any grounds, but particularly economic ones, and must go!
Rhrosty.

I have often woken with cold sweats during the night, wondering if I will live long enough to see the Australian Financial Review actually review something financial before Fairfax finally implodes.

Are the academic achievements of Australian students getting better? Or are will still languishing down in the 20th to 25th in comparative ranking? Sadly the answer is yes we are still languishing down the bottom end.

So have our children somehow developed genetic flaws in their ability? No, I don’t think so.

In which case, the problem is about the quality of our teachers and the curriculum. We can play around with socialized excuses about funding, facilities, class sizes and slow learners but in the end it always comes back to the teachers and the curriculum, because these are the only sources of education that directly impacts our student learning.

The rest is just political bum fluff