You are actually the non thinker on this subject Referundemdrivensocienty..
Mass education has way passed its use by date. Let me educate you on the subject.
Since the mid 60's, children have been directed towards extended education, in an attempt to patch up the damage to employment prospects for school leavers, caused directly by the flight of industry to Asia; chasing cheap labour.
Governments were looking for easy excuses not to intercept this exodus of jobs applicable to early school leavers. The burden was increasingly shouldered by the tax payer by extending school education for traditional school leavers, as a temporary hedge against rising unemployment, (as a consequence of the flight of jobs to Asia).
Instead of grappling with the problem. Liberal Governments escalated attacks on the union movement, which resisted the job losses going to Asia; a lost battle for unions.
The market for school leavers crashed, directly as a consequence of bad Governance.

Fast forward. Today the tax payer is under intense pressure from escalating cost of living and disproportionate pressures from taxation increases.
The burden of schooling children into their late teens and early adulthood, which rests on a diminishing taxpayer base, is unsustainable, and unnecessary.
The burden of supporting unemployable youth would be diminished by vetting which children should be subjected to further education, and putting the burden back onto parents, with some help from welfare support for the family, financed from the reduction in education budgets and a diminished educational work force.

I have read some really interesting comments and some incredibly inaccurate ones.

Parkes' Public Instruction Act of 1883 created an educational system across the then colony of NSW which was "compulsory, free and secular". Every Public School and every High School in NSW, to this day, is still very heavily funded by the NSW Government.

The state system now, as then, exists to educate all who present and ask to be enrolled regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion or socio-economic status. Fees which are small, relative to the real cost, are charged to cover those costs which the government does not cover.

No attempt should be made to recoup the real cost of a child's education as this would merely convert each school to a different version of a private school and would result in many children finishing their education as quickly and as early as they could.

This would be in line with the unexpressed ideology of conservative governments that education is a cost to be borne only until the student has just enough knowledge to become part of the labour pool. By contrast, 'progressive' parties see education as an investment with returns in the future.

Senator Leyonhelm's ideas fit well with the model of education espoused by the coalition concerning state government funded schools. For this reason they should be resisted at every opportunity.

"No attempt should be made to recoup the real cost of a child's education as this would merely convert each school to a different version of a private school and would result in many children finishing their education as quickly and as early as they could."

So what you are saying Brian is that those parents earning above $350,000 per year and asked to pay their own way would then decide to give their children the shortest, cheapest education they could find? Why? So they could spend more money on silk hats, cigars and champagne?

I'd like to check out the validity of an observation.

I think in low taxing environments, they way they raise revenue, is by penalising people through a system of fines, where offences are created and fines are then issued for committing an offence.

Our American TV shows especially the one that show the cops arresting people for minor infringements that barely rate in Australia.

There are so many cars on the road with broken taillights we could almost pay off the national debt, if they were arrested and fined. ;0

A recent newspaper article about smart cars, being the end of the revenue councils raise through parking fines, said that the revenue councils raised from these fines would fall, so council would to find other means in which to raise revenue.

It would be interesting to read others thoughts on this subject.

Edward, you are approaching my reply from the wrong end of the money scale. If parents were earning $350 000, and presumably able to employ numerous tax ruses to avoid paying any tax at all, their darling children would not be in the local state school but would have been enrolled at birth in the local franchise of St Trinian's.

The children I am talking about are the sons and daughters of single parents, or handicapped kids, or seventh or eighth in a family with two unskilled workers as parents. These will be pulled out of school as soon as legally possible or even earlier and would replicate their parents'lives: no qualifications, low literacy and numeracy levels and prime suspects for a production line life, if they can find a production line.

I have no problem with the wealthy sending their kids to public schools. Especially when they do what most have to do and send them to the nearest school obliged to take them.

The taxes of these parents have helped build and run these schools, and further, are required to maintain them whether the parents opt to use another school or not, because private schools are not *obliged* to accept all within their catchment nor to keep them enrolled, nor to refund fees or subsidies. The state schools must stand ready to accept such children, and *that* is what our taxes help pay for.

The more well-off families who attend, the greater the motivation for these supposed community leaders to participate in and improve their child's local state school - a community asset, instead of sequestering their help, interest and fees in private schools that do not benefit the general public and which in many famous cases need no help whatsoever. The oft-made inference that the more well-off are more capable citizens should encourages that this example be exercised in the school community, rather than sequestered in the privates benefiting only the few.

What I object to is public subsidies for private schools that may turn away students, or filter based on likely "performance". What if privates had to accept all comers? What results?