Well, “The daft and radical idea of charging high-income parents for public schooling” is a direct consequence of the Gonski report. I predicted it in a letter to the editor to The Age the day that report was released:
‘21/2/2012

The Gonski report is, overall, a magnificent and meticulous plan for the future funding our schools (“A historic chance to fix education funding”, 21/2), but it contains two daggers – one pointing at the hearts of all our teachers and one pointing at the hearts of low-fee private schools….

‘To ignore school resources and determine funding for private schools based on the capacity of parents to pay is both discriminatory and inequitable. It is discriminatory because there is no suggestion that public schools be funded in the same way - though this recommendation will give impetus to that idea. It is inequitable because it will force the most inclusive private schools to put up their fees and thus become more exclusive.’

The letter, just like the previous 20 I had submitted on the topic of the Gonski review, was not published.

The public education lobby, including the AEU, failed to recommend any funding model at all to the Gonski review and must therefore take some responsibility for the panel’s keeping the Howard government’s socio-economic status funding model in place (recommendations 2, 3 and 21), which it renamed ‘capacity to contribute’. As I have been saying for three and a half years, if ‘capacity to contribute’ becomes the principle for funding private schools, it will become the principle for funding government schools.

Those railing against the Abbott government for countenancing means-tested fees in government schools should direct their anger at the public education lobby whose monumental failure to read the Gonski process correctly led to this point.

The idea of charging parents for the public schooling of their children has merit. For one, people often do not place much value on something they get for nothing. Secondly, it might provide some price signal for them as consumers in the education market, and result in more critical decision making in matters such as choice of school.

These issues, of course, have been raised before in debates about introducing a "voucher system" of school funding. Currently parents pay virtually nothing, if their kids go to a Government school but can be paying a small fortune in fees for some non-government schools. One thing is certain. Levelling the playing field, by either charging fees at Government schools or equally subsidising non-government schools, would almost certainly result in a further mass exodus from the Government system, except in country areas where population densities are insufficient to support choice of local school.

anything that prevents the secular system from having to see why it has failed so miserably despite massive increases in fudning over the last 20 years will keep the teachers union happy. I see very little 'gratitude' from those who have an entitlement mentality. Maybe if people were truely concerned about education (aside from self interest industry) we would look at kids behaviour. Kids from Asia appreciate and value education and are prepared to work to achieve results instead of a dumbed down system that tries to make everyone feel good and get a pass despite effort and reality.

I think the author is laboring under a misconception about the authorship of the idea of school fees for the wealthy. More likely it came from some misguided left leaning public servant with little to do with his/her time.
Runner. "Kids from Asia appreciate and value education and are prepared to work to achieve results instead of a dumbed down system that tries to make everyone feel good and get a pass despite effort and reality."
It isn't the kids, it is their parents with these desirable attitudes, something which seems to be lacking in today's working class families.

David

Private schools in Australia are generally aimed at indoctrination of some belief system. It is the parents' right to send a child to such an institution. However, indoctrination is not education, and there is no reason that the general taxpayer should fund such an institution.

When a child enters the adult world he or she will in general not be isolated from those who do not share the individual's belief system. Schools segregated by religion, race, income or other criteria which have nothing to do with the student's ability to learn deprive a child of what I believe is a desirable part of education - the encounter with those of different backgrounds. The mix of students with different backgrounds broadens a child and prepares a child for living in a society where people come from many backgrounds.

Support the public schools and eliminate private school funding. Let children of various backgrounds learn together, grow up together and live together when they are adult.

'Private schools in Australia are generally aimed at indoctrination of some belief system'

come on David f you can't possibly be naive enough to see that the secularist dogmas are pushed as hard if not harder than any other belief. And don't give ,me that c_ap that it is based on science. I was taught a alot of the secular dogma in my schooling.

The fact is, public schools are no damn good, and any money poked at them by politicians, who judge their own "success" by tax payer money spent instead of results achieved, is completely wasted on the left wing, politically active teachers and unions running them.

Public education is just a sop to the masses who think universal free education is their right. Private education is in the business of education, attracting fees and whatever government money is available to provide the service. Like most things, the private sector does does education better.

Agree mostly with David F.

If all the available school funding were directed solely at the parents as a child education endowment linked to attendance outcomes!

And as such become taxable income for the benefit of the tax act; no child need miss out and parents would be free to pick and chose based solely on merit, rather than their means? And suitably higher in remote areas?

The states deprived of the administration fees carved out of this funding, would be left with little other choice than finally grant school districts total autonomy, which would finally allow empowered Principals to move the dross on; and that can only result in a better bang for the buck and as much as a 30% increase in coalface education outlays!?
Rhrosty.

It already costs thousands to put a kid through government schooling. Add the cost of private tutoring for subjects like math C & physics, subjects they do very poorly, & it becomes quite expensive.

Add even a couple of hundred dollars a year in fees & government schools will be closing in droves. People demand value for their money today, which is not something provided by the members of the teachers union.

runner,

I have already pointed out to you with specific facts and figures that there has not been a “massive increase” in funding over the last 20 years (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=17166&page=0).

David (VK3AUU),

The idea for means-tested fees came most recently not from a “left-leaning public servant” but from the decidedly right-wing Centre of Independent Studies(http://www.theage.com.au/national/rich-families-should-have-to-pay-to-attend-public-schools-report-says-20140429-zr13z.html), but it has actually been around longer than that and was given a push by the Gonski report, as I explained above.

Rhrosty,

I don’t think you know how schools work, at least in Victoria. They gained curriculum autonomy from the late 1960s, locally elected school councils in the 1970s, locally selected principals in the 1980s, locally selected senior staff in the early 1990s, locally selected teachers in the mid 1990s and local budgetary control in the 2000s, not that any of this means Victoria performs better than the centralised NSW system in educational achievement. There is hardly any central administration left, so there is no 30 per cent available.

Dear runner,

A teacher may do his or her best to teach, but a student has to learn. I treasure my experiences in public school. It opened my mind to this big world we live in. It was not indoctrination or dogma at all. My old age would not be as interesting if my schooling had not opened my mind to the world of mathematics, literature, art, science and nature. I hope you will open your mind to this world of wonders we live in.

ttbn - Education, along with health and justice, IS a right that everyone should expect. I remember John Howard telling us that funding private schools gave Australians a bigger choice. It didn't give me and my kids more choice - we couldn't afford private schools. Are you saying that kids from rich families deserve a better education than those from poor families?