If you want to have a rant about good/bad/left/right fine. Let's not pretend though that an argument this poorly made is worth a 2nd glance. The appeal to research is bunk. An argument of this quality would fail an undergraduate course. Do you have any idea at all how difficult it would be to design, let alone conduct an experiment to investigate your assertion?

As I said earlier, it's called the swimmer's body illusion. Look it up. It's not rocket science.

just another llewd act of verbal ma$turbation.

I hadn't heard of the swimmer's body illusion before, but it seems to fit with my initial reaction to the article. Parents who send their children to private schools have a commitment to education to the extent that they are prepared to pay for something they could obtain for nothing. Some government school parents simply cannot afford to pay fees, some have a commitment to public education, and some just don't care that much about education. There are students at government schools who just don't want to be there, who disrupt learning for others and who can pull down ATAR averages across the sector. It would be interesting to know if the differential between public and private school ATARS has got worse since the school leaving age was raised, forcing disaffected students to stay through to year twelve.

Catholic schools can pick and choose their students, whereas State schools are obliged by law to take every child in the area. Most of them are also much better funded per child than State schools. Do a study controlling for those variables -- if you can -- and then your results will have some credibility.

Year 12 exams prove some school systems

Does that mean we can look forward to the apprentices to be able to read the instruction manual for a hammer ? that really would make things easier for me. Just imagine the luxury of one of them being able to write down the smoko list.

If I remember rightly, statistically, and over a number of studies, sorry I have long forgotten names and details, Private school kids have always been able to get into universities but it is the kids form government schools who are more likely to complete the course.
This may have changed with the rise in students from Asian families changing variables of course but there is much more variables in the mix than just the culture of the school and the extent of the discipline. If you really want your ideas challenged go mand have a look at Box Hill High School.