The public schools are for the public. Non-public schools are for those who wish to avoid the public schools and segregate their children from the rest of the Australian public. Other purposes are indoctrination of religion and lessening the possibility of intermarriage with Australians of other backgrounds. There is absolutely no reason that their choice should be funded by taxpayer money. If Catholic schools get 90% of what the public schools get from the government it is 90% too much.

We will have a better society if children of different backgrounds learn together, grow up together and work together.

Stephen Elder’s statement, “And let’s not pretend that either the Gillard or Rudd education funding policy was truly Gonski – by then it had been politicised to the point where it was recognisable by author’s name only”, is false.

The Gonski model recommended a per capita payment, called the schooling resource standard. The Labor government model includes a per capita payment, called the schooling resource standard.

The Gonski model recommended loadings for size, remoteness, ESL, Aboriginality, low-SES and disability. The Labor government model includes loadings for size, remoteness, ESL, Aboriginality, low-SES and disability.

The Gonski model recommended an SRS to be paid in full to government schools and on a sliding scale for private schools. The Labor government model includes an SRS to be paid in full to government schools and on a sliding scale for private schools.

The Gonski model recommended having private schools funded on the basis of the wealth of the students’ neighbours; i.e., keeping the Howard government’s SES scheme. The Labor government model includes having private schools funded on the basis of the wealth of the students’ neighbours; i.e., keeping the Howard government’s SES scheme.

The Gonski model recommended allowing jurisdictions to allocate the money to their own schools according to their own policies provided they were needs-based and transparent. The Labor government model includes allowing jurisdictions to allocate the money to their own schools according to their own policies provided they were needs-based and transparent.

There was one change to the funding model, however: the Gonski panel recommended that the loadings for socio-economic disadvantage go to the bottom quarter of students. Labor extended it to the bottom half. The reason? To help the very Catholic schools whose director, Stephen Elder (former parliamentary secretary for education in the teacher-bashing Kennett government), now most ungratefully puts the boot in (“Gonski reforms were about education, not funding, and they were lost in the political mire”, The Weekend Australian, 30/11-1/12)!

“The real Gonski proposal would” not “have seen funding follow a child”. The SRS was to be paid on a sliding scale according to how well off the neighbours of the students in the school were. Worse than that, loadings for disadvantage were to be adjusted according to how well off the neighbours of the students in the school were. Thus a student with a disadvantage would get 100 per cent loading in a government school, a 90 per cent loading in on non-government school and a 20 per cent loading in another non-government school. Only one type of loading was to follow the student, that for disability:
“Unlike the schooling resource standard per student amounts and other loadings, the students with disability loading should be fully publicly funded as an entitlement, irrespective of the type of school the student attends or its school SES.” (p 184, Review of Funding for Schooling Final Report)

This is where the Victorian model is superior: it pays the loadings for disadvantage in full irrespective of the wealth of the neighbours of the students who attend the school. That is why we ought not want James Merlino to “revive the true model proposed by David Gonski” and why that should not produce “no bigger supporter than Catholic education.” The best course of action for the Catholic education authorities and the teachers’ unions is to get the federal government to adopt the Victorian model of funding. Then funding would follow the disadvantaged child.

“On matters as important as our children’s future we simply must work together.” Indeed! That is why I tried to get the AEU, the IEU and the Catholic education authorities to work together in the Gonski review. Can you imagine the power of a joint approach form those bodies? While the Catholic education authorities and the IEU were unresponsive, the AEU is stuck in the 1950s. One would think that after 50 years of the public education lobby campaigning against public funding of non-government schools, during which time the proportion of students in them has grown by half, the AEU and the rest of the lobby would give up its failed campaign and seek an integrated education system, in which non-government schools are funded to keep their fees low and thus be as socially integrated a government schools (as occurs in much of the developed world). But alas, that is not to be! The public education lobby ignored the opportunity presented by Gonski, failed to propose any funding system at all, consequently saw the Howard government’s absurd SES model extended to all schools currently protected from it and thus undermined its own schools. It will keep campaigning as if it is still 1955 until its market share falls below 50 per cent, thus further undermining the very system it claims to be defending, and it probably won’t stop then either.

Catholics get less money, but as proven with Rudd's school cash-splash they got twice the value hence have better schools. Overheard in Blacktown (in Sydney), parents describing if one can afford NOT to send your kids to a State School that it is "Child Abuse" to do so. Not a silver spoon in sight.

Anyway State monopolies, such as "Poles and Wires" (which Schools aspire to) allowed the ETU to pluck money from the pockets of such parents to pay for their feather-bedding.

Stephen Elder strongly objects to what the AEU are doing in relation to Catholic education. Unfortunately for those of us not so close to the issue, he hasn't explained what "AEU" and "Catholic education" are. I assume that AEU is a union of teachers and "Catholic education" is a body which runs Catholic schools in one of the Australian states (from the context it appears to be Victoria). This appears to be an important issue, but could we have an explanation of what it is about, for those not closely involved with it?