I agree with most of what you said.

I didn't agree when you suggested its an attractive idea to get parents to pay for education in state schools, and I also did not agree when you stated that wealthier parents have already advantaged their kids by reading to them.

I believe that the government should give all funding to public schools, but not give 1 cent to private schools.
The government should provide a baseline standard to all Australians in the areas of Health and Education.
No money for private hospitals and no money for private schools.

If you want a standard above a baseline standard that is given to all Australians, then you should pay for it yourself.

Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to provide funding to areas that may not apply to them. - Not every parent who works sends their kids to private schools. Why should the rich get an extra advantage over and above average citizens?

I also reject the idea the poor income parents don't read to their kids.

Yes, “Gonski was an attempt to look at the state of education and channel funding to where it was most needed”, but it did not work because it endorsed the Howard government’s socio-economic status funding model, the model that funds schools according to how well off the students’ neighbours are, extended that SES model to all the schools currently protected from it and applied that SES model to disadvantage loadings as well as mainstream students, thus adding to social stratification in our school system.

No, “We don't need squabbles about State versus Federal, Catholic versus Protestant and so on”, but we will continue to have them while the public education lobby continues its 50-year failed campaign against non-government schools, during which period the proportion of students in them has increased by 50 per cent.

Yes, “What we need is a determined effort to help the rest” and “that means never forgetting the importance of the comprehensive State school”, but it also means understanding the relationship between the enrolment pattern in the comprehensive sate school and the various private schools. Concentration of disadvantage matters. If we keep the SES funding model, we concentrate poor students in one school and well-off students in another. We need to lift the SES level of government schools and lower the SES level of non-government schools. The only way to do this is to have a funding model that supports socially integrated schools; i.e., one that gives more support to low-fee schools.

That model is the Victorian Financial Assistance Model, the one brought to public attention by the ridiculous claims of a Catholic conspiracy by The Age*. That model should replace the Gonski one.

*“Gonski ideal betrayed”, 4/3/201; “Labor faces backlash over Gonski ”, 8/3/2015; “Has Labor changed?”, 10/3/2015; “Victorian school funding model 'laughable' on Gonski fairness test”, 13/3/2015; “Merlino accused of betrayal over school funding legislation”, 13/3/2015; “Premier just can't walk on by on education”, 15/3/2015; “Labor's big mistake on school funding”, 17/3/2015; “Church claims hollow”, 18/3/2015; “Put state schools first”, 19/3/2015, “Schools deal blind-sides experts”, 3/5/2015

http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/victorian-school-funding-model-laughable-on-gonski-fairness-test-20150312-141ev1.html

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/state-labors-big-mistake-on-school-funding-20150315-142q07.html

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/private-schools-and-their-bankrupt-propaganda-20150506-ggv133.html

State schooling should be abolished. It is precisely the talented and disadvantaged who suffer the most in its sausage-factory approach: bored out of their minds. But don't think it's much better for the middle-range students. State schooling is a guarantee of mediocrity, and turning out docile drones to be dependent on the State. It intrinsically teaches that might is right, and that people are just herds of chattels belonging to the State: hence the author's use of "we" when he means the State.

All the arguments for state schooling are self-contradictory.

A good example is Armchair Critic's:
"Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to provide funding to areas that may not apply to them."

Another example is the socialists' idea that the purpose of education is to fight some kind of class war, to even out the differences between social groups. They're telling you straight up that their primary concern is not education. How can these herd-mentality bureaucratic central-planning approaches ever hope to be better at improving opportunities for talented and disadvantaged individuals? The very idea is ridiculous, and yet these are the clowns in charge of the education system

If West's list of dysfunctional families is the basis for change, forget it. Natural dysfunction is not something that can be healed by government intervention, or making the rich pay for it just because some idealogue thinks that they can afford to send their kids to a private schools. Many of the rich are rich because they don't waste money, and their kids are smart enough to survive and thrive in public schools. They are smarter because of they homelife and encouraging parents. The few talented kids who could do with help come from poor (financially, that is, not in spirit and eagerness to do well by their children) families, not the dysfunctional ones. On the odd chance that their was a bright on amongst the latter group, the rest of the family would drag him down.

Some of our better off say they pay tax too, so their kids should receive a so called free education.

Fine if you're actually paying a fair share of tax and not squirreling it away in a tax shelter, which super has become, and where the top tax payer can use the anomalies built into it to reduce their own tax down from 48 cents to just 15 cents in the dollar!?

Yet still expect other tax payers to carry the can for them, when it comes to universal health care, road funding or education etc?

If it aint broke don't fix it, however, this funding model is well and truly busted!

Tax avoiders, who like life line bin raiders, shouldn't effectively pray on the less well off?

Parents should be responsible for their kids education, and to make that so, all we need do is raise the tax threshold to say, $75,000.00 P.A.

Then pay every parent a education endowment, which should be treated as taxable income, like almost every other benefit or pension already is.

Which would force a few of the better off into a tax bracket or a higher tax bracket; as would halving the 33 cent subsidy!

Therefore, make this direct funding model both fair and equitable, and redirect our education dollar to the responsible parents, rather than this or that state government, who as is par for the course, extract considerable admin fees before a cent of federal funding is directed to education?

The endowment could come as a bankbook that would need some school stamps in it to confirm good student attendance and endeavor, to release funds to the parents!?

If they want to keep their kids at home as carers/unpaid labor? Their kids will be the one who ultimately pay for it, not the eternally on the hook taxpayer?

Given a direct funding model as portrayed, force states to give long overdue autonomy to schools or school districts?

And given increasingly scarce funding, we need layer upon layer of unneeded admin, as badly as the proverbial hole in the head!
Rhrosty.

Rhcrosty,

Wouldn't they be still paying the 48% while they are still working and their kids are at school? It is my understanding that the 15% only applies when they draw on the super after retirement. And statistics still show that most tax cheating is done by low to middle income earners.

Yes Peter, we've always had this group with their wacky ideas!

I mean if man were meant to fly he'd have wings right? Or sail under the sea, he'd have gills, right? And or, if meant to exceed 10 miles an hour, he'd be born with skates on, right?

As for moving out of the cave, building their own shelters and growing their own food, instead of chasing it down with a stone tied to a stick, where do these people get their wacky ideas from?

I mean what's next, a manned mission to the moon or even mars?

Or build a moon base?

I mean, don't these wackos know there's no air up there?

Let's hope they do find intelligent life up there, cause there's bugger all down here on planet earth!

But particularly when it comes to government using finite funds the most efficiently!

Or how not to squander our best and brightest and or, most talented.

I mean and surely, it's just not an accident that the man with the highest IQ was collecting garbage? What does he do now it's all automated?

Political science! Now there's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one?

The best part of any education begins the day after you leave school or uni, and into the hardest school of all; daily life and or, just earning an honest quid.
Rhrosty.

No ttbn, according to top tax payer and broadcaster Alan Jones, he only pays 15 cent in the dollar now; thanks to the 33 cents he can claim back on his super!

And this subsidy will soon cost the budget bottom line more than the aged pension!?

And then there are other things tailor made for the dishonest clever to rort the system, negative gearing and family trusts?

In any event, none of this would be possible if we were to jettison both measures, but compensate by raising and then indexing the tax threshold, which although providing relief for the better off, would provide more and more to the less well off; in comparison.

And then paying an taxable income education endowment, would ensure that those with the means to fully fund their own kids schooling would be obliged to do so, rather than expect those honest taxpayers, which are most folks, to do it for them!

And those who's taxable income stayed below the new higher and indexed for inflation, threshold, no longer asked to pay, for them, unaffordable tax!?

And that would finally put an element of true choice at the fingertips of all parents, rather than those, who thanks largely to a better education, may have superior means!

We need a system that allows the cream to rise to the top, rather than homogenize it into the mass!
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty,

OK. I was wrong about that, and your sample fat cat would certainly not say that he wasn't paying much tax if he wasn't. He is likely to justify it by saying the free kick on super is because he is saving them from not paying him a pension - as if he would ever need a pension anyway!

Agree with your comments on negative gearing. Not sure about the endowment, which is really a gift: but then you tax it? Would rich and poor alike receive it? Would it be means-tested even though it's taxed? Silly Billy McMahon, I think it was, believed everyone should have received the pension When income tax paid for the Age Pension, and the rich of course paid more tax. That was absurd, and it never happened. So, similarly to that, do you
envisage a possibilty that public education would not be available to the rich?

Peter West, you say "the 'Building the Education Revolution' program was a waste of public money, especially in State schools in NSW and Victoria." But have you got any evidence to justify your inclusion of the word "especially"? AIUI it wasn't a waste of public money except in state schools in NSW and Victoria.

__________________________________________________________________________________

JKJ, state ownership does not equate to a sausage factory approach.

And do you really regard overcoming the disadvantage of the parents' financial situation as some sort of class war? Surely if your primary concern is education, the objective should be to make good quality education available to everyone, regardless of parents' wealth?

__________________________________________________________________________________

ttbn, even if government intervention can't completely heal dysfunction, it can do a lot to mitigate it.

And not wasting money is insufficient to make anyone rich.

It is so easy <a href="http://resorts.neardelhi.in/hill-stations-near-delhi.html">Hill</a>

Aidan

You're contradicting yourself.

Jardine

No I'm not!

(I'm tempted to leave it there, just contradicting you, but I think I'd better add that once you understand why I'm not contradicting myself, you might begin to understand the issue).

Rhrosty,

No answer? Can't back up your ideas? Not quite ready to be treasurer yet?

Aidan, you can't even bring yourself to admit that the compulsory funding, compulsory curriculum, compulsory attendance, and compulsory teacher qualifications involve any compulsion, remember?

And I suppose you deny that the Board of Studies sets the curriculum, are you?

So are we talking about something that's compulsory, or not?

Also, if the purpose if to promote education, why do you discriminate between citizens of Australia and everyone else?

Jardine, it wasn't me who was against all compulsion of any kind. I think it was Yuyutsu.

You're also wrong in assuming I support discrimination based on citizenship status.

Okay, so the policy you support is to provide education for everyone in the world? Or all the children in the world without discrimination?

Aidan
What are the answers to my questions?

The policy you support is to provide education for everyone in the world? Yes? No? Or all the children in the world without discrimination? Yes? No?

You can see now that you're contradicting yourself, can't you? Why don't you admit it?

Now. Do you support the use of compulsion for purposes of forcing people to pay for and attend your sausage-factory indoctrination of children, or not?

Jardine,

In answer to your earlier question, yes I do. In fact I support all the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (of which this is number 26).

There's no contradiction in that. I think you just want to avoid considering what I have to say, and have fooled yourself into thinking I've contradicted myself for that reason.

I want the state to provide good quality education, not sausage factory indoctrination. As you'd know if you were going by what I'd actualy written instead of basing your opinions on the stereotype that you think I fit despite overwhelming evidence that I don't.

You're contradicting yourself.

If you admit compulsory funding, compulsory attendance and compulsory curriculum, you're admitting that it's compulsory indoctrination. Children will be forced to attend and forced to learn whatever the State decides it's politically expedient or fashionable to brainwash them with.

You favour a violence-based indoctrination sausage-factory. If someone doesn't want to learn what you want the State to cram down their throat, your only response is to threaten imprisonment.

That's correct isn't it?

If you renounce the use of aggressive violence then by all means say so. But that means you renounce State education

Aidan
So if all the States of the world got together and unanimously declared that obtaining the benefits of slavery or involuntary servitude is a "right", you would agree that's a right? You have no theory as to what constitutes a right, than that the United Nations says so in a declaration? Correct?

If not, how do you know whether something is a right or not?

Involuntary servitude is a right, if the State want to confiscate the fruits of people's labour to pay for forced indoctrination of children? You agree with that, don't you? Your only quibble is that you want to call it something else. Correct?

But you agree with it being compulsory, and you agree with children being taught whatever the State wants, and you agree with threatening people with being imprisoned to force them to submit to having the fruits of their labour confiscated to pay for it?

Correct?

No, Jardine, none of that's correct!

Firstly, it's only "indoctrination" in the archaic sense of the word: teaching or instructing. Nowadays "indoctrination" tends to mean getting people to accept things uncritically, which I oppose. Your use of the term "brainwash" suggests that you don't comprehend the difference! Critical thinking is part of what they should teach in schools. Had they done so while you were at school, you'd know that state education does not require the use of aggressive violence.

And nowhere have I said state schools should be the only option. Indeed making them the only option would also contradict provision 26 of the UDHR.

"So if all the States of the world got together and unanimously declared that obtaining the benefits of slavery or involuntary servitude is a 'right', you would agree that's a right?"
Are you trying to argue semantics here? I don't want to waste my time arguing as to whether a right that nobody should have is still a right, though I will point out that it would be a blatant contravention of the UDHR.

A right is something someone's entitled to do. Some rights merely exist because there is no law preventing them; others are specifically protected. After the horrors of WW2 there was a general agreement that it must never happen again, so some rights must be protected for all people throughout the world. Hence the UDHR.

BTW taxation is not servitude.

To the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" as sung by The Wiggles.

JKJ goes round and round
Round and ound
round and round

JKJ goes round and round
Chasing his tail

The Forumites, they laugh and laugh
Laugh and laugh
Laugh and laugh

The Forumites, they laugh and laugh
Watching the twit

New verses welcome.

Aidan

You're contradicting yourself.

Firstly you yourself don't critically think about state education. You were just brainwashed into it as a youth, and have never explained how it could be justified, except by circular repetition. You need to demonstrate the critical thinking that obtains from compulsory state education is more or better than would otherwise obtain. Self-contradiction.

Secondly you admit that it's compulsory, but then deny any compulsion when confronted with the fact it's compulsory. But it's not voluntary, and your claim that it is, is false. Self-contradiction.

Thirdly, you admit that a central committee dictates the content. This contradicts your denial that it's sausage-factory. For how does the central committee know what are the subjective evaluations of the students and parents they are trying to provide services to? How can they know it's of appropriate quality? The short answer is: they don't, and they can't. Self-contradiction on your part.

Fourthly, your definition of rights is circular, assumes that rights are whatever states agree on, and lacks any explanation of the relation between force and rights.

Therefore your defence of state education is irrational.

Let's cut to the chase. By what *rational criterion* (hint: not circular assumption) do know whether the amount or quality of state education is too little, too much, or just right?

Craig
Don't think it's gone unnoticed that you post no rational argument and merely content yourself with turdy schoolyard snivelling.

All
Talk about critical thinking: if Craig Minns reads in the Brisbane Times that politicians said a prayer, he takes that as proof of the existence of God:http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17441&page=0

Notice how the supporters of state education can only defend it with illogic:- circularity, self-contradiction, and ad hominem?

This is not some kind of strange coincidence.

They have been brainwashed into blind faith in the State; else they would be able to recognise and to produce a rational argument. They haven't even got to square one. Their entire argument is merely assumption in their own favour.

Some "critical thinking"!

Sorry peter, I did not read your piece. You see you used the code word for wanting to spend other peoples money on one of your hobbyhorses.

The moment I see "disadvantaged" I know someone wants to rip money off those who have worked for it, to spend it on their chosen people, usually someone who doesn't deserve the waste of other peoples money, & won't work for their own.

With every good intentioned bit of such spending, we always find excessive waste, with a net spared far too wide, all because of someone's ideology, & the usual bureaucratic stupidity of those who administer such schemers.

So sorry mate, if you want to waste my money on some hobbyhorse of yours the answer is no way. If it is worth doing, spend your own money, & that of anyone you can con into giving it to you, not the long suffering tax payers.

If the problem is with the current education system, fix that. It should only require the elimination of a few thousand bureaucrats & teachers to get it back to what it was

Struth, Jardine, you're really clutching at straws now! You're whinging because I didn't derive everything from first principles. Many things are so uncontroversial, even among the political right, that I wouldn't have to explain them to anyone else, yet you reject them, falsely accuse me of contradicting myself, and yet expect your preposterous claims to be taken at face value.

Yet again you begin with a lie: this time it's that I "don't critically think about state education". Nothing that I've told you demonstrates a lack of critical thinking. But you've already demonstrated your own lack of critical thinking by making stupid "if you believe X then you must believe Y" type statements,

I admit I had the benefit of state education, Indeed I've been to state schools in two different countries, so not only would I be very difficult to brainwash, but I've got a fair idea of what works and what doesn't. I also know that, at lest for most of my time at school, my parents would not have been able to afford to send me to a private school.

What experience of state education have you had? It sounds like you've had none and are just going by what you've heard on Another Brick in the Wall Part 2!

Your second objection is not valid, as parents have the options of sending their children to private school or home schooling instead.

Your third objection would only be valid if a central committee dictated ALL of the content. Though there's a curriculum, it doesn't cover everything that's taught or how it's taught.

(continued)
Your fourth objection appears to be a fishing expedition for contradictions. But I'm not biting! If you think you can supply a better definition of "rights" then you're welcome to try. If you want a dissertation on the relationship between force and rights, go ahead and write one - I can even check the errors for you if you like.

But regardless of whether you bother with that, your statement that "Therefore your defence of state education is irrational" is itself irrational, for although I told you I support all the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was not actually the basis for my defence of state education.

So cutting to the chase, this is the real world, and not everything can be distilled down to a single criterion. Determining whether we need more and/or better education depends on many criteria including (but not limited to) the opinions of parents, children and teachers, academic success, acquisition of life skills, what else can be done, what works elsewhere, and what the opportunity cost is.

Aidan

I reject your attempt to divert the discussion into personal contingencies.

You're not thinking critically because
1. On the one hand you must support compulsory funding, curriculum and attendance, because that's what state education means. At the same time, when challenged to justify compulsion, you deny that it's compulsory.

So ... is it compulsory, or not?

You do understand, don't you, that if someone physically grabs hold of you against your will, and locks you in a cage where you have a 25 percent chance of being raped
a) that is a serious criminal offence, and
b) you have an action for damages;
even if they only threaten you with it?

Therefore you are not thinking critically when you deny that the compulsory scheme that you advocate is based on compulsion.

Therefore even according to your own standard,
a) you're contradicting yourself, and
b) it's indoctrination rather than education, because you're not thinking critically: - admitting it's compulsory and denying it’s compulsory, in the same thread.

2.
"Your second objection is not valid, as parents have the options of sending their children to private school or home schooling instead."

You're ignoring a parent is still forced to pay for your compulsory brainwashing PLUS the education costs of private schooling.

Therefore you're equivocating = not comparing apples with apples = not thinking critically, so by your own definition it's indoctrination, not education.

3.
"Your third objection would only be valid if a central committee dictated ALL of the content."

It remains valid, and your argument is invalid, to the extent that the State dictates curriculum content. THEREFORE you have no way of knowing whether the service satisfies the evaluations of persons they're supposed to be serving, better than a voluntary dispensation.

Therefore you cannot justify compulsory state education, are not thinking critically, and by your own standard you have been brainwashed.

4.
"If you want a dissertation on the relationship between force and rights, go ahead and write one.”

I'll write it in one sentence: a right cannot consist of aggression or threats of aggression against another person because the whole purpose of ethics is to stop problems of scarcity being solved in that way – ‘might is right’.

So you're contradicting yourself again. There's no such thing as a "right" to threaten to imprison people to force them to submit to your taking their property.

Just think. When, during your entire life, did state school ever teach you that state education is based on threatening to imprison people to enforce funding and attendance? First class? No. Second class? No. Year 12? No.

You've never thought about it critically in your life. You are contradicting yourself at every turn. You're only proving you’ve been indoctrinated into believing that compulsion is virtuous, and is not even compulsion, so long as the state is doing it; and that problems of scarcity are magically solved by threats of force: completely irrational.

You're even contradicting yourself by participating in the discussion, since according to you, it doesn't matter whether people disagree with you, the issue is *not* to be solved by reason or agreement, it's to be solved by compulsion.

Is that correct or not?

Thank you for proving categorically and repeatedly that the State has brainwashed you to confuse compulsory with voluntary social relations – the most fundamental ethical error possible - and that rights are whatever the State says they are no matter how self-contradictory: - and you’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

You’re only exhibiting that you’ve been taught it doesn’t matter that what you believe and say is demonstrably untrue.

All
Notice how no-one can defend compulsory state education without immediately falling into a jumble of self-contradictions, and illogic, especially pretending that it's all voluntary after all?

Jardine, I think I've worked out why you think I'm contradicting myself: our exchanges have three participants: you, me and your strawman. But you have trouble telling the difference between me and your strawman. Hence you assume I hold certain opinions even when I've told you I don't.

1. Most people would regard "state education" to mean "education provided by the state". Yet you, perhaps realising that you've lost the argument if you stick with the standard definition, decide to redefine it as "compulsory funding, curriculum and attendance".

But if that's your definition, how does that fit in with your earlier claim that "State schooling should be abolished. It is precisely the talented and disadvantaged who suffer the most in its sausage-factory approach: bored out of their minds"?

Does it mean:
a) You've contradicted yourself?
b) You think "state education" and "state schooling" are completely different things?
c) You think compulsory funding, curriculum and attendance" necessarily results in a sausage factory approach with the talented and disadvantaged bored out of their minds?

If it's the last option, can you explain how?

Finding of schools is not based on prison, so your rant about locking people up in a cage is irrelevant, though I will point out that if at any prison there's a 25% chance of being raped, whoever runs that prison is grossly negligent.

Your assumption that I'm not thinking critically because you see what you regard as a contradiction shows a lack of critical thinking on your part, not mine.

2. State schools are funded by the state, not the parents. How the state gets its money is a matter for the residents/citizens of the state, though typically it has very little, if anything, to do with the threat of imprisonment (if taxes go unpaid, confiscation of property is the more usual recourse). And at least in many cases, the increased productivity from a better educated workforce is itself greatly exceeds the cost of the children's education over their lifetimes.

And your acquisition of equivocating is a non sequiter.
(tbc)

(continued)
3. "It remains valid, and your argument is invalid, to the extent that the State dictates curriculum content"
No it doesn't. Merely determining curriculum content doesn't prevent the needs of individual students being addressed.

4. "I'll write it in one sentence: a right cannot consist of aggression or threats of aggression against another person because the whole purpose of ethics is to stop problems of scarcity being solved in that way – ‘might is right’.
So you're contradicting yourself again. There's no such thing as a "right" to threaten to imprison people to force them to submit to your taking their property. "
But by that logic, nor do they have a right to use aggression or threats of aggression to defend their property, so yet again your accusation of contradicting myself is false.

"Just think. When, during your entire life, did state school ever teach you that state education is based on threatening to imprison people to enforce funding and attendance? First class? No. Second class? No. Year 12? No. "
No, I don't think they ever propagated that myth.

"You've never thought about it critically in your life"
Not only is that a wild stab in the dark, but considering the unwillingness you've shown to even consider opinions other than the one you favour, I think there's quite a high probability that that criticism can accurately be applied to yourself. Though of course I can't possibly know enough about you to be certain of that.

"You are contradicting yourself at every turn"
No. I'm contradicting you and your strawman at every turn.

"You're only proving you’ve been indoctrinated into believing that compulsion is virtuous, and is not even compulsion, so long as the state is doing it; "
No I haven't. I've come to the conclusion that there are instances where compulsion by the state is justified by its effects, and that when other options exist, the first option isn't compulsory.
(tbc)

(continued)
"and that problems of scarcity are magically solved by threats of force"
Force alone can not solve problems of scarcity without replacing them with bigger problems. But law can, and laws sometimes need enforcement. There's nothing magical about that.

"completely irrational"
No, entirely rational; merely beyond your level of understanding.

"You're even contradicting yourself by participating in the discussion, since according to you, it doesn't matter whether people disagree with you, the issue is *not* to be solved by reason or agreement, it's to be solved by compulsion. "
Incorrect; you've conflated me with your own strawman yet again. Though it's true that this discussion won't itself improve opportunities for talented and disadvantaged kids (let alone affect whether state education is compulsory) changing people's opinions is important in a democracy. Though there's little hope of changing yours (as you seem unwilling to consider other viewpoints) other people will also read this.

"Thank you for proving categorically and repeatedly that the State has brainwashed you to confuse compulsory with voluntary social relations – the most fundamental ethical error possible”
Again, that was your strawman not me.

" - and that rights are whatever the State says they are no matter how self-contradictory: - and you’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker. “
Yet you’ve failed to provide a better alternative definition.

"You’re only exhibiting that you’ve been taught it doesn’t matter that what you believe and say is demonstrably untrue."
By exposing the faulty reasoning by which you consider it to be "demonstrably untrue" I've demonstrated the opposite.

So are funding and attendance compulsory, or not?

Funding? No, that's done by the governments, not the people. How governments obtain their funds is a separate issue.

Attendance? Only compulsory for those enrolled. There is no compulsion to enrol children in a state school - people are free to make other arrangements. Education is compulsory, but state education is not.

Attendance is only compulsory in concept, the practice requires a willingness to enforce which is often conspicuously absent.

If a parent is prepared to provide an excuse for a child's failure to attend, the school has to make a judgement about the genuineness of that excuse and then has to make a judgement about whether the failure to attend is in effect truant and then has to decide whether to proceed against the parent for facilitating truancy.

Given the likely time that could elapse before a bureaucratic school principal might make an actual decision to proceed, a further judgement has to be made, which is whether there is actually any point in doing anything about it at all.

There are good school administrators who would see truancy as a primary concern, but the law of averages (and my own experience) tells me there are more principals who place meeting other bureaucratic measures of performance at a higher priority than educating children who don't want to be cooperative.

All

Notice how no-one can defend state interventions in education other than by denying that it's compulsory?

So they advocate a system based on compulsory funding, compulsory attendance, compulsory curriculum, and compulsory teacher qualifications.

Then when challenged to justify it, both Aidan and Craig pretend that there is no compulsion.

But of course if it's not compulsory, then you would have no objection to the abolition of the state's interventions, wouldn't you?

So we have just seen that the arguments for state intervention in education are fundamentally flim-flam, self-contradictory, nonsense.

Ethical values and economic values have in common that they are a sub-set of human values. The question is whether state intervention in education produces a net benefit for human values, however the ultimate human welfare criterion is defined.

What we have just seen is that the apologists for state intervention can't justify it because:
a) to defend it, they have to try to confuse compulsory with not-compulsory, which is ethically false
b) they therefore confuse A with not-A, which is logically false, and
c) they are incapable of establishing that decision-making by compulsion is better able to satisfy the relevant wants of society - students', parents', taxpayers', and all the other satisfactions wanted and foregone - any better than would obtain in the absence of the state intervention. So it's economically false as well.

Therefore no-one has demonstrated, because no-one can demonstrate, because it's false, that the State can improve opportunities for talented and disadvantaged kids, without contradicting themselves about the values they are trying to advance.

All, notice how some people think that children shouldn't be educated?

I wonder why?

Straw man. Nobody's saying children shouldn't be educated. You're confusing state education under compulsion, with education per se. You're only proving that you've been brainwashed.

You're also assuming that state education is better, when we have just seen that you are completely unable to defend that belief system without irrationality.

Its irrationality is proved by the fact that no-one can defend state interventions in education without instantly falling back to
1. self-contradiction - it's compulsory but it's not really compulsory
2. circular argument - it's better than the alternative because it's better than the alternative
3. ad hominem - anyone who questions it is acting in bad faith
4. misrepresentation - anyone who questions it is opposed to education per se.

Come on guys. Can't you do any better than that? It's pathetic.

Try actually being honest for a start. Admit that you favour compulsion as a means. Then come to terms with what that actually means in terms of real live human beings. Stop pretending it doesn't exist, or is not significant or irrelevant.

You're the ones arguing that compulsion is necessary and desirable, remember? Have the decency to own up to it, and show how you have taken it into account.

So far you haven't even done that. From the fact that you start from this squirming self-contradiction
a) it's hardly any recommendation of the alleged quality intellectual standards of state education is it?, and
b) you are in no position to conclude or assume that compulsion produces ethically, socially or pragmatically superior results, if you can't even acknowledge that it is compulsory in the first place and explain how or why that works to produce better value, and
c) that's a complete fail.

Come on. Try harder.

You guys are like one of those old-fashioned plastic punching clowns, biased at base, that just keeps bouncing up with a silly grin on its face after being repeatedly smashed down.

Jardine,
"Notice how no-one can defend state interventions in education other than by denying that it's compulsory?"
Notice the pink elephants flying above your head while you're at it, for they're just as real as your claim!

(NOTE: before you jump to another illogical conclusion, this means not real at all.)

I can defend state education on the basis of the opportunities it gives people. As can nearly anyone; it's blatantly obvious to most people. But you seem to care not about people but about deeply theoretical concepts. And worse still, they're concepts you don't understand, though of course you think you do.

Therefore the argument I made was not a general defence of state education; it was a rebuttal of your claims.

The argument you made was against state education, not education in general. You specifically asked if it was compulsory. Though education is compulsory, you don't have to get it from the state, therefore the answer is NO.

Whether something is state funded is not the determining factor as to whether something is compulsory; whether people have a legal right not to participate is.

"But of course if it's not compulsory, then you would have no objection to the abolition of the state's interventions, wouldn't you?"
Of course I would have an objection!

Can you really not see how totally idiotic that question was?

There are many cases where I support state intervention. Most of them have nothing to do with compulsion.

State intervention in education produces an overwhelming net benefit for human values, both ethical and economic.

Aidan

What kind of idiot asserts a net benefit by ignoring the costs?

But the costs are what's in issue remember, you fool, otherwise you would not need compulsion to obtain funding, would you? That's what you still haven't admitted, remember?

You can pretend all you like that the funding state education is voluntary, and you can pretend all you like that attendance is voluntary, but it only means you're either dishonest or stupid. Not even the State pretends that it's voluntary.

All you have offered in support of state education is self-contradiction (it's compulsory but it's not compulsory), circularity (it's good because you think it's good) and equivocation (state education means private schooling).

When confronted over your support for violence-based child abduction and indoctrination, you just go into a tail-spin of Stockholm syndrome, believing the abuser is doing good, even though if a private party did it, you would condemn the same behaviour as criminal.

Thus you are a perfect example of the state indoctrination producing a docile mind incapable of critical thinking as concerns the State.

You are your own proof against your own arguments.

All
Therefore no-one has been able to defend state education without self-contradiction or unfalsifiable open-ended statements of faith without evidence or reason such as Aidan's last sentence.

Therefore the author's thesis is completely disproved and indefensible.

The welter of evasion, illogic and blatant dishonesty in ALL defences of state education is not some kind of strange coincidence. It's all they've got. If this were not so, you'd think they could actually bring themselves to admit that compulsion is the foundation of what they advocate, wouldn't you, because if it wasn't, they would have no objection to abolishing state education, would they?

They must think everyone else is as docile and brainwashed as they are.

Jardine,
"What kind of idiot asserts a net benefit by ignoring the costs?"
Probably a politician.

But presuming you're accusing me of doing so, you're making the false assumption that asserting something requires every detail to be explained. By asserting an overwhelming net benefit I'm not ignoring the costs, I'm implying the costs are tiny compared to the benefits.

"But the costs are what's in issue remember,"
Look back over the thread and you'll see they're not. What's at issue is the role of the state. You seem to be under the delusion that any state involvement requires, and indeed equates to, violence. You're so far removed from reality that you can't accept that the state can have the opposite effect!

You claim "All you have offered in support of state education is self-contradiction (it's compulsory but it's not compulsory), circularity (it's good because you think it's good) and equivocation (state education means private schooling)." But the equivocation was on your part (I merely identified it) and was the reason for the illusion of self contradiction. As for the circularity, that occurred in your imagination not my argument. The reason why I say state education is good is that it enables people to do worthwhile things that they would otherwise be unable to do.

You are such an imbecile that you believe anarchy to be the LEAST violent situation despite overwhelming evidence! Is it possible to get any dumber than that? You prove it is by assuming anyone who takes an opposing view to be stupid!

Meanwhile I've maintained a consistent position, and explained all the apparent contradictions. And yet you keep accusing me of supporting things that I've said I oppose (and when challenged, explained why I oppose).

One of us is his own proof against his own arguments, but it ain't me!

All,

I don't think there's much point continuing this discussion with Jardine, as he seems unable to tell the difference between my arguments and his own strawman, and he seems unwilling to question his own ideology no matter how much the facts contradict it. But if you think he has made any valid point that I haven't addressed, let me know and I will address it.