Is this the sort of private education system Julie is advocating?
http://www.fightingbob.com/article.cfm?articleID=351
Not all schools are equal just because they are called schools. At least with the public sector you know there is an expected standard.

If schools accept public funds surely they must accept some form of public accountability? If you want such schools to be independent, then let them be. Currently, private schools are private when it comes to whose kids they will and won't educate, but public when it comes to the handing out of money.
Most public schools, by the way, Julie, are not failing. Parents who spend ten or more thousand bucks a year on private schools have to say they are to justify their expenditure. The damage such rationalisations do to the local public school, by the way, are incalculable.
Public schools do a phenomenal job of educating all comers, it is infuriating to see private schools cherry-pick the brightest and the most socially advantaged and then smugly claim to be doing a better job! Given that I send my kids to a comprehensive, co-ed state school that routinely outperforms most of its private school competitors in the HSC, they may not be doing quite as good a job as their spin claims. And please don't talk to me about pastoral care. Public schools demonstrate pastoral care via the care and attention they pour into the kids private schools reject. Many private schools talk good values, but demonstrate the opposite.
Making public schools schools of last resort is not just radical, it is tragic, and will have consequences for all of us. We cannot isolate ourselves and our kids from the rest of society however much we might like to.

As a teacher for 10 years, and a writer, this is the kind of thing that makes my blood boil; schools and communities feeling the need to seek funding from the private sector to operate and expand.

The primary function of governments is to provide adequate essential services including education, health, and law-enforcement. As far as I'm concerned federal and state governments have failed on all three fronts over the past 5 years. Federal and state governments (WA) in Australia now collect record levels of taxation and budget surpluses. The fact that this is the case and they don't adequately fund and fix these three services, is politically immoral, and bordering on corruption.

Teresa van Lieshout

Let me begin by stating my bias. I thoroughly approve of private enterprise running schools and making a profit, but am implacably opposed to augmenting their fee structure with public funds. If the rich want to pay for little Kerry to have expensive tuition, that is entirely their own affair, but it disgusts me the way they also bludge off the taxpayer.

Having said that, let me cast an unjaundiced eye across this little piece of special pleading.

One of the cardinal rules, Ms Novak, is to use credible examples. Your first hero, Edison Schools, is an out-and-out dud. Here's a couple of quotes from a recent press release, announcing the closure of another Edison school... "Edison schools have never been shown to perform better than other schools, and many school districts complained of Edison’s higher costs" and "the company is in trouble with other clients around the country, including its second-largest, Chester-Upland schools in Pennsylvania. Edison is blamed for many problems in the beleaguered school district, which is in financial meltdown, and several officials are calling for non-renewal of Edison’s contract."

They must have worked very hard to “lose” all that money (read: divert it into their, and their shareholders', pockets), because governments are suckers for their pitch. In the UK, the government funds 80% of the capital cost of a new school in the private sector, then delivers all the cash to run it. Does that sound like capitalism, or licensed extortion?

One aspect that is totally ignored is that the financial risk remains entirely with the taxpayer, even after the entrepreneurs have taken their cut. When W S Atkins pulled out of their deal in London's borough of Southwark stating, "[t]he contractual arrangements have been increasingly financially challenging...", they "transferred back to the local authority individual schools with financial deficits of up to £500,000, and an overall bill of £2.2m in exit costs" (Demos UK)

By the way, when on such shaky ground, sneering ("shrill criticisms by a range of vested interest groups") does not help.

Let's look at a more balanced view.Private schools provide land and buildings with no burden on the tax payer.The State Govt. pays each school both private and public an amount based the number of students attending.Now the Federal Govt.gives an additional amount to private schools to compensate for capital expenditure.If all the private schools both Catholic and religious others were closed tomorrow,our Govt would have to increase taxes immensely.Guess who would bear the brunt of this additional tax?It certainly won't be the rich.
I used to be a teacher in the public system in the western suburbs of Sydney and from annecdotal evidence of those still working in the system discipline has declined a lot more since the late 80's.If there is no consequences for poor behaviour,how can we have a viable
society?My view is that our left wing Teachers Federation have destroyed our public system with their soft option antics and the public have rightly searched for responsible and more disciplined alternatives.If you can't behave in the private system you have to find another system.If you can't behave in the public system,you can deprive the majority of the right to learn,since it is very difficult to be suspended or expelled.The expectations of behavioural standards are so much lower in the public system . We have to balance the scales of rights V's responsibilities.

"Let's look at a more balanced view" says Arjay.

"the Federal Govt.gives an additional amount to private schools to compensate for capital expenditure." And this money is somehow provided 'with no burden on the taxpayer'? I think not.

"If all the private schools both Catholic and religious others were closed tomorrow,our Govt would have to increase taxes immensely"

Rubbish. Pure propaganda. If you had been lucky enough to attend a public junior school when you were eleven*, you would have spotted the logical and mathematical error in this statement. If the same amount per student of our taxpayers' money - plus a little extra for capital expenditure - is being poured into the private sector, why on earth would taxes have to increase at all, let alone "immensely?"

Amid all the blather about commie teachers and declining discipline, what you have failed to do is give one single cogent reason why the ordinary taxpayer should pay twice, once for his own kids' education and again for the rich kids'.

*My eleven-year-old, who is in year six at a local public school, spotted this one straight away