"Socialism is good" - what the hell? I did a search for "socialism" and "socialist" and neither term appeared. Please stop making things up.

And you disagree that "education is a public commodity"? So what IS it? If EVERYONE has to go to school, then what is it? Or are you advocating making school non-compulsory?

Incidentally, I have read John Taylor Gatto very closely and his philosophy goes much deeper than just handing back schooling to parents and the free market (in fact, it's not that at all). In the series of lectures contained in "Dumbing us Down", he speaks about the nature of communities themselves and their capacity to self-heal and self-improve and move and develop together as a group. The proposals made by Farrelly, Donnelly, and all others advocating the total privatisation of education do not have this philosophy in mind at all. The voucher system will open it up to big business and multinationals only, as the community and non-profit groups won't stand a chance. It's happening in childcare (thanks to the Howard government) and it will happen here. If you want to read the opinions of another prominent New York educator, there's none better than Jonathan Kozol.

But why are we worrying about it? Even Nelson admitted that the government wouldn't consider a voucher system, and Bush has bowed down to opposing pressure in the US. Anyway, those states that run charter schools and voucher systems are showing a downturn in the usage of those services.

Common sense will prevail.

"... it is hard to understand why anyone would be opposed to a fully privatised education system, unless ... they had some other sort of agenda."

Yes, I do have an agenda. It's the desire for a fairer society and an end to poverty. Read my blog if you want to know my agenda - there's plenty of information for people like Winston Smith.

Not so long ago wheat processing was done in major country centres. They had silos, a mill that employed people, perhaps a couple of bakeries that employed people and they delivered their products around local communities.

A clever little economist said this was inefficient - we should send all the grain to be processed to the city where they can set up bigger factories for the processing. It seemed like a good idea although it wasn't fully tested. Farmers were told they'd get more for their grain.

So grain was shipped of to the mills in the city and the poor little local mill closed down. The economists said it was inefficient anyway and people lost jobs. But to get the flour the bakers had to now get it from the city. Along with the flour came city brands of bread at cheaper rates than the locals could make. So the economists said the bakeries were inefficient and so they closed too - more job losses. But more importantly the value adding component of local industry was also lost. The economies of scale were working against country folk.

A new vibrant industry arose making lots of dollars for some people... the trucking magnates. So people eagre to get involved borrowed heavily and bought big rigs and spent their lives driving all over the country. Families broke down, road fatalities increased, uppers sold by the carton - but the wealth was once again driven to the Cities. So banks started to close because we can handle things better in the cities – more job losses.

Country Australia was dudded. But what mistake did the economists forget to mention... they placed all the bargaining power in the hands of a few. So the poor old truckies in debt to their eyeballs were forced to accept less money each time for the same work. Then fuel prices rose and the poor truckies are now in a negative cash flow position. Drive longer hours or starve were the options.

I reckon we should corporatise education it seems like a pretty good plan overall.

Educational standards may have (and I don’t necessary agree this is the case) slipped in relation to the standards of 15 years ago but current educational standards are much better than those of 100 years ago.

Winston Smith,

If the educational system was privatised then only those who could afford it would get an education. With corporate monopolies on the rise and competition dwindling (and hence higher prices) we would eventually revert back to the days where the streets were filled with beggars. Clearly this is your ideal society.

You complain about tax dollars going in to valuable investments such as education and completely ignore the tax dollars blown on “corporate welfare”. That TOO is theft (to use the word “theft” in the same context as one of your previous posts), the theft of my tax dollars given to corporations that don’t need it. This is an example of how radicals like yourself end up contradicting themselves. After all, aren’t capitalists against welfare? Oh no, only when it’s given to those who need it for food and shelter.

Society needs a balance of Left and Right. Both capitalism and socialism, in their extremes, have the same devastating results – greed, selfishness and poverty. Each needs the other to remain moderate and survive. Societies who are purely one way or the other end up collapsing eventually.

But being rich and selfish, a 100% capitalist society wouldn't phase you would it? Na, you'd be fine. Forget the majority of the population who would suffer immensely, 'cos you're more important than the majority of this country's population combined aren't you? You lack a basic sense of what us Humans refer to as humanity.

Judging from the advocating of pure 100% capitalism in your posts, you seem quite happy to see a large portion of our population homeless, starving and dying in the streets - clear signs of a brutal sadist. If you don’t want to see people suffer, or deny that this scenario would ever eventuate, then you obviously have no idea of the end result of your radical, one-eyed ideology. Money is not everything in this world and this is a basic lesson that most of us learned as children.

You my friend are an extremist in every sense of the word.

I thought it would be a good idea to get back to the list we had started on what is causing the education systems to fail.

1. Underfund public education giving State Schools less resources
2. Pinch money from the State schools and give it to the Private Schools
3. Allow private schools to expel problem kids and put them into the State system
4. Don't give back up support to State School teachers who have medically diagnosed learning disability children in their classes
5. With no training or support expect State School teachers to deal with the added burden of allowing more disbled kids into the State system ... lessening the use of special purpose schools.
6. Undermine the teachers further by blaming them for everything that is wrong with education.
7. Never acknowledge the marking and preperation that teachers do after hours and on the weekend and definitely don't pay them for it.
8: Allow children who do not speak even a single word of English into classes with only 40 minutes of ESL help each week.
9. Place inexperienced teachers into the most difficult schools then wonder why they leave and the children fail.
10. Underfunding remedial services ... so the kids with difficulties get an hour a week when they should get 5 or more...
11. The overcharging of Educational facilities by other departments for services rendered bleeding funds from the system.

If we continue to allow the system to be run down by stealth... the politicians way .... a severely damaged system will become unfixable...

I would like to personally thank all the teachers who work hard striving for the best results they can achieve even with the constraints placed upon them by gooses we call politicians.

Hi y'all,
Just a little red-rag.

I know several kindergarten and through into upper-primary teachers who are kicked, spat upon, have to clean up urine and faeces, supervise toilet visits, and do all the stuff parents were once responsible for teaching their kids. Upper-primary teachers are involved in teaching remedial reading or maths for kids who could once read or do arithmentic, but whose parents value education so much that the kid doesn't use the skills and, hence, loses them. On top of all this, many otherwise competent kids are disrespectful, surly, argumentative, and plain horrible.

What about testing kids for readiness for school? Not a one-off test, a one week test. If the kid fails readiness, back to the parents. And then more of the same each year. Violent disruption of the class, back to the parents. Insufficient medication, back to the parents. Forgot how to read, back to the parents, etc.

What do you reckon?
Would our standards be slipping if this was the case?

odsoc